Author Topic: Things I noticed as a newbie, maybe you should look into those matters  (Read 7615 times)

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Offline Rjak

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I need to tell right from the bat: that's constructive criticism. My english is bad - but is better than your romanian :P - and communication skills are not my best skill. But unlike you, people, I see all with fresh eyes. You guys were newbs so long ago that you forgot how it is.

1. Economy is screwed.
The mobs drop more money as they advance in levels. They should drop items that needs to be sold at shopkeepers. Prices are way too high, but they need to be to keep the inflation under control. A player gave me 5m when i was around level 4, and I was thinking "I'm friggin Cressus". Was not the case.

A piece of normal armor is 500 gold, a stat boosting ring is 5000 but a healing potion is 18000. Is just not right.
A potion is 18k, ok? (and dont bring the charisma issue in discution, the drop in price is worthless). At level 30 you need (well, I need) about 5 potions to kill a swamp troll. That's 90k. They drop less than 50k gold. I lose 40k gold each fight. When I try to save potions, I end dead. If I try to buy buffs from healers, I spend ever more money. Not to mention the sudden burst in damage / accuracy that every mob have when they drop under 20-30% hp. Bottom line, why should I bother killing those trolls when I can kill dwarfs that gives 20k gold / kill and require no potion? I tell you why, because they respawn slow, and that brings...

2. Mobs
I'm the only one who goes in low level areas. All the people are high levels with many remorts, or helpers. So if another new players would be there, the areas that seem already underpopulated for my level (sherwood forest, ali baba, archeologist site, crete, svalich (?spelling) woods, etc) would be crowded with newbs. Yeah, I see this coming: "use other areas". You are kiddin, right? No one wants to level up far away from home, especially because the buffs are timed... and because builders seem to love the loops.

3. Skills
Let's face it, people, the game really starts after 1-2-3 remorts. Until then you simply don't have enough skills, or you are unable to develop them. Some quests require certain skills that you lack. Others require area knowlege you also lack, because you don't want to adventure far in standard issue armor, with only 1 combat skill under your belt.

Example. I saw a mule on the road, and it has some bags on it. I did not wanted to simply kill it, so I tried to tame in order to access the bags. I kept trying... and seeing I'm not able to, I raised my tame skill to max, only to find out that the skill is broken. 8 pracs spend on tame from 0% to 30% and 2 hours spaming "tame mule". Another example? Track skill. I've been told that if the skill is too low, it points me in a random direction. So there is no point in using it early, when is at 30%. You need to spam the server endesly with "track mob" OR... to wait for remort. And that makes the skill useless for a tier 1.

My class is thief. As a thief you get backstab at lev 5, blackjack and dual vield at 27. And that's pretty much end of combat skills til remort. So what am I supposed to do? Blackjack the mobs, hoping in a success, then backstab it for ~ 2.50x damage. Then look at the battle and ocassionally quaff a potion. Does it look like fun to you?

4. Quests
As a newbie, I still can't see a real use for tokens, but I collect them like everyone else. If the tokens would buy stats or equipment, I would understand the "is all about questing" attitude but... Ok I've been told that quests are giving you nice equipment. Let's pick the Quest Academy, the voucher quest. I received a olive branch, 10d10, that gives me -10 accuracy. And I'm a thief. I need a backstabing weapon, and I rely on acuracy and speed. Without the help of a vet, I would use even now, after 30 levels, the same weapon. Well, I still use it, but is the secondary weapon. See my point?

Ali Baba quest. Not THAT hard, but for sure the area is a bit too dangerous for 10-30. The only mob you really need to kill is Ali Baba (and he sure is a BBA for that level range), but the so called treasure and the loot is not great at all.

5. Shops
Shopkeepers allways give 10% from item value, regardless of charisma. That's really low. Besides, they are really picky in what they buy. Items bought from a shop cannot be sold back. So the only way to make money for potions is to rely on mob drops. That pretty much excludes animal mobs from the ecuation.

Bottom line, I think you upped the reqs for skills to keep the old players in line, and hold them to be too powerfull. You also upped the price of certain consumables to give them something to spend money. You forgot about the newbs in process, and that makes the things a bit hard to chew.

I hope I did not offended anyone, thanks for reading.
Rjak

Offline Kvetch

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Re: Things I noticed as a newbie, maybe you should look into those matters
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2009, 01:42:10 pm »
You guys were newbs so long ago that you forgot how it is.
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I hope I did not offended anyone, thanks for reading.
Rjak
That's really the only point you make that I truely find offensive.  While true, it's also very hard to run the game AND be a newbie, which is why we ask people like you (new players) to make reports of what seems off - use the bug/typo/idea commands, talk to IMM's, talk to other players, etc.  And we're not infalible.  Seriously, I sucked as a player and didn't go to many differen areas.  As such, I can't answer a lot of questions.  I played only centaur so I cant answer many race questions.  The "numbers and logistics" of 4D bore me to tears and death.  There have been times that I will go on other muds as a newbie to see what works for them and what doesn't.  Times there are things that works well for them, but seriously as a newbie I couldn't handle it (Godwars anyone?).

As for tame, I know I already noted you, but this is so others that read this will know.  It is not broken as I had thought when I talked to you.  Tame only lets you tame a tameable (not already tamed) animal and lets you mount and ride it - not have it follow you and not give it orders - so taming the mule would not have given you access to the bags.  Sorry.

Economy - I agree, but that's been discussed before.
Mobs - I suggest Sanctuary Haze.  It is not undrepopulated.  YOu just have to find the right areas.
Tokens are good for getting things you can't get any other way: ie: perzed items (basically find a really good item you don't ever want to lose and have it made into a perz), personalized mounts (you'll have to have access to a house stable for this), A house (with rooms, servents, etc of their own), and other various things that I believe are listed on our pricing list somewhere on the website.

I've always thought that shopkeep buy/sell should be based off CHA, but CHA is used mostly for spellcasters - which is why you can get 100 in CHA and only 22 in STR/DEX/etc.

4D is constantly changing and sometimes it's hard to keep the help files/information updated to the changes that the coders do and are put in.  So, yes, sometimes you read wrong info either here on the website or in the help files in the game.  And sometimes the IMM you're talking to has no clue about some of the changes.  Yeah, Kvetch's a builder IMM - if it doesn't have anything to do with my areas I can look around and guess, but it's really better to talk to Molly or even Diandra.

Kvetch