Shattered Kingdoms

Greetings, everyone. Your friendly neighborhood Syndal here, to blow my one post addressing something that was one of the few good changes in SK, but which still needs a lot of work. Maybe it'll stay up, even.

Assuming you actually /want/ to work on reducing hoarding, and spreading EQ throughout the game, here are my suggestions.

First and foremost. Not counting magical devices is a massive oversight with this system. 1 person should not be allowed to carry around 6 copies of a unique stave for weeks on end, 1 person should not be able to carry around bundles and bundles of unique 'strong' scrolls, 1 person should not be able to carry around all the best wands/staves/etc in the game. 1 person should not have the color spray wand, and the acid blast wand, and the holy word wand, and the magma wand, and the harm wand, and then 20 high tier staves on top of that, etcetc.

I would propose:

A) A strict limit. You get 10 (or insert #) magical devices which you can carry. 3 wands, 2 staves, 5 scrolls, whatever you want. But just 10. This would help make PK more interesting as well, since it wouldn't just be people spamming the half dozen double petrification scrolls they have.

B) Limit on copies. That supercool wand that has only 2 copies in the whole game? Yeah, you don't get to carry both of them. Automatic login thief'd.

Now, onto the next failure with the hoarding code. 6 items is too many. It doesn't sound like a lot, I know, trust me, I expected to constantly have issues being over the limit, especially while playing my favorite class and the supreme hoard master, a sorcerer. However...the only time I ever had any difficulty with it is when I went to collect 3+ things at a time that I meant to enchant, then forgot I had or got distracted, and would log out with them. This is what my sorceror was carrying around.



Now, that is a lot of eq. Should 1 character really be able to carry that around? That's 6 items counting towards the hoard-code, of which 3 are energy weapons, 1 is a top-tier bracelet, 1 is a scripted item, and 1 is a diamond weapon.

None of the rest of those items count towards the hoarding code (a few of which are scripted objects even), which is part of why I brought up magical devices. The other funny thing about it, and just a small tweak of playing a sorceror or other caster, is that since I never hold a weapon, I could hold a weapon in my hand (instead of wand/etc, since they don't count towards the cap) when logging out and effectively get an 'extra' safe item.

Back to the magical devices for a second, though. That quote above is a very mediocre stash of devices, compared to what it's possible to amass. A lot of vets would look at that and go 'meh', and in fact, compared to some container snippets of old, that's hardly worth mentioning. Unless you are interested in actually spreading eq around the game and not having it sit unused in someone's container, which I am assuming SK is in fact interested in doing.

The above robe has, an op flight stave with numerous charges, an op invis stave with numerous charges, a resist elements stave (jesus [REDACTED], these are still way too easy to get. I gave one to Uriella as well, a nicer one even), a water breathing stave with numerous charges, an op Color Spray wand with 10 charges, an OP hellfire wand with numerous charges, an OP stone skin wand with numerous charges, an etherealform wand (the lifeline of any caster) with numerous charges, an OP sanc wand with numerous charges, a bless wand with numerous charges, an op wand of Haste with multiple charges, a 'staff' of petrification (really just a scripted item), an op scroll of MI (was originally more, but I handed them out). Oh, and then on top of all that, I had 3 energy weapons, a diamond weapon, a necklace with a script to cure plague/disease on command, a broom with a script to fly, a spare piece of jewelry with a greater save on it (highly sought after items nowadays), a scripted item that repairs any other item to perfect condition regardless of material or level of damage, and a handful of detect staves so I didn't have to cast it myself.

Then of course, the eq I was actually /wearing/ on top of all that.

......And I was completely, 100% safe from 'hoarding' thieves. In fact, I could have carried an extra energy/diamond/addy weapon by holding it in my hand, or just 1 extra any item by holding one of the weapons I already had.

And the above blurb pales in comparison to what an actual caster who is doing things and pk'ing/actively collecting things will gather. IE, double that, and you might be close to the ballpark.

Should 1 character really be allowed to carry all of those items? Should 1 character, who is only expected to spend 20~ hours in one of the 10's of thousands of rooms on SK doing nothing, be allowed to keep all of that month after month?

I don't think so, but it's not my decision to make.

P.S. I won't even do more than briefly touch on the countless items in the game that are 'cool' and fun and don't fit under the hoarding code limit of 'worn' things. Such as the Loophole, the portal rings, infinite fountain chalices/etc, speckled marble, etc. Or the really powerful scripted items that fall under 'magical devices' and are therefore not subject to this code, like the Runed Eye Staff, Somnium's Eye, Black Spiderstaff, etcetc. --I'll leave it to someone else to expand on that stuff.

