Nocht is active. Vira favors heavily, but like I said, sometimes they get busy! Then there's always Manteekan who is awesome. I'm not talking like..a month or two where your god gets busy IRL so favors get light. Over an extended period of time, everyone has access to TFs.
I can tell you Vira hands them out generously if you are putting forth the effort to interact with her.
Its been close to 2 months since Nocht's handed out any favours, and I got the biggest one last time, which has long since worn off. I wouldn't really call that Active from a Favours perspective.
Edit: I'm not at all complaining, I actually don't care one way or the other. I was just suggesting I wouldn't call Nocht "active" on the Favours scene. He's pretty regular about them being spaced a few RL months apart.
So question about the fink level 50 power. What exactly does it affect? Just the bully/sycophant/etc ones, or others too? Will performance restore ego faster? Will perform sober work more effectively? What about impersonate?
I missed a question regarding racial weapons, we're currently looking at weapons internally, and with the system that's coming out, weapon races will receive a damage boost to those weapons specifically. It'll be something along the lines of a 2/8 bonus (which translates to cutting or blunt)
We're very close to rolling this system out now, and there's something that, while discussed throughout, may need highlighting in its own post here. This is so that players are both pre-warned of certain side effects of the rollout and aren't caught unaware, and what we plan to do about it post deployment.
All abilities that are considered "attacks" have a modifier based on your current stats, either positive or negative depending on how high/low that stat is. This affects everything from your bashing attack to your influencing and debating abilities (and for those, their speed) With stats gone, that multiplier is gone as well, which is essentially equal to having 12 to all stats in the current system.
We're aware that's going to be a significant difference for most people, there are several options we have. We can reduce denizen ego and health, or we can raise abilities at their baseline, now that we don't have to balance around such a wide variable that stats imposed on us.
When that point arrives, however, we're going to need the help of you (yes, all of you!) Once this deployment is rolled out (and not before due to H/M/E levels still being attributed to stats) I'd like your logs, hunting and influencing alike. All I ask is information wise you give me your level, class, skill level in any relevant skill trees where abilities were used and what buffs you were running to boost your abilities, and I would love this to be across a variety of creatures, not just end game.
Influencing logs should be around 4-5 of any single denizen type, hunting logs between 15-20 to account for criticals and damage shift. Keep them time stamped. However if people want to keep track of the time it takes them to clear an entire area, please do so. Time stamps will be critical there.
Furthermore, if you are running any XP/Essence trackers, especially those that calculate net gain/hour, please keep them on and included (don't forget to reset at the start of recording!) If you're tracking essence, please mention the amount you started with, and for everyone please note any XP/Essence buffs you're using during this.
For now, I'm not entirely concerned about debating, as it'll be the same for everyone, while debates will be slower battles than they currently are, if they are suddenly drawn out to become long, boring affairs we'll adjust that later.
Logs can be messaged either in game or through the PM system here, while I appreciate this is going to be a less than enjoyable experience, especially those who are use to fast levels of hunting and influencing, we want to get this right and ideally get it right first time.
The end result will still feel like a nerf to some who were use to high stat levels, but you will be on the same level as everyone else who previously wasn't, with variations for class abilities, ascendant powers and creature weaknesses aside. From a design purpose, we can then create content which is more accessible to everyone, as opposed to a certain few who picked the right race/class combinations, and can be engaged at a reasonable speed.
While some may, understandably, find it fun to blitz through content quickly, it's both not the intention to do so and it has created the issue where areas have been "locked down" by one or two individuals who can cover an area quickly, leaving anyone else a very small time window in which to partake, multiple times in the past.
The ultimate goal is to find a level where people can put time into doing something appropriate for their level and feel they are progressing*, investment in your character (whether that be through skills, buffs or artifacts) matters and we narrow the gulf between different characters when it comes to the quality of life should they be hunting or influencing.
Thank you, in advance, for your understanding and assistance with this.
*Of course if you're hitting the diminishing returns for essence gains, that's another story.
It's good you're looking into this. 12 is lower than I was expecting (which was around 16) - are you using the same for h/m/e? Are you going to rebalance essence costs/losses to account for slower gains?
H/M/E has an entirely new system that Estarra mentioned in a previous thread. With stats gone, H/M/E is normalised for everyone and runs on a level based formula with a 10 level (13 with artifact) buff system.
As to essence gains, costs and losses I don't see that being an issue when we adjust post deployment. The goal is to reach a level where xp/essence gains are reasonable for everyone.
