How is a random piece of equipment different from a piece of equipment socketed with some random gems?  In the end, is the same effect achieved?

So, let us see how much feedback we get on this.


First, I am not attempting to make customs invalid. I want to see a way that new players don't feel like they need to quest out customs bypass quest gear and make exploring fun. Give value to item drops and really improve the experience.


my proposal is multi layered.

Loading of random equipment in every zone up until bloodplanes and including legendary mobs that spawn currently.

From my understanding there is already an item value alloted depending on level. so a check happens during respawn per area checking to see if any random equipment exists within the zone.


next : If it does do nothing
next : if it doesnt roll to see if it will happen
next : if it does roll to see if it will be a rare spawn{See below for idea on this} or load to a current mob
roll to determine level based on zone unless it loaded on rare mob
    so if it was dagroky it could roll level 5-15 set value , then load stats almost like moxs do for that level range         
    to include resists and so on. If it was the rare mob it could be overvalued or a chance to roll an inherit          legendary inclusion like a legendary that only has 2 levels or 4( i could even see like ''adolescent knight'' and it could only go to level 2" maybe even scaled off level of zone if it could go higher

(and item naming could be easy like assigning the name based on damtype and zone
in example bashing spear of dagroky)

next : create item and load to random mob of level unless rare spawn, equip item on mob

(most zones have a ''boss' mob which could actually be transformed into that rare spawn , and with legendaries those items could be overstated extremely rare pieces that might even offer an upgrade to customs)

feelings on all of this are that newbie players and old alike could use a change. Adding these to lower levels would not devalue customs but allow players just to play. and if they were added to legendaries could allow for the chance even at 260+ to find an actual upgrade. festivals could offer overvalue on random generated gear to make festivals even more appealing.  and due to none loading in bloodplanes other then the rare chance at a legendary load this would not take away from peoples work on customs, yet offer them a chance gamble at something they could improve stat wise but not get the full benefit.


feedback is certainly welcome and if any holes seem to appear let me know , i probably have an answer

Seems reasonable enough. Seems like there was a reason we did it this way at one time, but I don't really remember why. Hmm

Balance is when two players can give their all at something and honestly feel like they could have, they themselves, done better rather than their character  being inept or underwhelming. Balance is when you feel like you own your class choice and are not at a disadvantage because of it. (Here's lookin at you scouts). Balance is when you feel like you can fight back if you issue your commands as the fight plays out, and feel involved in those choices, rather than auto attacking your way to victory or death.

Helplessness is the unknown. Why did I lose the fight so quickly? Why does my character who I have perceived as "strong" suddenly feel weak and broken? Why am I questioning which class I chose and what spells I used? The feeling of helplessness happens when something can't be quickly explained. It makes you believe that another player is so infinitely stronger than you that you must be broken, or they must be overpowered. It's the feeling that you might as well give up because you aren't certain how to even get stronger and so you feel helpless.

So I've written some fake "patch notes" below that will change everything we know, but will used as examples where the MUD could change to provide more player involvement in combat (especially PvP) and perhaps change the way we look at the MUD as a whole. Instead of "beginning and end" or "early game and end game" we can look at it as a constantly evolving place to hang out and enjoy ourselves rather than who is participating in the meta game and who isn't even remotely close to it yet. (Large disparity there)

