Game ideas

[Jorake]

I was thinking of what things I would change on the mud that wouldn't take a lot of coding and would make a huge difference to the people who like to play strong and then let it balance out with real life again; instead of just quitting.

1. No limit +1 stat items: I would make pretty much any item that is just a single +1 stat INCLUDING damroll no limit; at least from certain zones. Who cares if everyone and their brother has a pair of carved dragon claw rings. Or barbed wire boots. I mean really. It would mean there is always something loading in almost every zone. Which would make people put in more time. I doubt it would have any severe impact on the game really.

2. Take away coin cost to rent: This would be really nice. Hell, i would just make it so nolimit eq doesn't even cost to rent, if anything. There have been times when I was like "man I'm getting sorta burnt out. I guess I'll take a break" Maybe i wanted to break for 2-3 weeks. That means the constant grinding i put in before those 2-3 weeks gear wise is for nothing. Or maybe I don't have enough cash to take a 2-3 week break. SO I just end up dropping all of my shit and usually Rich picks it up!

3. Decay items: This isn't the most important one for me. But it certainly is for some people. I've come to the understanding and made my peace with the fact that I'm gonna lose eq. This goes back to the break thing. Take something like.. Idk. Holy talisman and belt from bluff? Maybe. Just whatever low load rate item. I pretty much dont even care anymore when I do play. If i lose something I just go look for other shit to pop instead. Because I don't want to sit around the same zone for 6 hours that day trying to get my shit back. It drives me insane. SO i just don't do it anymore. It'll get a proper locate and then if its not up. I'm over it.

4. Spell loads: This one.. Well I just think that spell loads should be way more frequent. Again. Who cares if 45 people have acid mist or their black robe relocates or their red robe mirror images. I mean. Really. When someone gets these spells; they get super excited to use them. They have this rush and it makes them want to play more. It makes them think about "What can I do with this character now that I couldn't do before" And is it so game breaking if more people had these spells? Fact is, not everyone will have or have the chance to get prism/power word stun/nightmare etc etc. Those books will still be top tier and unless you got a buddy who hooks you up... I would also make more spells guild spells. You have to go find a tablet for paralyze? That lvl 30 or whatever guild teacher can't teach you this spell? Ice storm is out of their realm of knowledge? Maybe make it a quest or something in solace but it is not gaming breaking if some of these lower tier spells are made guild spells.

5. Additional characters: I haven't even logged in for a while. But the last time I did log in there were 7 people on. Of different clans. I think Corey mentioned this in another thread, but I'll touch on it again. Playing 2 characters 90% of the time is more than enough. Yes you are relegated to playing a shaman/druid/cleric + whatever else most of the time to do anything worth doing. I didn't do it this wipe but last wipe i did Glymmer with just my shaman/paladin and a fair amount of prep. I do think that upping the limit to possibly 4 or whatever would make a difference in the slow time. It would open up a lot more options when the numbers are just to low to do anything worth doing. Or if you don't want to spend 2-3 hours in a zone trying to be super careful. This would also go with the no limit eq idea. If alot of the gear was no limit then it wouldn't just have this major vacuum on a few elite players multis.

6. Class Item sets: I wanted this to be its own thing. Item sets at the very least should be no limit. It would be a great way for people coming back or joining mid wipe or whatever to get into the game. Again, it would not break the game if there were 15 scout sets in the game. I would also make these never decay. Or have a huge timer. As it stands, you load 6 pieces of whatever class set and then you lose 1 piece. depending on the set piece its hard to get back for a casual player.

Anyhow those are just some Sunday morning thoughts.

