4Dimensions Forum
General Category => Suggestions & Ideas => Topic started by: Virisin on February 23, 2008, 11:57:13 pm
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Currently the race bonuses are slightly uneven I think. +10% damage is kinda better than +10 attack.. If we assume 10% damage = 10 points, 10 attack = 1 point (etc for evasion, and negatives) then here's how the races play out:
Centaur = 11 points + 100 speed
Dwarf = -5 points + 100 speed
Elf = -2.5 points + 150 speed
Faun = -16.5 points + 100 speed
Gringo = 0 points + 100 speed
Indian = 0 points + 100 speed
Martian = 0.5 points + 180 speed
Spacewolf = -15 points + 110 speed
Quite a difference you'll find..
Also, the character bonus subskills are kinda uneven aswel. +15% damage is by far the best, and you're only crippling your own character by choosing anything else..
That's all, let's hear what everyone has to say.
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Also, I remember from the old forum we talked about equipment balancing. I'm not sure if that ever got fixed but yeah.. Some races were better off eqwise.
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I think centaurs got more bonuses because they couldn't mount, since mounting gave such a huge advantage to most people, we tried to supe up the Centaur a bit.
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But.. Centaurs ARE mounted. That's a bonus.. Not needing to buy a mount, not being joustable.. etc.
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I think equipment slots need to be looked at. And if your gonna use that excuse for centaurs then the other remaining classes should least be checked to make sure they are balanced. If I remember right I could be wrong Spacewolves got the less damroll out of any class and from virisin chart they get the less there to.
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Diandra and me have been going through the top equipment, plus all the perzes made from it.
Next step is that all multiple wear_locs will be restricted, so that you only can wear one of the same item, regardless of whether it is perzed or not.
While this will take care of some of the race issues, (which were mostly founded on double wear_locs), I'm sure that some of you will be dissatisfied with the change. There will be compensations however. With the double wear_loc issue out of the way, more items can be set free for perzing. And those of you that have the same item perzed twice will of course get a free replacement for one of them.
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Ha I actually like that idea. It doesn't bother me for the fact I only wear one piece of double equipment and I don't mind switching it out.
but where do equipment with old stats fall under? Do they fall under a grandfather clause?
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Fizban, can you or Thotter update the code so that builders can give a list of vnums to an object that the object can't be worn with?
As in:
add a new vector called cant_wear_with to the object struct, of type obj_vnum.
Update the object OLC so that you get the menus and such that you can add vnums into the new variable.
Update the object save and load routine so that the values save and load.
and in act.item.c file, for equipping items, make it check the item you are about to wear that it can be worn with everything that is already being worn, and that everything being worn can be worn with the thing you are checking.
This will make diandra and molly's job of the no duplicate script much much easier and flexible.
It will also easily allow future builders to make equipment that might be better then normal equipment, but can't be work in conjunction with other listed items.
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Actually the solution we have settled on now, with just adding the vnum to the alias list of the original object and all its perzes, is pretty simple to adapt to the already existing scripts. It's also easy to adapt to all future top equipment, as a general Building policy.
So as much as I appreciate the thought, I don't see this code addition as high priority, especially since we are almost through with the change already. :)
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Actually the solution we have settled on now, with just adding the vnum to the alias list of the original object and all its perzes,
Well, that doesn't seem to change much at all technically except allowing you to: 'where 1901'
As now:
eval ring %actor.eq(3)%
eval ring2 %actor.eq(4)%
if %ring.name% /= 1901|| %ring2.name% /= 1901
return 0
%send% %actor% You cannot wear two of these at a time.
end
is possible, but still not actually any better than:
eval ring %actor.eq(3)%
eval ring2 %actor.eq(4)%
if %ring.vnum(1901)% || %ring2.vnum(1901)%
return 0
%send% %actor% You cannot wear two of these at a time.
end
which is actually shorter.
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is possible, but still not actually any better than:
eval ring %actor.eq(3)%
eval ring2 %actor.eq(4)%
if %ring.vnum(1901)% || %ring2.vnum(1901)%
return 0
%send% %actor% You cannot wear two of these at a time.
end
which is actually shorter.
Yeah, but can't be applied to perzes.
A perze (personalised item) is an item that is made identicle to another item in the game, but has different cosmetic changes.
Players buy them using tokens.
What they want to restrict is that a player uses both the perzed item and the unperzed item at the same time, since both items will have a different vnum, but are meant to be for the player, the same item.
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What about raising the max cha?? Make like 200 cha how 100 cha is now. Its too easy to find cha equipment.
