| Funny |
|
|
| Funny |
|
Though it seems Legend is totally different now, more bothersome, and still geared to the lower ability player. You are continually taking improvisations of the better pkillers and non pkillers, usually the same players, and taking away what they find through trial and error, gene rally lowering the range of options, and need for experience to be a GOOD You continually avoid class distinctions at all, when a simple designation of fighter or mage would solve a lot of balance problems and allow you to bring in some of the features in the sacrosanct skill trees, if they even exist. Its going to happen in the trees for all practical purposes, go ahead and do it, then you'll get rid of the mutant abilities to heal or otherwise 'imbalance' fights now.
So dont hack to peices what was once good, with your eyes fixed on trees, and dont handcuff everybody. Easier said than done, but its a b bit late once youve taken the plunge.
Not to say you were told so....
I begin to resent the fact that I get included in the 'non playing' umbrella. And I'm sure Sandra and Ea! and much of the rest of the immortal staff does as well. As far as the imps, they provide direction, not detail. We do that, so if you're going to gripe about detail, do that to us, don't mention the imps.
And as far as the whole 'listen to players' the only time we're ever considered to be 'listening' to the players is when a change goes in that favors that TYPE of player. Nearly every change that affects game system, many of the facets of the implementation were drawn from player suggestions. But if player a says 'make this 1' and player b says 'make this 2', if we make it either 1 or 2, we've listened to the players, but player b will say we haven't.
Being an immort is a lose-lose situation. Every game decision we make is not going to be approved by everyone. I don't expect every decision to be met with widespread acceptance. But I also am not in this to be making a game for every individual out there. If I were, I'd be polling your likes and dislikes and creating a separate mud for each one of you.
And as for making it for the players, we have far more to consider than the players we have now. We do value them, we do know they are important, but we must also concern ourselves with the people who no longer play (why they quit 8 months or 3 years ago) and who we are going to have in the future (the players we don't have yet). And in some respects we're aiming for an 'IDEAL' mud because in the end, and 'ideal' mud will be the longest lasting, most fair, and hopes of the most popular mud out there.
And I am severely beginning to resent the statement that we don't think things through. Frankly, I lose sleep over debating game issues, going over consequences of code/building changes, etc. It is a rare day when any decision is made off the cuff, mainly because the bitching can get a lot more severe on the godlists if decisions are made as such (there we aren't exactly restricted by language and whatnot, and we don't always have the opportunity to ignore things which are more flame than substance).
As far as not thinking things through, I was sitting here, two nights ago, on vacation at my sister's going through ALL the old discussion board posts from the last two years, looking at the evolution of the game through the arguments of the players. Don't think I don't spend that kind of time because I don't care about what the players have to think.
And I suppose some will criticise me for 'taking this too personally' and yes, I do take things and this mud personally. It makes me good at what I'm good at. You spend half your days voluntarily building a soup kitchen only for the customers to tell you that the decor leaves a lot to be desired and that your meals totally suck, you'd be a little offended too. Yeah, I take my work personally, but offended or not, I have always and will always listen to players. And I will argue back. The double edged 'if a mort says it it is discussion if an immort says it it's dictatum' has to go.
This mud will never, however, be a democracy of the playerbase. nor will it be run by popular opinion, poll, etc. In the end the immortals who build and who are chosen to construct this world will make it what it is. We will listen on the way, but in the end, yes, we have final decision. I urge everyone to make suggestions, talk with imms, use the discussion board, etc. But if the thought enters your head frequently that every time you object to something, that the immortals ought to jump, if you appeal to popular opinion that may or may not exist as a means of argument to leverege your claim and expect that to immediately change the mud in order to suit you or your characters then perhaps you are in the wrong place. Then again, immorts accept proposals from anyone, and you do have the chance to be on 'the other side of the fence' as it were.
I'll end my rant and let y'all pick at this and flame away.
-Ruf
I am sorry for any insult I may have directed, but changes like that really do irritate me.
Just my 2 cents,
Aginor
Hey, there are lots of MUDs out there, download one and play it by yourself. I imagine all of your chars would rock =P
Well, anyway, I am posting to point out one thing that it seems many
of us have overlooked: almost all changes, in one way or another,
seem to
I mean, hmmf, if mages are quote too powerful, why not increase other
chars healing abilities instead of lowering ours?
If stun is too powerful, why not make other skills work better?
Why were "sanc" rings taken out? WTF, who wants 50hp?
