Shattered Kingdoms

I feel apt to write this topic, as I have not played SKs for some years (excepting one or two characters that never made it past journeyman). I think the last time I played a character even to champion level was somewhere between 2k3-2k5. I haven't bothered leveling a character all the way to GM since Alphrenor, and I think that was back in 2k2 or 2k3.

RP.

I think that though the playerbase is a lot smaller now than it was the last time I was playing, it's a lot more tightly knit. As I've said in other threads, I was walking around with at least half the who list greeted at all times, including both light and dark aura characters. I think some of the paragons do a very good job, and I must at this point give a shout out to Alifer. I remember a particularly amusing RP involving cookies and crumbs with him, and it was the many RPs like that that I had (with paragons and normal players alike) that maintained my interest in playing my character.

I would say that I RPed perhaps 40-50 hours worth of the 150 hours or so that I played this character, and I thoroughly enjoyed most of them.

I should note that I did have a bit of [REDACTED] RP with a gangly male giant from Taslamar who entered a place I was leveling, gruffly asked me what I was doing in such a way that I was considering doing a runner to evade some PK, and then promptly left when I told him I had to go afk for a bit to take a phone call. That guy, if I can say this in gameplay, is a [REDACTED]. What did you think I was doing there, moron, I was killing NPCs. Go patrol someplace else. God I hate patrollers.

On that note I should probably apologise to the people who've RPed with me over the last day or two - the thread in GD has made me lose a lot of interest in playing my character properly.

PK.

I still see people complaining that they get PKed for no reason, and I really have to wonder why. Admittedly, I was playing a grey aura character, but I managed to stumble my way through the game making friends (or at least, not making enemies) with dark- and light-auras alike. I only had one real bout of PK this time around, in the Teron inn, and I was dirt kicked the first round and beat a fairly lazy retreat after I was fairly certain my comrades had gotten away.

PK standards are perhaps not what they were, because I sure as [REDACTED] would have killed me in that Teron inn incident, but that's not really an important facet of the game (or one I'm going to complain about).

Leveling.

By far the most irritating part of the game, especially in the fairly early stages. I like that in the earliest levels, areas do not seem to go below blue familiarity, and I think that gives a huge bonus to newbies - kudos on that. I think that should be extended though until a character reaches veteran level - or at least only decreased until your familiarity goes yellow, but not red. There seem to be plenty of places to level as a high level or a low level character, but those early middle levels really make you feel the grind.

Familiarity should also take a bit longer, at least in the later stages of the system. The higher your level the longer it takes to level in the same places anyway, and it feels like a pretty substantial punishment to try to eke out that last bit of experience to make the last level you're getting in the area. I find it really irritating that when I play a character with max charisma (in this case, 20), I often can't even get five levels out of a place.

Also, a suggestion about spellcasters that people playing warriors won't like. I don't think that the familiarity system should tick over for damage caused by spells. It doesn't really make a difference if you're blasting something in the face with fire for the first or the hundredth time, whereas a warrior hacking at the same thing would start to become familiar with his opponents.

Aside from that, leveling is not too bad, and if you have a bit of assistance you can get through it fairly quickly. I note at this point that I had nothing in the way of ooc assistance - all mine was found legitimately and in character. Firekka is now level 48 after some 150 hours of playtime (a significant minority of which was, as I said, RP). If anything, I simply suggest that perhaps there be a few more leveling areas between journeyman and mentor.

Also, patrollers. I only came across one person I suspect was patrolling deliberately, as I mentioned above. I can't tell you how glad I am that this practice seems to have fallen into disuse. It doesn't really create a lot of RP, and it just makes life tough for people trying to get a few levels.

Little things.

Playing a warlock this time, I bug logged a few things, and used the idea command a bit as well. You'll forgive me if therefore the ideas I had were to do with my class. Additionally, there have been changes since I played that I'll comment on.

1. Stone skin should deflect dirt kicking. I noticed this in my rather unspectacular PK. Stabs to the head don't damage you, so neither should dirt to the eyes affect you. They're made from stone!

2. Control weather. I like what's been done with this spell, it's actually useful now.

3. Warlocks and pets. This is an interesting one. When warlocks were disallowed from having regular pets, the class was vastly overpowered. I don't believe that's the case any longer, and warlocks now get the very, very short end of quite a long stick. I know that sorcs can have charms and pets, and I believe that necromancers can have pets as well (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong). At the very least, they can both have multiple NPCs in their party.