Maybe that idiotic stave change of massively limited charges could be reversed, because you know, that worked out well. Those sanc staves used to carry 6 charges, now you can only get 2 on them, which encourages hoarding.

Magic devices I could care less about. it was idiots that hoarded 12 suits of armor, 30 weapons and other crap that hurt the game. You know, like you used to. Just going to post the vermel of loot you had on one particular character (not posting about hypocrisy here):

As long as potions are included in the mix, I agree with this change.

Another orius complaining about loot hoarding, yet you hoard loot(that you never used btw).

Don't see anyone else complaining about this and you should not have been playing in the 1st place, so your argument is invalid.

I think this is where I hop on my usual soapbox and ask what melee types are supposed to do when limited to below 6 items. The combat change that made it so you can't retrieve a weapon that has been disarmed to the ground is still a really big deal in this conversation. With the option to wield a massive weapon behind a tribunal NPC, it's already hard enough to find folk willing to duke it out in the front row. Heck, a big draw of an entire cabal (Fist) is that their melee specialty can't be disarmed without actually cutting off their arms. With a limit of 6, a mercenary can logout with a shield/spec'd 1h, carry a 2h second spec, a bow for luring, and 4 backup weapons. 4 backup weapons is a lot, but also means entirely giving up any backup jewelry or RP equipment. Just remember that every reduction in items you can carry is taking backup weapons from front-row folks at a 1:1 ratio.

Don't get me wrong, I'm for expanding the anti hoarding code to include magical implements, and even for a lower unworn item limit -but also please code it so that you can "get xxx" in combat at a lag of 1/2 round per item picked up. That way if someone's just recovering their disarmed weapon, they aren't ruined, but if someone decides to pause to loot an entire corpse in combat they get to just sit there while their enemies thrash em.

I think it is pretty easy to deal with by creating multiple categories:

1. Magical devices, which includes wands, scrolls and staves. Limit of 6.

2. Weapons and armor. Limit of 6.

3. Potions. Limit of 6.

Problem solved. Except of course for the inevitable QQ from melee characters that want casters to be limited on the amount of magical devices they can carry, but balk at the notion of not being able to carry about 20+ double healing potions.

This is a pretty dumb argument. If you want to respond to what Syn says, respond to the things Syn actually says. You can't just discount what they say just because you don't don't like them. That's intellectually dishonest.

I think Syn has a point. What if we could only have 10 magical devices, including potions? Would that improve pk?

Kid, you don't need RP equipment. People RP with their robes and wizard hats all the time, without actually collecting the items.

No, it wouldn't improve pk and it would drive players away. That's just what we need. More restrictions.

How about we add more weapon subtypes that have been missing and even more magical devices. At least then you wouldn't have people like syn hoarding a ton of items, and then complaining over spider that other people are hoarding items that he cant hoard himself.

Not sure why he does a 180 and pretends to be whistle blower here on the main forums. Not everyone is a hoarder like syn, so this isn't even an issue.

You have two options for loot distribution.

Create more loot, or limit the loot people are carrying.

I think more restrictions will drive people away, but we will see.

How did people handle this situation in the past? What ever happened to jloot distributions?

I believe the appropriate question is whether or not "loadout" should be a strategic decision when managing a character's inventory. If a limit below the capacity required to be prepared for everything is established, characters are forced to weigh options and make decisions actively using their problem-solving skills, knowledge of mechanics, and awareness of RP-based likelihoods of encountering scenarios to guide choices on what to maintain about their persons.

If we assume a crafting tradeskill system is going to happen where the game will potentially have unlimited items available, how does inventory remain an actual element of gameplay without some limits on what players can carry?

Jerinx made a very astute post about severely nerfing containers some time ago that I think might be a more appropriate solution than flat limits and sub-type classifications: making the limit on one's items come from containers being far less easy to stack and stuff will allow for the game to flex more readily and, most importantly, a character will know when she reaches her item limit: she won't be able to store any more. That is a kinder, gentler system than invisibly losing items based on a limit which will be reverse engineered eventually otherwise.

I do not know what the best container nerf would look like, but I know it would create an active and dynamic system that would create more gameplay diversity than flat item-type limits rolled into de-hoarding code.