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Did you close the thread quickly did only 9 people care enough to vote? Either way it was an interesting thread.



I don't think it was my thread.. it was Demosthenes'... and I don't know how long it was open.

Don't go to the dark orc warlord without a traps eh?



Curiosity makes me wonder why you gave the dark main gauche to warlocks but not rangers/ninjas/mystics who actually have class stealth when it seems to be a backstab enhancing armor.. just a question though.

Don't go to the dark orc warlord without a traps eh?



Curiosity makes me wonder why you gave the dark main gauche to warlocks but not rangers/ninjas/mystics who actually have class stealth when it seems to be a backstab enhancing armor.. just a question though.

There is a path to get to him that doesnt require traps. The main gaunche is intended for 1 handed people, the only way i can keep it limited and know for a fact it will go to one of them is by not letting the more powerful classes use it.



oh thanks for pointing the orc warlord thing out, i looked at it in my explorer and it showed the rooms as not being lairs, which my nmr shows them being. Cause i have them set on the wrong group. On the west side there is a path you can take to get to the stairway that has none of the exploding runes(yes thank you warcraft 2) but each of the rooms you have to go through to get there without hittign a trap are lair rooms with 5 monsters in each room, on the east side there is a path you can take that although it is trapped has no lair rooms. Every other room on the map is suppose to be a 2 rgen lair.

You could always class specify the gauche, instead of reserving it for just 1 handed classes. That way, you can choose what classes should deserve it without having to discriminate between certain weapon classes.



The idea of the bbs looks real good. Definately if I'm playing mud when it goes up, I'll check it out. I am definately for long tested edits instead of small packages daily. Too many times I've been on a bbs where a edit is exploited because it wasnt tested throughly, a few people abuse it, and the bbs loses a lot of members on the fact that either A. the exp that was earned through the falty edit wasn't taken away, or B. vice versa and the exp is taken away, and those users feel shitted on.



I'd take a look at the edits myself, but I'm not much for stats and such, and probably wouldn't have useful insight on it. But the things you have described makes for an interesting realm with bustling user activity, always a plus. A suggestion I have is definately make it pvp, because it seems a lot of well edited bbses are going the non-pvp route or the 5 level pvp.



Sorry for the lengthy crap, just pretty happy bout this bbs info.

People never cease to amaze me. :yeahthat:

You could always class specify the gauche, instead of reserving it for just 1 handed classes. That way, you can choose what classes should deserve it without having to discriminate between certain weapon classes.



The idea of the bbs looks real good. Definately if I'm playing mud when it goes up, I'll check it out. I am definately for long tested edits instead of small packages daily. Too many times I've been on a bbs where a edit is exploited because it wasnt tested throughly, a few people abuse it, and the bbs loses a lot of members on the fact that either A. the exp that was earned through the falty edit wasn't taken away, or B. vice versa and the exp is taken away, and those users feel shitted on.



I'd take a look at the edits myself, but I'm not much for stats and such, and probably wouldn't have useful insight on it. But the things you have described makes for an interesting realm with bustling user activity, always a plus. A suggestion I have is definately make it pvp, because it seems a lot of well edited bbses are going the non-pvp route or the 5 level pvp.



Sorry for the lengthy crap, just pretty happy bout this bbs info.

Ya know, see the way i think about mud is how I'm use to it being. which is PVP-less. I play on legit realms most of the time and although there is pvp enabled, that generally goes unused. I'll keep that in mind when building items are use classok instead of class only. If theyw ant it they can just take it.

Currently, I am still slowly working out the details of what has turned into a just plain massive mod. This process is taking me alot longer than i had orginally thought it would, mainly cause alot of it is just plain boring and its difficult to spend hours of time actually being productive. I basically post here to give my brain a momment to recollect. I thought i'd go ahead and post some of the ideas I'm working on and see if anyone has any input.



Classes:

It is my opinion that the classes in majormud are severly unbalanced. Occationally I catch my self thinking that balance can be achieved with exp modifers, but clearly that is not the case. Although exp modifers *can* play a small part in balance a great deal more is nessicary to make all classes play on near equal grounds. To achieve balance I've refrenced some materials I created for the balancing process of my last bbs. (Which i admit was a giant flop, it doesnt help when the 2 ops mutually agree to never speak again on the 2nd or 3rd day of the bbs's operation) As before i ranked each class in several catagories including both solo and group play capablity. These values, although based enitirly on my own personal opinion, are perfect HISS. I used these values to base the current exp charts of classes that are currently in the game.

