hehe actually this is exactly what I've always thought is a problem. Nobody dies anymore. Equipment is there forever.Originally Posted by Azeworai
hehe actually this is exactly what I've always thought is a problem. Nobody dies anymore. Equipment is there forever.
Scribe
haha just do a mud wide death to all
Scribe
You think that zones which are popping items that are well ahead of even highly uncommon randoms are "up to times". Half the problems we have right now are caused specifically because of the ridiculous gear we have in the game, we don't need to escalate those problems.
Banned
The point I was trying to make was that this is TFC version 4.x. If you're trying to compare items and zones created back in the late 90s and now, or even from early 3.x, it's a bit silly. The game has changed substantially and for good reason. It has to - all MUDs and MMORPGs do, look at Everquest, WoW. New zones are created with better items than those before it, and people become interested in playing because there is feasibly something worth playing for. Randoms are unlimited and easy to come by. They have gone from looking for items with positive effect stats, to 2s, then to 3s being common, then to 5s, 6s, and 7s being readily available. When I died awhile back, I had an 8 effect random item, several 7s, and a few 6s. One of the 6s was elven chain, ac11. These are items just pulled off NPCs with no significance or difficulty. I used to kill players and their corpses contained 3s at best, and with that you were considered extremely well equipped. Now everyone I kill has at least 1 5 effect random item, and there are even 5s available in the pit. Is everyone just hitting the lottery of randoms? No, it's just how things progress. If you downgrade items that are difficult to get, then there is no point to ever go anywhere but the newbie arena. Of course you could reduce the frequency or power of the current random effect pops too, but that would just skew things in favor of people who have gods or have hoarded the previously plentiful random items, which is easy to do. IMO, you would have to pwipe everyone (which I am in favor of), and then you would then be able to zero-base and re-evaluate both the current limiteds and random item code to be able to properly say what the MAX stats should be for anything... but I doubt you'd get everyone on board for this or even to come back to play, especially if you're pwiping everyone and then just downgrading everything. How boring.
Scribe
Once again you are completely discounting the difficulty in randoming. That being that it is time consuming, utterly luck and persistance based, and comes with the inherent risk of being PK'd while you're doing it since the best randoming zones are well known, and frequently used.
Yes the game has advanced, whether it needed to or not remains open to debate in my mind, especially the WAY it advanced this time, but that is for another thread and another day. Here and now the point is your zone"Z" are not in line with zones from the past (not directly but in the way in which those zones related to the randoms that were available at the time).
I stand by my oppinion that Randoms should be more powerful than Limiteds because they themselves are a form of super rare limiteds.
The argument from difficulty is fallacious, we both know people didn't spend weeks trying to figure out some uber dangerous puzzle, getting their gear and strategy just right so they could barely take down a boss mob. They waltzed in, had to dodge a few pitfalls they weren't expecting, and dispatched your mage mobs the same way they have every other mage mob in the game. Only instead of dropping some gold and a sphere, yours dropped the best gear in the game, with the promise of doing it again until the pop limit is reached.
You compare this game to WoW and Everquest? I've played those games and I have news for you, brand new dungeons with uber sweet gear which revolutionalizes the end game of those games aren't released and then finished in 17 hours and put on farm status. Most end game dungeons take WEEKS to figure out and finish even for the best guilds. What you created is what is known in those games as a series of very good "loot Piņata's" who put up a good front, and then promptly fell on their swords and handed out "easy-mode" "epics". (And I'll go ahead and tack this on the end, if we are aspiring to turn this game into a WoW clone, I would love it if the coders would tell me because I have no interest in sticking around if thats the case. Those games are boring, 1 dimensional loot treadmills, you can keep that kind of game design to yourself.)
Banned
Kurix, it really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really isn't difficult to random or find 5 effect items. It requires 0 skill to c 'detect magic, k level 1 mob, g item corpse. You can do it by yourself without an organized group as a level 3 alt, in the rain, on a train, on a boat, or while floating above MG (come on pigeon drop those chain mail sleeves!!). I am not sure why you think this is so difficult. You seem to random from the pit very well.