• All quests now provide 5x the quest tokens upon completion
• Additional quest items added with pseudo legendary affixes are now available at all quest masters for 50k tokens each
• You can now purchase a Legendary Stone for 10,000,000 gold or 1,000,000 tokens
• All negative combat mods have been removed from the game. Bye hallucination.
• Being bloodsworn no longer increase the "group" range of players.
• Non bloodsworn players can no longer attack or be attacked by bloodsworn players
• All brands have been removed from the game.
• A new skill "brand" has been added to every class. It can not be stopped by silence, it can not be miscast, it hits through level difference with the same chance to fail as a traditional spell unaffected by chasmic would have to succeed. It is not affected by bounce or dense. It can not be used in combat. This skill choose a brand at random from your memorized damage types. See the next skill for more information
• A new "memorize" skill has been added to the game. This functions the same way as memorizing a spell, in that you can't use the new "brand" skill with that damage type unless you've already memorized that damage type. No memorizing in combat. You can choose any damage type in the game except for Otherworld
• A new skill "debrand" has been added to every class. It can not be stopped by silence, it can not be miscast. It has the same chance to fail as a traditional spell being cast unaffected by chasmic. It is not affected by bounce or dense. It can not be used in combat. This skill chooses a negative "brand" at random and removes it from your character, with a lag delay similar to "brand"
• All levels beyond 200 have had their experience required to level reduced by 50%
• Dearmor now has a longer delay between recasts
• Picking up your armor after being dearmored now has a longer delay (the same delay as dearmor recasting) Dearmor was never meant to be combatted by triggers
• Disarm now has a longer delay between attempts
• Picking up your weapon after being disarmed now has a longer delay (the same delay as as disarm recasting) Disarm was never meant to be combatted by triggers
• Underused areas have been removed from the game
• All players have been wiped and must start over. All old character names (except immortals) cannot be used
• New loot table drops have been added to the game. Including "Legendary stone" drops at random from killing mobs that qualify for skill gains. The entire MUD will be alerted if you find a Legendary Stone in this manner
• New combat mods are now MUD wide and randomly trigger double exp for 5 minutes, double quest tokens for 5 minutes, double mobiles in your current area (the area is announced MUD wide) This does not affected legendary mobiles
• New daily log in rewards now exist. You must stay logged in for 1 hour per day to collect your reward. The rewards get exponentially more rewarding until you reach 30 days logged in, in a row.
• Quest timer reduced by 1 minute for every quest completed within 5 minutes of your quest timer hitting 0 up to a maximum of 5 minutes between quests.
• Quests now reward a LOT of experience per completion. You can now conceivably "only" quest all the way to level 200 if you so choose. This can be toggled off by typing "questexp"
• Racial skills now disregard level difference. No more missing every single racial skill on every single mob because you would never fight a mob who is the same level as you.
• Augments can now be reset for an EXTREMELY large amount of tokens. One augment at a time. Starting from the most recent augment used. Good luck.
• A friend referral bonus has been added. Your friend will have the option to type in your referral code after completing newbie school.
• All religion spells have been given to all ranks of religion members
• Perfection has been removed from the game.
• All augmented skills can now be trained to GM again. Through MUCH ado. Do not expect to GM everything!
• The arena has been replaced by a mock "Lapis" zone and now uses Bloodplanes rules in regards to resistances
• The arena no longer spams people outside the arena who will only be alerted that an arena fight is starting and if they would like to "watch" they can toggle arena chat on
• Vampires no longer deal less damage during the day and do more damage at night. Instead Vampires always take more damage and always deal more damage than normal.
• Stake no longer requires you to hold an item, the Stake must still be in your inventory
• There are now two stages of the skill "mort" so that extremely high level players can buff lower players easier and with more meaningful buffs
• GMA no longer teleports you out of the room. Curse can still be used, however. That's the risk you take.
• Race change options have been added for an immeasurable amount of tokens
• Class change options have been added for an immeasurable amount of tokens
• A new gambling system has been added. Spend gold or tokens for a chance to win buffs, unique items that can only be found in the gambling loot table, or legendary stones.
  
• Customs can now be "reforged" without losing the legendary that is on them, into a different item type.
• All "cursed" rooms have been removed from the game. You should be able to recall from anywhere in the game now. (Quality of life change for newbies) The only exception is Gem Dragon Island
• Maps have been added to the game showing speed walk directions to every major area of the game
• Recalling no longer takes half of your movement, instead the more you recall the more it will cost within a certain period of time
• A "heal all movement" command has been added to healers with the same lag time as "heal all" for mana
• All spells in the same except for "nova" and "splash" have had their damages increased to help them become more useful and viable for combat with the new "choose your own damage type" brand system
• All skill combos in the game (slash, thrust, etc) have had their final chain strike damage doubled. It now does damage based on the brands you have memorized via the "choose your own damage type" brand system mentioned above
• ALL forms of blind, including dirt kicking, are now able to be removed in combat by "rub eyes" command.
• You can now freely walk around while blind, if you know where you're going you should still be able to get there. Go get 'em Daredevil
• Violent/aggressive players can no longer be attacked outside of their level range. Sorry 275s you shouldn't be killing level 40s who are engaged in PvP

Hope you enjoyed. There are many other things we can do to help increase the level of involvement players have in combat so they will feel more in control of their characters instead of just auto attacking everything to death.
Thanks
-Toar

thumbs up.
The arena being revamped is a good idea,
Arena chat being toggle able would be nice for non arena players.   players being flagged 'arena' or violent/aggressive so changeform and other commands work as intended in a combat situation which the arena should be like would be awesome too.


-Sye

So doing some math to figure how long it would take someone to fully understand and enjoy their character I have some data for everyone:

Total token cost to have a fully custom, resisted and moxed out character is roughly 600,000+ tokens.
I'll do just a simple breakdown to show some of the math and how long it takes to get there via an average player.

26 custom slots no resists 10k / (balances out new and old system)- 260,000 tokens.
26 custom slots with resists 5k /                                                        - 130,000 tokens.
76 moxes for gear 3k /                                                                       - 228,000 tokens.
-HPS/MOVE/AC/DAMROLL/HITROLL/AFFECTS/SAVES and Attributes 1k / - 26,000 tokens. = 644,000 total

How long for the average person to quest playing a 40hr week? (thats a fair amount of hours)
10 mins / quest @ 50 tokens per quest, (6 times / hour)
This would be 300 / hour.
644,000 / 300 = 2147 hrs of questing for full setup. = 40 hrs per week = 53 weeks.
roughly 13.5 months of questing.

