People have been able to see how the new necro pets vs old animated zombies work now. I propose doing something similar with DK charmies. The staff could create a set of mobs that the DK could choose from (balanced for different situations/danger levels of control) instead of relying on mobs put into areas by builders.
What do you think? Any suggestions on the capabilities of pre-designed DK charmies?
My thoughts:
Tanky charmie that casts, no lag, low melee damage (magical) but accurate. Moderate difficulty to charm. Similar to grand mistress.
Decent physical melee output with disarm, trip, medium size bash. Low rank mob (means easy to defend against attacks, but should be damaging if hit) that is easy to charm. Similar to crab.
Good physical melee output, large-sized bashing and disarming mob. Difficult to charm. Similar to warlock.
Decent magical melee output, shield/offhand disarm, no lag, tanky support. More hitroll tham damage. Moderate difficulty to charm. Can't think of a comparable mob.
Very high physical melee output mob (haste + good hit and good damage), no lag, no support skills, low hp. Difficult to charm. Similar to somewhat higher output ranger leopard.
Easy to charm = >50 rank, can't detect invis
Moderate to charm = >50 can detect invis or <50 and can't detect invis
I could talk a lot about charmies, but honestly, there's no point. They are ok in their current state. I don't like that some of them are really hard to get to, like the cook, the grand mistress and so on, but then, that's somewhat justified.
What's with this quest to change everything, Cel? :P
Those are all in Cel. There are even some Vuln specific charmies, and sneaking one for drows. I hope you guys understand when I chose to not share who those are, after all properly played DK's are a pain and in my view the most powerful class in FL. But then again that is just my opinion. I bet Anume thinks it's Ogre Warriors :D
You guys need to just charm random L50 stuff around. On other hand, Keep using the Warlock, you guys are doing fine ;)
Not that I've ever been known to put out lots of ideas/suggestions in my time here :P The 'quest' isn't so much for change for the sake of change (do I believe in chaos here? hardly :P), but more of a refinement of what we have. Everybody wants the game to be better. You need content and ideas out there to make it so. It won't happen by itself. That is why I put my ideas out there.
I acknowledge that we use the same few mobs for charming as we used the same few mobs for animating. That means there are some things we look for in mobs and the staff has accepted a certain 'strength' for allowable DK charmies. I think standardized necro mobs are superior to animated corpses, so I feel it is natural to apply the advance to DKs.
In that sense, the mob selection pool is already both limited and normalized. It is a natural step to take it to the next level and have mobs designed solely for the purpose of being charmies, so that they might fit that purpose perfectly rather than relying on getting there in a roundabout way through what builders put out. If a builder puts out a new mob that is too good (or somebody finds a good old one), it will be brought into line of the current mobs. It would take a jackpot or specific design for a builder to put out a mob that is different yet balanced to be a dk pet.
The problem is that if you accept that DK charmies are fine as is, you must then reject the addition of new potential mobs (being that everything is already balanced). If it isn't balanced, you must then accept changes in those mobs. If you are going to have changes, may as well tailor those changes to directly address the issue. If you want those changes to appear in new areas as regular mobs or make them part of the DK skillset, that is mostly a flavor decision and either way is fine with me. I prefer making them part of the DK skillset because it 100% future-proofs the balance and you don't get the awkwardness of availability, gear, and other considerations that builders put into mob design. You also don't need to worry about different standards for different builders in the future.
I think the current DK mobs are OK, but they could use a bit of variance and refinement. You can do this by waiting for better/different mobs in new areas or simply designing them directly. You could easily go the opposite way of this idea and allow rangers to try to tame animals in areas rather than summoning pre-designed mobs. That'd be interesting too, but balance would suffer.
These aren't huge ideas, but they are little things. For me, it is a step on the way to DK paths.
I put the idea out there and the hope is that through discussion advances are made. Maybe they aren't what the original idea was, but the discussion itself is very beneficial to the game. The idea remains as seed for something else in the future or even as an example of what and why not to do something. If the idea flops, you can just link the thread in the future when somebody else has a similar suggestion. The thread still has value, if developed, even if rejected.
My issue is in that its fine as it is. Instead of messing with classes that are already doing well, let's look at classes that could use some attention. These ideas are "fun". Also, I reject your statement that if I think they are fine as is that I must then reject future mobs coming into the fold.
A change that I think we NEED to discuss? The pry skill. In my opinion it needs to go. The skill is directly correlated with people logging off or ignoring areas entirely because they don't want to lose equipment to a character they can't force into combat.
Healers. Their role has diminished with the Pbase. They need to be redone.
Berserkers. The entire class needs a rework. Berserker skills are terribly outdated and are rarely effective in practical PK and even less so against the current skill level of the Pbase. I LOVE berserkers. My favorite classes are: rangers, bards, berserkers, warriors. So, I'd LOVE to see them redone. I'd rock the HELL outta that shit.
I love your ideas and your creativity, but I wish you'd focus them on things that are lacking instead of things that are fine, but "could" be played with.
My issue is in that its fine as it is. Instead of messing with classes that are already doing well, let's look at classes that could use some attention. These ideas are "fun". Also, I reject your statement that if I think they are fine as is that I must then reject future mobs coming into the fold.