Yes, the game needs to continue advancing otherwise people won't log on, thereby negating the need for the MUD in the first place. Maybe you can ask Tynian if you can download an old copy of TFC so you can play it locally. Then you can random all day. That sounds like fun.
Again, I think even the help files on randoms say that these items are plentiful and this is not the case.
It actually took them awhile to find the High Tower, Kaern and others spent a decent amount of time looking for it. I didn't really try to hide it, but I didn't make it too obvious to get to either. However we all know how things go in this small community - as soon as one person knows how to get there or how a challenge works, everyone does. How do you know about the limiteds for a zone you never set foot in? Someone told you. How do I know about any of the Mystic Wood keywords (because no damn way I would spend the time figuring out those puzzles)? Someone told me. And so it goes.
Plsums do not blow a gasket Kurix, I think we all know that TFC is a little different from WoW or Everquest. Though I keep waiting for the graphics to appear on my screen of that scantly clad female sorcerer when I log in to TFC... what's the deal?? Where is she? I'm posting a bug.
And with this post I think we've officially hijacked the thread away from the the poster's original intent: a simple survey of what people felt the maximums on limited items should be. Though if I must say, I think that is way too subjective and meaningless depending on who you are and what you stand to lose. This thread discussion now is much more interesting. Gotta love the forums
God+
Once I get a feel for what we want; meaning, the max stats for items. I'll be adjusting the stats on the items I have identified that are questionable.
Scribe
Levity is a poor substitute for Logic but I'll attempt to treat your response with the respect you seem incapable of showing mine.
Mas, it really isn't that hard to clear a zone out with a large group of well geared level 50s. I don't care how tough you think your mobs were.
Randoming is not "difficult" per se and that is a bad description on my part. Perhaps I should say it is time consuming, requires luck, requires persistance, can't be made easier by being told how to do it etc etc etc, all things which Limiteds do not share.
In fact after the very first time limiteds are popped (which even by your admission wasn't an extremely difficult task since it was done in 17 hours) it becomes common knowledge fairly quickly how it is done and where it is done and the vast majority of the difficulty is lost.
Funny, the game didn't "advance" from a code base for a very long time between 3x and 4x and it was going strong. It advanced to 4x and was near dead for a long time, and is just now starting to (hopefully) come back. Draw from that what you will.
Advancement in the way you are talking about (IE: The loot treadmill) is not advancement. What the game needs is fresh things to do, new zones (which don't need better gear, just comparable gear, or even just to be interesting enough to be worth the trip), new classes, followings and people willing to PLAY the game as it was meant to be played and an Imm staff balancing it so the game gives you incentives to play that way.
Just arbitrarily making the gear evermore powerful is the fast track to breaking this game not making it more interesting and fun to play.
Randoms are more plentiful, and in general are less powerful. However good randoms which are extremely rare (I'll stop using difficult so you can stop getting stuck on that word) should be more powerful than Limiteds whos location and stats are common knowledge. This is how things up until recently have always been with a few notable exceptions (and even those exceptions were marginally better than available randoms).
Which is precisely why the difficulty argument is ridiculous. It didn't take them weeks to figure out, it took hours, and now that its been figured out once all your traps and puzzles are no longer a danger. And mage mobs, even strong mage mobs, are just mage mobs. They are designed to be killed and are frequently farmed for gold/spheres.
Pointless covering of your hind end, no argument no need for me to comment beyond pointing it out for what it is.
The posters original intent was to take a thread I started and restate it in a way he believed would be more useful. A decision which I still respectfully disagree with.And with this post I think we've officially hijacked the thread away from the the poster's original intent: a simple survey of what people felt the maximums on limited items should be. Though if I must say, I think that is way too subjective and meaningless depending on who you are and what you stand to lose. This thread discussion now is much more interesting. Gotta love the forums
And I still maintain that a simple survey of Max stats does not adequately address the issue for reasons I have already expressed.
