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#2225 - 10/03/08 08:59 PM
Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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Darke is a wonderful mud. It's also wonderfully broke. The most recent travesty was the exp-change where people are making literally double or more exp than they used to. We have players out there now with 50+ combat, it's comical.
I hiatus my fighter and made a CL and I'm going to hit 30 combat before I hit 20 magic. WTF is that about? This not only totally unbalanced what was already an unbalanced game, unfortunately it totally widens the gap between the strong guilds and the guilds that only reason for existing is to gear them up.
Everything seems backwards, even at low levels, you sputter sputter sputter and get higher and everything is automatic and easy. All classes are the same, in which, we all simply ahve different versions of spelling ourselves up and combat leveling consists of utterly nothing but watching swings go by.
Unfortuatnely the ExP issue can't be resolved without a revert and a pwipe which I doubt will ever happen (too bad though). The guild problems should seriously be looked at.
There's only a small handful of guilds that even matter in pvp. Not to mention the leveling exp differential is so gigantic. How can people be competitive with each other (and let's not fool ourslelves, muds don't get popular if they aren't competitive) when 1 guild makes 2 million magic exp an hour and another makes 600k? esp when the first is a hybrid? There's just gigantic logic problems but I think they can be fixed with the proper application of game knowledge to the guilds.
we should all put our heads together and come up with rebalances for each and every guild to promote a more competitive field. This would be ridiculously easy to do. I can certainly give examples and pick a guild at random, and we all could for that matter.
Not only do we balance them exp wise, tactic wise, power wise (different, but each has roles) we can also make the gameplay different from guild to guild. What is chaotic about a chaotic-lord? Ironic that the only chaotic effects of demons at all are the lower level ones. For bonuses this good we should have all kinda fun and crazy things going on.
Elementalists could, instead of having lores, have random surges that automatically shift their elements throughout a day and the spells they ahve available at any given point in time and their offensive/defensive capabilities fluctuate via those elements. There's so many small things we could do to liven the game up. Maybe everyone's happy thougH? I don't know.
Onslaught/Edge/Dorne/Hannibal
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#2226 - 10/03/08 10:22 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Onslaught]
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Kim
enthusiast
Registered: 10/11/07
Posts: 204
Loc: Europe
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"There's only a small handful of guilds that even matter in pvp. Not to mention the leveling exp differential is so gigantic."
True. The only Four guilds that matter in PVP is AM, Fighter, Nightblade and WP. AM due to being completely unbalanced, with super-powerful spells for surprise and escape, as well as the by far strongest PK spell. WP, Nightblade and Fighter the only three guilds with anti-stun. No other guild matters for PVP. Seriously. Unless a WP, NB or AM (of higher level than me), Miki doesn't look twice. Just, whirl, focus and win.
In a way, Paladins can compete, if they train very very smartly. None have, so far (I wont tell you how. If you don't know, you wouldn't be able to use it anyway). Chaotic-Lords/SMs are the weakest of the semi guilds, and can never compete.
The difference in XP gain is a complete joke. Will it ever be fixed? No.
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#2228 - 10/06/08 12:09 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Kim]
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Cerberus
addict
Registered: 11/28/07
Posts: 608
Loc: Arlee, MT, USA
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We're listening. Please, make suggestions, write up ideas, and otherwise help us help the state of the game.
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#2229 - 10/08/08 10:30 AM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Cerberus]
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Gilgamesh
stranger
Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 4
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Rebalance. Sometimes I dont know what to think about when I hear that word. Often times, when darkmud is concerned, balance means a guild gets nerfed. While this may be needed, how fun is that for the participants of that so called "overpowered" guild? I would wager they would hiatus, or take a permanent hiatus from darke. So while I agree with Kim that there are several guilds that are not effective in pvp, that doesnt mean that those few guilds that are should be reduced to nerf fooballs. Heres a novel idea: What if instead of making things weaker, the weak guilds were made stronger? I wager it would be more player friendly. I mean, how cool would it be for those "lame" lvl 50 combat people to get a new ability and those sub lvl 50 players would get something like auto-crits ( well the whole mud really, so everyone can complete with those lvl 50s)? I remember the few new spells/abilities that were awarded were met with glee rather than frustration that is rooted from the nerf style of "balance". I guess what I'm saying is that balance is needed but what is NOT needed is just weakening guilds. Give this mud some muscle and maybe people will get excited again. People are fond of advances rather than reductions.
