Shattered Kingdoms

No.

There is a cap in HP trains now, and as I said a well rolled swashie can hit 40 and have max STR/DEX/CON/CHA/HP. So the last 5 points are not that huge difference.

And about competent enchants needed for PK, I said a treasure can be +4 will +5 fort and be below master level.

Does it take more effort than the classic enchant/fade/enchant/fade/repeat until you get phat enchants? Propably yes. If this happens, junk, retake, repeat. Don't want a low hours character to have the same ease to get the same things as a GM who spent at least twice the effort to level.

PS: Arsilan, go make false statements about game mechanics while I fill a bucket of tears, will you?

I’m away from normal computer access but I wanted to post on this topic yet again. There is a bit of a paradoxical problem we are facing here and I believe it will take a bit of creativity to circumvent. The problem I speak of is making masters truly viable complete character versus increasing the longevity of characters. The benefits of both should be obvious and have been discussed at great length in many other threads.

Unfortunately, part of trying to increase the longevity of characters is to make reaching GM take longer so that it acts as a preventative measure simply thinking “I’ll delete and just make another GM”. But by trying to increase the playability by making masters “complete” characters the draw to GM is lessened. Basically, what is needed is a way for masters to complete while having a real draw to GM but not make the advantage overwhelming as make GM a necessity. This is what must be considered and this is where the player base must tap into their collective creativeness. Remember because of the importance of PK in SK, benefits or hindrances to one’s ability to PK have a greater effect then benefits of utility. So I suggest in directing your creative juices that tweaking PK differences is more prudent while utility (or other non direct PK) suggestions can be on a larger scale relatively.

Because I don’t have easy computer access currently I will check in if/when I can. Please don’t be frustrated if my comments seem to be redundant of another poster’s, it is totally unintentional and results only from five pages of posts appearing between my readings.

Lei Kung

Why should mere effort be rewarded? I can admire good tactical PK and good roleplaying: They take skill, and they make the gameworld more fun to be in. Hours grinding on the same NPCs or casting enchant spells aren't interesting in comparison. Even in the real world, unskilled labor is not well paid - and this is a game, where unfun activities should reap even fewer rewards.

Which isn't to say GMs shouldn't have significant advantages. GM is a great way to reward long-term characters. Also, some people like working to make their character better; GM gives them something to do. But something's wrong when people feel pushed into that sort of playstyle to participate in major plots.



True - but those games generally have level-restricted PK, if they're at all serious about supporting PK. That effectively limits the pressure to level. We won't do this because it's wretched roleplay. Therefore, we have to worry more about parity between levels.



No, you've only argued that some particular classes would have little reason to GM. I think we could fix that by making certain melee skills more level-dependent.

If you'd like to suggest other ways to reduce the pressure to level, I'm sure people would be interested. However, it sounds more as if you hate the whole idea of not rewarding leveling so much. That's a legitimate value judgement, and I think the only sensible response is: Dulrik gets to decide what game he wants to make, and then we each have to decide if it's worth playing.

If you think that the difference between master and GM is so small that allowing masters to keep highly enchanted equipment will put them on par, then perhaps your GMs are not of very high quality.

The main difference between GM and Master is HP and their ability to be affected by level based spells. The four trains help them also, but it isn't necessarily a game winner. I do think though, that you have to be Champion to be able to kill certain NPCs, but I could be mistaken there. Otherwise, it is all of the eq that a GM can get that makes a difference.

Idea though to balance out the effect of eq and to keep the reason to GM. For every 100hrs(or other # of hours). That they play at GM they get a stat train or something else. Something like that would want people to keep their chars around and would also want to make people still reach GM.

[edit] Yeah, Benzo, just think how kicken your jolly elf would be now!

I like that idea, only because it'd make overpowered, lifelong enemies, and maybe Peso would stop deleting.

I'm not sure if you get a stat train from 49 to 50, but even if you did, you could just add one more to add another piece of carrot to the proverbial stick.

Don't forget, Necromancers can't do wraiths till gm. love the wraiths.

A shame nobody uses them.

I think this change is unbalanced. A master level warrior with good enchants will be almost exactly as strong as a gm warrior with good enchants. Whereas a master level caster wont be nearly as good as gm caster. Shaman for example, wont be worth [REDACTED] at master no matter what happens, because their spirit aura, sanc, and protection wont add nearly as much to ac as a gms spirit aura would. Not to mention like people said, necromancers obviously will have to gm to get their wraiths which are about 2x as good as wights. So why should warriors that reach master be as strong as their gm counterparts when casters wont be?

A better example is hellions. No matter what happens to thieves, a lvl 42 hellion is never going to nearly as good as a gm hellion, because hellions can only dominate things roughly ten levels below them.

Another point I would like to make is that we have no way of deciding what is fair or not, mainly because Dulrik refuses to share with us all the information. For example, I just recently learned that warriors get an extra attack a master, which isn't in any helpfiles i've seen. There could be equally important diffrences from master to champion or champion to gm that we dont even know about. If we dont know what those diffrences are we can't say whats fair or not.