God+
Yes, you have made that abundantly clear. However, I only have so much time to work on zones. A general guideline for what is acceptable is going to have to work for now.
There is no database in which I can access in this manner. Even if there was, this would take way too long to do. Hence the idea of having a max stat guideline.
As far as how this would work in practice. Take the light as an example. If I decided 4wis and 4 int was the right max, but then someone wanted svs as well on the item. They would have to reduce the item to something like 2, wis, 2 int and maybe svs -3.
The guide would explain this in detail and then if the author wanted to exceed this (which would not be allowed most of the time), they would have to lay out why, and what level mob would be, etc.
Scribe
I understand your idea, and I don't entirely disagree with your intention. My biggest issue is that without a better description of how the numbers we give you would be used within whatver system you are trying to set up we cannot accurately give you our "max".
Take for instance the max you just mentioned, would that max of 4 int 4 wis be taken from a averaged response where Int's max was 4 and Wis's max was 4? In that case we aren't talking about Max's and we have the problem Thor highlighted earlier of Multiple effects (No I don't believe this is how you intend to do it but right now your methods are ambiguous and this example is just to point that out). If on the other hand it was taken from a stated Wis max of 6 and an int max of 8, and when combined you decided that would work out to 4 of each then we need to understand how you came to that middle ground to be able to accurately give you our maximums. Hopefully thats clear enough.
I still think in order to get the guideline you're looking for we're talking about alot more work than you may be bargaining for. We'd need to weigh all the stats individually, as well as in the presence of other stats and affects. For instance a Dmg 5/SVS 5 might be more valuable than a Dmg5/DA5, but a DA5/SVS5 might also be more valuable than the Dmg5/Da5, does this mean SVS is a more valuable stat? Or is it simply a reflection of the fact that people either tend to stack SVS/DMG or SVS/DA? Your system needs to reflect these commonly held beliefs or it wont be able to accurately give you a guideline.
Once you start really looking at the kind of factors you have to evaluate you realize that your simple guideline (simple only in name) in order to be effective (and in order to be able to be communicated in a way that would allow for players to accurately give you maximums) would have to be the same "holy grail" that Tynian has been questing after for a long time. That being a system by which items can be objectively assigned a value that would hold true for the mud at large.
Good luck.
Last edited by Kurix; April 16th, 2009 at 10:07 PM.
God+
Things are never simple, but surely if I suggested that a good maximum for damage would be 100, everyone would scream that that was way too much. And +2 damage as a max would result in whines.
I am not the right person to do this, but since very few other people are, here is my shot:
Strength +5
Dexterity +5
Intelligence +4
Wisdom +4
Constitution +4
Mana +25
Hit +5
Move +30
Armor Rating (for metal) non-metal cannot be greater than 5. 25
Armor Class (additional armor class apply for non-metal armor) 10
Hitroll +5
Damroll +5
Save vs spell +5
Charisma +4
Luck +4
Damage Absorbtion +5
Magical Resistance +5
One Handed Weapon Sharp (max high end of the weapon damage range) avg 8 (high end would depend on low end to get the average
One Handed Weapon Blunt (max high end of the weapon damage range) avg 8, ditto above
Two Handed Weapon Sharp (max high end of the weapon damage range) avg 10
Two Handed Weapon Blunt (max high end of the weapon damage range) avg 10
Container Carry Capacity 35kg
Twist Rings (Max charges and spell level) 15 charges, lvl 30
Scrolls (Max spell level) 40
Fetish (Max charges and spell level) 10 charges, 30
Relic (Max charges and spell level) 10 charges, 30
Staff (Max charges and spell level) 15 charges, 30
Wand (Max charges and spell level) 15 charges, 30
Contributor
To answer Toku’s post:
Below are my initial thoughts for evaluating stats, based on my philosophies. ((my philosophy follows in rambling format after my toku answer)) .
