Messages

31

General Discussions / Re: The greatest and the dirtiest deeds

« on: February 20, 2011, 10:29:03 pm »

Balrog is bullshit, let's just keep it at that   Even with T4 hunter with 40 remorts, he still owns you in 1 hit.  If not for the wand of recall, he's basically impossible.

That koala quest.  The first time I was ever there, I completed it, along with a slew of other quests that gave useless rewards (yeah, you're not missing much).  I didn't keep notes, but nowadays I can't redo the quest either.

The zone was fun though, one of the few zones I did from start to end with zero outside help and with no idea what the reward was.  When I got the reward, I was basically thinking "isn't this one of the seriously cool items people parade around with? :O"  Unfortunately, this was one of the quests Exo went nuts on me, so it's probably partly my fault everyone ended up with one nowadays.

32

General Discussions / Re: The greatest and the dirtiest deeds

« on: November 15, 2010, 12:20:19 am »

I got 1 slight hint from Exodus, while living together in a dump IRL, concerning the serp skin. I couldn't figure out why something kept happening after I did something to the lizard.

That was the very same hint he asked from me

33

General Discussions / Re: The greatest and the dirtiest deeds

« on: November 14, 2010, 05:57:14 am »

I'll be looking forward to your version, Viri

And Molly, sadly I don't think there were that many gossipy things that involved you I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not.  I can't think of any off the top of my head anyway, but that might be because I'm currently very very tired.

Well, since I posted, I might as well post a short one.



- There was a time when the bug and typo report files could be accessed via the old 4D website online.  Many players, including myself, browsed the bugs looking for anything that could be abused  (Un)fortunately, our efforts were not fruitful.

- It was during the above time that I made a report about a script that could essentially hand out infinity tokens.  That was also the fastest I've ever seen a bug get fixed.

- Tocharaeh, if you've ever wondered who it was, it was Once.  Just fyi.

- Shortly before I deleted my GM, I found a bug that could produce billions of gold.  I reported the bug, then proceeded to illegitly create 10 billion+ gold.  I never did get punished for that, even though I'm sure at least one of the imms knew.

- It wasn't Exodus, but me, who found out how to spy on the hero channel.  That doofus revealed it to the Molly in the middle of one of their arguments not even one day after I showed him.  Of course, he claimed to have found the glitch to prevent the imms from punishing me for not reporting the bug.  I never did get anything much out of it anyway, except that Mordecai likes to go golfing.

- Exodus did actually ask me for quest hints, for the very few quests I managed to do before him.  I learnt to be vague though, so no, he never did get straight answers from me.

34

General Discussions / The greatest and the dirtiest deeds

« on: November 13, 2010, 04:07:16 am »

You say, 'I want to make a thread just posting about all the dirty and great stuff I've ever achieved and done on 4D'

You say, 'I wonder if that's a good idea'


Asmodeus says, 'What are some highlights of this possible thread'

You say, 'Lots and lots of gossipy stuff about me or people I know'


Asmodeus rubs his chin thoughtfully and goes 'Hmmmm...'


Asmodeus says, 'i vote yes'


Asmodeus says, 'i'll back you up'

So yeah, this is gonna be as unorganized as possible.  Mostly on purpose, and mainly because I don't want to organize my thoughts.  It's really just a jumble of random drivel and nostalgic thoughts.  So point-form?  Yeah, point-form sounds good.




- Approximately a week after I started playing 4D, I got a public telling off from Mordecai to stop multi-playing.  His disconnected my alt which I was in the process of transferring some newbie zone quest item to turn in for a bronze token.

- I believe I was the 3rd person to achieve GM.  First and second were Karth and Malfestus, no idea who got it in what order.  I was the first to play GM as a caster and boy was it ridiculously overpowered back then.

- I think I was the first player to kill Gojira as a caster.  Killing Gojira isn't very much different than killing him nowadays, except he actually does kill you with encircle and there weren't as many neat items back then (Exhibit A: Wand of Recall).  It took about 3-4 hours to kill him, and I even had to leave for dinner in between.  When he had less than 5% hp left, everyone got disconnected from the server for about 5 minutes.  Needless to say, I was ready to murder somebody (And I did, the mud didn't crash and I logged back in to finish off Gojira)

- Voltron used to be susceptible to ranged magical attacks.  I, along with a few others, used to kill him repeatedly with zero risk involved.

- Solana once caught me red-handed farming a silver token from her zone that wasn't an intended load.

- I've also farmed a certain treasure chest containing a silver token many many times.  So much that the key to it eventually got changed to purge_on_drop and timered.  Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't changed earlier since I'm sure other players have done the exact same thing.  (Cough, you know who you are)  Also, for any of the uninformed people wondering how unfair this chest is, rest assured the key also loads randomly in one of thousands of rooms?  I don't know.  It's just not easy.

