The weak stay weak...

Posted by Chivalry on 07/25

Just a little quip on a topic that is a bit out of the thread here. I think most pkillers would agree that pure fighters like myself are slowly going the way of the dinosaur. A huge majority of the competative pkillers here, are mages. I'd guess at over 90%.

With the recent changes to dodge and parry, giving them a perc requirement, in essense the mages have just got another advantage over the 100 100 whatever, crowd. I for one, need all the help I can get, and losing the ability to dodge or the short-lived ability to parry that we were given (for just long enough for me, a str fighter, to waste a practice on it before the perc req. went in) is simply making the weak weaker in this system. And the mages, who to a man have the perc required to dodge and parry, get yet another advantage.

In essense, as I believe Tempus has voiced recently, the fighter types are becoming extinct in pkill, and I for one think that a variety in character type is important to keeping things interesting.

I realise that a parry req. has logic behind it, but really, the only people that this requirement affects that I see, is the people that are allready hampered by not being able to hunt, or steal in pkill, and are just made weaker by the perception requirement. Something that I don't need help with. =)

Chivalry - Angel of beaches and daquiri's for now

From: Yvonne Monday, July 20, 11:08AM

I agree with Chivalry's post. At this point, it seems that there are three sorts of pkiller- the 3rd circle mage, the sniper, and the vast majority, the 2nd circle/fighter hybrid. I've fought one straight fighter-at his request, I might add-and was able to kill them without any trouble whatsoever. One bind and one blind, both of which they were unable to counter in any way, and the fighter wasn't able to put up much of a resistance.

In my opinion, either pure fighters need to be given more advantages- for instance, making the 3 round skill lag on bash a 2 round lag instead, or something of that nature, or spellwords need to be given higher stat req's, in essence prohibiting mere dabblers from acquiring the truly powerful magics. Because pkillers are, in this respect, getting homogenized. And when every fight you fight turns into a match to see who can type stun first, it's a little disheartening. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy pkill very much. But I think I'd enjoy it more if there was more diversity in the types of pkillers out there.

Lady Yvonne Alexander.

From: Rufus Monday, July 20, 02:00PM

As far as parry goes, there are 3 levels now, and full or 2nd circle mages are limited to only the first skill.

Not that that helps fighters a whole lot.

Anyway, bind has some changes coming in real soon (I can't divulge the details yet because I don't know what they are and it hasn't been coded yet) that will give fighters a defense against this type of attacks.

The problem with the bash lag centers on the way the mud's combat system works relating to who has priority in combat... basically, if it's a 2 round lag rather than a 3, a 30 str mage vs 100 str fighter would never be able to get a special off at all.

And we intend to do some things with regen that may, in the end, help fighters quite a bit.

-Ruf

From: Chivalry Monday, July 20, 07:34PM

Let me tell you, regenerating nearly 600 hit points is rather time consuming when you can't find a healer, and in-game healing items are in short supply. Any help with regen would be cool.

My question again though, is about dodge and parry. Haveing 3 levels of it makes sense, I can see that. I have had probably 4 or 5 pkill battles where the difference between my living or dying was under 20 hitpoints though. (In only 18 fights) One or two sucessful dodges there would have made a world of difference.

Yes, I was on the short end of those 4 or 5 battles

Chivalry - Angel of Brute Strength, and little finesse.

From: Lethargio Monday, July 20, 07:56PM

bind n' blind hurts...-shudder-

Anyway, I've been fighting several different straight fighters here and th ere, and I found that with a little luck, anyone could win. When I fight mage types, it has come to the point where I automatically assume on losing, and I'm already prepared for the xp loss, hehe

Leth

From: Agni Monday, July 20, 09:14PM

I was a big fan of fighers for a while, until i had, in my thought made the 'ultimate' sort of a fighter, and saw first-handed that it wasn't nearly as practical, nor efficient, as a mage.

The problem with 'fighter skills' are the fact that there really can be no true fighter skills that are barred towards mages unless it is restricted by hometown, or by restricting it reversely--i.e., to have such skill, your mind/spi needs to be -less- than a certain amount, etc.

