4Dimensions Forum
General Category => Suggestions & Ideas => Topic started by: Grish on May 12, 2008, 12:08:42 pm
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First off, I want to say I do understand the logic behind spreading the trainers out. It should spark a bit of exploration, and something to break the tedious grind of leveling. Now, these by themselves are all good and well, but I have some issues with the system, maybe not the entire system but with bits and pieces of it.
(keep in mind this is from a new players point of view)
The first problem is especially playing a priest right now, the amount of skills and spells to train is overwhelming. Several zones I can not find, and some of the ones I do find, the trainer is hidden so well it would take a considerable amount of time and effort to find.
Now I am reaching tier 3, and soon to be tier 4 and not only have the skills/spells I need to train piled up (i am level 38 tier 3 and havent trained a single tier 3 spell) but now less and less information is being given i.e only name or dimension). This is going beyond the point of fun.
My idea of exploration isnt to be told my trainer is in prehistoric (which i hate) then being required to go to each and every single zone and either typing where <mobname> or needing to explore each and every zone looking for the trainer.
This is not a threat, but the way I feel... if at the end of tier 4 I feel exhausted just from finding trainers its likely I will just stay a 3 remorted priest forever, or just simply quit playing. I dont mind being forced to explore, but not knowing where to go or even the slightest for ALL skills and spells is a bit insane. I could understand if a few skills were elite and limited information was available, but come on... this is killing the game for an active player with limited (but growing) knowledge of the game.
I just feel it wont matter if i have 3 remorts or 40, finding these trainers all the time is not going to be even the least bit stimulating or enjoyable.
My suggestions to make the system more friendly would be:
List trainer name and zone for both tier 1 and 2, for tier 3 list only the zone, and the same for tier 4 except maybe a few exceptions list only the dimension or mobs name.
I mean in the end whats the difference, the power players can quickly run to the zones, or have log files of what npcs aer where, or even have immortals who might have mortals who have an unfair advantage. Just point being if you feel by tier 2 a player should explore the elven forest for a trainer whats the difference if you put a drow necromancer, or a drow necromancer - elven forest. You will be saving a lot of heart ache for inexperienced player by at least giving us a dartboard to throw darts at.
Can you imagine how long it will take me to find all my tier 3 trainers? Is that really the goal? I mean, if I got to level 50 - Tier 3 priest I bet I could spend over a week of 4-5 hours a day trying not only to find the zones, but the location of the trainers. I dont think that sounds like fun for anyone.
I feel strongly if you want to push the exploration issue, force the hand, but at least give us some more information!!!!
-Grish
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Priests already get far to many spells, you probably only need less than 10 on the whole list to be an efficient priest. I know when I was priest I probly only ever used a max of 5 spells.. The fact that you can't find trainers for all your priest spells is more to do with the fact that priest has like 3 pages of spells, twice as many as the other caster classes. If you find the spells you need, then you can carry on exploring at your own rate, finding trainers as you explore. Rather than going out of your way to find a trainer for something like clone, which is only helpful if you're a PKer anyway.
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I do agree, but again im a new and I havent tested the spells, for example I havent tested holy shout, chain lightning, earthquake soulsmash or lightning bolt because i dont want to hunt trainers. I dont have sense life, remove curse, sanctuary or heal, staple spells to me, again because trainer hunting is not fun. I would give more effort if I even had a clue to some of the prehistoric ones, but as I said, I hate that zone so just saying prehistoric suddenly makes killing mobs with out dated spells sounded funner than trainer hunting.
Chances are, I will get to the end of tier 3 and make one stomping around trying to find some trainers, find what I can and move on. It just isn't logical for me to try to go through 120 some odd zones or whatever hunting for trainers, it would be at least a little more efficient if i had some idea of what zone. Exploring a zone with a goal in mind is one thing, but needing to check all the zones in an entire dimension is a little difficult for a new player, and frustrating when you cant find zones in a closed lip society. Take the tower of Ta for example, I need to get there for a trainer, when I ask where the dwarven tunnels are (the map room says secret door there) its sealed lip, nobody will give any sort of hint or clue.
t3 and t4 are just have information withheld needlessly. So for me, I will have to do this t3/t4 stuff 16 times before I am a GM, once seems like plenty but 16 times? Or do I have to run spreadsheets and more paper documents to try to keep track of all this stuff just so I can play.
Who knows, maybe it will get better with time for me, but right now its leaving a pretty sour taste.
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Clone's only useful for PKers? Dang it, now you tell me. I worked so hard at training that up and now it's useless. Dang you, Viri. Dang you to.. umm.. someplace you wouldn't like. ;)
Kvetchy
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Trying to feel in Grish's situation I can understand him, feeling like a newbie trying to train my skills and having so much trouble to do it would kind of exhaust me.