I think the idea is that the attacks that were affected by stat did so using a multiplier function based on how high (or low) your stat was. By removing stats, that multiplier therefore defaults to a x1, which is probably 12.
So the question here is, do we go through all the attacks and tweak them upwards to the "average" value, or go through mob health and tweak them down. Either way, adjustments still have to be made post changes, to tweak certain areas or attacks that over or under perform compared to before the change.
Currently the system adds a multiplier to abilities based on the stat they correspond with, everything over 12 has a bonus multiplier, everything under 12 has a negative multiplier, and everything at 12 has no multiplier at all, which is the same has having no stats.
We aren't making everyone at 12, we're removing stats entirely, which is equal to 12 in the current system (12 being where you have no bonus or negative) but without it having any effect on your vitals.
We don't want to be playing guessing games when we make these adjustments, the average runs from between roughly 9 and 25 in charisma for example. Any adjustments made won't be done blindly, we don't want to estimate a figure and go "that'll do" and it turns out to be wrong.
How does one go about adding in timestamps to mudlet logs? I usually just highlight copy and paste out of mudlet when I want to save something, so I'm probably missing a really easy way to do it.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
If you're running M&M with a custom prompt, you can add in timestamps at the end of the string with a variable. I forget what that variable is currently, but you should be able to find it in the documentation.
Edit: Mind, I'm sure there are other ways to add timestamps, but this is the first one that came to mind for me.
Editedit: Oh, and the more I think about it, duh, but there should be an 'i' button in a blue circle at the bottom right of the Mudlet window that also pops up timestamps. Sorry, but it's early and I'm still derpy.
While I understand that stat ranges vary, I would say it's probably a safe bet that the majority of the games sits between 16-20 in important stats for that class.
This means starting at a baseline equivalent to a stat of 12 is going to be a hefty reduction in damage/influencing/whatever else.
Why doesn't it make sense to start at a higher baseline more equivalent to 16? I get that stats are being removed, I don't see why you can't start with a higher baseline in general. You're already going through each skill and removing the multipliers, why not give a general adjustment to the baseline by using the multiplier at 16 being removed? Seems easy enough.
I think that overall adjustments will be less, as more skills will fall at acceptable levels by being closer to today's status quo. It will also be a much smaller 'shock' level because the reduction won't be so vast. (I'm not talking about multiple adjustments per skill, I'm talking about multiple adjustments overall, which is where I think you were misunderstanding me yesterday).
Additionally, how are things like stancing and parrying being dealt with? I believe Dexterity has a role in those skills, and they're going to be tough to get reliable logs for?
I think the logs will probably be for bashing and influencing first rather than combat, though I think two different threads to compile this information would probably be good. This way, the focuses aren't divided in a single thread and people don't get confused.
As far as the combat ramifications of this change, specific insight will have to be made into any effect or ability that revolves around stats; anywhere from LowMagic's Yellow and HighMagic's Geburah to DEX's effect on parry/stance and CHA's effect on song duration. Some envoys have started putting forward reports to address this changeover already, so I'm guessing we'll have to keep doing that.
I'm sorry if this has already been addressed, but I'm confused about influencing.
Several races that are currently lousy influencers due to low charisma have boosts to certain influence types in compensation, and many of these bonuses have been carried over or new ones added. (Edit: actually seems the ones who have it now are mostly not retaining it, but different random historically 'ugly' races that maybe should have had them, are now getting them.) Higher charisma races didn't need these boosts, and in most cases didn't/aren't getting them now - but without charisma factoring in anymore, it seems like the best races for influencing are going to be fink, gnome, furrikin, mugwump, and loboshigaru? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, why are you doing it this way?
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I think it's that they don't want to do it with modifiers, so they'll have to go in and change the base equations for each bashing attack to be equivalent to the current base equation + modifiers. Then they'll have to go back in a second time and adjust the equations based on feedback, and from an efficiency and time perspective, it makes more sense to just do it once.
Though I admit, it's going to suck hardcore for a while.
Call me crazy, but instead of putting this out live, wouldn't it be better to do this on a test server, get the values figured out there, then port to live?
This would enable people to potentially gather data for multiple classes/races if they're the type to do so, especially if characters on there are flexed to everything/have tam/cameo and can see how the different damage and resist artifacts stack together for the various classes.
Aetherhunting, whips, and wonderwands do not rely on stats and are currently better (to my knowledge) ways of gaining experience/essence than any outlier's current normal attack/influencing ability. Because these methods of hunting do not rely on stats, the no-stat overhaul will not change the hunting speeds of these types of hunting. (only looking at speed here. h/m/e will of course affect everyone's ability to tank).
