Shattered Kingdoms

A player shouldn't be able to charm another player.

End of discussion.

Agreed, even if this is a role playing game to give control of your character to another person with unlimited possibilities is ludicrous. I am not worried about any other spell in SK except for charm person.

It seems you have missed the point. I'm not talking about twinkery. I'm talking about game balance. The sleep spell in particular requires concentration, and can only be cast at one person at a time: In group PvP if you cast sleep on someone then someone on the opposing side can notice that you've done that, and cast a holy word or cancellation on the person to wake them up: Not to mention, holding sleep on more than two people requires more concentration than most sorcs have in PvP if they are doing anything else besides sleep spamming.

If you brandish a sleep staff, you've a decent chance of putting everyone to sleep that could do anything about it, which does indeed make them sitting ducks: And the sleep spell from staves lasts 10-20 minutes, which is plenty of time to align yourself to kill them: All THIS is done without any concentration or mana drain to the person brandishing the staff: The lag on brandish isn't really that much worse than the casting time on sleep. As such, while I don't think that all sleep staves should be removed, they should be limited to 2 charges at most so that they can't be spam brandished, because no matter how much will you have, you're going to fall to a sleep staff eventually: And yes, the biggest offender here is the Mira staff, which is an overpowered religion sleep staff with 9 charges that can be gathered instantly by anyone with a specific item, and even if it couldn't could be recharged to nine charges easily enough whenever a sorc comes around. The closest item to that in the game right now is an overpowered 4 charge sleep, which is probably lower level.

As for my "law code abuse," it's extremely common to report people who attack you in a city when neither of you are outlawed, and I admitted that doing so when not polymorphed was bad form: But I was not outlawed nor banished at the time, because I'd been unbanished and pardoned by a paladin of Ain. Think about that before you start whining about how my deep-elf made the law a laughing stock.


Back on topic, enchanting armor in general is a pain. I want fortitude so I can resist blindness, weakness, (CABAL SPELL HERE) and petrification, and I want willpower so I can resist charm, (RELIGION SPELL HERE), dispel, sleep, and summon. Other people want magical protection so that they don't get totally screwed by people who have full Karnak's because they got there first. You know what I'm going to get when I enchant for me and them?

Resistance.

And you know what I'm going to get when I enchant for resistance? Willpower and reflex. It never fails. One time I enchanted 30 pieces of gear that started with 4 resistance, and only got one that went to six resistance (Which, by my calculations, is below the average of what you need for a full resistance suit). I've spent probably 8-10 hours JUST ENCHANTING, enchanting my current suit, and it still isn't enough to resist spells the way I'd like. You know how fun that was enchanting that? It wasn't. It made me want to murder someone.

Just "fixing" those few spells, (which aren't really that broken) won't change the fact that enchanting is still the most mind-numbingly boring, stupid and yet also necessary task that exists in SK, and that it drives people away. The last poll I made which proposed a change to enchant armor, 54% of the voters said they'd like an idea much like what I proposed, and only 18% said they liked enchanting the way it was: With 6% saying they didn't care.

I guess where we differ is that I don't think everyone should have their armor the way they'd like it (e.g., 8 enchantments on every piece - 56-60 MP on armor slots, 30-32 each of will and fortitude on non-armor slots).

Like it or not, part of the balance in SK is achieved by making certain things such a mind-numbing time sink that not everyone is willing to use them to improve their characters. If you make them less of a time sink, you will throw off game balance for certain spells that do not need a wimp and then you have to buff those etc. etc.

Sorry if I'm sounding like a broken record, but I really don't think you guys are considering all the effects of this proposed change. Do you disagree that it would have far-reaching implications on game balance, particularly with respect to debuffs?

Preach it, my brother!

That is where we differ: You think that balance should be determined by timesink. I feel that balance should be determined on the utility of the skills or spells themselves. Moreso, I believe that no caster is nullified when fighting someone with such "phat enchants." Necros can still mass undead. Sorcs can still use charms and damage spells. Warlocks have magma and wands for people with phat enchants. Hellions have physical damage, dominates, and spell damage in the form of hellfire, and every cabal has spells or skills that aren't nullified by enchantments. The only people that really get screwed are priests, but they're largely defensive when things get to that level: A priest who can pop off a holy word at the start of a fight and then heal the right people is invaluable.

Now sure, THIS change in particular isn't "perfect," (I'd prefer something more like this) but it isn't like it still wouldn't take 2-3+ hours of pure enchanting to get that crazy suit you're talking about: Stuff is still going to fade or blow up, which you're going to have to regather stuff which means camping a place until it returns, or gathering multiple copies. The biggest downside I see to this specific way of fixing enchant is that it would make +great save items much less useful (Though even that isn't such a bad thing as far as I'm concerned) and make it too easy to put a bunch of the same KIND of enchantment on an item (7 prot or 7 resistance would be much more reliable), but the obvious upside is that it's an extremely easy change to implement from a code standpoint.

Your original (linked) proposal is much closer to balanced than what the OP of this thread is asking for, if the system were broken and needed to be fixed.

But the system is not broken - just a few (maybe just one?) spells are. You don't have to have a sick suit to compete in PvP. You prefer to, so you can avoid buying, carrying, and wasting time in PvP consuming countermeasures. Fair enough, but that immunity comes at a price.

Enchanting just isn't fun for me because your reward is completely passive, and you never really know when your enchants worked, but you are acutely aware of when they don't work. It is a very low-activity return on investment as far as time is concerned.

The balanced spells, against a kit enchanted for unbalanced spells, seem to be unbalanced because they don't work. That doesn't change the fact that someone who spends 12 hours enchanting tends to be better off, and deservedly so.

The enchanting grind being so whined about is a symptom of a greater disease. Why do people who do not enjoy it feel obligated? It is because of the elephant in the room, the spells where failure to save is simply unacceptable.

When experienced players can say to newbies, "If you're not doing it, you're stupid," it is probably involved in an unbalanced mechanic.

But, honestly?

There is no equality in race/class combinations in this game. Why do we expect only some systems to be balanced, but leave others alone?

This is a precedent-setting crusade for that reason, and I believe that is why even in the face of overwhelming community support for a revision like this during my entire time here, it has never been seriously placed on a to do list.

I'm not being cynical, I'm just saying, this is a complex issue, and we should be careful what we wish for when it comes to complex issues.

I can think of a lot of good players that have quit because they couldn't dedicate enough time to the game, and if you were to really get down to it, that would mostly be dedicated to the fact that enchanting takes forever. A lot of other players have said "I can't stand making other people enchant for me." Less than roughly 25% of the player-base, last I made that poll, actually liked enchanting the way it was. That's not broken?

There are PLENTY of spells besides sleep, charm and petrification that completely screw you if they land. Dispel magic (holy word included), feeblemind, fear, 3 cabal spells and 2 religion spells come to mind right off the bat, and NONE of those have countermeasures, except maybe feeblemind and that's if you're lucky. Even if sleep, charm and petrification were changed to be less powerful, you'd still be a class A idiot to expect to win a PvP against an opponent with access to those spells without enough willpower/fortitude to resist 80% of them. You keep saying that if enchanting was easier then these spells would be less useful, and you're correct.. but is that really a problem? What -classes- are screwed by having enchanting made more accessible? None, really.

Broken and unpopular and complex are all different things, Edoras. It is foolish to collapse something into whatever is easiest to deal with.

Let's say I gave all women who browsed this forum a button to punch users in the face over the internet. What USERS are screwed by having these face punches made more accessible?