A 2nd circle cause can get any reasonable combination of stats, and even at the 3rd circle, if we were to up bash as Yvonne suggested, me (a mage of the 3rd circle) would truly have a field day. (not to mention con/dex fighters would be seriously screwed over) I couldn't agree more with the perc req on dodge/parry. The only reasonable way a fighter can get even remotely close to being even with mages is by sacrificing hunt and steal to gain a stat that is significantly more than that of a mage.

If there could be an OR on the stat reqs, so that a lack of perc could be substituted by excessive dex or str or con, things would work out quite differently.

Mages have the benefit of being able to put to use all 349 pts of their stats, whereas the non-mage will end up discarding, at times, as much as 30 pts to useless stats such as spirit (never mind that there's a +10spi quest that's relatively worthless for non-mages) and whatnot.

From: Yvonne Tuesday, July 21, 12:13AM

It also just occured to me that much of this may be fixed when skilltrees goes in. I remember hearing or reading in either a Q&A or the LT, one or the other, that with skilltrees, the higher-order fight skills would be prohibited to certain character types, such as mages It seems to me that, if we assume skilltrees are as radical a change as everyone says they will be, this sort of homogeneity problem can be fixed. More skills and tougher requirements for the best of those skills will make it impossible to create the sort of jack-of-all-trades characters that exist now. I know that it's not a perfect solution, since skilltrees are scheduled for some indefinate point in the future, but I'm certainly willing to stick it out until then and see what happens.

As always, Yvonne.

From: Starr Tuesday, July 21, 09:04AM

I am a "pure" fighter, from Kleinstadt, with absolutely no magic abilities and I never carry any potions or use any magic in fights. Yet I have won battles against mages who were about 8 or 10 levels above me, though not 100% easy. The beatings I have had so far has been from other fighters, not mages. And yes, I have lost to mages twice, but I did not fight back at those 2 fights, so in my opinion the differences between fighters and mages are not too great.

Starr

From: Solomon Tuesday, July 21, 09:24AM

Okay, here's my opinion.

I feel that there should be as much diversity among character types as we can manage. We should reward specialization: there should be things that thieves can do that mages can't; there should be things that druid can do that mages can't.

For that reason, I've advocated for some time removing some of the spells that duplicate effects that are possible to get with skills. I feel that mages shouldn't be able to heal at all -- I consider that to be the surgeon or druid's area of specialization. I feel that mages shouldn't be able to sneak or hide -- I consider that to be the thief's area of specialization. Similarly, I would remove the spells for judge, calm, cure burns, sustained breath and vanish.

I'm also in favor of significantly increasing the stat requirements for spell usage -- especially third circle words. At the same time, I'm in favor of reducing the stat requirements for meditate and making it available at level 2, because low-level mages go through mana so quickly.

I'm also in favor of making third circle words require two practices, while increasing the amount of damage a mage can do with their spells. Increasing it a lot. I happen to think that 100 mind should be as dangerous as 100 strength. I think that raising stat and practice requirements would prevent someone from being a third circle mage with significant skill at arms.

Right now, I think we should remove healing spells. Definitely.

From: Yvonne Tuesday, July 21, 10:32AM

Although I think that mages are too powerful right now, to be honest, Solomon, I think the effects of your proposed changes would be to turn mages into walking artillery, and remove much of the fun that comes with playing a mage. As you point out, 100 mind should be as dangerous as 100 strength. And it is. How many times have 100 strength fighters been killed by 100 mind mages with vanish, sneak and cure crit?

I think 100 mind is plenty dangerous as it is. And I don't think that simply powering up damage spells and removing all of the other tricks in a mage's bag would be at all beneficial.

Yvonne.

From: Pleb Tuesday, July 21, 10:15AM

The perc requirement for dodge/parry is good for a fighter,

From: Solomon Tuesday, July 21, 12:56PM

Let me restate:

1. Increase stat and practice requirements, making it more difficult to get expert weapons skills and combat skills while retaining full spell usage.

2. Remove healing spells, putting mages in the same boat as other character types.

3. Increase the damage possible, to offset the reduced combat ability.

The point of my suggestions is to reduce the combat ability of mages (a recurring complaint from non-mages) and jack up the damage they can do with spells, while removing healing spells as a consideration. I'd like to strike a new balance between combat ability and spell damage, not make mages grossly powerful.