How does the admin/playerbase want to see guild-attack hunting/influencing compare to aetherhunting/whips/wonderwands?
For Mister Zvoltz, Pejat has been terminated by the Replicant Dynodeon.
@Talan: The old compensatory bonuses became defunct with the new system, so there was no need to keep those. What we have now is a series of races with perks that allows them to be better at some things than others. With the tier 3 perks those advantages are slight, the bonus is equal to a full weight influence tattoo or beast skill. This gives them the edge, but then in other things they are beaten out by other races, there's no master race that does everything (or almost everything) better than anyone else.
The races chosen were all intentionally org-neutral races, ones that can shift from one faction to another, and given traits that go with the character of the race. They were picked because they made the most sense, not every neutral race had these options because it didn't make sense to do so.
So yes there will be a slight edge (and I emphasise slight, this won't be like the gulf that exists between various racial choices currently) that if you want to min-max for influencing you may feel inclined to lean towards these races (also Illithoid should you invest in the tier 5 artifact) but choosing to ignore them will not penalise you and influencing will still be a viable method of playing, regardless of racial choice.
@Shedrin: Yes, wounds without strength will drop considerably, we'll be looking at that alongside all other damage changes. Especially when we get to the new Knighthood/Monk and weapons/armour systems.
@Tarkenton: Unfortunately I don't have a test server available to me or else I'd have resolved all of this through in house testing. Scaling everything down to the base and then adjusting based on player feedback is the best option at getting a measured response. I want to get through this as quickly as possible, but that is dependant on player support.
@Daganev Unless I missed something, yes. We'll have to re-look at the enlarge and shrink enchants and demigod powers.
@Pejat A large reason the whips and wands are popular is because they offer damage types not available to specific players. The damage is tuned to be equal to base damage destruction, as if someone were casting it with 12 intellect. This is not much different from other caster attacks and abilities. There are other advantages to using whips over caster attacks, such as balance speed against equilibrium on races that currently have a balance speed bonus. But ultimately whips and wands should be an option for players to increase their range of damage sources, not to upgrade attacks they already have. If a Pyromancer is buying a fire whip for bashing because it's better than their staffcast, it'll be something we want to fix.
Everyone buys divinus for that reason - it's such a great damage typing for bashing.
On that note, will npc resistance levels be weakened? That is, will difference between a non-resisting and a highly resistant mob be narrowed, as well as potentially lowering resistances all around to rebalance damage?
It's more likely that we'll adjust NPC health across the board per level than adjust the formula to which resistances and vulnerabilities work. It'd get the same results while being easier to code.
Because I'm curious (and I forget if I've already asked), once everything has been scaled to the 12's, are you looking to make class skills sort of at a base level in terms of damage output in bashing? Ie. a monk combo w/ weapons doing the same damage as a staffcast pre-damage enhancements?
There's different factors in there, attack speed, quality of monk weaponry, resistances and vulnerabilities of the target, but no, we're not looking for absolute homogenisation in terms of damage. There should still be a difference in damage at the base formula as there is now, but the difference should be minimal.
Case in point, a monk with a pair of coal runed masterkata shofa will beat out a staffcasting geomancer on zombies. But the Geomancer will still have the edge on Kephera. On neutral targets one will hit faster than the other, but deal less damage.
Mmkay, thanks. Attack speed is still king when it comes to bashing neutral-resist critters, so I'm interpreting this as an intentional thing for melee classes/Destro-users to edge themselves ahead of casters because of the inherent speed of weapons/the skills used themselves. Maybe bard, too, since I think play speed is dependent on instrument proficiency.
I made a thread to hopefully talk about the regeneration focused demi-powers, and to come up with alternatives to replace them.
There still needs to be talk about some of the artifact tier powers, like Lucidian active power regen and Krokani's flat immunity to the blinded status, but that can occur here, probably.
Comments
Edit: I'm not at all complaining, I actually don't care one way or the other. I was just suggesting I wouldn't call Nocht "active" on the Favours scene. He's pretty regular about them being spaced a few RL months apart.
When that point arrives, however, we're going to need the help of you (yes, all of you!) Once this deployment is rolled out (and not before due to H/M/E levels still being attributed to stats) I'd like your logs, hunting and influencing alike. All I ask is information wise you give me your level, class, skill level in any relevant skill trees where abilities were used and what buffs you were running to boost your abilities, and I would love this to be across a variety of creatures, not just end game.