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What they want to restrict is that a player uses both the perzed item and the unperzed item at the same time, since both items will have a different vnum, but are meant to be for the player, the same item.
Nod, just not sure how exactly having their vnum in the name allows you to do anything that checking for vnum didn't.
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Another thing that I remember being an issue in the old Forums has been changed:
The braided tussles in Seti tomb can now be worn by all races with a tail.
They still only load for centaurs though, I am not sure if that should be changed, since the other races might prefer the sandals.
The only reason why the tail ornament was created in the first place was because Centaurs have double feet. With this new double wear_loc restrict this is no longer a problem.
You will not be able either to wear the sandals twice, or to wear the tussles together with the sandals.
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On the other forum we went through the best sets of eq for all classes.. To properly balance eq we'll have to do it again to make sure we get it right. But the difference between 90 and 95 damroll isn't as much as the difference between the current race benefits.. So I think that's what we should worry about first.
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Why not give the option of what you want. Either the tail or the Feet. Like the henna hand tattoo/horns.
Like for instance Im not even bothering to do Setis because I would get the sandals and my Achilles heel is better then the sandal. But im not sure whats the stat is on the tail but the only other quest item for a tail is martins holy armor. Which is a 3damroll 3hitroll item.
I would actually do setis If I could get the tussle instead. but if not then I wont ever bother with it. Be a waste of my time.
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I would actually do setis If I could get the tussle instead. but if not then I wont ever bother with it. Be a waste of my time.
That's a very sad excuse for not doing a quest. But I guess that's how the majority of you guys reason.
I see two possible solutions. Either I make the tussles load instead of the sandals for all the races that have a tail. Or I make an 'exchange' script for the sandals, which would substitute them for the tussles on demand.
Neither is exactly IC, but obviously that is not something that would bother you, since all that seems to matter is stats. Makes me wonder why we even waste our time trying to make the quests interesting.
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I'm pretty sure we don't need to worry about seti and tussles. I seem to remember that after you made them not wearable at the same time, the only race that was missing out on stats was Spacewolf.. Having 3, 3, 5, as damroll for their extra slots, whereas all the other races have 3, 5, 5..
And yeah, that is a dumb excuse for not doing the quest.. That's either the hardest or second hardest quest in the game. You sure the reason you havn't done isn't simply because you can't? ;D
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Actually it being one of the hardest quests in the game why would I want to waste my time doing it for getting a reward thats not worth my time and effort. Sorry I dont find it fun wasting 4+ hours if not more searching around and gaining nothing in the end. I do quests all the time for easier equipment thats no use to me but they are easy quests im not gonna bother with one of the hardest in game for nothing.
Give me tussels and Ill do it
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Isn't the point of the quest to have fun with the prize just as an added perk? Otherwise I don't see the point of scripting quests at all. Especially as technically IC-wise your character shouldn't even know the prize of the quest until after doing it.
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yeah well IC wise people talk about quest stuff and it gets around to what the rewards are.
Questing for fun? Ive never really found questing to be fun. Its more like work to me with just a prize for completing the work. But why do the work if the prize is int worth it. I think the quests are great just because its something you don't see in every mud. But it doesn't mean I get all happy and excited when I go quest. Theres other quests that I need to do and rather spend time on doing because the reward will be worth putting my time into it.
Ill more then likely finish that quest one day but ill never sit down and put all my effort into figuring it out. I might try here and then and look for new stuff, but I wont put as much time into it as I have on my other equipment that is of value to me.
I don't see why its hard to understand why waste valuable time on a HARD quest for a reward I cant use. Dont get me wrong I think a lot of the zones are well designed and most quests are well designed expect for Mother goose. But not everyone just enjoys doing a quest for the sake of doing it. Hard quests are time consuming and I want a reward I can use for my time.
And why should space wolves get the short end of the stick. We already have the short end of the stick when it comes to race bonuses. Space wolves are suppose to be a melee race and they are one of the worst races to choose from.
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I do quests because they, well, are fun to do, and there's this feeling of getting closer everytime. You don't need good equipment as a reward, but rather the sense that you're close to accomplishing something.
For example, Victorian England. I spent a lot of time there figuring out how to do the main quest, and when I finally completed it, there's this sense of achievement. Quest rewards are a nice perk, yes, but that shouldn't be the main objective of completing a quest.
But perhaps for these 'harder quests', maybe a 'token' reward (pun not intended) as well as equipment for those who solely quest for stats / rewards?
