Should Poison be kept in 4d?

[Prometheus]

This is a move from the recall board discussion to the forum discussion.

Pretty much this is a dicussion of weather or not poison should stay in the game / be removed / or tweaked. Please input here.

Prometheus

[Leonardo]

Copy of my Board post, modified a little.

I vote for poison being removed and this thread moved to the forum,
I hate having to press enter to read the board, someone clean it up
 
Poison was too much hassle in the first place, poison 3 and 4 items
are timered and a pain in the ass to go get everytime.
 
Poison 1 and 2 are not really fight-friendly, takes time a lot of time
for the opponent player or mob to feel the handicap, unless the fight is very long
they're useless. Mostly is just harassing PKers that after killing you
have to cure the poison quickly so their mv/mana don't get affected too much
by your evil poisoned dagger, and curse you over the open channels all day
long, and you can't really argue about that since they're actually right.
One stupid fight with you and now they're forced to spend an hour sleeping
in the 4D Inn to regain their stats. Would that lead somehow players to enjoy
more the PK feature? I exponentially disagree.
 
I'd also change the way PK works, no more possibility of corpse looting
so anybody could go enjoy fighting without the sensation that they are
at RISK.
 
Would be nice if Anubis could re-concept PK.
 
Suggestions would be:
 
-No PK death, the defeated opponent remains in the room he's been defeated into with 10HP,
a message appears like a kind of brag that isn't a brag ex.: [Lionheart] has been defeated in combat by [Emma]
-Once a player has died in PK combat, he can't be PKed again for 30min, to avoid harassment. But he can go PK back the player that PKed him initially or someone else.
-Make PK points system WORK, so I can finally build a shop where you can buy items and gear usgin PK points.
 
-Both players must be level 100 to earn/lose PK points
-All players that reach level 100 are forced by the code into PK
-Players below level 100 can still register for the flag if they want
to fiddle in the PK world sooner but they won't earn PK points in fights.
-PK points retribution (Loser: -1p - Winner: +3p) to encourage players.
-PK shops item minimum cost = 20 PK-points. You actually have to PK a bit
to be able to buy even the worst item available.

I believe that if we want people to interact more with eachother and enjoy
all the aspects of the game even the PK feature, we have to reconcept it.

I understand that builders would prefer players that go out questing more and exploring the content they have so hardly created and don't appreciate much the aspect of PK.
But if you really think about it; why do people go quest? Everybody you'll ask would nobly say "to enjoy the awesome content 4D has to offer", but the truth is that 90% of the good questers do it for the gear. Most of the best geared players are PK, know why? So they can prove their strength and aim at the honor of saying: I'm the strongest player around. There are some players who quest for just the fun of it, they care not about gear or prizes and got nothing to prove - but this kind of players are rare, and they usually end up achieving small or quitting.

What I've realized is that PK is linked to zone exploration and questing. If we actually make players ENJOY PKing, we also motivate them to leave recall and quest so they can stand a better chance when you meet another player in the open.

For the game to be fun and challenging and revive people's interest great content and quests must be valued as much as PK challenging code and features.
These two aspects should be concatenated, once can't live without the other and vice-versa.

Gosh, just realized that I ended up being off-topic for half the post, sorry :-P

[Tocharaeh]

I can't believe I am agreeing with him on PK. I have spent a long time in PK muds, ran one even for a while, and I love the risk factors involved.  To 4D, PK has really be a very small aspect for the game since about 2000 when key Pkers of DJ, and Sicilians started moving on (myself included), and went off to explore the internet for other worlds.

4D is a PVE game, not PVP and because of the the PVP aspect has generally been shat upon for a long time now. It is just there for those of us who enjoyed good ol' battles of awesomeness, and we are a huge minority. Why so? Because PK actually insights, nay- PROMOTES player animosity. That's exactly why so many PKers over time left- And I'll show you why:

4D PVE:

1) If A kills B and takes all of B's perzes, and then junks them then they are gone, and B will have to pay 1 silver each for a reload.
2) If A kills B and takes all of B's perzes and stores them in his/her house then B has no chance of getting them back unless he/she pays
    for their ransom.
3) Rare gear (artifacts) 10 years ago were closely hoarded and guarded. So to keep others from obtaining things like scyllas hide, and dante's power armor- We would force load them (when I say we I mean mainstream PK in 4d glory days), and/or kill you as soon as you had them, and took the items to eventually bring the items to their maxload thus controlling the system. (this is why we can't logout with keys anymore, and why arti's have timers)
4) 4D was highly populated with One-timers for a long time, and if you didn't get them perzed, eventually you were going to get them junked which meant no more awesome item of awesomeness.

