Excelsior

I haven’t stirred the pot for a while, so I figured…why not?

I have been receiving PMs and read threads with comments on my use, and other staff member use, of one-hit wonder monsters, monsters with mortal strike, etc…

Here is the reasoning…

Whenever I construct and run an event or area where the players can participate using their own gear, this is the player spectrum I consider when thinking about difficulty.

[Basic 70’s Resist Player----------------------------------------------------------------------------220 Dex Turbo Healer]

Yeah I know…”Here we go again, he’s going for the dex healers again”…Yes and No.

Yes, I think having people who start a macro and are capable of tanking 2-3 paragon balrons can make it difficult to design events and content that is balanced for all players. Therefore, I am forced to include the use of Mortal Strike, Fire Breath, 1-Hit Melee, Paralyzing Blow, etc. The problem with this move is that it often decimates the younger and non-relayer players. For events, this isn’t much of a problem since I can pass out temporary event cloaks that can help bring the majority of players up closer to the turbo healers. However, I cannot do this for permanent areas like the Umbris Camp and Sgail, because their purpose is to follow along with a story line and to be a challenging area. I am stuck trying to balance on the above spectrum. Make it too hard, and only the top 10% or less can successfully do the content and creates sore feelings for most of the player base. Make it too easy, and all of the players can access it, but there is a missed opportunity to create a challenge for the older players who have already conquered everything else. Also, there is always the chance of the easy area being used as a farming location by the stronger players…much like the Umbris Camp with ointment and gold farming (Drop rates use to be quicker, to give you guys some perspective). Now, one could say “Great! He nerfed the drops there for the players who see the place as a genuine challenge. Now where is the motivation?”

No, I do not think the ability to turbo heal should be completely removed from the shard. No I do not believe that players don’t deserve this ability in most respects…especially after the time, gold, and shard supporting donation rewards spent to obtain this ability.

However…I think there should be a system that can be implemented in new areas that either slows the maximum healing rate down or diminishes the returns of each successful heal over a short amount of time. This could be seen as an initial healing of 100% of the max healing amount, then each successive heal in a short time span is reduced by 5% of the maximum healing amount. So, 95, 90, 85, 80…20% of max heal amount and capping it there until a brief cool down period has passed and the healing amount is then restored to 100%. This will give me and other staff the ability to level the field without handing out temporary boosting items and tracking them on a daily basis. This will also reduce the need for fire breath, mortal strike, and one-hit wonder mobs that (in my opinion) are currently necessary for creating an area that keeps the most powerful players on their toes while giving the less resourceful players at least some semblance of a chance to survive. This effect could be easily turned on and off.

So, again…I am not proposing a global and/or permanent change to the way healing works. I am proposing the possibility of a modification to the way healing works in areas that staff members create with the intent for it to be accessed and seen as a challenge by the majority of players.

Thoughts?

+V

Balance is difficult to maintain. If the switch is easy to make perhaps an event or three trying out the new concept? See what people think and if it helps the admins include everyone (how many newer players get missed and don't get a cloak?)

I'm still relatively new on this shard so Im not sure how things have change and progressed to get where they are, however 220 Dex from my research is the only way to go if I want to see 90%+ of the content in this game.

Dezzy

Well...I personally know players who have seen and completed pretty much 90% of the content here either without 220 dex or without knowing the looping [bandself macro trick. The only difference is the level of caution and time invested.

Example: labyrinth
Without 220+ Dex = stealthing around and carefully calculating your attack and where you want to isolate yourself to fight a key item mob without aggroing other tougher mobs.

With 220+ Dex = See this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLXaRtc1 ... re=related

+V

I can see where other certain skills can allow you to move into and area and still complete a quest or attack monsters. But are you competing with the +220 Dex instant heal, or just limping along like a wounded animal? (I'm sure it differs for everyone and this thread is most likely not the place to discuss this)

For me personally I love what I have seen on this shard, Macro resource mining is cracked down on (I love to mine btw), no skill cap, gold weight is less, tokens, ED's, fairly lag free server, nice people, the list goes on!