- I was "caught" botting lumberjacking trees when logs used to pay in tokens.  Apparently, it counts as botting as long as you have a trigger.  It doesn't matter if you're actually at the computer and watching the invis imm playing with your triggers with echos and immediately asking what they wanted.

- My lifetime token count among all my characters, I've ever created...  Well, I can't give an accurate amount, but a guesstimate would be nearly 90 gold tokens.  My first (new code) character contributed to about 34 of those.  My actual first character on the old code achieved 1 gold token.  Almost all from farming.

- I once encountered a bug where you can turn in the same farming product several times for multiple rewards.  I gossiped about the bug and Mordecai promptly forced me to drop everything and then froze me.

- My first meeting with Virisin went something like this (liberties taken with conversation where necessary)

Me: What are bronze tokens for
Io: I'll pay you 1 mil coins for it
Everyone: newbie, you're getting ripped off bad
Io: He needs the money more than the token
Me: Yeah okay

- My first impression of Rayne went something like this (same as above)

(Mud crashes, everyone reconnects)
Rayne: Sorry everyone, that was my fault
Me: Lol, you just killed all my elementals, you owe me some new ones
Rayne: Shut the hell up, I don't owe you anything
Darkwolf: Rayne, leave the poor newbie alone

Conclusion: Mudding is SRS BZNZ

- My first impression of Kita went something like this (once again, the same as above)

Exodus does some emote
Me, doing the same thing
Someone else, also doing the same thing
Kita: Stop it guys, it's getting annoying
Exodus continues bleeding colors via emote
Me, doing the same thing
Someone else, also being an annoying douchebag
Kita leaves west.

Exodus: I'm honestly surprised she didn't leave earlier

I'm glad you don't hold grudges Kita   That or you have a very poor memory.

- Back on the old code, I used to make level 1 alts, go link-dead with them but group them with my main character and fight stuff.  I'd get a massive exp bonus for having a large group, and apparently nobody detected that I ever did this.

- The first clan I ever tried to join was Dark-Jedi.  Lionheart turned me down because I wasn't experienced enough.  I made some cheesy comment about not giving up and trying later and he apparently liked my attitude.  I later joined Vikings.

- I'm personally quite proud of myself for solving some of the hardest quests in 4D with zero help from anybody, including Fenizia main quest, Rainbow Serpent Skin, Nala's collar, and Seti's main quest.  Quests I'm not so proud of (cough) includes VE main quest, suntan quest, and Snow White's quest.




I think that's enough for one night.  I'll post more when I feel like it.  Possibly never.

35

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: GM Skills

« on: August 19, 2010, 02:34:25 am »

GM caster with brace was overpowered.  Actually so was GM rogue with brace, phase, and dodge.  Pretty sure Virisin would have something to say about this too, since I thiiiiink he was the one who advocated the change. I actually don't remember if he was.  I just remember him talking about mana shield being overpowered as a GM skill a long long time ago.



As for parry, that one is news to me.  Then again, I hardly played any GM rogues.

36

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Player Wipe (PWipe)

« on: November 12, 2009, 11:17:12 pm »

Cuz everyone worried about losing their stuff is playing the game so much amirite?

37

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Player Wipe (PWipe)

« on: November 12, 2009, 04:05:39 am »

I've got a genious solution.  Make a new port where all the new content goes, discontinue support on the old port, allow people to play both simultaneously.  (Also don't call it a pwipe, that way people would totally be tricked into playing on a new system)

I think people are just scared they'll lose the legacy or footprint they have in the mud, which is fine, because not everyone is eager to replay the mud again.  I'm sure more than a few people never seriously picked up the mud during the old code change, and many of them have either been forgotten or left as only a statue in the HoF.  If their character is still intact somewhere, even if they have to play on a new base, I think they'll be okay.

38

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Player Wipe (PWipe)

« on: November 10, 2009, 05:13:45 am »

Just keep the house and perzes intact, and close off any exits from houses to the zones they're currently connected to so you don't have to remake them when you want to buy them again.  So many people only have houses nowadays because it was so easy to get tokens a while back, and owning a house doesn't have any real significance behind it anymore.

Ask yourself, do you really want to be a statistic on 4D, as one of several dozens of homeowners, or do you have what it takes to earn it back from a blank slate?

39

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Clans

« on: November 10, 2009, 04:37:33 am »

Just be sure to make all the extras purchasable clan options, so that you're actually risking something by having the deed taken away by someone else (which obviously loses all your options on the clan deed).  This could be balanced by tweaking the rarity of the clan deed actually loading.

