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Post by Loudent2 on Jul 10, 2009 13:13:28 GMT -5
AC has always been king on this server, mostly because the only really meaningful value is kills/time.
I have been thinking about ways to mitigate the high value of AC and make lower AC playstyles viable.
Here's a thought that popped into my head. It's pretty easy to implement and might help, let me know what you think
I would introduce a new universal ability (probably make it a spirit stone ability) on a cooldown (say 30 sec - 1minute) and only usuable IN combat that would heal the player a value of: (50 - AC) * level.
This would constitute a personal full heal for those significantly below 50 AC with diminshing returns and no return after 50 ac. Only usuable IN combat and with a small cooldown.
thoughts?
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Post by ghostguest2a on Jul 10, 2009 13:52:48 GMT -5
Well, on the surface that sounds neat, but in reality it wont do much imho. Take for instance my Basher, Ftr 22, WM 7, has about 39 AC unbuffed and about 300 HP ( I'm doing this off the top of my head so the exact numbers may be different, but close). If he goes to Mirh, he can get hit for over 200 hp in a round if theres 3 archers there. And that don't take into account what any of those hyper active dual weilding swordsmen could do in addition, or those rooms where there are 6 or 7 archers plus swordsmen. Aint any better in Cazic Thule or the Forbidden Lands where ranged spells rain down on you, even the Battelfield at that level is impossibel solo for him. Epic Mirj and the Spiders dont yeild any loot or real exp after lev 25 and 22 respectively. So, He loses most his hp in 1 round, and say he useses this feat to get it all back, ok.. now how many rounds till he can use it again??? Not before he has to respawn. Now, while AC may be stated as King, it's realy the AC and AB,.... of the NPC monsters that is. You see, the reason why the Gish builds rule here is because they can buff themselves BOTH defensively and offensively. IF Bash and other noncaster builds could oneshot the monsters they might stand a chance with that feat,... maybe. But it turns out that if you can't buff your AC, you can't get a good enuff AB and damage to get past the monsters AC. So while you are getting tore up by the monsters, you aint doing squat to them. Thats just the way of a low magic ACTION server.
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Post by phariss on Jul 10, 2009 13:53:40 GMT -5
That would certainly allow for more playstyles. Its a nice concept for those of us that are relativly new to the game so that we can adjust to world where AC is so important. The last pw i played on dealt with this by making use of a "forge" in which you can enchant itmes to very high values at the cost of gold. Gold, which was very easy to attain.
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Post by Loudent2 on Jul 10, 2009 14:12:01 GMT -5
If you're getting hit for virtually all your HP in a round, there's nothing I can do that will help you. Unfortunately the auto-scaling tends to break down at higher levels.
When considering this ability I was actually looking at high damage, low defense type characters. i.e. those with the offensive power to take down monsters but, because of their lower defense unable to to really be able to get into a nice rythmn (e.g. barbarians, archers, dual wielders etc etc). I was also thinking mostly of the 1-20 game because most people run with pretty close to 50AC after that.
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Post by nicethugbert on Jul 10, 2009 14:35:19 GMT -5
Lou, NEAT! I think you're on a very fruitful path with this. It's just the start. You can make one thing of value contingent on another thing of value as a trade off, like haste or regen vs. AC. I think it's worth running this experiment and building on it. I don't think you should evaluate this strictly in reference to the current areas and mobs. Designing new ones to make this work is a useful idea. You can use an auto scaling mob inhabited areas to see which monsters players gravitate towards with these abilites. The key idea here is live experiment.
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Post by Kieron on Jul 10, 2009 15:04:28 GMT -5
I, too, like the concept. We just need to implement something, play test it "real-world" style and see what the outcome is.
Maybe a summon shield spirit shard ability that has a cool-down which gives a temp AC? Or temp HPs?
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Post by nicethugbert on Jul 10, 2009 15:16:31 GMT -5
I think an HP/Regen build would be interesting but it would require a custom mechanism to make it work. IIRC, the regen feats Kaedrin is going to include are epic requiring 25 con.
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Post by Loudent2 on Jul 10, 2009 15:26:21 GMT -5
"...Maybe a summon shield spirit shard ability that has a cool-down which gives a temp AC? Or temp HPs?..."
I think the Heroic Avatar ability already gives both of those. I've also long planeed a defensive version of Heroic avatar which includes more damage reduction, AC and regen
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Post by Beldar on Jul 10, 2009 15:32:14 GMT -5
I agree that something has to be done to help non-gish builds, but I tend to agree with Ghost on this. I normally prefer to play non-buffing characters, but they just aren't that useful here. I have, through sheer stubbornness, managed to level a melee build to 29 (he should hit 30 this weekend). He cannot go anywhere near Mirh. He is a DEX build so most of his 50 AC is purely fiction against archers (I consider this an engine bug). The ABs in Mirh are mostly hits against a 50 AC anyway. He also has no way of giving himself immunity to any of the damage dealt.
When he gets to 30, I'll post a comparison between his stats and my other 30 (buffing cleric). You'll see that he is inferior in every way. On a high magic world, this build is my most powerful character. Here he is reduced to grinding goblins in enchanted lands for 57 xp (and it will drop to 28 once I take level 29) or relying on help from buffing builds to farm Cazic Thule. He can't go into Mirh without dying.
