Lower the wait time for a necroport-able corpse to maybe 5 ticks?

**Anduin** · September 6th, 2011

I think necroport is a great idea as it gives shaman a bit of a fallback plan out of scary areas, and thus allows them to explore a bit more freely like a mage can.

The problem however, is that it is very rare for a necroportable corpse to be lying around. They have to be 'old' corpses and as it stands, that takes a VERY long time to do.

The idea: I think that necroportable corpses should start after they've been lying around for around 5 ticks. Making corpses last longer was a great start (and should remain), but it prolonged the 'age' of them as well. This idea would really make the spell a lot more usable and I don't think would take a lot of coding to do (win-win!).

**Tynian** · September 6th, 2011

The spell currently checks to see how many ticks are remaining. It has no concept of how many ticks have already been expended.

I could increase the number some, which would make some difference, I suppose.

**Anduin** · September 6th, 2011

Yay Tyn

**ink** · September 7th, 2011

Definitely agree with Anduin. A successful necroport is still rare for me despite having a ton of corpses out. I think corpses that are 5 ticks old to the end of their existence is good. I would even venture to suggest getting rid of the age limitation... dead is dead, right? If a corpse is out there, you can necroport and if it is not, you can't.

As a side note, does anyone know if it portals to the oldest corpse, or a random corpse within the database of available corpses, or what?

**boromir** · September 7th, 2011

Hi,

I would think that you should be able to necroport to any non-player corpse if its still hanging around.

A question:
What happens if someone sacs the corpse as someone else is necroporting to it? does the necroport fail or does the player necroporting in get pushed to another corpse? Or back to their own?

Not sure how long the corpse hangs around after a necroport is finished .....

Perhaps allowing a slight chance of necroporting back to your own corpse (if it still exists) after you necroport out.

Imagine ... you necroport out to avoid getting attacked and then necroport back just in time to get attacked / finished off ...

I await your considered opinions!

**Anduin** · September 7th, 2011

Originally Posted by ink

Definitely agree with Anduin. A successful necroport is still rare for me despite having a ton of corpses out. I think corpses that are 5 ticks old to the end of their existence is good. I would even venture to suggest getting rid of the age limitation... dead is dead, right? If a corpse is out there, you can necroport and if it is not, you can't.

As a side note, does anyone know if it portals to the oldest corpse, or a random corpse within the database of available corpses, or what?

I think 3-5 ticks should stay, otherwise a shaman can just necroport right in while someone's exping. Gotta give them a chance to sac. As for oldest etc.. I don't know.

**Avarice** · September 7th, 2011

I agree with Anduin on both counts. Necro is underutilized, but it would be too abuseable without a timer of some sort before the corpses are reachable via necro. I'd say 5+ ticks at the earliest makes the most sense. That way it's a viable escape tool for a shammy stuck in no-recall, but not particularly useful for gank pk's.

**Eathor** · September 7th, 2011

Originally Posted by Tynian

The spell currently checks to see how many ticks are remaining. It has no concept of how many ticks have already been expended.

I could increase the number some, which would make some difference, I suppose.

I'm just making sure here, but everyone realizes he's saying that currently the spell counts ticks *remaining*...that would be till decay. Meaning that since the change to make corpses last longer, the ability to necroport to corpses has probably greatly decreased. I love that Tyn mentions increasing the number (yay!) but I think most of you all are suggestion that it be changed completely to count the number of ticks that have been expended vice the number remaining?

Eathor

**Anduin** · September 7th, 2011

Originally Posted by Eathor

I'm just making sure here, but everyone realizes he's saying that currently the spell counts ticks *remaining*...that would be till decay. Meaning that since the change to make corpses last longer, the ability to necroport to corpses has probably greatly decreased. I love that Tyn mentions increasing the number (yay!) but I think most of you all are suggestion that it be changed completely to count the number of ticks that have been expended vice the number remaining?

Eathor

I think Tyn could just calculate how many ticks a corpse lasts, then count backwards to after 5 ticks.

**Tynian** · September 7th, 2011

Originally Posted by Anduin

I think Tyn could just calculate how many ticks a corpse lasts, then count backwards to after 5 ticks.

The amount of time a corpse lasts is dependent on the level of the mob that made the corpse, but the level is not stored with the corpse, so I wouldn't be able to calculate it.

... although I may have a way to work around that.

Remind me again why we want mob corpses to last so long.

**Anduin** · September 8th, 2011

Mob corpses lasting so long was also to make necroport usable - before, necroport pretty much never worked because it would take several ticks for the corpse to be necroportable, and in a couple more ticks it poofed.

People (clerics included, because of spheres) wanted to be able to leave corpses around the MUD and explore a big no recall area with the opportunity to necroport out if they absolutely had to - whereas before, a corpse would never last that long. It gave shaman and cleric the opportunity to explore more freely.

It was also done for trophies (steaks and bags) when you've killed a big mob and are trying to get a bag/steak of it, only to have it poof when you finally get back to a shaman or ranger.

Those are the reasons I remember hehe.

**Tynian** · September 9th, 2011

Okay, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to give mob corpses a fixed tick count (no longer level dependent).
I will allow necroport to that corpse after an undisclosed number of ticks have passed.

If you want anything more or different, then it will need to wait until after v5 is launched, since I'm no longer accepting suggestions for shamans for v5.

And you better be happy about it, because I'm making very few changes to v4, and I suppose this one is minor enough to go ahead and do.

**ink** · September 9th, 2011

Could you change Anduin into an newt before v5 too please?

**Anduin** · September 9th, 2011

Awesome, thanks Tyn.

Ink... hi

**Eathor** · September 9th, 2011

Great stuff, thanks Tyn

**Rosemark** · September 16th, 2011

I'm not sure I'm happy about necroport PERIOD! Being that's how Soloman found me meteor swarming ..... an area maybe I shouldn't have been in? But HAD to be in, after all you freaks wrecked my debt. hmph