To GM or not to GM

[erwin]

If a failed steal attempt initiates combat there is no safety. Also the item would load on the mob, to steal more than one of the item the mob would still need to be killed eventually. Also why would you pick thief because they can avoid combat? That might get you the piece of eq, but last I checked experience points were deducted and not rewarded to the player when they fled from combat.

Wimpy can be set at 50 percent your hp, so there is still some form of safety, unless the mob is the kind that can kill you in one hit. Not sure what you mean by to steal more than one of the item, currently you can keep on stealing until the mob has nothing left. And as for fleeing from combat, I had the impression that most people kill difficult mobs by attacking, retreating/fleeing when HP gets low enough, heal up, and engage in combat again. The XP won by killing it is just a small fraction of the total amount lost.

[Fizban]

Not sure what you mean by to steal more than one of the item, currently you can keep on stealing until the mob has nothing left.

Items load on mobs when the mob loads, I can't rob the object wait 5 minutes then steal again unless the mob has since been killed, so in essence it's still not usually any easier to hoard the items than it is to just kill the mob.

[erwin]

On a side note, mobs shouldn't really be that 'immune' to directional spells if they are sentinel. Because I can use crossbows to lure sentinel mobs out, and they do track players.

I am assuming that the Bengal Tiger and Don Meataballa in Little Italy are sentinel mobs, because they have never tracked me before when engaging them in direct combat. They are 'immune' to directional spells, in the sense that firing directional spells at them will miss, and they will not track after such spells are fired. However, after firing a crossbow bolt, they come out of the room and attack, even to the extent of tracking you.

If spellcasting classes are able to 'run' about and fire spells at these mobs, that would further differentiate the classes.

[Leonardo]

I didn't read all the posts, they seem to say almost the same things and complicating up the environment.
I like to make things as simple as possible but not any simpler.
What I'd do is:
- Remove the GM Tier1 and Tier2 spells that they get from all classes.
- Leave the GM sign after title as a sign of global mastery and honor for the GM player.
- Leave the mastery bonuses for any specialized class.
- Add a few carefully CHOSEN spells like: cure critic, locate object, armor, bless, haste, shield and a few others that may help an old player that worked hard to be GM don't get annoyed while traveling the 4Dimensions just cause he's missing the basic spells and remove the overpowers like all the rest :-)

[Virisin]

Blehg.. Weakening GM just makes it boring. I'm not too worried about the strength of GM, it's just that any form of GM removes the differentiation from the game. If we leave all the mastery bonuses in, and leave some form of GM, we'll have exactly the same problem. Everyone will want to reach it, and there'll be no point changing anything.

[Leonardo]

Beside the fact that I didn't understand 'Blehg' I think you're being too absolutistic. It's a good thing that players aim at the GM status, it's a challenge that keep players playing and make them go through all our beautiful class and taste the work beside their beauty. Else why did the coders work so hard if nobody is playing anything else than Thief or Hunter. I'd leave the Mastery bonuses for willing to be GM players to achieve. I'd just remove the all classes spells that just screw all the balance up. I am very strong in this idea, you must come out with something more than a 'Blehg' to change it. Explain well what do you think and what would you do, and think about it in a 4Dimensions Mud Improvement way. Not just your personal way.

[Xeriuth]

To do a complete overhaul of GM and Tiers would most likely only be compensated by a pwipe. If there is no benefit at all from remorting, and only classes differentiate anything then it sucks greatly for people with tons of remorts... as if it dosn't suck already since you get nothing after GM, and that is the only thing worthwhile gained from remorting, other than the hp benefits up to 25 remorts and a very slight decrease in damage reduction up to 50 remorts. After that you get more mana and moves still (which begins to be meaningless because it's tough to run out unless poisoned)... and you end up just having greater costs to recover.
I'd recommend that if getting rid of GM's is desired, there has to be some backbone there to make people want to get out and level, but not be totally dependent on levelling to do quests, and quests to level easier. That way people can get the best of both worlds, in turn making 4d a more desireable place to be.  That's just my take on this.

[erwin]

While players can look to see GM as an achievement, I've only seen one player fighting mobs all the way to GM, during the last three months, and it seems that after he reached GM, he stopped playing. This is probably an isolated case, but it does deserve mention.

If GM were removed, would there have to be any difference in the xp required to level, as you can only have 4 tiers worth of skills/spells?

Hmm..perhaps instead of the quest machine showing easy quests, medium quests, difficult quests, perhaps group them by combat intensiveness instead. As a new player two years back, I sort of catapulted into a few quests with heavy combat intensiveness, got my ass kicked, and vowed to GM. Then after I GMed, I found the 'easy' quests with no combat intensiveness....

[Xeriuth]

But if the xp required per level was changed, What happens to people with tons of remorts? Would the extreme amount of xp required per level all the way up be then calculated out and we'd have like 160 remorts? I know that's a bit extreme, but my point is, for any real major changes you have to have just compensation for higher remorts and current GM's for example. Otherwise if there isn't just compensation we should have pwipe and have a whole new system in place. That'd be the only truly just thing, because once again everyone would start back on the same field once again, as we did 4-5 years back.
Maybe that's just how I see it?