[Malthros]

1.  Agreed.  sure the floor for gear goes up a lot but you're still going to have a gap between people running around with 5-6 dam vs people running around with 15-20, and people who DT or whatever can hit zones to regear and go back to harder zones.
2.  This and/or rank purchases resetting on reincarnation being removed would be nice.  Rent decay would need to change (make deeprenting decay faster, for example) for good items though.  Not that I imagine too many people deadbeat dragon orbs or similar gear.
3.  This is tricky.  Nolim stuff never decaying would be fine but the good stuff has to decay at a varied length to give others a chance to load it.  Wouldn't solve for people actively fooming items to force a repop when they know they'll have the bodies for it but the feeling of "ok these items decayed today so we need to do x" is more than just a matter of design.  Removing decays for all nolim items would help (until those items frag anyways) but for any good gear repopping it is just how the game works.
4.  All spell loads should work like cleric and shaman spells do (and druid tabs did last wipe):  If you see spell book X in Location Y it is spell Z.  It'd be nice if you could work towards specific non-quest spells (except maybe PWS and the big 3 aoes), even if it meant bringing other spellbooks to a mob to research the target spell or whatever.  On the upside, spells can't decay (since that awful sheaf system is long dead) so once you learn it you don't have to worry about reloading it if you reincarnate or DT or whatever.
5.  Up the limit to 4 and you'll see a handful of people who can and will solo 99% of the MUD.  Sure, not as much of an issue if paired with more nolim gear but if they allow 4 they might as well allow 8 when a wipe is winding down (and definitely only allow 2 at most early in a wipe).  I know if I could run a 3rd character it'd open a lot of options that aren't as viable (or are just dangerous) on 2.  With 4 it'd be even moreso and playing 3-4 characters manually is entirely doable with proper macros built for multi-window inputs.
6.  Pretty sure class sets are nolimit.  Stuff like blue general being nolimit would be handy for sure but I can understand why they aren't.  It wouldn't break the game but I think we'd end up with more mob HP bloat or something at the high end to compensate for the higher floor that people could sit at.

[George]

Or just remove item limits entirely. The biggest argument that I've seen against it is something along the lines of: "I want to feel special, and having this item that no one else has makes me special." But, in reality, it doesn't make you special. If ten people know how to load a limit one item, and it loads on the sixth run, the first five people are just unlucky. It doesn't make the sixth person better at the game, and it doesn't make them special. It makes the first five people annoyed that they ran a zone and what they wanted didn't load.

The only ACTUAL argument against it is something to the effect of: "We don't want a group of seven people with Wyrmslayer and a curer running around beating up on dragons." Or the similar ideas with similar items. However, there is a way around this as well. There already exists a UNIQUE flag in the game. It wouldn't be very difficult to expand this flag to check the group. If one person has Wyrmslayer wielded, and another person in the same group wields it, both items are immediately placed in the inventory of the characters. This way, if you're JUST at the level of being able to kill a certain dragon, you don't have to wait for the ONE person in the whole world who has Wyrmslayer (who may or may not have a job/family/life_outside_Arctic) to be able to log on to either pass it off or join the group. It makes the people who have worked out how to load the fun items the ability to load them with something other than dumb luck of locating or running a zone at the right time dictating the chances.

As for the game breaking items (hastes/nobashes/dragon orbs), if you cannot bear the idea of removing them from the game, leave them limited. Let those few people who need to feel special battle with each other for them, while the rest of the players continues to not care about them at all.

[Willoe]

I like a lot of this thread. As for people running around with 7 wyrmslayers...who cares? Make new harder content that needs 7 wyrmslayers.

[reed23]