Other PVE Muds:

1) Players gain gear that can be easily be recovered by killing said mob, or doing lame-ass auto-quests to earn points enough to buy special gear back.
2) Players can lose their gear to other players, but can get it back (see 1)
3) Enhanced gear via enchantments can ALWAYS be replaced.
4) Prices for things are generally stable, reasonable and there is always a good player-run economy. Anything special like restrings, and houses, player strings, and so on are at reasonable prices based off of the GOLD, and QUEST POINTS that player earn through lame auto-questing, and general monster grinding.
5) PK animosity is generally lower on these muds, so long as string reasonable rules of PK are in place, and they have proper people in place to enforce said rules.

Guess which of the two have an average of 20 pk players a day? Not us.

And actually, these same stipulations can be applied to non-pk aspects because the same result remains the same. Players are more independent, happy, and feel like they have more control over how they mold their characters (ESPECIALLY in RP enforced- PVE muds with a player average of 40+ logged on every day).

4D is a probably one of the purest diamonds amongst the MUD jewelery stores in my opinion. Why? Because we have the most unique zones, and quest system on the grid. Period. No two ways about it. We are the best....in that area. We focused more on Quests, and Zones and way less on our Players. PK is like that red headed bastard step-child that we choose to only refer to as "It", and force it to sleep in the 500 year old pantry below the stairs where we can keep it out of sight...but when it get's hungry we have to at least ACKNOWLEDGE it, but nothing more. That is PK.

Poison? Keep it, but get rid of 2-4. Regular poison is fine, and less complicated. Remove antidote, and just plain call them cure poison.
PK? I like LH's idea on the subject. I think it creates simple anti-rage atmosphere where all can just plain go after each other, and whatever. My only concern is risk factor, because I like risk- but I've always hated 4D's version of risk. Way too one-sided.

[Kvetch]

I got down to this line and stopped reading:

-All players that reach level 100 are forced by the code into PK

I will never support any system that forces players to go PK.

[Leonardo]

I will never support any system that forces players to go PK.

You can be attacked just once every hour, and you don't really die, your HP just stops at 10HP and you'll still be in the very same room you've been attacked.
All your discomfort would be that you have to heal yourself up.

Anyway it was just a suggestion, doesn't have to be absolutely like that. We're just discussing here, try to be constructive explaining why you wouldn't support a system like that instead of throwing a stubborn opinion.

[Asmodeus]

I think poison needs to stay.  If you want to rework some things to make it more user friendly, or whatever, that's fine.  Obviously the whole mud is in a stage where its being reworked.  But taking it out completely is just stupid.  Also, as others have pointed out to me, Fenizia is built around the idea of poison.  It would be very detrimental to this zone if poison were removed.

As for all this pk stuff, i'm in complete disagreement.  First, i have to take Kvetch's side and say i can't support a system that forces PK.  

As we have said on numerous occasions, 4D's golden egg is filled with exploration of expansive original zones with a lot of amazing quests.  How can you possibly hope to get players who are strictly non pking players if at some point they're forced into a pk situation?

Also, I think the idea of not forcing pk balances out the ACTUAL idea of pk pretty nicely.  If you chose to go pk, you knew what you were getting yourself into.  You realized that you could be killed, junked, looted, etc etc.  In general, people don't do that stuff, but its always an option looming over your head.

Now, maybe an idea to talk about is some sort of life insurance (sort of like the insurance on DTs... thats another conversation)... where if you bought the insurance and you're pk'd, your body is there and can be scalped, but cant be junked, looted, etc.  Also, i like the idea where you cant be attacked for a time period so you can get your corpse without being harassed.

If you want to talk about adding perks to PK and make a pk point system work, i'm all for that.  But I am completely against changing pk into the forced and completely watered down version thats being discussed here.

[Kvetch]

I will never support any system that forces players to go PK.

You can be attacked just once every hour, and you don't really die, your HP just stops at 10HP and you'll still be in the very same room you've been attacked.
All your discomfort would be that you have to heal yourself up.

Anyway it was just a suggestion, doesn't have to be absolutely like that. We're just discussing here, try to be constructive explaining why you wouldn't support a system like that instead of throwing a stubborn opinion.

Sorry, I didn't wish to bother the people that have heard my arguement time and time again.  I do not like anything that will involve taking the fun away from exploring any place.  As a mort, I like to explore and map.  I can not do that if I have to worry about being attacked (even every 1/2 hour).  I don't like the need to look over my shoulder every second of the game for players - not just mobs.  I visited a game once before where I wanted to explore the game to see what it was like.  Instead it took 10 minutes for some jerk to find me and kill me - not very enjoyable for me.  I bet they loved it though.  I know, level 100 gives you a chance to know what the game is like, but does that mean I have to some how figure out how to not level above 100 if I don't want to be pk?

[Leonardo]

Would you please stop speaking about forced PK as it is a feature that WILL definitely be in the new code?
It's a suggestion, remains a suggestion. The only reason it's been suggested is because if the code changes and you can't be looted nor die in a PK fight.
Not being PK means only you'll never have points to buy gear from the PK shop. The harassment is reduced to 1 fight per hour and no death.
Getting disturbed for a few seconds by a passing player is really such a nightmare during your exploring?