Like Virisin says, he'd just train 10 skills to do the Priest remort and pass over, like I'd also do, probably even fewer skills. But then again, we already know the skills, we had the time to try and use them. A newbie may like to test them all too. He want's to see how Clone works, he'd like to walk with some of himself in his group for the fun of it, he might want the skill even if it's not useful; just to fulfill his curiosity. Someone spent time thinking, developping, creating and fixing those skills; might appreciate that someone uses them even if they are not the powerfull ones, not powerfull doesn't mean not good. You can build effective tactics with your skills and spells.
I strongly believe that every skill must have specified at least the zone where to find it, the dimension is a too vague information. For newbie is unuseful information, we don't have 5 zones per dimension, a dimension like Prehistoric is very vast, can really become a nightmare for a newbie to train his skills.
I believe that the Zone name is already a good challenge. If you wish to add difficulty to gather the skill, can consider to build little quests for the skills but please specify the zone name of where the skill can be found.
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Ok heres my point of view on Grish post, he is right, if i ware a newb i wouldnt find anything and sincerily i wouldn't even look for them as Virisin said you only need 10 of them to go on with the class, ok saying i am a new how do i know whitch i need and which i don't in the help file of the skill/spell it doesnt say hey you can train this only if you want, or dont train it it sucks you dont need it, and if its true that you need only 10 to go by then remove the others cause how he putted it it means the other skills/spells are not useful. I say its a bit hard maybe even for old players too now you say i need encircle that is a tier 4 skill, the help file tells me Medieval that will mean to check out every zone in the medieval dimension, it's that fun? i think not, and thats for an old player, tell a new one to find the trainer for encircle and i think he will be hard to find because its a verry good skill and its esential in a fight or in PK. After some time they will get bored to hunt down trainers and will just not use it, or how Grish said they will stop playing.
Thats my 50 cent and no i am not bitching just my point of view.
Robbye
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Well, him saying you only need 10 is a bit far fetched to, because as of right now I use at least that many buffs when I grind xp. They may have to many, and many many that are garbage but to compare a priest and a thief is hardley fair. t4 thief has how many skills to train? Here I will show you:
Tier: 4 - Lev: 10 - Skill or Spell: 'encircle'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 17 - Skill or Spell: 'grapple'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 26 - Skill or Spell: 'martial arts'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 29 - Skill or Spell: 'bladedance'
3 pretty important skills
Ok, here is t4 priest
Tier: 4 - Lev: 3 - Skill or Spell: 'group heal'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 9 - Skill or Spell: 'curse'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 12 - Skill or Spell: 'mind ice'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 15 - Skill or Spell: 'electric blast'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 16 - Skill or Spell: 'ice shield'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 20 - Skill or Spell: 'control weather'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 32 - Skill or Spell: 'demonshreak'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 50 - Skill or Spell: 'mana blast'
I dont know about you, but those look pretty useful to me without even pulling up the help file. And as Leonardo said its not just not wanting to get them because they are good, I enjoy getting the skills and spells and actually learning to play with them. I dont have the luxury of being a GM and already have playtested this stuff. If the spells are garbage then they should be removed, and not left in to give priests and or mages or gypsies or whoever skills that are junk just for the sake of making us waste time trying to find them.
Just remember, I may be the first to voice my opinion, but how many new people that come behind me are going to feel the same way, but not feel like speaking us, or even staying long enough to have an opinion to share the first time they cant find out how to train a skill.
My guess is there are reasons most games dont do it like this, and even the ones that insist on splitting them dont spread the skills so far and few. Either way, I am just trying to get some feedback out there since all the GMs and people that have been here since before the changes prolly wont mind much since geographicly they know how to navigate the mud.
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Either way, I am just trying to get some feedback out there since all the GMs and people that have been here since before the changes prolly wont mind much since geographicly they know how to navigate the mud.
Umm.. right. Let's just say that right now I'm glad I'm IMM and not mortal. This reminds me a lot of the zone flags that hardly anyone is trying to find. I love other games that you play that you have to search out so and so in such and such town but this isn't that sort of game. Having to track down a trainer both makes sense (in an RP/IC way) and is very time consuming even when you're given most of the information. I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.
Kvetchy
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I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.
Kvetchy
Are you serious? I mean does your reply really have any sense at all? What do you mean, that newbies should forget about their chars and use Gladiators to test skills?
First, Gladiators are not made to test skills and spells - you should focus on your char for that, I mean what's the point on having a char then, let's just all use the Gladiators.
Second, how many newbies do know that the Gladiators do even exist.
And Third, skills are a char personalization, I choose this race, these stats, this class, these skills and I train them and practice them and enjoy using them, on my char. This is the nice part of having a personal character to play.