Overall, there is simply no substitute for the experience of an obsessed player. I would suggest even with whatever guidelines you decide on – you take the time to talk with a few of these obsessed people and get their evaluation on specific items as they are in consideration. A ‘review panel of experts’ as it were As area coordinator – you’re not expected to know everything – but to coordinate the overall project and use the experts as you need them. A difference of 2 effects can be huge.
Str/Dex/Int/Wis/Con/hit roll/dmg/svs/chr/luck/da/mr are interchangable, and should be totalled to compare item strength. (so 3wis3con is eff 6). I could also see an argument were dmg/da as counting as 2:1 or something similar, rather than my previous 'interchangeable' suggestion.
Slot MUST be taken into account.
Lights – effect 5 maximum,
Wwp – effect 3 maximum – perhaps 2.
Neck – effect 8 maximum.
Other slots – effect 7 maxiumum
Keep in mind, when I say ‘maximum’ I mean over the long term ‘the new standard for good’.
Other thoughts on the debates sofar:
I would suggest that ‘hard’ can be measured in difficulty or in time investment. Thus a randomed item in a newbie zone that takes 20 hours is difficult, just like a hard mob you can tackle in 3 is difficult.
Mas points out that gear power creep is a valid (and fun!) way to keep the player base interested. It can be, but it takes a huge effort to keep balanced. It can also do as much harm as good. We also have a difference in philosophy on how good ‘good’ should be – and gear motivation can be in variety not just strength.
Another observation: If the top end limited gear DOES creeps up – the low end randoms need to creep as well.
Another truth – players don’t often seek out a difficult place without a reason. Gear can be that reason. I do believe that good limiteds should be in tough places. The question becomes – what is good enough to be worthwhile, but not above and beyond.
I want to reiterate that I do not believe the solution is in programming a way to limit how many of these overpowered items one person can have. The issue to me is far more fundamental.
They are overpowered.
It is not an issue of people hoarding.
Nor is it that they exist in too small a geographical area (a zone)
Nor that they are too easy to get.
Overall, I agree with Kurix’s posts.
All that said – below is my rambling philosopy currently:
I believe that there is a game balance problem with ever increasing the stats on items. The gap between geared and ungeared continues to grow. While many code restrictions have helped limit the gap (purging, random limits) it will always exist.
Why do I think the gap should not continue to grow? Because balance is more fun. It brings more challenge to pk situations if they are less one sided. It makes attacking mobs as a lower geared character not feel entirely futile. It means that even with the lower end decent gear – you are still competitive and a part of the game. Not simply waiting for the high-end gear so you can hold your weight in whatever task you chose – from xp, pk, quirky quests to random pasttimes. Can a lower-geared person take someone with great gear in a pk? Absolutely. It is a larger issue when fighting mobs, overall.
I do not believe the problem is the gear being hoarded by a few players – I believe the problem is the gear being too far above the basic lower end ‘decent’ gear.
So - I believe increasing the gear gap unbalances power-levels. What that means to me, is that the difference between reasonably decent gear (4-5eff currently), solid good gear (6-7) and great gear (8+) should not be more than 3 or 4ish. And that top tier should be –very- rare.
Philosophically, the imm staff needs to determine how wide that gap should be. As the players who LIVE this stuff day in day out – it is our task to recommend. I do not think it should be more than eff 3 - 4.
On Anomolies:
Some gear exists and has existed that breaks my rules. –10 svs. Simple rings. Am I saying these are overpowered? Simply - Yes. Its fun to have a few items to strive for. But I would limit these to neck and ring slots only. MAYBE onbody.
On Gear that Already Exists:
It should stay. People have worked hard and given up equipment for these new gems. But it shouldn’t be available again. If it purges – let it die not go to mish. If it pops, have it pop at its ‘new’ adjusted stats.