As i stated before, i know that simply changing exp charts will not balance classes. So, looking at the classes that still need help I've come up with some ideas.



Thieves:

The point of thieves has been entirely lost in the expansion of majormud over the year. Backstabs, which use to be useful, are now-a-days just away to kill a script. The virtue of the thief class therefore was left to its other abilities, which many other classes have. THUS thieves are useless. I've considered several options. For one I intend to make lockpicking a useful skill. It will be a short ut through quests and dungeon areas and a godsend for deathpile runs. This will make thieves a desirable class, but it of course will not make them "playable."



To make thieves playable I want to expand their combat. While I intend to leave them as combat-2 I also want to grant them the chance to pull off surprise backstab during combat rounds. This should in theory make them far more dangerous in combat. The chance of pulling off an in combat backstab will increase slowly with level.



Defensively speaking thieves are extremely weak. They do have a few options currently in the game for leather defense, but i feel that more is needed. For the purpose of balance and character develpment I think a wide range of armour is important to give them a customizable feel. So new types of armour will be made to allow for that. There will be armour made purely for AC bonuses and other types of armour that give other types of abilities and bonuses.



Gypsy:



The gypsy class is another underpowered, underplayed class that I feel needs extensive reorganization. To make gypsies more playable I intend to give them there own unique types of blesses and curses. Playing on the gypsy tarot theme already present in majormud I've designed combat abilties for gypsys that will randomly allow gypsies to alter the fate of a combat situation. During regular combat gypsies will on occation alter fate blessing themselves and/or their parties. They will also have a chance to cast a wide varity of curses. These abilities will all stay within the altering fate theme.



Gypsies will also have a small % chance to have surprise combat rounds.



Missionary:



The missionary class will be given the ability to preach. Preaching will have random effects, but will always take the form of combat blesses. Preaching will be a turn on turn off abilty so there will be no need to auto-bless with it. Missionaries will also have increased healing ability and will have their group healing spells that will be restricted from clerics. Missionaries will have a tiny chance of pulling off backstabs during combat.



Warlocks:



Warlocks will gain the ability to randomly cast spells during combat. They will still need to have the mana to cast the spell, but a level 10 warlock,for example, will have a small percentage chance to cast spells like Lbol and slow. There are some draw backs to this, as I cannot think of anyway to stop them from randomly casting dragonfire on lets say, the adilt red dragon. But I think the out-and-out coolness of the ability overshadows its drawbacks. I'm highly consibering giving warlocks plate armour.



Bards:



I'm going to make bard spells much more effective. I know people use bards still but I dont think they know that the only use for bards is bard bugging and making elves have enough str to use certain weapons. Their bless spells will become a much power potent force. Did ya'll know that currently a warlock blessing a party adds like 9 more max damage than a bard does! More over gypsies actually have the highest max dammage of any of the one handed classes :0. I also plain to make bard bless have other effects besides just increasing combat damage, such as improving spells like song of soothing and song of life.



Witchhunters:



Omg.this link (http://www.metrobbs.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=mudideas;action=display;num=1078313 208;start=24#24) shows my current opinion on the class. Exactly what I'm gonna do with them is currently up in the air. I don't know what to do with them exactly. Any ideas would be nice :)



Spell casters:



I'm intending to use the spell caster addon-mod as a sort of start for fixing these classes. I'm really not happy with the way the spell mod works out. I don't think it throughly adresses the problems, I also think it does to much in the way of altering monsters that are currently In the game. I'll have to go through and make basic damage modification by hand. I think ill simily make a max damage chart for every 5 levels. The max damage will be based on whatever race class combo i think will do the most damage at that level and then I will give mages a 15% increase in damage over that, so that if we are talking about a monster with 50 ac and 75 mr, a mage will avg 15% higher damage per round than the best combat fighter. A druid will avg 5% higher and a priest will avg 30% less.