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#2231 - 10/10/08 10:39 AM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Kim]
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Cerberus
addict
Registered: 11/28/07
Posts: 608
Loc: Arlee, MT, USA
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Shouldn't the way to improve the power available to players be by extending the higher level game? Sure, we'd need more areas/mobs/stuff in general but it is doable right?
For me, autocrits were the great equalizer - no matter who you were autocrits were the be-all-end-all of you. That being said, what if autocrits were reformatted to ignore a certain amount of armour rather than completely ignore all defenses? So instead of you swing your sword, they dodge, you get your plasma IK autocrit and they die... you have to connect with your blow, and then the autocrits are limited in the scope of what they can do - so no IKs, stuns > X are reduced to X, special effects don't happen (ie, no drop all), etc? Then you'd still be able to have an autocrit that would make you feel like you had a chance against the big bad so-and-so, and it would in some cases give you a real chance to do real damage, but wouldn't be as be-all-end-all as previous.
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#2232 - 10/10/08 12:00 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Cerberus]
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Gilgamesh
stranger
Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 4
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"Give everyone more power" is heading down the DBR2 route, where things goes ridicolous.
Autocrits is possibly the biggest nerf possible. It would render all defense skills useless.
DBR was a steriod man on crack; thats too much. The point I was trying to make was that there are players that have dedicated lots of free time to making characters. That time would be wasted if suddenly, the guild gets "Balanced" into a point where its pointless. Point and case, that style of "player friendly" balance has been plaguing this mud for as long as I've played. Maybe we'd grow p-base if people knew there would be new things to be given, or that their highmortal character wont be debuffed into newbiedom. That my point. No to DBR ( which was sorta fun imo =) Yes to player friendly decisions.Shouldn't the way to improve the power available to players be by extending the higher level game? Sure, we'd need more areas/mobs/stuff in general but it is doable right?
For me, autocrits were the great equalizer - no matter who you were autocrits were the be-all-end-all of you. That being said, what if autocrits were reformatted to ignore a certain amount of armour rather than completely ignore all defenses? So instead of you swing your sword, they dodge, you get your plasma IK autocrit and they die... you have to connect with your blow, and then the autocrits are limited in the scope of what they can do - so no IKs, stuns > X are reduced to X, special effects don't happen (ie, no drop all), etc? Then you'd still be able to have an autocrit that would make you feel like you had a chance against the big bad so-and-so, and it would in some cases give you a real chance to do real damage, but wouldn't be as be-all-end-all as previous.
I like the idea! Gives randomness to combat, and yea, then everyone has a chance agaisnt the lvl 60 warrior. I guess in order to give clarity to my previous point would be this: Lets give the dude that likes to work out muscle milk rather than steroids, which are illegal.
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#2233 - 10/10/08 04:42 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Gilgamesh]
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Kim
enthusiast
Registered: 10/11/07
Posts: 204
Loc: Europe
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No. Autocrits are completely unnecessary as is. Weapons are far stronger than armour as is. If you can crit through the best armour, with enchanter shields, and elemental aegis with no effort (which, BTW, you can), that is somehow a sign that autocrits are pretty damn redundant.
"I like the idea! Gives randomness to combat, and yea, then everyone has a chance agaisnt the lvl 60 warrior."
You missed the point where you would still have to hit me, and you couldn't do that :p
And I find the idea that "everyone should have a chance!!!" absurd and stupid. No. Not everyone should have a chance. That isn't balance, it is more like the opposite. Random chaos. Balance is when roughly equal levels have a roughly equal chance of winning, if they know how to utilize their guilds equally well.
Improving the upper level game might be one thing, but I already stated the one thing that unbalances the mud the most, resist stun. What good are improvements if you are stunned from round 1 until death? And no, alabasters don't help. You get unstunned.. and then immediatly stunned again. At best, you may be able to run away thanks to one.
The solution would be to make it that when you are stunned, you aren't completely helpless. You still have a chance to parry/block/dodge/attack, but with random reduced skill. So, stunned means a reduction in the # of attacks/defensive skills that go through, like overall level/2 chance, and with some reduction in the skill (maybe affected by willpower and some other stats). That way somebody level 50 overall at least manages to get 1/4 of his attacks/parries/dodges/whatever working, and no longer is it a question of sitting there waiting for death. (No, alabasters don't help. At all.)