You should give better hints for the skills to be trained and forget about having newbies switch to Gladiator chars to test skills and see what they'd like to train. They should be able to train whatever they please and enjoy it.
PS: Grish, your Thief vs Priest class skills compare doesn't make sense either, you forgot the precursor skills. I can't train encircle without backstab and melee as example, so it adds up for the Thief and even for the Priest.
Forget about the many skills you must have to do the remort as soon as possible, you should remort to Priest and enjoy the class and train all the skills you wish to explore and not just race to GM through it.
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Well precursor skills in this instance dont really make the argument either, since backstab can be trained by about 10 different people, and melee can be trained by many easy to find trainers (i found at least 2 or 3 melee trainers today).
It was just simply saying after playing a thief, t4 has 3 bread and butter skills, vs several for a priest. But yeah, you are hitting a good argument for me, as I am enjoying this character, I shouldnt have to only get the best 10 and move on. I may play differently than others and find certain spells deemed useless to actually have some merit. And tbh, I am enjoying this enough, if I actually stick around long enough to GM I might enjoy being a priest GM.
On a side note, ppl should review the thread located below about skill/spell distribution, quite a few people left feedback regarding this issue of trainer placement, and not overdoing it. Also several people, including immortals said at the very least the zone/dimension should be included.
I mean, why does there have to be 50 trainers, and not just a few very specific npcs which could be class masters, and then a few rarer specialist npcs.
I guess as much as i try to understand the point, the more I think about it the less it makes sense. Who are you trying to get to explore? The players who sit idle all day? or the gms and elder players who have captured 70-80 zone flags, or is this supposed to target new players? No matter how you dice it, this global of a change to this severity doesnt make a lot of sense. It would have made more sense to dice the skills and spells up, list the zone/dimension, but split them up so over the course of going from level 1 to GM you would have had to hit every current zone in the game (or close to it).
/rant
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Trainers arn't like quests, you can ask people to help show you where the trainers are. And I don't care what LH says, but if you want to test skills/spells, use a gladiator. If you ever see me on, feel free to ask me to help you find a trainer, I'll do my best.
The feedback is good, and we might end up adding more to the helpfiles, depending on how things go.
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I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.
Kvetchy
I'm pretty sure she is indeed serious. In fact I agree with her, if you are wanting to know which skills/spells you need to find ask a player that is more experienced, or play a gladiator and test out the skills to see which you like the best.
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My 2 cents.
As a new player two years back, I only explored some parts of the mud, before settling down, grinded out some xp, GMed, and then started exploring the zones. Of course, if this was implemented back then, I guess I would go hunting them out.
But..maybe we can help players who ask questions like "Where is this trainer", by giving them more specific hints, like general area (NW medieval), or perhaps zone (Pirate Ship). Can promote player interaction as well.
Because well...quests are one thing, I'm okay with exploring / hunting through certain zones solving quests without asking other people because well, I have my class skills to rely on. Finding certain trainers could be difficult.
I'd say: Give more hints to players who want to know where the trainers are, unless the trainer is part of a questmob, then just give the rough location, as well as add in at character creation that caster type classes are for the more experienced mudders.
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I am actually positive to posting a list of most the trainers with their zone and Dimension for all skills and spells on both the Webpage and the Forum. Others may be against it, but I don't think we should hold back on the information, with a few exceptions. However, for some of the most powerful skills and spells, I still think that it's a good idea to make finding their Trainers a bit of a Quest in itself.
The idea behind the Trainer change is not really to have the new players rambling around aimlessly, just looking for mobs with a [T] in their name. The idea is that you'll have to leave Recall and travel to the place where they are located, which also hopefully would mean that you learn something on route, due to the travelling and exploring.
We have a very large and rich world. It's really sad that so many players never experience more than a very limited part of it, since they only grind-level in a few zones, or just decide in advance that they 'hate' a Dimension. How can you hate something that you haven't even seen?
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Yeah, originally I didn't want a list posted, but I have semi-changed my mind. I don't think ALL the information should be given out, but I can understand giving out at least a mob name for all skills/spells, and maybe a zone for most aswel.
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The forum topic on skill/stat distribution was started on Feb 25th and ended on Apr 22nd. Now, here it is just a few weeks later (May 13th) and the system is already implemented. I didn’t know I felt so strongly about this topic until it was implemented so quickly and I felt the reality of it. I realized in reading Grish’s feedback that I feel exactly the same way. And, like him, I will give it more of a try but also might just stay at my level when I get to T4, Level 50 (and make the decision to be resigned to not experience some of the more difficult, interesting areas of the game).
This is lengthy.
The people who get the raw end of this deal are the people who are new and the people who do not have all the free time to spend to exploring all of the zones in the game. Just saying a certain skill/spell is in a dimension to a new player is a lot of hard work for them to go explore. The game has over 150 zones.