(I admit I don't know about the Seti Quest, but I haven't really poked about pre-historic much)
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I do quests because they, well, are fun to do, and there's this feeling of getting closer everytime. You don't need good equipment as a reward, but rather the sense that you're close to accomplishing something.
For example, Victorian England. I spent a lot of time there figuring out how to do the main quest, and when I finally completed it, there's this sense of achievement. Quest rewards are a nice perk, yes, but that shouldn't be the main objective of completing a quest.
That's more or less how I also feel. If players only want to do a quest for a prize then there's something wrong with the quest.
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I'd think I'll post on the other side of the coin, under which circumstances I'll avoid a quest unless there's a very good reason for me to do so.
I can think of three examples in which this happens.
1. Collect an arbitarily large number of items. 10 is okay. 100, or 200 would be effectively grinding at mobs / repop locations.
2. Placing a lot of emphasis on high random drops. Maybe you need Item A, B, C, D for this quest, but they are all random drops with a low chance of happening. Completing this quest would also be grinding at mobs, with some emphasis on luck as well.
3. A large number of DTs. (debatable, I'm sure) This really isn't a problem here, as DTs are clearly highlighted. But if I'm doing a quest, and every other room I walk into are DTs without any kind of warning, I'd be pretty pissed off.
Well, basically, these above types of quests have something in common. The player who spends more time playing will eventually solve this quest, regardless of whether he hacks and slashes his way through, or spend some time thinking about it.
*Edit. Come to think of it actually, 1 and 2 are just variants of the Questmaster kinds of quests. Issue you a quest to slay this mob or recover an item, and then get QP. After getting a certain number of QP, you could trade it in for equipment. But then QP would be equivalent to the 'number of items' to collect in 1, and the 'number of kills needed to get an item' in 2.
Perhaps it's just me, but I feel that if a quest doesn't let you exercise your brain cells a bit, I'll tend to skip it, unless I have nothing better to do, or the reward is kind of worth it. However, I don't think 4 Dimensions have these kind of quests :)
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yeah well IC wise people talk about quest stuff and it gets around to what the rewards are.
Questing for fun? Ive never really found questing to be fun. Its more like work to me with just a prize for completing the work. But why do the work if the prize is int worth it. I think the quests are great just because its something you don't see in every mud. But it doesn't mean I get all happy and excited when I go quest. Theres other quests that I need to do and rather spend time on doing because the reward will be worth putting my time into it.
Ill more then likely finish that quest one day but ill never sit down and put all my effort into figuring it out. I might try here and then and look for new stuff, but I wont put as much time into it as I have on my other equipment that is of value to me.
I don't see why its hard to understand why waste valuable time on a HARD quest for a reward I cant use. Dont get me wrong I think a lot of the zones are well designed and most quests are well designed expect for Mother goose. But not everyone just enjoys doing a quest for the sake of doing it. Hard quests are time consuming and I want a reward I can use for my time.
And that's why I dislike anyone asking me how good my eq is, or which zone it's from, and claiming it's 'legal' for me to tell them.. People should quest for the fun of it, not because they already know the reward.. I basically disagree with everything you just said. Don't take it personally.
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Let's get back on topic: Race balancing.
I think first of all, the races need to have their points equal out to 0, so they have strengths and weaknesses. And THEN we would go into eq balancing, but I'm almost certain all that needed changing to balance races eqwise was adding a 5dr scruff item. Could be wrong though, I may need to come up with full lists of all the best race gear.
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Yeah this isint a debate on why each person does a quest. Its a person own opionon and no one can aruge with him why he wants to do a quest for what reasons.
I never really liked the idea that certains races had certain attributes that make them better at a certain class then it would another. Id like to see it so a player could pick and choose from a set for what they want to be. But I dont know if everyone would agree on that. Actually Ive always disliked that in a mud, becuase I might want to be one race but i wont like the bonuses you get with it so ill be forced to choose another race.
Yes I remember all that was needed was a 5dr scruff item
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Essentially so you could pick an elf for RP reasons but still be able to configure your abilities more like a centaur? (aside from obvious things like an elf with hooves, but things that could be considered 'training'?)
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Exactly I mean who says an Elf is only good at magic, why cant they take the 15% melee damage if they wanted to other then magic?
I know quite of few mudders pick a race based on rp.
You could just devise a number of points then say so many attack points = so many bonus points etc, etc. Then just let everyone build their character the way the want to. It would let a character customize his character even more.