Thanks for tackling this Toku.
-Corri
Scribe
This thread is dear to my heart because I once wrote an area which took at least two months for anyone to begin to crack. Hundreds of hours were spent by devoted players trying to figure it out--and then the equipment they won had been downgraded by the Area Coordinator (MM at the time) far more severely, I am confident, than the stuff from Mas's zones was even stared at.
I bring this up because I agree that the new Tower items are slightly too powerful relative to the difficulty involved in getting them. This is coming from someone who is wearing several of the Tower items and intimately aware of how hard (it is hard.) they were to come by.
EQUIPMENT INFLATION
Inflation is normal and fine as long as, just like money is in the real-world, it's not too rapid. With TFC, so far so good, except it is true Mas's tower stuff is a bit too good. More on that later.
Kurix keeps saying randoms should be better than limiteds. This has never been true, and I don't think it should be. That ends the discussion for me; we've always had sought-after limiteds better than the best randoms and there's nothing wrong with that, if they're rare.
HOW TO ENSURE BALANCE FOR THE FUTURE
Kurix and Corri nailed this point: it's best done on a case-by-case basis. To not do it case-by-case is to become severely tone-deaf to the needs of the game. Mystic Wood was tweaked with, I believe, a tone-deaf approach.
If we must have guidelines (I don't think they should be rules), Corri's stated a good general one: determine maxima for each slot in conjunction with, or at least prior to, quantity/quality of affects. However, this still leads to a blunt approach not appropriate for evaluating new zone equipment.
Want a way to know if new eq will disrupt the game? If the gods can't figure it out, then they must ask the players. They ALSO need to first learn what is required of players to get those items, be able to compare that difficulty with existing areas, and know how the limiteds compare with the prevailing equipment that is possible to get, including how hard randoms are to get.
If that is too complicated, then I advocate our current approach: install, adjust later. Sounds stupid, and as if we aren't taking our Area Coordination jobs seriously, but otherwise you run into the Mystic Wood problem. Yes, I'm still mad, and maybe I sound like a kid, but I deserve to be.
In summary: there is no rubric we can apply to make future zone equipment--presto!--balanced. I wish there were.
THE TOWER ITEMS
Based on the difficulty in getting the items, taking into account actually solving the puzzles (as opposed to being told the pieces), and which mobs must be defeated where, here is how I propose the goodies are adjusted.
bloodsoaked backpack: 40kg ND limit 8, or 50kg limit 30. The old sorcery high tower backpacks were in the 50's or so and all you needed was an invis to run through the tower to pick them up. The new backpacks are actually hairy to get.
-11svs amulet in the shadow grove can be -7svs, staying limit 1. Because it's in the shadow grove.
-3svs 4dam collar is ok, relative to randoms and the limit 3 and the neck slot.
av9 ND enchantable weapon is ok, it is very powerful but does not throw balance out of whack, though the limit could be 2 instead of 3. Item also makes sense in context of placement in zone--by the time you get there it is appropriate.
the exclude and naturalize flowers pop too abundantly, should be limited each to at most 10.
5da light should be limit 2. This balances with the rod of neutrality (does that actually pop?) which is limit 2. Rod was much easier to get, but with EQ inflation we also should get Difficulty Inflation.
5da nat ring is ok at limit 3, based on severe difficulty of obtaining, and the slightly inflated ring slot due to simple rings.
forgotten lore light can be 3wis 3int, of course staying limit 1. A +6 light is unprecedented and there would still be plenty of incentive to go to the end of the tower for this item.
Amulet of the Shadow should be limit 1. If the limit stays at 3, the stats could be -2svs 3dam 3str.
Amulet of the Sky should be limit 1. If the limit stays at 3, the stats could be -2svs 3da 3hr.
There are many items that combo with hp or mana. I believe those are all ok.
5dam on body is ok but must stay limit 1. It's not easy to get to.