I think room spells are just about perfect, so unless something happens to change my mind on that, I will not change them.



New Classes:



The driving force of many edited bbses are its unique classes. I have 3 classes currently have 3 classes in mind. Although i can think of many classes Id like to see in mud, it would be extremely difficult to find ways to make many new classes without stepping on every other classes toes. So for the time being I'm sticking with 3 class. 1 of the 3 classes is still very very iffy, and may, after testing, never see the light of day.



Enchanter:

The enchanter class is common in many other online role playing games. Its purpose is to attempt to control the flow of battle with spells that paralyze and stun enemies, and in so cases even enslave them. The enchanters main ability will be to prevent monsters from attacking while slowly damaging them. In game play this will work by having a chance to stun monsters for short periods. For example I have designed a version of the spell that will stun a monster for 1 spell round. The enchanter will cast his attack spell, that will do a small amount of damage and then the monster will be unable to attack during the same combat round. Assuming that the enchant continues to get combat initiative the enchanter will kill the enemy without ever being attacked. This is a particullarly deadly ability in player versus player. In a pvp battle, so long as the enchanter attacks first he will have a chance of preventing his enemy from attacking every combat round. Spells similar to this will be the main power of the enchanter. The enchanters abilities will be very impressive when using room spells at higher levels. In an attempt to limit the power of the enchanter I've decided to use spell immu as the key factor on how easily the enchanter can affect a monster. So many of the spells an enchant will use will link to spells that have a much lower level. Many of the enchanters spells will have no effect on boss monsters. As a sort of compensation I've given enchanter the chance learn spells with lower chances to stun and higher damage output. There will be very little in the way of blesses for the enchanter class. And many of their curse spells will be damage over time spells rather than traditional status changing curses. This will give enchanters the chance to cast damage over time combat spells then use low to non-damaging stun attacks. Enchanters will share spells with no other classes and there mana rgen will be based on intellect.



Witchdoctors:



Witchdoctors will specialize in lowering the combat effectiveness of their enemies. They will have a completely unique spell set and their mana rgen will be based on both intellect and willpower. They will have combat abilities similar to a bard but will have the option of wearing chain armour. The witchdoctors abilties will function as spells that they cast on themselves. The cursing effects effect monsters and players in the room with the witchdoctor, and these types of spells will no cause the witchdoctor to take evil points. Many of the witchdoctors curse spells will be unresistable, and some of them may even be stackable. The witchdoctor will also have a wide range of spells that will require a target. These will be much more powerful than the basic witchdoctor curses and will cause the witchdoctor to gain evil points if they are used on the wrong targets. The witchdoctors most unique combat ability will be the ability to drain hps from enemies and deliver them back to himself or his party. I'm toying with certain ideas to cast spells that take multple rounds to cast. These spells, if I decide to use them will be very dangerous, but very powerful.





Summoner:



The Summoners main ability will be to summon monsters to aid his party. These monsters will range greatly in power and usefulness. Exactly how the summoner class works is still in development. The most annoying feature of this that monsters attacking other monsters tend to share your exp. And thats just f'n wrong. Although now that i've been siting here typing this I know how to fix that. So very mind. Summoners will be in the game. And they will have hella pimp combat effects..it will rock, dont question it. Summoners will be able to summons monsters into combat. Combat monsters will attack the same target the summoner has targetted with combat. The summoner will have no attack spells so he will have to attack with his own weapon. He can summon monsters that will aid in combat by blessing party members as well. Summoned monsters will disappear after a short while and they will need to be resummoned. Summoners will only be able to control a limited number of monsters at one time.

Summoners will pwn. Summoners will take hours to build. Summoner might cause me to develop a drinking habit.



Advanced Game Play Classes: A theory.



I want to try to design a sort of artisian class for majormud. This class will be restricted from normal training means and will instead train through various quests. It will require material components to gain power rather than traditional exp. The basic design for this class is still in very early stages and will most likely be useless to anyone that does not have access to higher level help. The purpose of this class will be to reward people who spend time atks as most of its advancement will be quest based. The highlights of this class will be the ability to make strong weapons and armour that will surpass the strenght of normal in game gear. It will also allow characters to go on quests that they other wise would not be able to go on. Furthermore this class will be designed to reward well diversifed group as certain quest areas will require particular classes. This class will not be avaible when the bbs first opens its complete design will be added later on. The general design of artisian quests will seem very foriegn and provide a unique experience for mudders. As material components will be rare and very useful, artisians will be the target of player versus player combat and will often require the assistance of their gang. Artisians will have to run if engauged by the typical majormud class.