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I agree with that.. Bonuses based off race are kinda boring. I wouldn't mind a more in depth character customisation, but that'd be harder to code I think.
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New players don't often want to customise their character because they don't know what is going to be best for them when they start playing until they have played for a while.
What I probably should do is remove the bonuses all together from races and char creation, and have them available from say, worshiping a particular god, or being a certain alignment.
As in, something that you can choose to do when you are educated as to what is best for you.
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How about an in-depth character customization / bonus / worshipping a particular god / etc at the end of tier 4, L50?
That should be enough time for a new player to get acquainted with the mud, and decide what he/she wants. And if he/she decides that his/her bonus is bad..he can remort again till T4L50 and choose, but with some penalities of course.
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Bleh to bonuses at the end of tier 4 level 50. I think Mord's idea = good. Worshiping a god somewhere, race gods to give you the benefits. ;D
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Ok, but when do new players get to decide? At level 50? Or by playing x number of hours?
Can they choose to worship a different god if they choose wrongly?
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I'd just add some altars to different race gods in the mud, much like the guilds now. You go there, you pray, you receive the bonus. If you pray to a different god, you swap bonuses.. Nothing so permanent, just a fun way to customise your character during the game, rather than on creation.
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I noticed no one said anything about Nanukimo's suggestion to increase Cha max. What do other people think about this? What would be a reasonable Max? I know it would be a pain to go through an tweak down all of the cha items in the game. Ideas or tell me to go burn :)
Prometheus.
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I kinda like mords idea about seeking out a god and praying to him but I'm not sure if I like the idea that you can go around swapping all the time. I think there should be some kind of penalty or make the character pay some kind of donation if they wish to switch to a differnt god to worhsip. You could have the penalty raise each time that you switch the god you worship.
On raising cha, it might be a pain in the but its so much easier to get caster equiment then it is melee equipment. Only bad thing about raising cha is there is not enough quests out there that give cha equipment. I know there is some zones in production that are going to be offering caster equipment.
But I think if you take some of the harder to get caster equipment and the few quests that give cha equipment and raise their cha, then raise the ammount of cha you get from devine mind. Just make 150 or 200 cha work how 100 cha does now. Its kinda ridciolous to see casters get the best cha equipment so easily when its a total 360 on melee equipment.
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Perhaps we should see what's the max cha we can get with the best eq nowadays, and base it on that? I would guess it's around 4-5 cha for each slot, but I might be wrong.
However, I'm not sure how casters and non casters stand.
The way I see it, cha is capped. So if you got perhaps +5 cha equipment for each slot, you could hit 100 cha easily, and max out your casting potential.
But DR isn't capped (technically it is, capped at the very best eq).
If the situation as it stands now, casters are much better (read: overpowered) than melee classes (in terms of overall ability), by all means, raise the max cha vastly and have that maxed amount have the same effect as 100 cha.
But if melee classes are much better (read: overpowered) than caster classes, increase cha to 150 or 200, but leave damage formulaes unchanged.
But if they are roughly the same, then raise the max cha to the highest available cha possible via equipment, then have that maxed amount have the same effect as 100 cha.
For the above three situations, I'm assuming that the classes are decked out in their best eq, maxing their CHA / DR (and relevant stats) respectively.
The altar idea sounds fun though. Much better than the race bonus at the start.
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I don't like caps on anything, but currently casters are strong enough, so if you were to remove the cap, you'd have to change the forumla so cha had slightly less effect. So in the end it'd just weaken new casters..
I kinda like mords idea about seeking out a god and praying to him but I'm not sure if I like the idea that you can go around swapping all the time. I think there should be some kind of penalty or make the character pay some kind of donation if they wish to switch to a differnt god to worhsip. You could have the penalty raise each time that you switch the god you worship.
I just don't want to see it becoming too annoying to change your bonuses, because some bonuses might be better with certain classes..
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The altar idea isn't bad, but to make it still less of a try each out for a zone or two and/or change for the situation I'd make it be free to worship a god, but some sort of loss when changing from one god to another.
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Yeh, I agree.
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New casters might get weakened slightly ; I spent my first three classes (Priest, Mage, Esper) with base CHA, and warrior hunter with minimal DR.
Shouldn't really affect much, really.
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I agree with the altar thingy.. and.. I want an altar. *mwahahaha* WORSHIP ME OR DIE!!!!!!
Thank you,
Kvetch
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I was actually thinking of more generic deities than Molly, Me and Shorty.
More like, dimensionally themed 'god's.