With that said I do feel from a limited stand point of being less than a week old that the only real productive choice i have is the 220 Dex route. Others may be able to do similar things but none can Neo-charge (look at the video if you don't follow my humor) in and lay waste to the screen like 220+ Dexxer can.

I would love to see someway that other disciplines can be effective and as god like as a 220+ dexxer. Is it possible, I really don't know and will think on it a bit and see if I can come up with more than just my opinion which I know can be very rooted on the wrong side of the line at times.

Dezzy

I would love to see someway that other disciplines can be effective and as god like as a 220+ dexxer. Is it possible, I really don't know and will think on it a bit and see if I can come up with more than just my opinion which I know can be very rooted on the wrong side of the line at times.

Just so you know, you can be every kind of character build on here, and at the same time (no skill levelcap). I will say, however, that a full magic based build is kinda worthless because the current magic damage system just doesnt support such a narrow discipline.

But, regardless of character build or focus...If you have 70's in all resistances, 200 hitpoints, 120 healing, 220+ dex, thousands of bandages, and a simple razor macro...you are invulnerable (for the most part). Assuming you react accordingly to mortal strike attacks and one-hitter monsters. I am not saying its perfect for everyone who does it, but it is a world of difference between those who do it and those who don't.

Again, not hating...just stating the truth.

+V

Wellll.. On the Dex Healing issue.. I personnally feel it needs to be nerfed... Its so hard for new players or broke players to attain these levels... Although I lovvve the idea of being able to insta heal... Generally when a game has a class of players that outrank everyone else they nerf it. It was fun while it lasted.


Players shouldnt be invulnerable. Everyone should have to group together or use pets to kill a paragon balron. We shouldnt have invulnerable pets like bios. Although its great to never die. Where is the risk? and Excitement?

If we do keep this like it is. I believe we should UP dummy ways to make gold. I.E. beehives. the limit of 25 should go up to reflect the amount of gold Im going to need to get a 220 dex outfit...Which is probably upwards of 20million.

That way when an event like this is introduced new and young players wont have to wait 6 months to a year to actually go there.

Just my thoughts

FlipFlops wrote: Everyone should have to group together or use pets to kill a paragon balron.

If we do keep this like it is. I believe we should UP dummy ways to make gold.
That way when an event like this is introduced new and young players wont have to wait 6 months to a year to actually go there.

Pets suck. I would quit if I had to use pets to kill easy mobs like para ballys.

Up the dummy ways to make gold? Colibri has numerous well thought out gold sinks designed specifically to remove excess gold from the server, making it easier to make gold would be the stupidest thing ever considering its already ridiculously easy. Oh and bees are a very inefficient way to make gold IMO.

Everyone was young at some point. Everyone had a 100% LRC all 70's suit with pets for a while. It takes time yes and some gold yes but ANYONE can get to 220 dex with reasonable health. You aren't meant to 'clock' uo overnight then put it away like some lame game from a console... its meant to be an ongoing journey of character development and social interaction. If it takes 2 years to get to the top tier level then that seems perfect to me.

Even with 220+ dex and 500+ HP you can still die. It is possible... and as +V stated just above you stilll have to 'react accordingly' to certain situations. Its not like you just let the game play itself because your invulnerable... you still have to move around avoid hard hitting mobs after a big mortal strike etc...