The idea was to make more people go out and explore, and find trainers. This does not affect people who have been playing a long time or people who already have all the skills they want (and not going to level anymore). Even a few of the older players who just log on to have some fun have said they won’t be remorting anymore because they don’t have the time to go out and search all the zones for certain spells or skills.
The new system gives an unfair advantage to the new player versus the older high level player. The older player just put time into levelling their character but now the newer player, from the beginning are the ones who have to go search and find these skills and spells. It hinders new players/people with little time, and makes leveling harder than it needs to be.
It also harms people who are putting their time into helping improve the game, coders and builders. Being a builder or coder and trying to juggle your mortal character must be time consuming. Then, throwing in that you have to search for spells and skills in a whole dimension can be overwhelming. And Grish is right, even if you know the area, finding the way to an area is not so easy find and a quest in itself…and then you have to find the trainer.
If you ask me, more and more new players are going to think the same way as Grish and find it ridiculous to try to find these new trainers and have one more thing to keep information on in the game. Putting at least the area of the dimension of the Tier 3 and 4 spells/skills is not something that’s going to harm the idea behind the new system.
You want players to explore and bring attention to older and dead zones. This will still do it and it will take some of the frustration off having to explore every area in a zone for that one trainer mob. I’m sure there are trainer mobs in and about every zone. So naming the zone area will bring attention to these zones and make people at least know they are in the right area and make it not so frustrating to the player.
Something else this training system does is hinder players is in questing. You already have to spend a lot of time questing, then to top it off some of the quest have hard mobs you have to defeat for some reason or another. But if you don’t have a good list of learned spells and skills it can make the quest frustrating because you just spent all that time finding the quest but now you can’t complete it because you are not strong enough. You shouldn’t have to know every zone and dimension like the back of your hand to be able to have the skills and spells you need to help them finish a quest. This is just going to make questing more frustrating too.
All in all the trainer idea is nice, but I thought the whole point was to get people to explore the zones and not to hinder them and make it more time consuming. Between questing and leveling - that right there is a lot of time to put into the game. Then, to throw exploring all of these zones to find the one mob that teaches the spell or skill you are looking for just makes it more time consuming. The game is supposed to be fun, not something that is going to aggravate you.
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Just one brief comment.
There have been a few suggestions that if you want to know what a skill/spell does then to try a gladiator. Well, it's not that simple.
I tried playtesting a gladiator and my gladiator was a different class than I knew. It wasn't so much fun because I didn't know how to use the skills or spells in that class. So I spent most of my time trying to understand the skill rather than trying fighting strategies.
My understanding of gladiator, is so players can have a good, fun fight regardless of what level they are in the game. But it isn't fun or a fair fight if you are trying to learn the skills at the same time, and the other person knows the skills. And with this new system, it'll take forever to learn the skills/spells.
Sometimes, I think you people are wanting the game to be more of a challenge than it is and forget that for newer players, this game is already a HUGE challenge. And that adding much tougher changes like mob-specific training is just a deterent. It's hard enough arriving in this game ...actually it's intimidating...half the people are GM or are imm alts. I love this game, for many reasons. I've been here regularly for just about a year, but it's starting to get too hard...out of my league.
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Guys, guys...
Let's not make things any more complicated, intimidating and dramatic than they really are.
There are hundreds of skulls and spells in 4D. As someone already pointed out, you don't need all of them to get along very nicely in the game, (unless you aim to be a top PK, in which case the extra edge of some top skills might make the difference. Which is exactly why those top skílls shouldn't be too easy to acquire). In fact, you don't even need some of them at all, since there are substitutes and players have different strategies and preferences when playing. How many of the skills that players have do you think they actually use?
In a way I am glad this discussion about the Trainers came up, since that gives me a chance to bring up a very common misunderstanding - people who think that the 'harder' zones are filled with high-level aggressive mobs that you 'have to' kill.
With very few exceptions this is not so. The only exceptions I can think of offhand are the three so called Uber Zones, (Prehistoric Forest, Dark Planet and Dragon Caves) and possibly also Troll Forest. And if you find any trainers at all in those zones they will be for very high Tier skills.
The rest of the 'harder' zones are 'hard' more in the meaning that they may be a bit tricky to get through, and require some brain work. They usually have more of the undisplayed portals and containers, some of them have tricky mazes, they may have hints buried in the listen/smell or look behind/under/above descs, and they generally have more and harder quests. This makes them more interesting, and more challenging to explore. But you don't have to be a GM, or even tier 4 to get through them - with some normal precaution you can play them quite comfortably as a tier 1, level 50 player, There are actually very few high level aggros in 4D, and the ones that exist are mostly sentinel and can easily be avoided. Quest mobs are generally high level or have a regen script, because we don't really want them to be killed by all and sundry, Quest mobs are meant to be talked to and interacted with, not killed.