1.  I would like the lims on certain items upped, but don't agree with making all gear unlimited.  The example of barbed wire boots i don't agree with.  There is so much gear in the game that i think it would do a disservice to the game in its entirety if everyone ran around with 12 dam that was popped from unlimited items from Storms, Irda, Bluff, and Ancient.  There are so many ways to build really good sets, especially with the huge bonuses from 4-6 item sets that are very available and easy to pop on 2-4 man groups.  If you want to go down this route, just have everyone start off with a Chaos bag at lvl 1 and a shrine at the Solace [] that teaches casters all spells on demand.
2.  I agree with upping spell loads.  I think this should be tiered.  Lower level spells should be 50%+ load rate, and then scale the percentage down as the spells get to the upper tiers.  But, for example, i don't see a problem if the Irda cleric book load rate was 25%-33%, or if the upper mage spells (outside of the prism book) loaded at that same rate.
3.  Reincarnate skills should come back "much faster" as this is advertised.  They currently don't come back much faster at all IMO.  When i re-legended my barb this wipe, it took me 6 days for my breach skill to go from excellent to superb.  6 hours is still too long IMO if this is the 2nd time around at grinding skills.
4.  Increase group sizes back to 10.
5.  I'm not a big fan of increasing char limits from 2 to 4.  You can do so much on 2, and it promotes grouping/clans to do end-game material.  And only requires 3-4 people to build a legit group.
6.  Change legend punch to have a different effect.  Disorienting big mobs is a great way for casters to get 1 rounded, and i think this is actually a negative effect.
7.  I'd like to see acid mist and equivalent other robe area spells return to their glory days.  Mages are 100% useless before they get stun in groups.  They need some major love to return to the premier class that they always were in arctic's early days.  Also, this goes back to increasing group sizes back to 10 (i've posted previously on this), but with a group lim of only 8, your group builds itself out automatically and there isn't much room for other utility classes - you need a tank, cleric, druid, shaman, couple bashers/dps to do end game material.  There isn't room for thiefs, mages, scouts, mages, etc. normally speaking.  Increasing the group lim to 10 would enhance these misc classes and allow room for them to get into groups.
8.  Increase PK % dam done to something reasonable.

[Jorake]

I disagree with barb wire boots from your post. And i did not say all gear unlimited. I said any gear that is +1 stat. Sure maybe make some exceptions for like barbed wire boots ok. But the point is. Once the wipe has been on for 3-4 weeks if that; so much SO much gear is snagged. So you can run 4-5 zones and maybe get 3 items from them. That is bapting insane, and it also makes people not want to do those zones. When i played earlier in the wipe I did a zone run. pax, hct, dunmir, storms, luni. Did those zones one right after another. I think we ended up getting 1 book, and maybe 6 "ok" items. Those included like 2 items from noom. Nothing major loaded in those zones when we did them. Which means we spent 5.5 hours in a group for nothing but coins/exp/ranks. Pretty heart breaking.

Again, not all eq should be nolimit. But spiked wrist bucklers, carved dragon claw rings, whatever else. Not executioners hood. But some other item.

Why would it bother you so much if a group of casual folks walked around with 7-8dam on their characters from nolimit eq?

[corey]

I disagree with barb wire boots from your post. And i did not say all gear unlimited. I said any gear that is +1 stat. Sure maybe make some exceptions for like barbed wire boots ok. But the point is. Once the wipe has been on for 3-4 weeks if that; so much SO much gear is snagged. So you can run 4-5 zones and maybe get 3 items from them. That is bapting insane, and it also makes people not want to do those zones. When i played earlier in the wipe I did a zone run. pax, hct, dunmir, storms, luni. Did those zones one right after another. I think we ended up getting 1 book, and maybe 6 "ok" items. Those included like 2 items from noom. Nothing major loaded in those zones when we did them. Which means we spent 5.5 hours in a group for nothing but coins/exp/ranks. Pretty heart breaking.

Again, not all eq should be nolimit. But spiked wrist bucklers, carved dragon claw rings, whatever else. Not executioners hood. But some other item.

Why would it bother you so much if a group of casual folks walked around with 7-8dam on their characters from nolimit eq?

In all honesty, I don't even see a problem with 6 huma shields running around. It's a PvE game now and limit items are making you combat a system that also involved PvP. Let's be real - that game is behind us. Who cares if there are 5 dragon orbs, 3 robes of darkness, 7 onyx shields in the game. You can't really kill anyone so does it really matter?

Not to mention with ranks and medals everyone is basically autohaste immune blind etc etc anyway so who cares

[George]

Let's be real - that game is behind us.