Game Structure:

I am currently looking to make my realm have a strong atk user base. To do that I'll need for there to be a reason to be atks. For 1 I intend to leave limited items limited. That way there is reason to both protect any items you currently have and also a good reason to go boss hunting. I've decided that I need to go through and add bosses all over the damn place so everyone has something to do while they are atks. The first group required quest will be in newhaven. There will be a minimum of 1 boss added to every place that people think of as being its own area. So there will be a boss added to, newhaven, the slums, silvermere, the sewers, under the blackhouse, the caveworm area, the hellhound area, the fungus forest, the hazy swamp, the black fortress the dragon tooth hills...and so on. The new boss added to these areas will serve as nothing more than raw exp and few of them will have new rooms and maps designed for them.



I do not intend to change the exp values for regular monsters. I do however intend to double boss exp and to cut rgen times. PvP will be completely open, and the only rule will be no being a prick. I kknow thats an aweful broad rule, and its rather ambiguous, but I think for the most part people should know what i mean. For example, attacking a level 5 warrior with your level 70 paladin for no reason, is being a prick. Killing someone and then gossiping about it for more than like 10 seconds, and anything more than just "gos yay i win!" is more than likely being a prick. If your being dip in gossip, I'll just take awy your gossip, if your killing lowbies cause you can, I'll just ban you. If there are any questions about whats exceptable, just ask. I'm not pvp shy, i just cant stand pricks. That was a rant, sorry. There will be sys map, but no sys goto. Instead of gotos im going to use the carriage system design that is in the database already. I'll have to test how that works and tweak it so its game play is smooth but for the most part you will be able to instantly travel from khaz, rhu, and silveremere back and forth for a small price. The price will be per carriage, so only the party leader will need to have money. Should the carriage be attacked the entire party will be stopped, in a known room in the megamud database. For travel between places like lost city and arly and any new towns I plan to expand the black wastelands. I'm going to make it some what easier to navigate by placing portals closer to the entrance to the wasteland. Each town will sell spell scrolls and potions that will allow you to teleport back to them. These potions will be impossible to use during pvp. Mages and warlocks will have access to the spells that allow parties to travel instantly around the realm. Some of the areas I have designed are quite large, they will have their own portal type systems. These may require minimum levels and or items and abilities to use.



I think that covers alota the basic ideas that i have. WOOT.

This board sounds truly awesome. I like your ideas on balance, it gives people a reason to want to play a lesser class by making them powerful in their own way.



Im my opinion the biggest inbalance in mud is the whole defensive system. Plate is just godly, nothing compares to a high ac high dr char and these chars are effective right from level 1. The problem is the way ac works with acc and you reach a point where with a certain ac a certain acc will hardly ever hit you, but im sure u know more about this than I do. I don't really know how to solve this problem, but heres a few ideas.



Lower plate ac, especially at lower levels.

Raise plate encumb.

Add modifiers to plate which slow the players movement, swings, crits, damage etc... a char wearing plate shouldnt move and fight like a leather wearer. Encumb doesnt do enough in this area.

Make plate more expensive.



Defence is the whole game and its not just plate that I think you should look at. High level dodge is certainly good too, priest ac etc...



Maybe raising monster acc is the solution I dont know?

I disagree on the plate comment.



Any high level ninja (cloth) could easily kill a warrior of the same level. Though plate does decrease damage and accuracy on attacks, it has nothing on the crits and accuracy of other classes.



I've seen high level dodgers get out of the way of more swings then a plate wearer with over a 120/40 AC rating.

Defence is the whole game and its not just plate that I think you should look at. High level dodge is certainly good too, priest ac etc...



My problem is not with just plate, but the whole defensive system in general.



I'd take plate ac over dodge hands down no contest. The DR from plate is a massive help and you get hit less. Try scripting storms with dodge, you will get hammered.