Quest heavy zones, like Fenizia, the Egypt-Kush-Punt zones, Enchanted Lands, the Aegean Islands, the Alpha Centauri Planets etc. hardly have any aggro mobs at all, and if they do, these can generally be avoided just by using a vehicle. There are also strategy commands, like consider, flee or retreat, you can set your wimpy high, and even if you do occasionally get killed by a mob - come on, how big a deal is that with automeld and recover at your disposal?
Having to kill a high level questmob to get the reward is really more of an exception than a rule. And even so, the main challenge in the Quest is usually to just find that particular mob. If in the end the mob turns out to be a bit too tough for you at your current level, you've still done the main work, and can easily go back and finish the quest when you've gotten a bit stronger.
As for the Gladiators, what is wrong with using a session getting to understand the skills and spells of a new Class, rather than trying fighting strategies? Each time you learn from the experience, and in the end you may have found out things that might make you want to try a certain Class. And once you have got an understanding of how the different Classes work, you may start winning the fights. And even if you lose a Gladiator fight, what does it matter? It doesn't even harm the Gladiator, they cannot lose exp.
The reason we still left the Gladiators open, is mostly to give all players a chance to test the different Classes. So use them as much as you can while they are still open, because it won't last for ever.
And the reason why people stay at Recall or stop remorting instead of exploring and Questing is not that they need to be afraid to get killed, it's just because they are lazy.
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Lots of good comments here, and while Molly you do have some good points, those points pretty much go back to experienced player.
I have been playing for roughly 2 months now, and I cant or havent been to half of the zones you listed, and certainly wouldnt go out of my way to find a vehicle, let alone feel comfortable driving it once I found it.
The quest point is a great point, as I used to narrow in on a dimension and get a quest card and randomly go explore a new zone and try to quest, however since this system went in my only accomplishment has been to get the ali babba zone flag.
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As is the spells and skills were distributed in the range of the less extreme skills/spells on easy to get to mobs and the most extreme skills/spells on the hard to get to mobs. Already the difficulty of getting the skills/spells was set in place. By making the first tiers have more info than the last ones you are setting more of a greater curve on the difficulty of the last tiers, which is absurd. As it is every player has been able to train skills/spells easily and now it's more of a chore than it was before. Soo if it's a chore for those older players who won't remort now because of the inconvenience, this is a pretty big setback for newbies.... Simply give all names and zone names of every skill/spell in the game.
I mean if some players already have a master list why not just give a master list to everyone, the purpose behind doing this is still there. You tell the the exact name of the mob and zone and the person goes there??? Where's the harm in that? And as I said the difficulty of the mobs they are on is already set in place so I don't think there's much of an argument in place.
If you are then pointing out the fact that you wanted the harder to get spells/skills that are used by PK's to be very vague, just add new skills/spells that are PK only if that is an argument. That would promote PK and make it a challenge for them to find. That's only if that's what you're getting at.
And this really does hurt newbies badly again, because every newbie that will play the game in the long run will go straight to to Tier 4 remort and continue to GM as is, but going through Tier 4 is tough enough already havent them search very vaguely makes it even that much longer and more reasons to quit.
Grish is a pretty good player and if this is flustering him then it's really flustering other newbies and you can count on our playerbase not growing if that's the case. This is only an enjoyable feature currently for us older players not younger ones... that's just what I think about this.
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Okey, there seems to be a consensus that we should improve the info about where to find the Trainers, so I guess that's what we'll do then.
We can display the info in several ways.
First and foremost by posting full - (or almost full ) - lists on the website under Skills and Spells and on the Forum.
We might also add the lists on the walls of the Recall Trainer, or even make a separate room for Trainer info, since not all players read the Forums or homepage.
There is already pretty detailed info about it in Mud School, but it will have to be added to..
I think having full lists as helpfiles will be too spammy, but it's also something that we could consider.
Perhaps the mob names could be coded as an addition to skilllist, but I doubt it's possible
And I guess the helpfiles for the individual skills and spells will have to be worked over once again, which will not please Diandra, who already did a lot of work on them.
And, on that note - before we indulge in any more massive work, let's keep this thread running for a few more days, until we have decided exactly what info w want for each tier of skills and spells.
The Staff already has enough things to do, without having to do the work twice too.
So, let's see some concrete suggestions about how the info should be set up.
Finding the actual zones should not be too hard, since the Map Room has instructions about how to get to each zone in the game, and there are also maps on the Website..
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My opinion like i said would be:
T1-Dimension-Zone-Mobname
T2-Dimension-Zone-Mobname
T3-Zone-Mobname (most common with mobname, better skills w/out)
T4-Zone
T4 Could have a few elite skills with just the dimension
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Having both dimension and zone is a bit redundant. If you know the zone, you already know the dimension.
