Shattered Kingdoms

Lei's wrong. Hoarding would not increase if level 40's were able to hold onto GM gear, because level 40's don't get gm gear. If they do get gm gear, then they will lose it to inactivity eventually. If they play the mud actively, they are either going to be gm extremely soon or will get ganked for their equipment.

I just wonder if Lei_kung plays the same mud that I do sometimes. Some of his points are wacko and don't make any sense.

Lei's math is right. Its statistics.

Even if you have two helms the chnce of each being stolen acts seperately, so you have a 1/10 of one being stolen and 1/10 of another. For them both to be stolen you have to have gotten 1/10 twice at the same exact time so ...

1/10 * 1/10 = 1/100

Sorry, I should have been more clear. His math is right.

Peace,
Bux

I looked it up. Lei's math is right, regarding the single log in and the chances for BOTH helms being stolen at THAT log in. However, in the 10 log ins, you would have to calculate the chances of being left with ONE helm first, which are 1/10. And after that one goes, the chances to be without a helm again are 1/10. So, in depth of time, you have many more than 1/100 chances to find yourself without a helm.

Log in, only got one, go quest the other back.

(All de-railments of this thread aside)

... I'm still failing to see what this will acomplish. Someone care to explain? I'm all ears, and willing to change my opinion.

sleeper

You would have had to read the thread to begin with. tl;dr isn't a good excuse for anything.

The idea is to enable Masters to either hold GM level equipment, OR to be able to get equipment enchanted and still able to hold it.

Interesting theory, but it is completely wrong. First, we are not just talking about GM gear but high level gear in general. Second, I’ve played a number of characters that have had level 50 items long before they GMed and I know many other players have had access to that equipment as well. Not only is this statement totally false it is also too limited in scope by not including level 49 items and level 48 items, etc.



This assumes the character will be inactive, which there is no grounds to believe. In fact all a player would have to do is log on X hours a month to avoid the inactivity castration. Therefore, under the proposed change a player could have a character with X amount of upper level gear and be active according to the system but for practical purposes be inactive. Think about how many players you know that have multiple characters. This is really obvious and to claim that for some mysterious reason level 40’s will go inactive at some increased rate is fantasy. I would argue in the advent of this change, level 40’s active time will increase as the need to GM decreases. Because there will be less pressure to GM, some players will not GM (or at a much reduced rate) and others will keep playing level 40’s because they are no longer at such a great disadvantage (when they would delete/go inactive otherwise).



Because of the proposed change there will be less of a need to GM. Why then would anyone assume that these players will “be gm extremely soon”? To claim such would be the definition of an illogical argument. I submit that there will be players that can GM but under this change will choose not to pursue it because they don’t enjoy leveling.

I fully recognize that characters are Pked for what they have all the time, but that has no bearing on this issue for four reasons. First, avoiding PK and/or surviving an attack is not that difficult if you are properly prepared, adept at hiding, and/or grouped with players that can protect you. Second, to have a hoarding problem it doesn’t have to be one player holding 97% of all the gear in SK. Because a greater number of characters can hold onto more gear it could be spread among many characters (maybe characters of the same player, maybe not). Third, just because a hoarder gets ganked, what stops that character from quickly recouping that equipment (PKing his Pkers) and hoard it once again. Lastly, there still can be effectively inactive characters that put in enough hours to hold on to equipment but effectively take it out of the game.



I’ll admit that sometimes my writing can get convoluted and make my points hard to understand. I will gladly try and explain any of my points, using small words, all you need to do is ask. But trying to claim my points are “wacko” when you make a post that is obviously devoid of any logical or rational thought seems asinine. I’ll assume that you are a rational person with the ability to utilize solid reasoning and chalk up your post to simply being distracted by smearing peanut butter on yourself while you try on your grandmother’s underwear or something of that nature. After all, if you do grasp simple logic, it would have to be a huge distraction for you to make the assertions you do. As you can see, your stance does not hold up in the light of basic reasoning.

Lei Kung

The goal is to reduce the time between character start-up and meaningful participation in the high-level aspects of the game: PvP and top-level PvE.

Why is it desirable to do this? Because much of the game's fun is the higher-level stuff. Cabals and tribunals both have PvP responsibilities. Even non-group RP plots often stir enough conflict to start fights. As for high end PvE, it's true that Masters can already handle almost all of it. However, they don't get to keep the loot even despite having a harder fight than GMs would have. That gets discouraging.

Making GM hard to get has several advantages to SK. But if being GM remains very important for success, we get this "barrier to entry" problem. Letting Masters keep well-enchanted gear will provide more parity in PK, while still giving GMs a substantial advantage. This would effectively solve the problem.

But isn't giving people item retention at Master overly indulgent? Do remember that not everyone has great levelling skills or endless time to play. A semi-skilled veteran who needs 40 hours for Master, plays 12 hours a week, and spends two-thirds of his time levelling, already needs over a month to get to Master. How many more months should he be asked to wait before getting to the good stuff? Will he actually be willing to wait this long, or will he get tired of mob-killing and find another hobby?

A newbie is worse off. My first starting character spent 200 hours without getting Master, despite spending almost all of his time in exploration and levelling. Of course, the game's gotten much more newbie-friendly since then. Still, we're talking about months to PK-readiness without a whole lot of help. I don't know how discouraging to newbies that is, but I note the Newbie Forum hasn't been very active of late.

The counter-arguments I've noted are:

1. Effort deserves its rewards. I don't think this is is very meaningful in a game, but an Achiever-type would disagree. The problem is that you can't please everyone with a levelling system. If we're trying to draw people in with "tactics and roleplay combined", requiring many hours of mob-killing seems odd.

2. Too easy to make new characters. If you make a system that keeps casuals and the unskilled happy, other people can plow through it easily. This is true, but what's more important for SK? Encouraging newbies and casual veterans to keep playing, or discouraging short-term characters? Besides, the long road to GM already encourages longer-term characters.

3. More elite-item holders means fewer elite-items per character. I'm not convinced this is actually a problem. But if need be, we can improve anti-hoarding code and increase the number of good items.

NO, this is just a stupid attempt for lazy level 41's to keep ish before their time. 50 is there for a reason, step your game up or lose your elite ish!

My god, I have made much better suggestions and been shot down twice as fast, this is ludacris.