A change that I think we NEED to discuss? The pry skill. In my opinion it needs to go. The skill is directly correlated with people logging off or ignoring areas entirely because they don't want to lose equipment to a character they can't force into combat.
Healers. Their role has diminished with the Pbase. They need to be redone.
Berserkers. The entire class needs a rework. Berserker skills are terribly outdated and are rarely effective in practical PK and even less so against the current skill level of the Pbase. I LOVE berserkers. My favorite classes are: rangers, bards, berserkers, warriors. So, I'd LOVE to see them redone. I'd rock the HELL outta that shit.
I love your ideas and your creativity, but I wish you'd focus them on things that are lacking instead of things that are fine, but "could" be played with.
I loved berserkers before it was cool!
I think the class could use a few tweaks, but I don't think they're as bad as everyone else seems to.
Someone recently posted an idea that I thought fit in well with the idea of berserkers, which was they should hit harder the more hurt they get.
Re 'fun' ideas: These ideas just add to the body of content that the staff can draw from when they decide that they want to rework xx mechanic. Just because I suggest it doesn't mean it needs to be done immediately. There is usually like a 5 year lag on my suggestion to implementation. Not every idea needs to address the most pressing of issues at the time it is suggested.
However, that said, I have several posts, even just in the last few months, involving what I see as the biggest issues to the game. This post has several major points identified in a single post. It also predicts the problem I am facing in this thread about this issue I'm addressing actually existing before looking at my idea:
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Problems
I believe the playerbase can solve just about any problem that is presented to it. Unfortunately, we have a problem where if there is a new idea (or solution), the proposer must argue both that the problem exists and the solution is the correct one. If we, staff and/or players, could come up with a list of generally-agreed upon problems, I think it would vastly simplify the work of the solvers. The solutions would be much more forthcoming (more motivation to solve a known problem, more chance your solution will be accepted) and relevant (addresses the problem directly), and the discussions would center more on the solution and less on the problem.
This post offers a very simple solution to a very difficult, long-standing issue with saves and includes a possible solution to cabal guardians in warfare issues. It also incidentally is a result of another player's idea thread...so it wouldn't have existed without that other player creating a thread. Various posts on staff philosophy which to me may be the only thing more important than balance. Just glance through my post history some day. There are plenty of issues being 'focused on', some of them huge, some of them very minor.
Even regarding healers I posted a short thing about a month ago:
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I say scrap the whole healer class and work on a replacement with a different theme and specialization. A passive support role isn't suited to modern FL gameplay. Do a bit of comparative class analysis and find out what class roles/game mechanics need some love and focus the new class in that direction. A rogue/caster or rogue/communer hybrid perhaps. Maybe a goodie version of the necro. Either way, a goodie that focuses on the mal saves category would be fitting.
Regarding zerks: They were one of the more recent classes to have been reworked, so I doubt they'll get another in a long time. That rework was my design, so even if you don't like where they are now, you can blame me. They are loads better than they were before I touched them. Despite that, I have even recently given some thoughts on zerks. As have many other people. If I had more to contribute, I'd do so in that thread. So can you!
Do you seriously think I'm ignoring berserkers and everything else because I made a DK suggestion?
As for low hp zerks doing more damage, I think that was @Pali's suggestion:
On 10/19/2016 at 8:08 PM, Pali said:
Or have zerks hit harder the more hurt they are, so the most dangerous time to fight one is when it is close to death.
If you want to talk about pry, or even the greater role of eq, please do! They need to be talked about and like usual, I'll probably agree with much of what you say. You can make a thread about it with your ideas and hopefully we can all come up to a solution.
@f0xx Necros used to have a unique spell that recycled mob content and broke the class. Now they have many more unique spells AND new mobs without being a broken class. Plus the old mobs still exist. We aren't losing anything here...but we are gaining a lot. This is a good thing.
I also feel that most choices today are okay. A few tweaks on existing charmies would be nice.
*4. Decent magical melee output, shield/offhand disarm, no lag, tanky support. More hitroll tham damage. Moderate difficulty to charm. Can't think of a comparable mob. *
Always felt we needed one of these that's easy to get to for battles vs ogres and giants.
And yes having a few of them become summonable would make things easier but also make it easy for the opponent to summon as well.
@f0xx Necros used to have a unique spell that recycled mob content and broke the class. Now they have many more unique spells AND new mobs without being a broken class. Plus the old mobs still exist. We aren't losing anything here...but we are gaining a lot. This is a good thing.
We are losing.....
.......classes are losing their identity.
Bards used to be about songs. Now they are just warriors with songs.
Ninjas used to be rogues. Now they are just warriors that can put you to sleep and waste their mana while trying to blind you. Then you just wake up and walk away.
Necros used to have zombies. Now they are rangers with spells.
Every melee class has his own version of bless/frenzy.
Classes are losing their uniqueness. The game is losing its uniqueness.
Changes are being made with little vision and on the fly starting out as super OP and ending in a condition that's worse than before.