A warlock on the other hand, gets an elemental and is disallowed while that elemental is there from having an NPC pet. In addition, an elemental can wear no gear that gives it any resistances, and will simply disappear after a while, leaving its master in the lurch at some quite unfortunate times. A sorceror's charms, and a necromancer's undead can both wear equipment.

So what you're left with is a very easily (and often) dispellable pet, and once it's gone you have to sit around with nothing but stone skin for anywhere up to a good ten minutes or so until you can summon another one. My suggested fixes for this are either
a) let an elemental use the saves of the caster; or
b) allow a warlock the use of a pet in addition to an elemental; and
c) allow a warlock to summon a new elemental immediately following the cancellation of his or her old one.

4. I notice that elementals no longer attack the caster any more after being hit by indirect spells like fireball and earthquake. That's a great change.

5. Just as an ease-of-use issue, perhaps a person should be able to use the speed [soar|flit|dart] command and argument while not flying, either as a contingency in case he does fly (so he can walk while on the ground but flit while in the air) or so that it just changes him into a running pace regardless of the fact that he's just typed dart in. I ask this on behalf of all casters who don't have fly mastered.

Maybe more to come, if I can think of anything else.

Thanks!

*tear*

Stone skin has a chance to deflect dirt, but it's not 100%.

stoneskin only deflects a semi-failed dirt kick.

Dirt kick can succeed, and blind you (stoneskin will not save you there)
Dirt kick can fail, and instead do a small amount of damage (stoneskin will stop it.)

I could see a factor of the summoner's saves being applied as a bonus to the elemental's.

Jardek, is this your swan song or something? Going to vanish for a few years again?

It would be much appreciated if some consideration would be put into decreasing the experience requirements for lower levels and/or have the familiarity stay on familiar until level 25. It would act as an 'introduction' to the game; by then when people's characters are established into the game world, they will be able to get more help, more interactions, and stick to their characters to master and grandmaster.

As for the warlock class suggested changes, they all make sense, but would just like to point out there are two cabals that allow them to summon a pet to put in the middle. One doesn't allow it for roleplay reasons but the other is fine. Giving them purchasable pets again would render those skills less of a boon again.

In addition, cast-able, then held by small concentration version of the stone skin is an incredible spell right now. Why is this? There are so many hellions and rogues in the game due to their recent popularity. Most characters including up to mercs get two shot but that cannot happen to the crafty warlock.

Wasn't Jardek claiming that his warlock had eyes made of fire to justify his twink adjective and even made long posts and gave us pictures of that?

As we all know, flaming bite weapons bypass stone skin in SK. His shim's eyes of fire make the stone skin around them gone, therefore dirt kick can blind him as he has no protection.

He just QQs to benefit his current char.

That was another sterling post, DA. I expect you'll be banned shortly, so if I don't see you again, ta ta!



A character is supposed to be complete without the need for a cabal. I just don't see why warlocks get such a rubbish pet (and it is, due to the ease of its dispelling and the time it takes before you can summon a new one) and need cabal spells to have anything else while the other two casters don't.

Thanks for the analysis, Jardek.

As far as the comments about levelling speed, including what Minette just wrote, we will just have to agree to disagree. I believe your comments still indicate a mindset that requires making it to Mentor or GM before you feel that you are really playing. That's a mindset that I am trying to put down like a rabid animal.

Let's examine the facts of Jardek's experience. He's not a newbie, but he hadn't played seriously since 2005, before we added familiarity. He spent at least 1/3 of his time RPing, which meant that he almost made it to GM in around 100 hours of absolute time and less than a month of playtime. Doubtless a newbie would have taken longer, but a twink can do it even faster. On average, I think levelling is still too quick, not too slow.

An encouraging thing is that it was said there was lots of opportunity to RP along the way. I think that a lot of people should make use of this fact whenever levelling starts to get tiring. Take a break and RP. I would love for people to become well-known faces in the game long before they hit Mentor, but that doesn't happen if you grind face-down until then.

The game is better for you AND better for everyone else if you take more breaks. And I HOPE that the Bonanzas will actually encourage people to NOT grind as much. People grind because its optimal to get a lot of XP when you happen to find the appropriate group. However, it's even MORE optimal to just wait and grind during one bonus weekend every 5-6 weeks when everyone else is also looking for groups and opportunities to level.

Now when people say they find levelling boring, to me that's a completely different topic than actual levelling speed. I am FOR everything we can do to make levelling more interesting and varied. More areas with unique challenges and lots of quests to break up the monotony are what we are trying to increasingly add in the future. I'm certainly open to any other suggestions on ways to make NPC combat and levelling more fun.