(this does not factor in double tokens, pulsing rune, bright rune, declined quests, quest travel time / turn in time, or missed quests, afking out etc)

So lets say.. with how challenging it could be to play certain classes to level up while questing, may take this longer.   You get to full customs or enough customs to get to 220+ or so and you realize.. holy crap.. you went ghost and ghosts are horrible.. you went werepanther and realized just how bad they are, or you you had a meh race but went one of the not so good subclasses.  (all scouts/ most rogues and priests / some fighters / some mages)

What do you do after spending this much time sitting at 50 and questing?  You probably just quit.


What if.. some changes would help both of these things, other than looking at balance of each class and race a little more closely (buffing some sucky ones, toning down some super good ones) to make them about even, and play style is really the only thing that changes mostly with what you pick.

- If you complete a quest, you get an xp bonus for 10 mins
- If you xp 3000 xp or so, you get a quest bonus for 10 mins
- if you quest x amount in x hours you get a chain bonus of some sort, or at least a chance at a quest turn in mod that can give you a random 100 tokens or something (something to discourage people from resigning quests, this would help them understand areas and their character more as well)
- if you grind enough xp in one session you start to get better mods, that increase xp / kill somehwhat, like grinding chains.

If you're grouped, you get a bonus to quests and xp,  Group ranges increased a good deal.
This would promote shared knowledge and best practices to newer players more frequently than it happens now and encourage more gatherings for possible more RP or at least more fun.

((or something a kin to something like this,  this would help force players to better understand their characters while giving an optimal experience))

Just a few thoughts to help the pbase and a player understand their character better.

Look at other games, WOW, MMO's you can figure out within a week or two if a characters play style benefits you or if you do not like it.. KOTL... not so much.

Thanks
Sye

I think that having them retain their equipment AND weapons and maybe even not getting a hp buff, but getting access to different/better commands along with the full restore at full moon light would be optimal for this race.

Maybe the Moon runestone increases damage (by a %) while you' are in wereform instead of removing your ability to morph or at the very least allows you to morph without the moon being present?  Heh that would be cool.. like a higher generation were race.

The twice a month is pretty rare for were's to have to endure, but to have it be a complete n*** that it would make you want to never have to do it, just seems like a waste of a cool race, and requiring a runestone to avoid changing just seems like a slap in the face, now you get 1 less runeslot too.

Quality of life changes for the arena.

1) Please institute blood penalty into the Arena. AND DISALLOW eating/drinking, so the blood penalty matters.

No arena match should run for 90 rounds and then end in a tie. If two players are stuck because they're throwing the best they've got at each other, then the arena should step in and be constantly lowering their resistances so that the fight can be concluded. Players outside the arena don't need to be spammed for 90 rounds either.

2) Please copy Lapis, close the castle, close the east gate, and replace the entire Arena with it.

Lapis is a big square that circles back on itself, with a side room on almost every tile (with closed doors you can't /scan into) This makes for a really fun fighting area and tactical spot to pick a room and try to rebuff yourself, or summon your familiar etc... In the current arena i'm not sure any player even knows where the hell they are half the time. You always see an arena fight with two players just talking on OG like "Hey i'm at the stupid frog or whatever, come find me, I'll hold still cause this is getting ridiculous" With an exact copy of Lapis (with the castle closed off and the east gate closed) you will never see this problem.

3) Please please please, restore each player as they enter the arena and remove all debuffs after the fight is over.

It takes a billion years to restore all of your movement to full without an actual restore from another player, and really does affect an arena fight (You run out of movement, you die) It's also a really big pain in the butt to have Legendary Mummyrot on you for like the next 3 weeks because you arena'd one time.

I'd be more than happy to help build the new arena if you want/need help.

Thanks,
-Toar

I don't know much about this race, so I'll keep my response simple.

The only way i'd ever want to be a race that drops all of my equipment upon transformation is if the following things happened:

Resists stay maxed (or at least what they were at prior to transformation)
Damage type stays the same (If you can't brand, you will be at a huge disadvantage)
HP/AC bonus is high enough to warrant the equipment loss

Personally i've always liked the idea of a "beast mode" race - Similar to what Vampires do at night. But everyone and their mother is a vampire. I'd like to see a race that is like "Hey. Just don't muck with that guy if there's a full moon out. No. Seriously.... Don't."

Something to look forward to instead of shy away from.
-Toar

QuoteYeah.. we have this cool were race that has the ability to transofrm and it's so sucky you need to find a special runestone to prevent you from transforming.

So cool, you don't want to use it.... Pftt!

What if ...

... we took away the HP bonus on transformation but let them keep equipment?  (like dragons do when they morph)

... or we increased the HP bonus based on tier/level? 
    ... &/or we added an AC bonus based on tier/level?

... or let them let them keep their weapons equipped (so they get the damtype based on equipped weapons)?

... other thoughts?