Perhaps in the future:
-space allegiance's
Medieval:
-Become a Knight, or a Barron
Prehistoric:
-Any number of actual gods.
Wild west:
-Deputy
-worshiper of Yocahu (the Native American supreme Creator)
Something along those lines, I think Molly will like this idea.
I can see her thoughts racing already.
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So not necessarily a god so much as something that one may religiously swear fealty to. (ie, knights, baron, deputys aren't gods, but that doesn't mean they can't have a religious following)
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I was actually thinking of more generic deities than Molly, Me and Shorty.
More like, dimensionally themed 'god's.
Perhaps in the future:
-space allegiance's
Medieval:
-Become a Knight, or a Barron
Prehistoric:
-Any number of actual gods.
Wild west:
-Deputy
-worshiper of Yocahu (the Native American supreme Creator)
Something along those lines, I think Molly will like this idea.
I can see her thoughts racing already.
Yeah, that's what I thought aswel. And it would be easy to start being faithful to them to aquire the bonus, but there'd be some sort of penalty to switch to another whatever.
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I'd make the Deity of Medieval some kind of religious order for the Crusaders, for instance the Temple Knights, which did exist. Possibly we could also have some Muslim ordery, (not Allah or Mohammed directly, since that might offend real Muslims), but something historic, maybe Follower of Saladdin. And possibly you could worship the devil too.
You could also choose to follow any of the existing Barons and Knights as a Squire, (like Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad or the Robber Baron).
In Pre, we could just use the existing Greek and Egypt Gods - all of them already have their temples and properties, so that would be an easy adaption. There are both good and bad deities to choose from, but most of them were a bit... ambiguous.
Old West, hmm... I think Cthulhu is a 19th century goth fantasy, if you want to go for evil. Or maybe Dracula or Mirkheim, for vampires.
The 'good' ones could just be common, god-fearing Republicans and follow the local preacher. :-P
Otherwise the deputy/sheriff, versus outlaws idea works fine for me. You could for instance follow the Wild Bunch in Hole in the Wall, or any of the existing marshals. (i actually had a quest for this planned in the past, that I never got around to implement.
And wasn't the Indian deity called Manitou?
Future I am not so sure about. Jedi and Dark Jedi would have the been natural choice, if we hadn't already got the DJ Clan.
We could of course invent some obscure local deities for various planets. The only one I know of so far is Herbie, on Yudore. I'd rather like him as a deity, he's a funny guy.
Or you could follow the Robert Young Space Cadets, I already have a quest for that in the making for other things. Then there could be a band of Space bandits, for the evil.
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I still want to see this topic on the front page.. I want races and characters to be balanced.
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We can come back to this once the Trainers are done.
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Yay.
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Here's my latest followup on races.
Points are based on the base race benefits, +10% damage = 10 points, +10 accuracy = 1 point. Same for -ves and evasion.
Centaur 11 points + 89 damroll + mount + riding
Martian 0.5 points + 90 damroll + aqualung
Gringo 0 points + 88 damroll
Indian 0 points + 88 damroll
Elf - 2.5 points + 88 damroll
Dwarf - 5 points + 88 damroll
Spacewolf - 5 points + 89 damroll
Faun - 16.5 points + 91 damroll
<worn on horns> 5 (martian, faun,
<worn on head> 4
<worn on face> 4
<worn over eyes> 3
<worn in right ear> 0
<worn in left ear> 0
<worn around neck> 4
<worn around scruff> 3 (spacewolf,
<worn over body> 3
<worn on back> 3
<used as crest> 5
<worn on arms> 4
<worn on right wrist> 5
<worn on left wrist> 4
<worn on hands> 5
<right finger> 3
<left finger> 3
<wield> 4
<secondary wield> 4
<held> 4
<shield> 3
<worn on tail> 5 (spacewolf, centaur, faun
<worn on hips> 3 (elf, faun, dwarf, gringo, indian, spacewolf
<worn about waist> 4
<worn on fore legs> 3
<worn on back legs> 3 (centaur,
<worn on right ankle> 4 (elf, dwarf, gringo, indian, martian
<worn on left ankle> 6 (elf, dwarf, gringo, indian, martian) (depends on what positions you choose to wear achilles heel on)
<worn on fore hooves> 6 (ditto)
<worn on hind hooves> 3 (centaur,
=107
Helpfiles/website files and stuff need updating now that races don't give default speed bonuses. But that's the current way I see it, I'm sure I've calculated my damroll totals wrong though somehow.. It's so hard to figure out with restrictions on achilles heel + tassles + sandals + perzes..