-5svs -6ac minor globe is ok (also limit 1) as an item because of the Ward of the Triat is its stat/slot precedent, although ideally this item should be moved into somewhere in the Tower because its location in the shadow grove makes it more easily accessed. I doubt we're relocating items though, unless Mas happened to wish it and made a formal request.
The 8chr heels should be 7chr, and limit 1.
expandable girdle should be limit 2.
brown patch should be limit 2 and made no_hoard because a player can wear two of these, but probably shouldn't.
minotaur legbraces should be limit 2.
kaern
Last edited by kaern; April 17th, 2009 at 06:02 AM.
Veteran Contributor
Some thoughts on the matter (long, but it's a big subject):
I agree that the items I've heard about are much too powerful. Every area should have at least one or two cool items in them, sure, but it shouldn't be a candy store for high-level characters.
I also agree that the game has changed, that new areas can't be compared to old areas, and that 'power creep' is inevitable (and even desirable). But 'creep' implies a slow escalation. It should be gradual, and achieved with one or two items per zone. Moreover, no one item should escalate item power in more than one dimension. Either increase the ac/average/affects by half a point or a point, or add a ND flag to lower-level items, but not both.
A trick I tried (but failed at because of the way limited code works) is to add negative affects to a nice set of positive affects. You want that neat -6svs item? Sure, if you're prepared to take -2str with it. It might be worth adjusting limited code so it takes account of negative affects.
I'm no expert on game balance, but I'd say limiteds should be somewhat below the best randoms most characters wear, and well below the best randoms in a super-set. In my experience, that means a limited item that nets +6 (alone or in combo) should be a rare exception, requiring explicit approval. Even hard areas shouldn't include more than one or two. When it involves non-levelling stats (dmg/DA/hr/svs/MR), +4 or +5 should be exceptional and subject to justification/rationalisation.
Specific limit suggestions follow. I've listed exceptional values, which should require specific approval and narrative rationalisation, and should be unique items found on very difficult mobs or very tricky places. There shouldn't be more than a couple of such items in a zone, even if it's hard. In brackets, I've listed what I would consider 'normal' maximums. Even these should be uncommon in a typical zone. There should be scope for the subjective judgment of area coordinators, since no hard and fast rule can cover all eventualities, but as a guideline this is what I'd put in a guide for area writers. (Note that I've used averages rather than max damage range on weapons.)
Magical item limits depend on the spells. In general, where spell level is significant, only exceptional items should have spells as big as a L30 character would cast it. The 'normal maximum' should be what a L20 character casts. Charges should be low (<5) on any exceptional or 'normal maximum' items. In general, relics can be more powerful than other items, and twist rings should be less powerful.Code:Dexterity 5 (3) Intelligence 6 (4) Wisdom 6 (4) Constitution 6 (4) Mana 30 (20) Hit 30 (20) Move 100 (50) Armor Rating (for metal) 16 (12) Armor Class -10 (-6) Hitroll 5 (3) Damroll 4 (2/3) Save vs spell -5 (-3) Charisma 6 (4) Luck 5 (3) Damage Absorbtion 4 (2/3) Magical Resistance 5 (3) 1h Sharp (AVG) 11 (9) - unless magical, less if ND/NR. 1h Weapon Blunt (AVG) 10 (8.5) - unless magical, less if ND/NR. 2h Weapon Sharp (AVG) 15 (12) - unless magical, less if ND/NR. 2h Weapon Blunt (AVG) 14 (11) - unless magical, less if ND/NR. Container Carry Capacity 30kg (25kg) - less if ND/NR.
As Corri noted, some slots are exceptions. Limited WWPs are already banned. Compared to the 6 (4) limits on level stats in the list above, lights should be no more than 4 (3), in my opinion, and even those should be very rare. There are few lights that big around, so they have an outsize effect on opening up other slots. Amulets can be 8 (6), since they are often used for other purposes (TS/health/blocking), and are less likely to open up other slots. Same goes for held items, but I'd keep them down to 4 (3) anyway, in order not to impact the advantage of wearing shields.