Also, as for new players vs old players. I suggested we should set all skills/spells on every player to 0% and then remove the cost of training for a week or so. Just to put everyone on a par, and then add the costs back. But some lazy oldbies slapped me.
I'm happy for a list of all skills/spells up to tier 3 to have their trainer name and zone listed, and for tier 4 skills/spells to have their zone listed. Now that I think about it, simply running about wildly in all of the zones looking for trainers is a bit odd. The fun in exploring can be knowing where you're trying to go, and going there.
Also, gladiators: there's a list of their passwords on the recall board I think, you should be able to choose whichever class you want.
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Oh yeah, another thing. I think since we've put a bit more emphasis on exploring over killing, we could lower the total exp tnl for players? Everything is so .. BIG .. atm. I'd like to see everything scaled down a bit, mob HP, mob damage, player damage, player HP, exp, gold.. A bit more realistic.
But yeah, for now, lowering the total exp tnl for everyone would be nice. Or at least making it a more square or cubic relationship. So it's much easier for lower remorts.
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I like Xeriuth’s idea of giving all the information (Dimension, Zone, mob name), especially as some people have the master list.
Lets take for example the spell ice shield which is taught by the Ice Queen on Bent Planet (This information might not be accurate, it was taken from one of the suggestions on the other post). And lets say it is a Tier 3 or 4 skill (that’s a guess for this example).
The way the system is now, the clue might be “the ice shield trainer is somewhere in the future dimension”. For the experienced player and GM’s that might be a fun challenge because they would know all the areas and know the trainers are in-character, so would probably be able to guess one or two mobs who it could be and go there and train. Sort of fun, not too frustrating or time consuming. And once there, they might have another look around the zone.
For the less experienced player, that information would be useless. It not only presents an insurmountable task to search every zone in the future, but you wouldn’t even know if it is a spell that is one of the ten useful spells for your class or not. If on the other hand, the clue was to see the Ice Queen on Bent Planet in the future that would be hard but obtainable. I didn’t even know there was a Bent Planet. At least it would seem like other quests in the game where you have a clue and a shooting chance to complete it. Having the trainer name and location would lead you to a new area, so you wouldn’t feel that it was time wasted. Then once you are there, you could explore and do the quests on Bent Planet.
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How about,
T1- Zone - Mobname
T2 - Zone - Mobname
T3 - Zone
T4 - Hints
I would say that the hints are more to encourage players to go to the map room and look for the zones, and maybe while they are doing so, decide to go to a new zone to level/explore/quest for a change. It's more psychological, I think.
Eg. If Ice Shield was on Bent Planet..
In a far away section of the Galaxy, where everything is warped and mishappen, lies a being which could teach you the locked secrets of ice magic.
Or if Necromunda was where a certain skill is
In a dying city where two rival gangs fight for dominance, and crime is rampant, where the populace are afraid to step out of the homes, there is only one man brave enough to grapple for his own victory. <insert skill here>
At least that would entice players to go look for the zones and maybe play about in them, instead of just saying Ice Queen in Bent Planet for Ice shield. There's nothing to further..draw the player to that zone.
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I don't like lowering the xp tnl.
For all the new players I've seen, when they get to a certain level, I always see this message.
A dock worker brags, "Hahaha <New Player>, I just pissed on your corpse."
That, or some such variant.
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How about this:
T1 - Zone - Mobname - Location*)
T2 - Zone - Mobname
T3 - Zone
T4 - Hints
*) The 'location' would be info like 'the city Olympia', 'the island Naxos', 'the planet Yudore', since some zones are really large. With the smaller zones obviously no location would be necessary.
I like Erwin's idea about hints. It means a lot of work coming up with and writing those hints, but perhaps we could get some help from the more active players there? Just send the hint suggestions to me, and I'll set up a file for them and probably reward you too.
And thinking about it, if the main object is to get people out exploring, giving the zone might be a good idea. Then people can go to the Map Room to get some directions about how to get to that particular zone. And hopefully find something of interest in it, apart from the Trainer they were looking for.
I still think it's a pity that so many of our best zones are rarely visited, because most people just stay in their old ruts, and then complain about grinding being boring. Of course it's boring, if you never even try to do something new. :P
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Good call. I reckon that works well.
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I feel almost ready to give up on this topic.
I still don't even understand what prompted the initiative to make this change and why it is a good idea or how it makes the game more fun. The old expression "if something's not broke, don't fix it" seems to apply here.
If the main objective is to get people out exploring...then I don't understand. New players and players working towards GM mostly are out exploring or trying to collect flags or levelling. The people sitting around at recall are GM's and heros who don't have to worry about finding all these new trainers because they have all their skills/spells.