I wish I could go edit my first post and remove this damn PK thing :-P

[Tocharaeh]

sw33t, my post was ignored

[Waldo]

Keep poison, I mind getting poisoned when I had just started, was low level and tier, cant mind which tho. Anyhow, the panic! I was running all over the shop trying to get a cure, annoyed folks in recall with the spam caused by the poison, asking everyone about the cure.... It killed me in the end I think, or else I commited suicide. Maybe poison just sint fun if you have the antidote or your hp is so high the poison is meaningless.

Instead of removing it I'd say perhaps make it responsive to the tier/level of those infected so that it is a serious threat? Or just make the damage it does greater?

[horus]

So let me point out the current situation:-
* Poisoning any mob is useless. Trying to poison high level mobs is impossible.
* Poisoning any player is useless. Poisoning a newbie = go to recall and cure poison at the healer. Poisoning a high level player = oh, ow, gee that hurts my little loose skin hanging off my dried pinky.

There is no current situation that poison is useful in.

[Tocharaeh]

Then fix it.

Poison generally is supposed to do the following:

Lower strength by 10% or so
Lower Health/Mana Regen by set rate
Cause you to lose X amount of HP every tick.

NO SPELL or SKILL should be useless against ANY mob.

So here the the problem: We have a poison code nobody wants fix but would rather just erase it? Sounds lazy, and shoddy to me.

We need a maladictions table of spells:

Plague
Weaken
Confuse
Corrupt Armor
Poison
Slow
Blind

We currently have a shitty broken blind, and a poison nobody wants to fix, and other said spells (weaken, confuse, corrupt) that are useless.

If we put in this Malady table we can have a CURATIVE table, thus making priests and gypsyis very useful:

Cure Blind
Cure Sickness
Cure Poison
Holy Strength (Gypsy version: A Titan's Might)
Cancelation (removes slowness, confuse)
Mend Armor

For Cancelation you must target what you're trying to cancel:

c 'cancel' confuse

See? I just gave you a great table. Create simple items/potions for non casters, and give access to said spell groups to gypsy, esper, mage, and priest.


Thieves need their ORIGINAL HERBAL POISON BACK! This would be Poison 2-4. ALL should be curable! No item should automatically have anything greater than a poison 2 in my opinion. Poison 3 should be Thieve only skill that allows them to poison an unchanged (virgin) weapon without timer. Poison_4 should be a thief only poison and all weapons with this poison can only be used by thieves.

Poisons rate of damage should vary depending on their level: (dmg listed is purely example)

Poison_1 hits you for 3hp every tick.
Poison_2 hits you for 5hp every tick.
Poison_3 hits you for 10hp every tick.
Poison_4 hits you for 20hp every tick.

Each level of poison has a different timer.

Poison_1 lasts 20s
Poison_2 lasts 30s
Poison_3 lasts 40s
Poison_4 lasts 60s

Each level of poison has a different success rate when someone is trying to cure it. Poison_4 giving you only a 20% success rate to remove it, and so on.

And there is my 16 cents worth.
Just my 8 cents.

[horus]

Okies, the reason why I originally didnt post this topic on the forums is because I never had any intention of getting rid of poison. I did it just to tease Molly a little and since I never got any reaction from Molly, I did some small replies here. I am telling you this now because I finally got a huffy puffy Molly bearing down on me and it was fun to watch. Yes I am cruel, but I am Anus, hear me roar.

But I like the tangent topics on this thread. Keep the ideas going because I think I will implement some of your suggestions here.

PS: Poison will rock in the new system because, the poison administered will be based on the skill rank of the poisoner, and the success of curing it will be based on the curer's healing rank. So it becomes mighty important if you are skilled in either being the poisoner or the healer or both. And damn, would I love to see people running around like a headless chook finding a curer who's rank is high enough to get rid of their poison! (Yes yes, I am cruel...I thought I said that already)

[Tocharaeh]

I think a less abrasive PK system would be a good idea.

And as for poison- I feel like Anubis totally troll'd me

[Molly]

I think a less abrasive PK system would be a good idea.

And as for poison- I feel like Anubis totally troll'd me

I  agree with Toch about the PK system. We've lost more players in the past than the drama is worth, due to a few pkillers continuously acting like jerks.

As for the huffing and puffing part, I was actually aware of Anus' little game all along.
And if you don't believe that, ask Asmodeus, who contacted me a while ago about a plot to jerk Anubis chain a bit on the poison subject. 

As for the trolling part, we now have an inmpressing statistics of 2 major trolls on the 4D Staff.
(In case you didn't know, Fizban has a long standing reputation as a major Troll on the Mud Connector. Maybe we should send Anus there too?)