And 100 mind is a joke, by itself. People may complain about fighter/mages, but magery isn't by itself competitive in either mobkill or pkill. Vanish, sneak and cure critical? Those are things I would take out, along with a few others. Players may complain about fighter/mages, but you can't fix the situation until you make spell damages competitive.

Clarification: these opinions are posted purely for my amusement. Nobody should be concerned that these suggestions will be adopted. Feel free to bounce ideas around with me, but don't worry about this stuff.

From: Bokonon Wednesday, July 22, 10:08AM

I don't know how realistic this is, but I think it would be fun if body slots could get damaged. This wouldn't be able to be healed by any skill other than surgery, so everyone in the game would have at least some wound they couldn't heal on their own. The damaged slot could change HP very slightly and perhaps each slot could also change a stat a little bit. Like a damaged face slot could lower your perc, while a damaged hand or feet slot could lower dex. I am not sure how much this would balance things, but it might be fun, and add a little more cooperation between players.

From: Drakkon Wednesday, July 22, 11:38AM

Just wanted to say that... Str weapons and items like herne's horn... demon's claw, silver serrated sword, etc take ALOT of rent, i see all thes mages out there with extra sets of eq and warriors are out there at full rent all the time! they can -not have an extra set of eq to like root and stuff cause they are already at full rent, it sort of sucks, and also i love playing warriors and i would also like to clan a warrior but they don't have much of a chance in legend these days, at least dex warriors used to be good but now they suck i think you should maybe lower the rent on some weapons a bit, and maybe a couple items, maybe a slight change but a BIG difference, plus i hated whe the requirement on hide went up that was my only way to get away from bind chant vina vya ex no one ever could find out where i went... sort of made me mad, just writing to complain that the rent on fighter items are quite a lot of rent and maybe mages items should be HIGH rent also so they can't also have an extra set of equipment.

-Drakkon

Btw bokonon, a dex mage can rip up peoples equipment pretty bad so they would probably wound a person pretty bad too, and a fighters hp is mostly all he has :)

From: Drakkon Wednesday, July 22, 11:43AM

Didn't really mean that Dex fighters suck, just saying they used to be the best and now they aren't, lots of str fighters are better now...

From: Tempus Thursday, July 23, 06:31AM

Let me give you all an example: If a fighter jumps a mage what are his chances of winning? Well, most likely the mage will give him a good fight and maybe even survive to rent or win. Now on the flip side, if the fighter is jumped by the Mage, then chances are your fighter will be lucky to survive to rent or most likely no chance of winning.

Now, I know most would think, the fighter should use better tactics and stuff, but even vials get used rather fast..while twiced binded really kinda suck. And I'm sure I seen alot of tactics since my days fighting the grendals, etc. I have as a con/dex fighter beaten some mage hybrid, but lost more then I have won to bind, stun, and heal tactics.

Well, thats enough whining from me. Thanks for listening.

PS: This does not hold true to low level pking.

Sir Tempus Kittredge, Knight of Legend.

From: Nail Thursday, July 23, 09:40PM

I happen to think the whole bit about fighters being completely helpless against mages to be quite incorrect. I'm a completely pure fighter, and I happen to find little difficulty fighting mages.

Admittedly, there are mages i've lost to, just as there are non mages i've lost too.

I believe that most of the time it's more the caliber of the player behind the character, not the character type itself.

Nail

From: Keionkithis Thursday, July 23, 09:47PM

Nail,

But it is also rumor that you are a 3 100 stat character too. Which I'm sure most fighters are not.

From: Lethargio Saturday, July 25, 03:40AM

This might be a little different when comparing high levels and low levels. But its quite obvious by all the spells that mages have over fighters: bind, blind, invis, see invis, healing spells, elementals etc. all of which a non-mage would have no access too. All a mage has to do is bind or blind a non-mage, fight, heal when low on hps, come back and finish the job. I dunno who you've been fighting, but in my record of 70+ fights, I've never won against a mage...(my char sucks, yeah, but i've been able to kill non-mages pretty good)