If giving zone names for trainers is a reason to get people exploring at Tier 3, then why isn't it a good reason at Tier 4? I can see if you've remorted though 4 or 5 classes you probably should be expected to know the lands better. But if it is just your second remort class and you need tier 4 skills, you would be struggling with figuring out any "hints" at the map room.
This game should be fun, not like work.
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Well, it might just be me, but I think there are some players who would prefer to play/level till GM in just a few zones, and then spend the time after GMing questing and or exploring. While I was like that too (I spent my last two class remorts levelling up on dock workers and lunatics), I'm not sure how other players would think.
There will be players who give up half way due to the 'grinding' of the same mobs for xp, or those that manage to GM, but then lose interest because they don't know how to quest effectively. Or just reach GM, haven't seen the many zones that 4D has to offer and then leave.
I would think that this is the reason why the new system was implemented.
I do see your point Iwku, in that giving hints may lead to quite a lot of frustration to players whilst they figure it out in the map room. I'm also currently trying to find some trainers for my esper, and having a difficult time with some T3 spells, even though I'm a GM.
But, I'm thinking that as games go, there should be some 'element' of difficulty, and that difficulty shouldn't be restricted to 'level of player + eq versus level of mob'. Whether that difficulty should also include skill/spell hunting is the issue here, and at the current moment, I'd go for the hints at tier 4. For Tier 4 skills are somewhat "uber", so I'd say have hints, for these hints would narrow it down to maybe 1-2 zones.
Maybe other people that are levelling currently could give their opinions here, so that it'd be better for the imms to decide on how the directions to trainers should be presented.
*On second thought and might not even be related, how about something like a journal that updates itself each time you find a trainer or do something else? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the might and magic journals (at least, for MM6, MM7, MM8). It could update itself each time you type 'practice skills/practice spells' at a journal. So if you found Professor Botta, it would read Professor Botta teaches locate object or something. Useful if you find a mob that teaches a skill/spell you can't learn yet, since I noticed many T4 skills/spells trainers are with zones that have lower tier trainers too.
Journals could also extend to entering zones, or solving quests etc...
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Funny you should mention a journal...
I actually have a journal coded into the test port - many thanks to Mord who I believe made the original script somewhere and I did a copy/paste on it. It is a journal that you have to update yourself though, it doesn't update itself. My problem with the journal is that unless you know how to use it, it's very easy to get stuck in it. For example, I was testing it out and couldn't figure out why I couldn't save - ended up being the symbol used in the journal is ;s - much like when you do notes it's /s, but ; was also my parser so it was interferring. The reason I had the journal was for a prize for a quest, but with having so many problems with it (if anyone has read the newbie board in mudschool you know how irritating people can get trying to post messages on there and save them) I've hesitated to do so. If I knew enough about the journal code (like I said, I copied/pasted - thanks Mord), I'd switch out the symbol so it'd use / like notes do instead of ;.
As for this topic (as I know the journal thing was a bit offtopic) I think I'd rather do:
T1 - Zone - Mobname - Location
T2 - Zone - Mobname - Location
T3 - Zone - Mobname
T4 - Zone - (Hints - instead of zonename on the very uber skills)
or another thought for T4 would be:
T4 - Dimension (Hints instead of dimension name on the very uber skills)
Personally, if it were just hints on the T4 skills, I'd probably just try to get through T4 with the T3 and lower skills that I found and would be happy with any T4 skills that I happened to run across. Kinda like I think I may've been the only gypsy that never learned woodsing.
The only reason I have T1 and T2 skills the same is because you're really not a non-newbie until t3, IMO. At T2, you're still trying to figure zones out. But maybe it's just me and maybe it's because I insisted on really delving into the zones I happened upon. Of course, I'm trying to approach this from the point of view of someone that's not played the mud before. I mean, if you're a 20 remort T2, then you shouldn't need all the information that a 0 remort T2 does. I'd rather err on the side of giving a little too much information and keeping the game fun for newbies, but not selling the farm to keep the cow... er... something like that.
Another suggestion would be to maybe list in the helpfile of the skills/spells the ones that are only really good for PK. For example, clone (since that's one Virisin said) could say "only effective in a pk situation" or some such junk.
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T4 - Zone - (Hints - instead of zonename on the very uber skills)
or another thought for T4 would be:
T4 - Dimension (Hints instead of dimension name on the very uber skills)
Hmm. T4 - Dimension (Hints instead of dimension name on the very uber skills). This for T4 would be like the current hints now, though hints instead of dimension name somehow give more information than just the dimension.
But how about Dimension + Hints for T4 skills/spells?
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Oh, your hints must give more information than mine would. ;)
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Well, hints would help more than dimension.