Influencing logs should be around 4-5 of any single denizen type, hunting logs between 15-20 to account for criticals and damage shift. Keep them time stamped. However if people want to keep track of the time it takes them to clear an entire area, please do so. Time stamps will be critical there.
Furthermore, if you are running any XP/Essence trackers, especially those that calculate net gain/hour, please keep them on and included (don't forget to reset at the start of recording!) If you're tracking essence, please mention the amount you started with, and for everyone please note any XP/Essence buffs you're using during this.
For now, I'm not entirely concerned about debating, as it'll be the same for everyone, while debates will be slower battles than they currently are, if they are suddenly drawn out to become long, boring affairs we'll adjust that later.
Logs can be messaged either in game or through the PM system here, while I appreciate this is going to be a less than enjoyable experience, especially those who are use to fast levels of hunting and influencing, we want to get this right and ideally get it right first time.
The ultimate goal is to find a level where people can put time into doing something appropriate for their level and feel they are progressing*, investment in your character (whether that be through skills, buffs or artifacts) matters and we narrow the gulf between different characters when it comes to the quality of life should they be hunting or influencing.
Thank you, in advance, for your understanding and assistance with this.
As to essence gains, costs and losses I don't see that being an issue when we adjust post deployment. The goal is to reach a level where xp/essence gains are reasonable for everyone.
So the question here is, do we go through all the attacks and tweak them upwards to the "average" value, or go through mob health and tweak them down. Either way, adjustments still have to be made post changes, to tweak certain areas or attacks that over or under perform compared to before the change.
Currently the system adds a multiplier to abilities based on the stat they correspond with, everything over 12 has a bonus multiplier, everything under 12 has a negative multiplier, and everything at 12 has no multiplier at all, which is the same has having no stats.
We aren't making everyone at 12, we're removing stats entirely, which is equal to 12 in the current system (12 being where you have no bonus or negative) but without it having any effect on your vitals.
Several races that are currently lousy influencers due to low charisma have boosts to certain influence types in compensation, and many of these bonuses have been carried over or new ones added. (Edit: actually seems the ones who have it now are mostly not retaining it, but different random historically 'ugly' races that maybe should have had them, are now getting them.) Higher charisma races didn't need these boosts, and in most cases didn't/aren't getting them now - but without charisma factoring in anymore, it seems like the best races for influencing are going to be fink, gnome, furrikin, mugwump, and loboshigaru? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, why are you doing it this way?
Vive l'apostrophe!
This would enable people to potentially gather data for multiple classes/races if they're the type to do so, especially if characters on there are flexed to everything/have tam/cameo and can see how the different damage and resist artifacts stack together for the various classes.
@Talan: The old compensatory bonuses became defunct with the new system, so there was no need to keep those. What we have now is a series of races with perks that allows them to be better at some things than others. With the tier 3 perks those advantages are slight, the bonus is equal to a full weight influence tattoo or beast skill. This gives them the edge, but then in other things they are beaten out by other races, there's no master race that does everything (or almost everything) better than anyone else.
The races chosen were all intentionally org-neutral races, ones that can shift from one faction to another, and given traits that go with the character of the race. They were picked because they made the most sense, not every neutral race had these options because it didn't make sense to do so.
So yes there will be a slight edge (and I emphasise slight, this won't be like the gulf that exists between various racial choices currently) that if you want to min-max for influencing you may feel inclined to lean towards these races (also Illithoid should you invest in the tier 5 artifact) but choosing to ignore them will not penalise you and influencing will still be a viable method of playing, regardless of racial choice.
@Daganev Unless I missed something, yes. We'll have to re-look at the enlarge and shrink enchants and demigod powers.
@Pejat A large reason the whips and wands are popular is because they offer damage types not available to specific players. The damage is tuned to be equal to base damage destruction, as if someone were casting it with 12 intellect. This is not much different from other caster attacks and abilities. There are other advantages to using whips over caster attacks, such as balance speed against equilibrium on races that currently have a balance speed bonus. But ultimately whips and wands should be an option for players to increase their range of damage sources, not to upgrade attacks they already have. If a Pyromancer is buying a fire whip for bashing because it's better than their staffcast, it'll be something we want to fix.
On that note, will npc resistance levels be weakened? That is, will difference between a non-resisting and a highly resistant mob be narrowed, as well as potentially lowering resistances all around to rebalance damage?
Case in point, a monk with a pair of coal runed masterkata shofa will beat out a staffcasting geomancer on zombies. But the Geomancer will still have the edge on Kephera. On neutral targets one will hit faster than the other, but deal less damage.