I say nerf bees, nerf gold on mobs and nerf pets if we are gonna be throwing the nerf bomb around. Leave the guys who have devoted 2-4 years to the server alone instead of trying to appease the 'i bin hear 1 weak and a balron gets me every time my pet is dead everywhere! omgooses' players.

i think what would be hilarious is a monster that steals bandies. :O hahaha oh wait we already have a Chaos, but he's not really a monster. He does love to steal bandies though. when am i gonna get that 40k bandies back from the pvp dungeon? o.O

but to all seriousness

Wellll.. On the Dex Healing issue.. I personnally feel it needs to be nerfed... Its so hard for new players or broke players to attain these levels... Although I lovvve the idea of being able to insta heal... Generally when a game has a class of players that outrank everyone else they nerf it. It was fun while it lasted.

everyone can obtain these's level it just takes either a) a lot of donations or b) a lot of time. you know some of my friends Krazy G and the likes have never donated (which is fine because they are still very decent peeps), and they have excellent gear. just nabor stat Krazy G once.

I would love to see someway that other disciplines can be effective and as god like as a 220+ dexxer. Is it possible, I really don't know and will think on it a bit and see if I can come up with more than just my opinion which I know can be very rooted on the wrong side of the line at times.

I am a hybrid (means i'm both a dexer, animal tamer, and druid). if you saw how fast i can take down most mobs with my pets you'd think a dexer couldn't possibly kill as fast....and they can't. there are many type builds. a druid is great in champs, and not even a dexer could kill as many mobs as a 128 druid. also, a druid is invincible with trees up as long as he doesn't get hit by a 1 hitter quitter.

Well I've got a couple of thoughts.

First and foremost let me say. +V I feel your pain, once I realized what sort of stats it was possible to get here on the server I thought "wow, this must be a dev's own personal hell trying to balance encounters for his given the fact that the game engine was designed with 100-150ish hit points and 720 skill cap". This isn't WoW were you've got the man power and (no offense) the expertise to modify the way that the game engine works or add in new mechanics. So I must say "well done" to you all for making encounters and areas that are even remotely challenging and thank you for the effort.

Now onward to the subject of instant bandage healing.

First of all in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's that hard to reach. Jackals, Hunters, Jewels, Pugi Gloves, Batwings, Weapon, 2x +5 stat caps, +10 stat scroll, angel form and you're there. I'd say you can get here for well under 10mill. That's if you don't want to use the DJSticky Shenanigans Method which I won't go into.

Secondly I think a lot of people (mainly those who haven't reached 220 dex yet) feel that it's like a switch is flipped once you get there. Under 220 dex and you're killed by a mogbat on accident, reach 220 dex and you can instantly aoe down all of umbris camp, sgal, all the peerless and Rodney Dangerfield at once. What they are missing is it is the combination of instant heals with a large hit point pool that truly puts you a cut above. I mean 220 dex and 30 hit points won't serve you to well will it? Also it's not just about the monsters that are able to hit you for more then your hit point pool. It's when you have a large enough hit point pool to be able to tank several monsters who's combined hits will do a large amount of damage in under a second.

So yes, undoubtedly having instant bandage heals is better then not however it is the large hit point pool which really makes you a force to be reckoned with and that is the expensive and time consuming aspect to attain.

To even further show that it's not the instant heals that are the "god mode" aspect let me share this. Back when I was AoEing the entire left and right side of Fel Wrong for oints I went in once and forgot to turn on my heal script. I didn't die until I had killed everything except two mobs and stopped doing my aoe sequence of abilities. For further entertainment I'll let you work out how that happens.

So after all that rambling I come to this. I'm not really sure what's to be done or, for that matter, if anything needs to be done. I can't say that the shard is perfect, but it's far from bad and I've decided to take it as it is and stay.

Also, Anarchy, I dissagree with that statement that a 128 druid can do a spawn far faster then a dexxer. I'll gladly hold a team competition between a proper dexxer team and a druid team. Perhaps the first and second level is faster as a druid (depending on spawn) but I feel certain that the later levels are much faster as a dexxer.

I think a 1-2 second cap on the bandage speed would do wonders for the shard in terms of being able to create balanced combat. I've been on the shard for nearly 3 years at this point, I went from a pet/archerer fighter, to a vampire embrace/100% leech life melee fighter to just recently an 220 dex instant heal fighter.