40

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Suggestion to QEQ stndardization, and power balancing.

« on: May 23, 2009, 02:00:07 am »

While I have nothing against your pushing for a standardization/balancing of 4D eq, I do have a bone to pick with your main reasoning of your post.



Gojira isn't really THAT hard.  Sure it takes a lot of time, but as long as your can tank it, and can use a skill like behead or encircle, it's just brain-dead grinding until it dies (Gojira, not my brain, but I'm sure it works both ways)

Me and Horus both killed it twice each recently, I took about one hour and one death each try, and Horus only repeating it so he can prove he can kill Gojira without dying.  I am a T4 hunter with 11 remorts, with only warrior and ranger mastery bonus, so no, it's not that tough at all.


As for better eq than Gojira's, I'm going to assume you are talking about the silver topped cane, which I'm going to refute in 3 ways:

1) Gojira still drops the cosmic string.  No other item gives more than 4 DR on a wrist slot.  Cosmic string is 5.
2) Gojira's odd stone is actually maxloaded.  No other player can get the stone anymore, and for a long time now.
3) VE's silver topped cane requires you to complete no less than 3 separate quests, ranging from medium to hard.  I would say hands down, the set of VE quests are harder to do than getting to a point you can kill Gojira.



While I do agree with your point that new and incoming eq shouldn't be a contest to constantly outdo other zones in terms of stats, some eq ARE actually deserving of the stats put on them.

(Warning, long rant incoming)
I personally think the main problem is if people are sharing quest info for the more powerful quest equipment; it really hurts the entire mud in the long run.  To anyone who have been digging around for quest info, I would STRONGLY discourage you to continue down that lane.  Not only are you hurting your own experience in the mud, but also the builder who spent monthes and monthes of effort to make it enjoyable to quest in, every player who had to explore and do their quests via their own efforts, and even players who haven't done the quest themselves, because you have exerted no more effort than they have but you own an undeserving piece of equipment.  And if eventually EVERYONE in the mud owns a copy of that piece of quest eq, then what was the point of the quest existing in the first place?  The only result of that is the equipment gets nerfed, the zone gets revamped and made more difficult, and everybody suffers.

And I normally don't mind talking about the quests, but if people are going to ask questions BEFORE they even attempt to solve it themselves, players are seriously going to get annoyed.  Questing can actually be *enjoyable*.  So *PLEASE*, take your time, go through the zones slowly, and play the mud yourself!

*deep breath*

Ok, sorry to derail your thread Toch, but I think it's a problem that's somewhat related to your request (good eq that's too easy to get, not because the quest is easy, but because people are digging for quest hints and ending up doing a quest not completely on their own).

41

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Damage based spells

« on: May 03, 2009, 10:57:26 pm »

Just a suggestion for Prom to put the multis for all the spells that need changing.  We can see which will need tweaks from there.

42

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Damage based spells

« on: May 01, 2009, 11:02:22 pm »

I thought I read somewhere the directional spells used a check to see if the mob can track back to player, and if no, you can't fire the directional spell?

43

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Damage based spells

« on: May 01, 2009, 10:23:18 pm »

Some suggestions:

electric spells:
Shocking grasp: Tone down the stormy and/or underwater bonus.
Call lightning: Change it back to a single-hit regular spell, make it generally best used during stormy weather
Lightning Bolt: Upgrade the underwater bonus, make it generally best used under water.
Chain lightning: Make it an area type spell.  Must be weaker in damage than the above, but gains slight bonuses during stormy weather/under water.
Electric Blast: Make it an area type spell where the damage is dependent on the enemies in the room.  One enemy = focus all damage on it.  Two enemies = damage is split among them, but there should be a slight bonus in damage, also dependent on the number of enemies, like 55% instead of 50%.


Fire spells:
Burning hands:  It's quite weak, but should really be similar to shocking grasp in terms of effectiveness.  So depending on how much shocking grasp is or isn't nerfed, burning hands might need a small boost too.
Fireball: Best spell at T1.  Should probably be increased to at least T2.
Flame arrow: Larger bonus from weather and day hours.  Perhaps even a higher base.  Should be better than fireball anyway.
Inferno: Make it an area type spell where the initial damage is heavily influenced by weather and day hours.  Causes the room to burst into flames, making the room gradually cause further damage to all entities in the room (even the caster, but please greatly reduce it for players).  However, the gradual damage can be prevented by effects like protection_from_fire, fire shield, and wearing a thermal protection item (Each gives a percent, maybe 25% from protection from fire, 25% from fire shield, and 50% from thermal protection).  Perhaps the duration of the effect depends on the stats of the caster (Maybe 1 second per dam-bonus, so up to 144 seconds with full stats?) and with no protection, mobs may take anywhere between 500-1000 damage per second.  It may sound like a lot, but on higher levels, like when this spell is available, a lot more damage can be done within the span of 1-2 seconds.