This is the reality of the game. The PK aspect is gone, and, for the most part, no one even minds. The idea of having set up battles is fun, but, getting jumped and losing everything when you simply don't have the time or resources to get it back is just dumb, and it actively drives people away from the game. There are a few people who continue to talk about getting PK back to the way it was, and they are fairly loud, but, they are very few.

[Willoe]

Agree with Corey. If anything it evens the playing field so that anyone can get the best gear. It also opens up to ability to maybe create some even harder zones that require that level of gear to challenge the player base.

[Patpat]

I'd be interested in playing a wipe with all gear nolim.

[Malthros]

7.  I'd like to see acid mist and equivalent other robe area spells return to their glory days.  Mages are 100% useless before they get stun in groups.  They need some major love to return to the premier class that they always were in arctic's early days.  Also, this goes back to increasing group sizes back to 10 (i've posted previously on this), but with a group lim of only 8, your group builds itself out automatically and there isn't much room for other utility classes - you need a tank, cleric, druid, shaman, couple bashers/dps to do end game material.  There isn't room for thiefs, mages, scouts, mages, etc. normally speaking.  Increasing the group lim to 10 would enhance these misc classes and allow room for them to get into groups.

Clerics are largely irrelevant once druids and shamans are spelled up and you have a buff tank(which isn’t hard, just time consuming for reincarnates and medal farming).  Remove their ability to contribute dps via animate and they would be less useful in a strong group than a thief or non-stunner mage because cloud/regen/wave and a heal boosted tank is really dam powerful. 

Mages have their uses without stun, a white robe constantly transferring globe+fireshield is damn convenient, but it’s telling that a sizeable portion of long term dmg from them actually comes from their pets that can doUnless annihilate when ranked for damage.

Group size of 10 might see more mages or thieves in a group but realistically you’re going to probably get another basher, dk, paladin, or maybe a second Druid/shaman. Or a pair of mages if you’re doing something like void.

[Willoe]

Also if want to "limit" the number of players that have items...Make the best items very low %. Only those dedicated to spamming the hell out of it will be rewarded. No reason to have a hard limit. Would be awesome to have a chance of loading anything when you run zones, gives people a reason to do them as opposed to having items be maxxed or chasing decays.

[Lloth]

I think limited items can be increased, but not unlimited. Additional chars? No thanks.

All I want to see are spells loading more.  In the last week I've checked healing cloud close to 50 times with 0 loads. Now that's me spamming mobs that I know load it. Imagine a newb druid who has no idea how to load that spell. I'm being burned out just trying to get this spell now, I can't even think of how that poor guy is going to feel not even knowing how to get it.

[el conquistador]

no limit items!  lets do it!  id even be pretty happy about item limits just being increased. 

there are so many fun items in the game that most people never get to see.  i had gramms ancient green sword for like a month many years ago and it was sooo fun.  then over the next 12 years i continue to check, but never have seen it again.  that is so sad.  i bet there are dozens of other super cool item loads that i walk past all the time.  but to me they are just mobs that load nothing because any good items have permanent owners.

[Gnua]

If ten people know how to load a limit one item, and it loads on the sixth run, the first five people are just unlucky. It doesn't make the sixth person better at the game, and it doesn't make them special.

The difference between luck and skill comes when they item decays.  The lucky newb is unlikely to be able to repop it.  The clan fodder has a better chance.  The lazy leader has a strong chance.  The dedicated leader will successfully repop unless they get unlucky.  so the gear tends to trickle up over time into the top active leaders this way.  it may be a crapshoot amongst the top active leaders, but below the top level of play skill and persistence play a much bigger role than luck.

i used to have 4 shamanable npp spread around my 4 active characters.  now i'm down to one shamanable npp because i dont defend my decays very well.  i'm actually not sure what will happen first:  being unable to repop my npp, getting lucky and popping a different one, pwipe, getting 8 spare ranks.