All of the methods I've used have been pretty effective at not dying. However with the pet/archerer method there was always a chance that I'd get attacked directly and have to focus healing on myself causing my pet to die in the process. With the vampire/leech life method I always had to watch out for creatures that did massive damage each hit, since that could lower stamina, which in turn lowered swing speed, which in turn lowered my leech based ability to heal.

With the 220 dex build I don't really have a weakness, at least not one that I've found, it doesn't matter how low my stam goes, I still instant heal, the feeling of vunrability is gone, I can literally park myself infront of high hp pool creatures and switch the window without having to worry about dying while I ween their HP down. If you don't want to do a flat healing speed cap, then perhaps make healing speed based on stamina rather then dex, that way as players get hit hard and their stamina drops, so does their healing speed. However it's only a matter of time until player's just include divine fury into their loop and it's back to instant speed near 100% of the time.

Sounds like lots of complaining, as was stated can get to 220dex for maybe 10mil, it's really not that hard. If you play 5 mins a day can get that in a little over a month, maybe two, with nothing but bees. I have over 500hp and probably die more than most new players with less dex when I'm farming. Sure, I am killing 100+ creatures WW'ing like crazy in the time they take down that one balron, but I and MANY others have either played a lot and earned the gold or opened their wallet and gotten there a little faster. Messing with heal times won't effect anything. Most people after their first relayer or two start relayering at lvl 60 or so, well 100ed and I buy a deed and can add dex to any relayer that doesn't already have it. As for the initial question regarding what should staff do, NOTHING. I had fun running around with pets farming mid-level areas just as I have fun now leaving the pets at home. My 2nd day playing on the shard I was pulling 400k/hr in just gold with 5 used mules. Do that and get some bees and everyone can have their 220dex and be well on their way to GoC items and relayers.

So, again…I am not proposing a global and/or permanent change to the way healing works. I am proposing the possibility of a modification to the way healing works in areas that staff members create with the intent for it to be accessed and seen as a challenge by the majority of players.

I just think that by doing this, it will be easier for me to make a monster pool that is closer to the challenging level for most individuals between the basic all 70's armor and the multiple relayer players.

Keep the comments coming.

+V

Perhaps the first and second level is faster as a druid (depending on spawn) but I feel certain that the later levels are much faster as a dexxer.

i apologize you are correct when doing champ spawn dj. later in the champ a dexer will kill more spawns. ah well.

It should be noted, Trygg is sub 200 dex. Always has been, and I've been around most places. Love every place that has been built here on Excelsior Shard. At over a year on shard, I've never used stealth to get around. Primarily cause I've had less than adequate stealth.

Things must be earned, not given. How does a person value what one has, if it's not earned through their efforts? EX UO offers both in-game and donations in acquiring arms and property. Should this not be sufficient?

Lastly, Gold. The easier it is to acquire gold the less value it has. Meaning, people will want more gold for the same items. The value of gold will change because the change in gold scarcity.

I wouldn't mind seeing instant-healing go away if it meant rebalancing the current areas so that their primary challenge was not designed to counter instant-healing.

I mean, I don't see the developers here making threads saying, "It's so hard to balance around players with 500 HP." I very frequently see them saying, "It's so hard to balance around players whose HP doesn't matter much as long as they don't die in a single shot." And more often these days I find myself agreeing that it must be very difficult indeed.

Really, I think if you want to reach a middle-ground, we need to seriously look at whether instant-heal is a good thing for the shard. The ability to heal yourself to full HP in a second or two regardless of the DPS applied to you is going to break a lot of things.

If instant-heal wasn't practically necessary to survive in a lot of these areas, I think you'd see a lot more players going into those areas knowing they were now designed more with them in mind. But, to do that, you'd need to kill off instant-healing.

I don't think you need to go TOO far with healing. Just having bandages work every .5 seconds would be a fine solution.