But then again, lets be real - many high budget games suffer from the same problem. I can't possibly expect more from a free to play one.
And back to your suggestion - yes raising actual mobs made necros unpredictable and unbalanced. THAT WAS THE FUN ABOUT THEM. Now they have standard, relatively strong, balanced and boring pets. I never played necros before because they were too hard for me. Now I'll never play them because they are too boring.
I see what you are trying to do there, you got your successful balancing formula - no interaction with the environment so everything is nice and predictable. It worked for Necros. Now you want to make it work for DKs. You want to make DKs boring too. I don't want that.
Bards used to be about songs. Now they are just warriors with songs.
Ninjas used to be rogues. Now they are just warriors that can put you to sleep and waste their mana while trying to blind you. Then you just wake up and walk away.
Necros used to have zombies. Now they are rangers with spells.
Every melee class has his own version of bless/frenzy.
Classes are losing their uniqueness. The game is losing its uniqueness.
Changes are being made with little vision and on the fly starting out as super OP and ending in a condition that's worse than before.
But then again, lets be real - many high budget games suffer from the same problem. I can't possibly expect more from a free to play one.
And back to your suggestion - yes raising actual mobs made necros unpredictable and unbalanced. THAT WAS THE FUN ABOUT THEM. Now they have standard, relatively strong, balanced and boring pets. I never played necros before because they were too hard for me. Now I'll never play them because they are too boring.
I see what you are trying to do there, you got your successful balancing formula - no interaction with the environment so everything is nice and predictable. It worked for Necros. Now you want to make it work for DKs. You want to make DKs boring too. I don't want that.
Each necro path having the same pets isn't so different to how necromancers used to be, anyway.
You're talking as though there was a huge variety of mobs that necromancers would use - each one suitable for different circumstances, but that is not how I remember it.
Every necro would always get 3 Travens.
After the change was made to allow only one zombie of each mob, it was Traven, Travl and Shudde'Mel.
All these mobs did basically the same thing, heavy melee and bash/trip.
I agree that DK charmies are a bit different, but in my view the necro changes have not decreased the individuality of necros at all.
Bards used to be about songs. Now they are able to participate in PK kind of like warriors with songs but with other bard stuff thrown in. I'm glad people can play this class now.
Ninjas used to be rogues. Now they are able to participate in non-assassinate PK, kind of like warriors that can put you to sleep and waste their mana while trying to blind you but with other ninja stuff. Then you just wake up and walk away, completely unlike how warriors fight. I'm glad people have more of a reason to play non-assassinate ninja now.
Necros used to have zombies. Now they are rangers without ranger skills and with necro spells and still have zombies. I'm glad more than one or two of our entire playerbase can play this class again.
Every melee class has his own version of bless/frenzy. That has always been the case with warcry, so I'm glad nothing has changed here. Although sometimes I wonder if I might prefer everyone to just use the same consumable to get that affect without having unique class skills, because I like things to be less unique.
Classes are losing their uniqueness because we can see more classes in play. The game is losing its uniqueness because people have discovered and refined the best ways to PK over time. It was more fun when nobody knew how to play.
Changes are being made with little vision that I like and on the scale of 1000 housefly generations starting out as super OP and ending in a condition that's different than before.
But then again, lets be real - I can't possibly expect to be pleased.
And back to your suggestion - yes raising actual mobs made necros unpredictable and unbalanced. THAT WAS THE FUN ABOUT THEM, except when you tried to play as or against one. Now they have standard, relatively strong, balanced and more varied pets. I never played necros before because they were frustrating because they were broken. Now I'll never play them because they are too playable. I want to play something that is both easy and exciting, but that doesn't use melee like warriors or spells like warriors with spells. I also want the class to be the exact same as it was 15 years ago.
I see what you are trying to do there, you got your successful balancing formula - no interaction with the environment so everything is nice and predictable. It worked for Necros. Now you want to make it work for DKs. You want to make DKs successful too. I don't want that.
I took the liberty of fixing some of your typos. :D
Each necro path having the same pets isn't so different to how necromancers used to be, anyway.
First let me correct you, the standard zombie trio used to be Shudde, Traven and Gasteride (not Travl).
Only the best necros could support having those around. Only the best necros could support retrieving those after losing them. Just like only the best DKNs can get many high level malforms and keep them at high level. How many memorable necros were there in more recent history? Just two - Mindflayer's Kurvikhel and Mmm Beer's Grezath.
Classes like DKNs and necros are high skill - high reward classes. Every game needs those if it wants variety and diversity. In LoL they have Yasuo, Riven and Katarina. FL had DKNs and Necros. Now it's just DKNs.
Cel's change has opened necros for a wider public, that can't be denied. It has taken away their charm though.
Does the pro outweigh the con? I don't know. What I know though, is that the necros we now have are not true necros.
As for DKNs and designing their pets.... please just don't try to fix something that works so well. Just like a malform's base weapon, there are so many things a DKN must consider when choosing the "right" charm. It's not as simple of a process as you make it out.
26 minutes ago, Celerity said:
You want to make DKs successful too. I don't want that.
If by "successful" you mean "losing their identity", then yes. I don't want that.