Equipment

[Leo]

I've been playing TFC since somewhere around 13 years or so, and this is the lowest player base I think I've ever seen. Yes there are many characters but its the same people. I think in order to attract NEW players, and bring back old ones something has to change...make the mud "fun" again. This is a PK mud which is the reason I started playing it in the first place, and like has been mentioned by several people on several posts, that just doesnt really happen because everybody (well most) are so concerned about losing the set of equipment they have. I know its been brought up before and been shot down, but in talking to several people that agree, I thought I'd post a note about it.

I think the code for randoms should be changed to allow "nice" eq to be MUCH more common, so that the equipment disparity is greatly reduced. I'm not saying give everybody a 50dmg50svs50hr50da set...just so that the playing field is more level. I think if someobdy knows that, well i can reequip with decent eq, combos, dmg, hr, svs, etc...then they would be more likely to leave safe, xp, and fight more often, which is the way TFC used to be. I would like to see the player base go way up, but the way it is now, 4-6 characters have unreal sets of eq and everybody else just safe-sits (including myself) which is a huge negative on a pk mud, and not conducive to bringing in "real" new players.

Anyway just a thought on how I think the game could be GREATLY inproved.

Leo de Lion.

[Kurix]

Been saying this for a long time and it is the solution to the pk and the player base problem.

However i'd still suggest reducing the overall number of stats that are popping on items whenever this "rebalance" occurs. Longer skill based fights are more fun and encourage people to stick around and try to fight it out rather than immediately run away to avoid being 3-5 rounded.

[Shelar]

I agree that people safe-sitting to protect their gear is not doing the MUD any favours (not to mention, there's precious little point in having a nice set of gear if you aren't doing anything with it), but I'm note sure if tweaking the random drops is necessarily the whole answer.

Yes, more available 'nice' randoms and/or a wider base of leveling randoms would help, but I think Wish's idea of making "leveling stats" more or less irrelevant to level gains would have a more far-reaching effect. Make it so that, if there is a range of increases we can get in a level, they are relatively small, and either the same for everyone, or with some adjustments based on race and/or class. That way someone who's been PK'd won't need to spend a month either randoming for new gear or safe-sitting waiting for friends or the pit to drop it on them before they can go out and exp again. Either of which is a pain for the would-be PKer who has to wait for them to level again if they want to avoid a multi-kill penalty.

Every leveling stat currently has an effect other than leveling. Dex affects dodge and possibly hit roll. Int affects prac'ing (and rift) and wis affects spell power (and rift). Charisma affects your opponents hit roll, as well as ghost popping. Luck affects hit roll and dodge. Con and int affect regen rates. If all levels were at a set amount (or at least a set minimum that would make every character 'playable' at higher levels - say, half the maximum gain at a given level), and every char currently below that level were bumped up to that minimum, you'd be able to see a lot more motion in people's levels, those who had spent truely heroic amounts of time getting just the right set and earning precisely the gains they wanted could still be rewarded (at least, they could be if the minimum range were raised), and the lower requirement of leveling stats would mean generally more people willing to be out and about.

Of course, the solution that requires the least amount of coding and thus is most likely to be accepted and implimented, is for more people to write more zones with more randoms of the types people will be willing to get out and level with.

[Otak]

or maybe lessen the effect of str, dex, wis, int.. you know, the essentials, so we would have to wear like 10-15 of each to reach max.

that would make it way hard to hit a set like most people have while still having max wis, int, dex, str...