Ice spells:
Chill touch: Not sure if the slowness effect does much, but vs mobs, the effect is often unnoticable.  Perhaps up the damage a little, so it's not weaker than magic missile.
Cone of cold: Decent spell, but too good for a T1 spell.  Maybe increase the tier on this one (T3?), then create one in between this and chill touch where the effects aren't too strong.

There aren't too many ice spells, so here are some suggestions for new ones:
Ice needle: Damage boost during raining or stormy, but not so great underwater.  Low level spell (T1 or T2) with better damage in between chill touch and cone of cold.
Freeze ray: With my freeze ray, I will stop.  The world...   Just kidding obviously.
Snow storm: Area spell that gets bonuses from stormy weather, night hours, and mountainous terrain?  Tries to cause slowness on targets.


Water spells:
Acid arrow: Decent for late T2 spell.  Leave alone.

Suggestions for new spells:
Acid touch:  Perhaps another name than touch, since chill touch already uses it, but essentially a low level tier 1 spell for water types.  Should be in line with the chill touch, burning hands, shocking grasp spells.  Slightly bonused by raining/stormy or when underwater.
Acid rain: Higher tier spell (T3) that can only be cast when raining or stormy with a good multi.  Penalty when underwater.
Tidal wave: Area spell with bad affect on land, but strong affect in water?  Is there a room sector for beaches or a type of sector close to water?  Would be cool to be able to make it be able to check when there are adjacent water rooms, or if there is one at least X rooms away that bonuses the spell.

44

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Damage based spells

« on: May 01, 2009, 08:57:40 pm »

Ah right, another thing I wanted to add is the issue of timers.

I know a lot of higher tier spells have a timer on them, but it doesn't make sense to put a timer on offensive spells.  For a caster, not being able to cast a spell they invested in for 20-100 seconds between each cast makes it quite unusable.  Why should I cast them at all if I could pick some other spell with no restriction on it?

Then there's the issue with the alignment based spells.  I think it's a similar problem with drain blood, where because the alignment of a person is not static, it will cause these spells to never be useful.  My only chance is to find a zone of of mobs of a certain alignment, where I can use those spells and kill mobs that don't change my alignment, but honestly, how many alignment based zones are there in the mud intended for leveling?

I'd like to suggest timer removal on all offensive spells, unless they have a certain factor that would make them worth using (like a debuff of some sort, like causing blindness with mana blast or something).  Or perhaps make them able to start combat only, so you can only case them once per fight. Also, either make alignment spells more lenient or completely replace them with more elemental spells.



Oh yes, one thing I forgot in my last post was the directional spells.  Those are quite heavily nerfed at the moment (They do like 1/4 - 1/5 of the damage they normally do), so it's pretty much useless to cast them at all.  Why nerf it?  Just makes a potentially good spell into a bad one.

45

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Damage based spells

« on: May 01, 2009, 08:15:54 pm »

I'd actually like a broader range of elemental spells to choose from.

For example, electric spells, you have shocking grasp, call lightning, lightning bolt, and chain lightning.

Shocking grasp being available at T1 somehow is the strongest version out of all three.  Call lightning used to be decent, until Morde went and changed it to a buggyish version that hits everything in the room, causing them all to aggro you and gives a very long lag time, making it one of the worst choices you'd pick to use.  Lightning bolt, if I remember, was very weak compared to shocking grasp, even though it's only available at T3 priest.

I don't remember chain lightning being anything spectacular either (I used to play a GM priest and have experimented with it before).  I think it'd be okay to tone down the first spell, and give a vast improvement to the latter choices, even if it means changing call lightning back to a regular type of spell.


Another example is water types.  There is only one available, and that is acid arrow (Mage T2 level 50).  Mind water is also the weakest of the elemental boosts (by weakest, I mean it's available to all caster classes at the earliest point you start gaining mind spells), but the only water spell is quite unavailable.  Acid arrow itself isn't that weak, since it works well when raining/stormy on land, but there should be more choices, even weaker ones, to make water type spells more available.


I do agree, flame arrow is quite bad.  I haven't used it much before, so I had trained it up on my caster.  In every single case, a fireball had a higher multi than it.  Fireballs even do quite well when indoors, again, making one of the early choices the best ones.


I have more I want to write, but I have to head off now, so I'll post this for now, but will probably add more later.