[Fizban]

Odd that you, the person with the most remorts of anyone besides Alpha whom has one more remort than you seems to actually be suggesting a pwipe. I could be wrong, but I'd have expected you to be quite pissed off and quit if there were to be a pwipe...

[Xeriuth]

Nah, that's just the only thing that levels the playing field. EVERYONE then loses all their effort. But that is the only real solution I can see if we are talking a major overhaul. No matter high remorts are screwed unless getting high number of remorts has its benefit. So all in all someone needs to come up with a means to an end. Once that's figured out then a change should be made. But just saying lets get rid of GM because we want differentialness isn't a reaon. You have to think about all consequences and everything affected by it.

[Virisin]

It's a good thing that players aim at the GM status, it's a challenge that keep players playing and make them go through all our beautiful class and taste the work beside their beauty.

No, it's not a good thing.. I've stated why a hundred times in my posts. If everyone aims for GM, it takes all the fun out of the classes.. It means we have no real depth, and the whole tier system is pointless..

Else why did the coders work so hard if nobody is playing anything else than Thief or Hunter.

Everyone is playing only Thief and Hunter BECAUSE of GM.. They get all the cool skills/spells from other classes, and with them, Thief and Hunter become the strongest classes.. If you want people to like all the classes.. Removing GM is what we SHOULD do.

To do a complete overhaul of GM and Tiers would most likely only be compensated by a pwipe.

That's why my new plan is only removing GM, not making any enormous overhaul of tiers..

Also, yes, removing GM would mean increasing the exp taken to level. Because people would only generally remort 3 times. Maybe a couple more if they decided they wanted to try something different.

Geh to writing any more.. Silly ideas..

[Xeriuth]

You still haven't offered a proposal of what will happen to all GM's currently and everyone who has a lot of remorts.. meaning 32+ primarily.  Such as, will experience be redivided and suddenly we have an ungodly number of remorts. Or will there be any milemarkers for remorts like at such and such level you get this bonus or can pick from this list etc. Taking away GM and not leaving anything else up the air, while having many people only get to 3 remorts and people are stuck at 32+ with nothing to show for it seems a bit off to me...

Just making us have 8 different classes isnt going to set us apart from other muds with our class system, just make it a plain old one. With a change such as this I would also see the possibility of newer skills/spells to be learned. GM kind of set us apart a bit from other muds, but with this new skills/spells being taught on mobs, that just makes us more like Zephen/Once's mud. It's not unique. All we have going for us is our quests, which are fabulous, but that shouldn't be all we have.

Also since most classes will be different once again, bring back group levelling and exp divied up by the involvement or equally?  Grouping was very popular in old port and helped the pbase in my opinion.  I think that would help bring the community together as well make it a more fun place to be.  There should be no more soloing of hard zones like dark planet and prehistoric forest.... Also this does raise the question of power levelling being possible. But even in old port people weren't power levelled all the time, unless that is you count the grouping.  But grouping made levelling fun back that, instead of making it a chore as it is nowadays. Anyone agree?

With this, and the gold coins equation.  Harder zones with harder mobs that need to be grouped to be killed should obviously have the gold upped a bit or an equation taking into account how many party members there are.  Just a few thoughts.

[Virisin]

You still haven't offered a proposal of what will happen to all GM's currently and everyone who has a lot of remorts.. meaning 32+ primarily.  Such as, will experience be redivided and suddenly we have an ungodly number of remorts. Or will there be any milemarkers for remorts like at such and such level you get this bonus or can pick from this list etc. Taking away GM and not leaving anything else up the air, while having many people only get to 3 remorts and people are stuck at 32+ with nothing to show for it seems a bit off to me...

Just making us have 8 different classes isnt going to set us apart from other muds with our class system, just make it a plain old one. With a change such as this I would also see the possibility of newer skills/spells to be learned. GM kind of set us apart a bit from other muds, but with this new skills/spells being taught on mobs, that just makes us more like Zephen/Once's mud. It's not unique. All we have going for us is our quests, which are fabulous, but that shouldn't be all we have.

I'm still thinking about what would happen to GM's.. The most likely option in my own head is a pwipe. But I'm still thinking about it.

Ermm, I think having tiers and remorts already sets us apart from other muds, it's just that GM makes it seem just like any other constant levelling mud. If we were to bring in a change, that let us multi-class almost like the old code, or choose to specialise, that WOULD make us different. And it'd also allow for heaps of other cool features. Imagine a warrior with mage + priest + esper background. They'd have to wear melee and caster eq, a mix of the best of both sets of eq to be able to cast well, and fight well. It'd give us a hell of a lot more equipment variation, that's for sure.

We had quite a big discussion at recall about this yesterday, in comparison to the old code, this new code seems to just be a bigger, longer version of everything. I agree with you that grouping was fun on the old code, it was also fun only needing a couple of remorts to be able to be strong..

I will write more about the conclusions of the discussion after school.

[Xeriuth]

OooooO Pwipe??