I mean, if I was a mage looking for the fireball spell, and only the dimension, say, prehistoric was listed, i'd be looking for ALL the caster type mobs, in the offchance that *one* of them may just teach it.
But a hint would be more focused, hopefully..
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Tier 4 skills/spells are uber? I don't remotely see them being uber, uber things or good things are added as subskills and have a quest of some sort attached to them making them the hardest to find. Tier 4 is just a part of the class, making them exponentially more difficult by offering less information is simply absurd. I say keep Zone and Mobname, hence when they get to the zone they can type where mobname and see the roomname. This way all skills/spells are on the same page besides the fact some are in more difficult areas to get to and explore. Also there are tier 1 and 2 spells better than tier 3 and 4 spells, nothing about them being tier 4 makes them better, take mana and electric blast for example, they suck. Absurdly long timers ruin those spells and i'd much prefer cast magic missile or fireball or call lightning, if not that then shocking grasp.
All in all spells need a big overhaul and more skills could be added so a fighter or rogue dosn't just have to sit in combat and wait for the mob to die quaffing heals the whole battle or at most be able to start with backstab and use kick during it. Encircle behead and cleave are essential to the classes, it is what makes the class the class and making it that much harder to get boggles my mind and cheats them out of getting that new skill quicker and using it and having fun. Just like casters have a wide array of spells maybe melees should have several type s of things to use in combat, spice it up a bit? Also with this there could be the potential of initiating a type of chain system... perform these things in this order and get a special move. Just a thought, I've seen it once before and it was pretty impressive.
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The fact that spells are badly organised currently is no reason to not make a good change like this to prepare for the future. Spells ARE going to be reorganised, so are skills. Skills/spells are going through quite a big change atm, not just trainers.
Also, the fact that to be good at warrior/hunter/thief you need the 1 uber skill that class has to offer is ridiculous. Hence why we're going to make the classes more unique, and not have them rely on one skill/spell.
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Quote:
"There will be players who give up half way due to the 'grinding' of the same mobs for xp, or those that manage to GM, but then lose interest because they don't know how to quest effectively. Or just reach GM, haven't seen the many zones that 4D has to offer and then leave.
I would think that this is the reason why the new system was implemented."
So you think that the player who has the style of play of grinding the same mobs is going to leap at the chance to aimless run around the whole future dimension looking for one trainer, then the whole prehistoric for another and then around the whole of medieval for another? If that player was told to go to a certain zone and mob to get a skill, then there would be more chance that this player could find different mobs to grind.
And I don't see how aimlessly searching an entire dimension helps you learn to quest more effectively. I guess it could be argued that once you found the trainer mob that you might stay and do the quests. But the player who currently reaches GM and doesn't know how to quest effectively is not going to suddenly start doing quests because s/he is sent on a wild goose chance to find some random mob that is somewhere in an entire dimension.
As I've said before this new system is a nice idea, but it is more likely players will go out and see new places if they are given the zone and mob name. It doesn't have to be so difficult. Actually, it's not even difficult or challenging, it's just mostly time consuming and luck.
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Looking at how the trainers are spaced out, it seems that they are there for players to explore the zones, etc, find trainers. While the discussion continues, I have a suggestion.
How about when you find a trainer, say, maybe for fireball, practice it at least once, Mike (at recall), can further your instruction in fireball?
Some reasons, that players may not have enough gold to train till what level they desire, and that the mob may be be in a tedious to get through area (behind aggro mobs, that sort), load keys only on zone reset.
ICwise, it could be something like learning the techniques of fireball say, from Gojira, you trundle back to recall, show Mike the basics, Mike recovers a bit of his amensia, and is then able to teach you fireball all the way up to 80. Of course, for this 'convenience', maybe a bit more gold could be charged.
What do you all think?
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I like the idea, and here's something to support the idea as well as ease my boredom.
Intended For: Mob
Type: Command
Arg List: Practice
if %actor.skill(%arg%)%
if %actor.prac% < 1
say You have no practices.
halt
end
if %actor.gold% < 500000
say You can not afford the fee.
halt
end
nop %actor.prac(-1)%
nop %actor.gold(-500000)%
eval skill %actor.skill(%arg%)% + %random.3%
nop %actor.skillset("%arg%" %skill)%
%send% %actor% You feel more comfortable with your ability in %arg%.
else
say I can not help you increase your skill in a skill or spell that you do not already know.
end
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I like that idea a lot Erwin would make sense.
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Funny you should mention a journal...
I actually have a journal coded into the test port - many thanks to Mord who I believe made the original script somewhere and I did a copy/paste on it.
It was a script written by Aich on TBA. Mordecai then did a rewrite of it there to make it shorter and neater.
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Right then.. so *YAY* to Aich! (and Mord for the subsequent rewrite - what's with making these things shorter and neater?)