Shattered Kingdoms

If it's semantics that you want to argue, then fine, it's unpopular and complex for the above reasons, so let's change it.

I agree with all of that. I want a more robust syntax for enchant armor.

But it has not been shown to be unpopular with the person who can change it. Much like CRS, the only recourse available to us is to no longer use the feature we do not like, and much like CRS, that revolves around a sort of Gentleman's Agreement in playing that I do not suspect can be enjoyed for long.

We'd all basically have to agree to not charm other players. That's never going to happen as long as you play a sorcerer.

I'd highly suggest that anyone agreeing with this statement read the article I linked in the first post. While I understand that one of the components in a modern-day pay-for-play MMO is time, and that by necessity -- they have to keep you addicted and paying -- this MUD (and any other free online game) should not suffer said lever-pressing syndrome. It is a terrible travesty that this has been so inundated that a person would believe this to be necessary toward game balance.

My proposed change doesn't actually change the tenor of available enchantments, just the possibility of actually achieving what you want. Let's take the scenario you outlined earlier, and go for an 8-enchantment MP piece. For now, assume equal probability for all enchantments (which is not right, but easier to illustrate), and that you start with 4 MP on your chosen piece. Then you need to land four enchantments of MP with a probability of (1/5)^4, or a one in six hundred twenty-five chance of achieving your goal. Now, I know MP is more "common" than some of the others, so the odds are slightly better than that, but the example stands.

So let's say you realize that and decide to relax your criteria. I'll take two MP, two of anything else. Then your odds improve to (1/5)^2*(4/5)^2 + (1/5)^3*(4/5) + (1/5)^4 (prob. of 2MP + prob. of 3MP + prob. of 4MP) = 20 / 625, or roughly one in twenty-five. That's an average of twenty five trips to pick up that armor; which, if it's not storebought, involves at least five minutes per trip (with a fast repop), for twenty-five trips, for a minimum expected timesink of 125 minutes, or over two hours. And that's for one piece of not-so-crappy enchanted armor. Furthermore, this doesn't at all compensate for the fact that you're going to need more trips than that anyway simply because you're going to be blowing up and fading the items in the process. Being more realistic and factoring those things in makes it even more depressing.

You get me?

Nightwing, if you're talking to me I'm sure you realize I understand perfectly well how the system works. I just disagree that, short of resisting a few spells, you HAVE to enchant your armor the way many people do.

And Edoras, yes, I think weakening spells like blindness, weaken, curse, plague, poison, slow, cause critical, etc. is detrimental to the game. The relgious and cabal spells that have no countermeasures (I'm thinking of the crucible one right now) SHOULD have countermeasures, in any case.

I don't have to prove that the proposed change screws over a particular class (which of course it would have differential effects on certain classes over others) when making uber suits ubiquitous would mean people having fewer viable tactics at their disposal. To me, that makes for a less interesting game.

I still agree with everything jhorleb says.

Man, that guy is awesome.

I don't want people to be able to achieve "ubersuits," and I also don't think that the proposed change actually introduces that. It does allow for more specifialized suits, however.

Let me be a little more thorough in my analysis from before. I'm firmly convinced that there is no better than 1:300 odds of getting four desired enchantments on a suit in the current system, even if said enchantment is MP. So what does my proposed change do? It changes the pattern from:



to:




The only thing I'm changing is to discard all other enchantment types -- I'm not changing the quality of the item or the number of enchantments it can take. I'm just taking the odds from 1:300 down to 1:15 (because you're still going to be fading and blowing up items, probably at a greater rate since you're "risking" that many more castings). It's still entirely unreasonable for the average player, but more than a pipe dream for the dedicant.

You also quit playing because it took too much of your time, Baldric.

I think it makes for a less interesting game when the player count peaks at 30 because no one likes being forced to dedicate the time to enchant their suits with enough will and fort to resist 2/3 of the color sprays, blindness, dispel, curse, weaken, ain spell, marfik spell, Crucible spell, Druid spell, intimidates, and sanc checks while also protecting them from arrows, physical damage, etc. that are going to be tossed at them in PvP, (and that's to say nothing of petrification, sleep, FoD, or charm), only to have it all junked by the veteran player who beat them by bringing twice as many people.

It also makes for a less interesting game when you have to spend 3+ hours to recover from each death where you got hit by one of these spells. I've seen jewelry that you enchanted. Each piece had 10+ enchantments without MR. Isn't one of the main reasons that you play a priest because you can't stand PvPing without good gear?

If I j-looted everyone I beat on Antiira, they would have had much less desire to play than if I just took what I wanted or needed. Is that because I would have been a jerk? No. It's because they would have known that getting back to that level would take forever. How tempted would you have been to quit PvPing if I had junked your sacred armor the two times that I killed you? How much less fun would that have been?

Changing enchant would buff melee characters. The reason why it would buff melee is because if you could target your enchants to make specific spells less useful then people would be less likely to jump to use them and instead take different roles. For example, a sorc wouldn't jump into PVP and try to spam charm, sleep, or petrification but instead would focus on using their damage spells (which is a rarity anymore) while standing behind a melee character or charm to try to achieve a kill. I see this as a good thing because melee could still use a bit of a buffing to make them overall more useful.

Target magical protection on dragonscale cast MV where is your melee now?

Uh...it's still there. MV on dragonscale makes it the same as adamantite, if I understand it correctly...so, no real problem.