The only way that he could be made competitive with a buffing build like my other 30 is by making LDoA into a high magic world. His buffed AB is around 10 points lower than the cleric's. His buffed AC is 19 lower. Even if I had his high magic gear, I would expect him to die in Mirh due to the DEXer v. archer engine flaw.
I am not saying that I necessarily want LDoA to be high magic, but in my experience higher magic worlds are open to more build types. I play rogues on high magic worlds. A rogue here is basically an exercise in frustration.
Another change that could be made that would at least help some builds would be to convert some of the opponent AC into dexterity and tumble AC. Those AC types go away when the opponent is sneak attacked.
Another whine for my fighter (which again relates to an engine bug I suspect): he gets sneak attacked by goblins in EL even when he has spotted them (he has a pretty high spot). I think they might be exploiting a HiPS bug. They do some action, I lose targeting on them, and they sneak attack me even though I can still see them. They aren't feinting (at least I never see any messages about it in the logs). My main complaint about this is that they have crippling strike (which seems to be a permanent effect - wiki says returns at the rate of 1 point per day, so if I waited 10 real time hours I could recover my strength), so I have to consume lots of lesser restoration potions.
The heroic avatar feat is sort of like this now, right? Temp AB and HP for sure. 48 minute cool down. I tend to only use it in boss fights, but there is no reason I couldn't use it in other situations.
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Post by Beldar on Jul 10, 2009 15:33:09 GMT -5
Heh, Lou posted the same thing as me while I was typing up my super long message .
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Post by Kieron on Jul 10, 2009 15:55:52 GMT -5
I understand that Heroic Avatar has similar functions to what I was saying. Let me clarify that I was merely addressing the AC aspect specifically. Perhaps a feat or SS ability that only addresses AC with a shorter cool-down timer is what would lend balance to the lower AC-type builds.
What's funny was that I thought a Sacred Fist would dominate here, but all-in-all he's relatively weak still at 20th. I'm working on a dual-wield dwarven defender at the moment. Hoping to somehow forge a build that combines high AB and AC with minimal / no buffing and see what the final version looks like.
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Post by ghostguest2a on Jul 10, 2009 16:23:39 GMT -5
Quote: "When considering this ability I was actually looking at high damage, low defense type characters. i.e. those with the offensive power to take down monsters but, because of their lower defense unable to to really be able to get into a nice rythmn (e.g. barbarians, archers, dual wielders etc etc). I was also thinking mostly of the 1-20 game because most people run with pretty close to 50AC after that."
OK, here's my experience with Basher and my first toon here, Jurst Deserts, an atempt at a dual weilder pure Ftr build that i took to lev 18 and abandoned. The lower levels were actualy the easyest, even non-twinked. Basher was my second toon and at the time there was no level 20+ content and everyone said that a Ftr/WM build was the way to go in regaurds to a melee build. And over all both those two did fine soloing till about lev 15 when the exp in Mirj droped and The Barrens was the next place to go. And if I remeber right, my Dualer did better ther at first than Bash did. But once Bash got to lev 18 he could solo decent there, and again i point out they were poorly twinked at the time. Once Bash hit lev 20 and the Epic Spiders and Golems came in he also did ok solo. Point in fact he tore up the spiders prety easy all the way till he got to lev 22 and left there because the exp droped. He had a bit of troubel with Golems at first, but once he got to lev 23 he did ok solo. And yeah he also did quite a bit of party work with wett and Seige, but that just accelerated his growth more than provide it. Point in fact I think he was the first, or one of the first, to hit lev 24. Hehehehe and wett decided to "celebrate" by saying "bring it on" whilest Santa was on. And the results of that night were due to his beiing considerably buffed by wett's toon. Otherwise he would have died a lot more often and a lot earlier.
So, from my experience, it aint the lower levels that need much help, but the post lev 25's that do. The reason why most of the dex and fighter build never get too high here is because those of us that have been here a while are mercyfull enuff to educate newer players about what builds work and which wont. And the builds that wont get far tend to end up like my Jurst,... abbandoned quickly, before much time and effort are put into them.
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Post by Loudent2 on Jul 10, 2009 16:30:42 GMT -5
What's funny was that I thought a Sacred Fist would dominate here, but all-in-all he's relatively weak still at 20th Sacred fist does just fine, not because of the sacred fist abilities but because of the divne caster base. I have several sacred fists and they may not dominate but there's pretty much nothing they can't do Well yes and no. Increasing the magic levels brings more builds into viablity but also trivials previously viable builds. In many ways this server reflects really old school D&D where casters were slow and dangerous to level at first, while fighters were easy and simple and then, somewhere in the middle the power structure changes and mages dominate. Of course, the new factor here is gishes that have the abilities of both. The thing is, any way you cut it, gishes will always be superior to classes who can't do it all. I think, in my naitivity, I assumed some players would play gishes and others would create more standard classes and group up. I've learned a lot since then.
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Post by phariss on Jul 10, 2009 17:07:55 GMT -5
noob question here but valid as i seem to need a to build a "gish" what is a Gish? I looked around on the google and found nothing but billy coragan albums I edited this post as it was a whine that i dont wish to put into words anyone who saw it please ignore it.
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Post by nicethugbert on Jul 10, 2009 17:12:00 GMT -5
Grouping depends on population density. We just don't have the population density for much grouping. Although, there is evidence of it taking place against Cazic Thule and Golem Maker. That's probably because it's hard to twink your way through those areas and they are a bottle neck thereby creating a passing population density.
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