Now, I know that this all leads back to char v char balance and
char v mob balance. And, the mud is more balanced than it ever has
been in my memory, and I've been here over 3 years.
I just wish that char v char (PK) could be balanced without the
need to make mob killing mind-bogglingly boring. I feel like a
newbie killing mice, rats, what have you EVEN though I am really
over lev 45 and killing captains, provisioners and other lame mobs.
Thats my $.02 ...............
G
Not everything gets harder, however... I think players just don't
know how to recognize or appreciate the 'upgrades'. How many of you
now have 10 more perception thanks to replacing an old item with a
new item from PIsles? How many of you had your dex go up, or your
damroll, because of other items there that surpass any existing eq
for that stat in that wearslot? Every time a new area goes in, with
new stat eq, the game gets easier for you. And we still put the
stat eq in, and we don't plan to start telling builders they can't
build any (least as far as I know -grin-).
As to mage healing spells, I'd like to relate a historical tidbit for
you. When we were first creating the skill set and planning what would
be possible in spells, Sadist and Ptah and Kaige said "no cleric spells,
cleric are a D&D thing and they don't fit here". Now, even tho the
mud's theme was my own idea, I was disappointed cause I liked playing
clerics on Diku/Merc muds. The druid skill set was born because I wanted
healing 'spells' and the other imps wouldn't allow magical healing.
Now, druids have always been sucky fighters, even adding make staff
didn't help that much, so I've always felt protective of the 'wimpy'
skill set I created. When surgeons were added, druids became less
valuable because there was another healing option... but surgery fits
Legend's theme and is a neat addition to the mud. Somewhere, cure light
and cure serious had been added... by Flagg and possibly Ptah too, in
the first version of the magic system. Those weren't too bad though,
because the best healing was still reserved for druids and surgeons.
I have always disliked cure crit and roots, and I personally feel they
should be removed from the game entirely. They devalue druids and
surgeons, and give mages more available options in fighting than any
other skillset can obtain, which is silly since mages aren't supposed
to be toe to toe fighters.
The several of you who have commented that mages need to learn other
uses for their spells, not rely on artifically upping their available
hps with great healing abilities, and should be glad that the spells
weren't removed altogether, have gotten it exactly right IMHO. Like
all other 'downgrades' I can understand and expect people to feel
cheated and to complain until they get used to it and develop new
strategies... but when's the last time you heard a builder complain
that their favorite item just got outclassed by an item from a new
area? It's a two way street, if you're going to keep getting the
upgrades you have to expect the downgrades to happen too.
-Charity
My point....if I can't fight, at least let me heal. =P
North
Unfortunately, a lot of the problems stem from the root of the game
system (and having worked so directly with the game system proper
and the fight system in massive detail), which is so deep and complex
that simple changes at such a basic level will indeed become severely
problematic when the results are had at the game play level.
Just my .02
-Ruf
From: Charity
Monday, August 17, 04:37PM
You already gave your own answer... we generally don't make the weaker
stronger, but the stronger weaker, because players have enormous
advantages over mobs already. If you're doing big long, boring mobkill
runs, then the mobs must not be posing much difficulty. If we gave
healing to even MORE characters to balance things, instead of downgrading
healing from a source that is not primarily directed at healing (magic),
those mobs would be even more boring. Builders couldn't keep up with
the constant escalation of player abilities... we aren't even keeping
up very well now, when there's more downgrading than upgrading, just
because players are smarter than mobs can ever be. =)From: North
Monday, August 17, 08:48PM
Not ALL druid suck at fighting, just the non-spam ones. Unfortunately
there isn't enough spirit based combat skills (martial arts!!! c'mon!!!)
to make it worthwhile to have 100 spirit/100 fighting stat. Now I don't
think that mages should find other uses for their spells, most of them
are pretty cut-and-dry. Damage spells do damage, transportation spells
transport, illusions don't do anything except amuse =P, various prep
spells (poison, weaken armor, various wall spells, bless, etc) help
some, but they aren't gonna win the fight alone unless you're willing
to take a loooooooooong time. I got lots of uses for my spells, but
this mud's based on combat, not magic. Otherwise fighter types would be
posting their complaints on how my 300 damage fireball spell is too
powerful compared to their 3 strike, 20 damage attack and I'd be fat dumb
and happy. (and I'm none of these three right now =P)From: Rufus
Tuesday, August 18, 11:58PM
Okay,