Balance and Fun

[Evilina]

This is list of things I find to not be balanced in the mud and a few ideas to help find us a semblance of balance. I am not targeting any specific class and excluding my own so let's try to be open minded and keep this thread as civil and on topic as possible.

1. Insta kill skills, I do not like them and think they detract from the enjoyment of pk, I believe someone should get a kill because they have superior skills or were simply outnumbered and not because someone has practiced a certain skill that can insta kill someone.

My suggestions are:

a. thieves stab for % of victims current hps, but not blick which makes the blood loss coding worth while.
b. chargers charge but not blick and can then utilize the same blood loss code.

I would add to the blood loss coding, possibly a loss of defense and increased fleelag to the victim stabbed or charged so thieves aren't made ineffective.

2. movement between ls and ds is imbalanced at the moment specifically during group pk, I spent the last 2 days pking my ls channie riding a white because I would of had to gate way south to find a warhorse. I understand and believe in pk preparedness but why does ls have to do such when ds does not nor does ds have to spend gold ever pk session for moves.

My suggestions since the change to remounts would be

a. increase warhorse loads up north.
b. change the way notice affects horse moves
c. remove skills or make skills not affect movement of ls and ds this includes stabbing horses, the way the bm skill works, and slow.
d. change the way vials work, a dser can get 200+ moves from a vial yet a human with a hag horse would have to dismount and run till low mvs to utilize a vial and gain 100+ moves.

Another issue as Lamgwin pointed out is movement regeneration skills such as regen and compel, these are both not balanced.

3. Notice affect and cost, I do not like how notice works atm, I have a skill turned on and it eats 1/3 of my horses moves yet does not provide me an ounce of protection against well timed fleestabbers.

If notice remains to cost horses moves then I'd suggest granting someone with notice on a % chance of not eating a stab otherwise remove the movement cost, imo the skill hide should only be used to land stabs and not used as a get out of jail free card.

4. dodge vs bash is still not balanced but this is an issue being dealt with, a good temporary fix would be to up bash just a hair but nothing major and to remove the 5% chance of breaking a dodgers defense in stand up melee.

5. Dual bash, not only is it bugged but it is not balanced. The concept was original and fun but now that everyone and their dog is rank 6 it's just op. I'd suggest lowering the chance a dual basher has at bashing 2.opponent. If dual bash was balanced people might actually choose another of the 3 rank 6 bonuses thus creating more diversity in pk.

[Syrik]

I like all of them.

[Chase]

I wouldn't disagree with hamstring getting changed. As long as the whole movement system is looked at. I also think though that stab can and should be able to blick, just adjust fleestab.

[Cammori]

in group pk, i am useless, the only thing that i can do is stab for blickage and cull down oppisite teams numbers. i think stab is fine the way it is, as it is there is only 1 dagger that blicks more than 60% and that is ruby dagger and masters weapons.

the only time someone gets stabbed is if they arn't paying attention during the group pk, stab is easily avoidable or if i can sneak attack and get someone without them knowing i am around.

take away my ability to blick ok cool, up melee damage then cause it sucks, especially if you are going to up bash. in full dodge i get bashed enough, i personally think its fair, a abser can bash me fine enough considering i die real quick.

downing stab is not the way to go i think it will totally alienate the thief class and make me absolutely useless.

[Cammori]

even with the extra on bloodloss its simple, i stab someone to wound, they lose all def ok fair enough but they run inside instantly.

most people on this mud now have 400 hp+, stab has been downed considerably, i see alot more stabs that dont blick

[Lamgwin]

Rogues aren't completely worthless in group pk, especially once people begin to flee. I don't know why you guys keep ignoring a little fact I've been saying, but you have the highest melee output of any class.

[Chase]

I don't see why thieves think they should be help in group pk anyway.. You chose to make a character built on solo fighting and getting kills on unsuspecting people. Not something that can do that AND be able to sit in a room and take on a basher. Bashers are the slow and steady killers while stabbers a quick but unreliable killers.

[Cammori]

chase you said it, that is the point i am making, you are saying we are worthless in group pk, we are, stop our blickage and we are useless in what we are made for, killing unsuspecting people

[Lamgwin]

Lolz, rogues have the highest melee damage output of any class on the game. Part of the reason rogues die so easily in a bash is that other rogues eat their shit with their retardedly high damage, projectiles, precise strike, etc.

[Chase]

Thats why I say they should be able to blick. You don't spam (once fleestab is hopefully gone), then you deserve to die in one hit.