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#2236 - 10/11/08 06:20 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Kim]
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Gilgamesh
stranger
Registered: 10/01/08
Posts: 4
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"And I find the idea that "everyone should have a chance!!!" absurd and stupid. No. Not everyone should have a chance. That isn't balance, it is more like the opposite. Random chaos. "
Which is what would game the game more exciting. What this place needs is something that sparks interest with new players. If I remember correctly, wasn't there a p-base of over 60 at a time? Heres my main question: Our mud has become more "Balanced" but our p-base has dropped to near nothing. Why is that?
Look, maybe things like autocrits aren't the solve all problem for change, but if new ideas aren't presented, then the current status-quo, which is under 15 players on avg, will remain. I think we all want something a little different than that right?
Edited by Gilgamesh (10/11/08 06:22 PM)
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#2239 - 10/15/08 06:14 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Gilgamesh]
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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So many points being made, but to be honest not very good ones.
First, you can't have balance at all when said 60 fighter gets to 60 in 1/10th the playing time another guild does. That's your first problem. Forget him swaggering ona bout 'being able to hit me' you can't be hit because you have gotten so much exp so ridiculouslly fast that your dodge and wield are so ridiculously high that yeah, normal guilds can't compete with that. Resist stun is as everyone has mentioned a problem, but by far not the biggest problem this mud faces.
I'm sure there's plenty of people here who have mudded 15+ years by this point. If you've gone anywhere but just darke darke darke you should already know the downfall of 99% of most muds at this point is simply the type of posts we're seeing here.
" Don't nerf my guild, make everyone else stronger"
" Expand the high end areas and content so we can all get bigger"
etc etc etc...all very very bad bad bad points that don't even come close to addressing the core issues of balance.
You can't just 'bring everyone up' to the strong guild. First of all, as most people would agree, not every guild should fight exactly the same. Some guilds are stronger at the highest levels but weaker at mids, some take a shit load longer but have higher payoff at the end (theoretically though in practice it's quite the opposite too complex for this particular thread)
adding more and more exp will do absolutely nothing but excentuate the already apparent balance problems you have. Those who earn exp faster than others, will earn more exp, at a greater rate, faster than others, thus widening the gaps and problems.
The game simply wasn't designed for players to run around with 300+ wield, it was never designed for that kind of player trounsing around mocking anything but top ends of all crit tables. That dynamic at it's very core is broke.
Bottom line is you're always goign to here arguments like this because the very people that flock to the unbalanced guilds will whine that their guilds are getting balanced. It's the same logic that really dicates the utter unfairness, after having increased the exp since july to go about now and re-decrease it. P-wipes are almost a necessity after gigantic balance changes, and frankly you're all fooling yourself if you ever thing this mud will pull itself out of the doldrums of empty muddeddness without some serious serious gameplay changes.
The rest don't want change, because regardless of how broke something is it's 'you're broke' and you're comfortable with it. And then there's the others who play 1 guild their entire decade of mudding and really cant' relate at all to balance in general and shouldn't be involved in the conversation at all (sorry, it's just true, but those people never recognize it in themselves)
You can ramble on for years on I think this shoudl be changed or that, or this or stun should be such and it doesn't really mean anything it's 500 different people coming up with 10,000 different ideas of waht they think in their little mudding world needs to change to help their gameplay.
What you need is 1 commited admin with the knowledge and willingness to make drastic changes, regardless of their popularity, but those changes can't be made without an overall agenda/gameplan. Ergo, a big big research project resuliting in very specific goals designed out before any actual changes are even considered or implemented.
Example:
You have to define each guild's actual role, their expected difficulty levels, at each stage of progression, and their expected power plateaus and at what levels, based upon their usefulness in the grand scheme of darke. Then once you have that outlined for each and every guild you have to figure out just how utterly far away you are in current game from the balance design, and then you start slowly implementing those changes until you reach the feel you are looking for.
Then after about a year of doing that, you do a P-Wipe. It's a very complex and difficult process and my honest opinion tells me that if it hasn't happened after 12 years here it never will. It should, but it probably won't. So yeah I could sit here for hours giving you random suggestions that may or may not have any more merrit than any other random person that sits here, but this hasn't and never will address the core issue:
Darke as a whole lacks gameplay depth and balance. It needs to be addressed from the top-down if you ever want to play on a serious mud with more than 5-15 players again. Maybe none of us do? and that's just how it's going to be.
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