Combos should be considered in terms of their net value, rather than individually. For example, a 3dex 2str combo would be equivalent to 5dex on its own, and a 3dmg 2int item would equal (or just exceed) the exceptional maximums listed above. Additional flags such as ND, especially on weapons and containers, would need to be 'paid for' by a commensurate reduction in average, capacity or affects.
As I said, I'm no expert on game balance, but this is roughly what I worked to.
On Mas's comment that he didn't expect people to farm the zone, what exactly did he expect? Once a huge light appears, it pays to get a group together. If I understand correctly, this behaviour - finding and controlling 'artifacts' - is one of the principles on which Hork has based his following. It has always been a goal of powerful followings. Ask the Conclave. That anyone bothered to get a big group together only reflects the outsize value of the limiteds in question.
I like the idea of limiting the number of (different) big limited items you can hold, whether based on a per-zone criterion or something else.
In general, though, you'll notice my suggested maximums are significantly lower than Mas's, and more or less in line with those of Tamar, Corri and Anandunaiss. In particular, they were chosen not to overshadow the good randoms available in the game. On that point, I think Kurix is perfectly correct.
Last edited by Ylang; April 17th, 2009 at 04:33 AM.
Scribe
I *know* I haven't made my point clearly enough, but it is this:
Please DO NOT go through a list of objects, existing or future, and take a hacksaw the affects. This is a BAD approach.
When you change affects, it really needs to be informed by knowledge of
1. what other items go in that slot
2. worn by what kinds of classes/races
3. their prevalence and
4. how hard they are to get (better: what barriers there are to getting them).
Thank you.
kaern
Veteran Contributor
I agree, Kaern, deciding what to put on an item is a complex exercise of judgment involving a lot of factors, not a simple application of rules. But Toku did ask for specific guidelines. As I said, there should be scope for the subjective judgment of area coordinators, since no hard and fast rule can cover all eventualities. That includes exceptions to the guidelines for exceptional items. ;-)
Scribe
HARRRRRR im not tryin to troll
Scribe
This is a multifaceted representation of the wrong approach. Sorry Ylang to be picking on you, cause I agree with most everything else of what you have said here.
"The items I've heard about are much too powerful" is wrong because judgment is passed without knowing what is required to obtain the items. So everyone and their mom is going to jump on this and say, Well what about a 50dam light Kaern, you must agree that you could judge a 50dam light without knowing what it takes! My response is we aren't talking about a 50dam light, so sit down.
"Every area should have [a few] cool items...sure" is also wrong. The existence of cool items needs to be determined by narrative and difficulty. The Mage Tower, like the Tower of Sorcery before it, has a reason to include a high concentration of very nice things.
"[A zone] shouldn't be a candy store for high level characters" is, also, wrong and, like the previous two quotes, sounds like my grandparents shaking their fists. The sentiment is a knee-jerk reaction to 1) learning of the existence of the items and 2) seeing that other players have obtained them. I find it hilarious that accusing a zone of being a "candy store" or "toy store" is somehow an epithet. Let's defuse that right now: You know what? Some zones ARE full of candy. And they SHOULD be--if the risk involved is high enough and the story warrants. Master's tower is the worst, especially when it first arrived in terms of the power of the items relative to the rest of the game then. This whole "a zone shouldn't be a one-stop shop for good gear" argument is, first, not true--Mystic Wood is your best no-aggro mob corner convenience store, no qualms about it--and second, belies an uninformed passage of judgment, on an area you haven't bothered to learn (at least second-hand, if you're too small to do it personally).
Last edited by kaern; April 17th, 2009 at 06:48 AM.
Scribe
KAWW KAWW `*>
Scribe
Anyone else with numbers they'd like to share? there just 4 replies with numbers (which was the original topic/question of the thread) and one of them is a God+!!!
KAWW KAWW `*>
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