[Lyrak]

I don't want to come off as negative on another down thief thread, but I'd to hate see thieves become a weak melee char. Call it irrational or purely selfish to wish for the continuance of insta kill skills, but I'd hate to see an effective timered skill that carries the class be removed and replaced with a superior version of hamstring with % hp loss. The thief class changes from an assassin to a maimer who tries to sabotage the target's chances to escape instead of straight killing them.

If thieves must go the way of the dinosaur, don't just remove stab as we know it, redo the whole class and imp other skills like poisoned dagger, vanishing, increased dodging, or a passive counterattack skill that catches bashes and kicks to turn them on the person doing them. That will help the thief to compensate for their new weaknesses and increased reliance on melee vs. a weakened target.

At the same time, this could be good for thieves because now they don't need to worry about people spamming k dark. They don't need the same level of sneak-attack skills either. If it all goes south, they can try one of their weakening skills, or just vanish to strike again later. People also forget that poisoned darts are a great assassination weapon and might be able to to be integrated into a thief overhaul as a long distance version of the downed stab.

Also, if blood loss is fleshed out, maybe let people leave a blood trail. That would serve as a way to let thieves track their quarry all over the globe without autotrack. With the new super horses, its likely going to get even harder to do that.

[Lyrak]

Some other ideas based on Evil's ideas:

1. Stab lands more often but is capped at damage around the rend weave and mv loss around hamstring.
2. Stab has a % chance to also dismount someone.
3. Stab that hits someone lower than batt causes blood loss.
4. If stab causes blood loss, target leaves a blood trail.
5. "Backstab" as we know it is renamed assassinate, and becomes another skill, which takes even longer than stab but usually kills people.
6. Increase thieves' ability to sneak, leave hide as it is.
7. Imp long range skills like darts or crossbows that can span rooms.
8. Make kick a viable counter to bash
9. Imp counterattack, a skill that catches % of bashes and kicks and turns them on the person doing them to do some damage.

Thoughts?

[Lyrak]

Some other ideas going the other direction:

1. Alter notice to protect against stab but requires you to use other command to hit hidden targets, keeping people from spamming k dark. At lower levels of notice, entering this command is necessary and it costs mvs. If the level of notice matches the level of hide then the command is free.
2. Up stab landing % and down damage %.
3. Down pb on ruby knife and put it on poniard. Up ruby knife's melee dmg. This balances ruby's blick ability and makes poniard a melee dagger with ok stab.

[Chase]

Lyrak, nobody said anything about removing backstab. I just wanted to point out a few things I thought of about your ideas while I was reading them:

1) Hamstring reduces db by like 5 and cuts mv regen by a percentage
2) What is with all those new skills for thieves you are thinking of? Thieves have kick, shield block, projectiles, and precise strike which already help them in group fights. They aren't supposed to stand toe to toe in melee..
3) Until anyone besides thieves can manual track in cities Im not sure why thieves should get that blood trail idea.

I do think backstab damage should do a lot of damage and not capped at a % of the target's health.

[Chase]

Can the FD horse trader be buffed up/given some mobs? Once he and the horses in stable are dead LS is without options without heading south and stopping pk.

[Phantasm]

evil the only thing that i really disagreed with was hide being used only for stabbing

lyrak we really don't need new skills, just a bit more balancing, although i will admit, you have some good ideas

[Chase]

Case and point. I am just shocked this happened. Nicotine and Obould were fighting w of TV vs 3 of us. Obould rips to a stab and Nicotine has been hamstrung for about 2-3 tics while pking. Cammori and I literally chase him from w of TV to GK, while I continuously hamstring him. 1) I didnt bash him but once in the pk, 2) He was able to go that far while we jumped 5 horses to keep up, 3) We were engaged on him atleast 6-7 rooms per zone and he could flee without my bash going through (miss) but once during the pk.

I dont care whether he had vials or not, that is rediculous. Not to mention when I did get close to catching him hagg (I think) he just stabbed my horse and kept on his merry way. He did use mobs to stall us a little bit, but its not like he was chilling in cities for multiple tics while we searched for him. It was a pretty straight forward run.

Just pointing that out. Im sure he had 2 vials though. I also notice that every troll seems to have a vial. Ive collected 4 today alone..

A counter argument may be that "well you were able to keep up." This is true, but we were in ls lands. When we hit ds lands we have one horse, thats it.. Plus I bought a couple warhorses so I payed for them. Maybe this is intentional though? If it is someone let me know and I'll stop bringing it up and wasting everyones' time.

[Koradin]

It seems to me we should have some horse loads up in blight lands.