Shattered Kingdoms

Losing defensive stance and going into neutral makes an ENORMOUS difference.

So stance means more than gear? That's what you're going with? Mood defensive with a glaive is better for taking damage than mood neutral with a shield/one hander?

It's noticeable, but not as huge as you're making it out to be - not by a long shot. Enchanting changes and mad accuracy modification possibilities make mood defensive a small factor compared to gear choices and buffs (and similarly for mood aggressive). Try testing things once in a while if you feel otherwise is a truth.

I don't know what ethereal divination you're using to come to your conclusions, but since we're done being polite - you're dead wrong. Don't mistake this forum handle existing for a few months with me being someone who's new around here and is going to turn a blind eye to your trash.

There's no room on these forums for trash attitudes. Put something substantial behind your posts in the future if you choose to contribute in gameplay - if you can't find a way to play nice with others, maybe you should reconsider your decision to try to play with others.

I voted against stance being removed by prone - prone shouldn't affect it - but let's not make mountains out of mole hills. We need to approach it with reasonable and correct reasons if we're going to convince D of a change. The more we embellish things the less it's going to be heard.

I had a well geared merc fighting a giant barbarian in a duel. To the death of course, otherwise why test? Anyways, he was aggressive, I was defensive. He couldn't touch me (yes I also had good gear), however, the moment he bashed me I got roflstomped. I find it hard to believe that a single step in stance up or down DOESN'T makes a significant difference because my character has painfully, and on multiple occasions, felt the downside of losing stance.

How many times did you do the fight? How many times did you fight neutral to neutral, vary stances, actually check the data over a long enough sample to be significant? What was the size comparison between you two? Doing it to stun is better, because you get more rounds of data - you want to tabulate hits not landed for significance, not for much HP is lost per hit (which is an idea bogged down in obfuscation to the point it's not worth trying). How many actual rounds of combat did you fight, and what was the accuracy of the giant barbarian's weapon? Was it enchanted?

What you've said is an anecdote. I once had a duel where I was aggressive and dodged four rounds of hits, and I've had a duel where I was defensive and dodged nothing against someone who was neutral. It makes a difference, but it's not from untouchable to dead, by a long shot - I really do assure you of this. There was a very long time where bash didn't remove stance, back when defensive was more buff - we have an immense pool of data of people who've been defensive getting roflstomped well and clear.

It's not untouchable to dead in 1vs1, but this is a game that's built around tactics, formations, and group PvP with things like massive weapons and high level NPCs (guards/etc) to add melee damage.

SK's most common tactic now is basically 'stand behind a guard NPC and hope you kill the other team's guard NPCs first', because being front row is how you die. This is why swashbucklers are forever going to be unpopular and sub par, they are locked in the front row.

This is the real problem, and has been for a long time - probably since tribunals came into play. And even before that.

However, short of an indictment for the entire PVP philosophy system with tribunals, tanks and bash...we have to work on what's attainable. This change is one in the right direction, but we have to be realistic about the expectations that're going to come out of it. This isn't going to change some of the larger issues.

I've been one of the most succesful PKers in the history of the mud. You don't get to be there without knowing what you're talking about.

There have been several recent code changes that have destroyed not only the solo game, but eviscerated group combat. I just read a log of 2 warriors being 2-rounded each. I've made several forum posts outlining that warriors are way too good recently, but the only thing that has been done is give swashbucklers new skills. While nice, they're wholly ineffective when faced with obscene damage output. Kip up isn't enough to reset your stance when you could be facing death in that little time you have to make your next action. The melee game has just become far too good, and the rest of the game suffers because of it.

It is when the most successful PKers leave the MUD so that you're stuck slapfighting those that're left. If you give Brandon Weeden 30 years in the NFL, he'll end up getting all the passing records, but that doesn't mean it's because he's the best quarterback to ever play in the league. It also doesn't mean I want him coaching kids on how to play football.

The best PKers managed to not rest on their laurels, and usually didn't use them as an excuse to be unnecessarily belligerent. Do you think you can manage the same? I think the whole MUD would appreciate that.

I understand it's frustrating to make some suggestions and have them not be heard. That's the nature of a collaborative project like this. However, change doesn't all happen immediately, especially in a maintained-as-a-hobby place like this. I would advise continuing to contribute constructive posts instead of just outlining how big your naughty bits are. If you decide to take your collaborative ball and go home, then do it all the way, and don't come around to just pee on things with your poor attitude.

There are discussions behind the scenes as to what to do about combat that will both nerf warriors while also not letting sorcerors and necromancers become the overwhelming top dog again. Over the grand scheme of things in SK's history, warriors have had an incredibly tiny fraction of the overpowered limelight.

To make those constructive posts that'll be heard, you have to come with data. Not just anecdotes. You can't just say warriors are too good, frolick off into the night, and get all gasping and astonished things haven't been changed to your satisfaction. People often ask, "why is it up to us to do your work for you?" Well, it's not up to you, or anyone. We are all the same group of people trying to help continue to build a game and make it better. Us as staff are willing to contribute a little more, kind of like DMs, but we're still part of "us." If you don't want to put in the work to collect data and contribute meaningfully to mechanics discussions, then you absolutely do not have to. It is not your obligation. However, if you don't think you can manage to contribute things like that consistently, then I ask you reconsider what you're getting out of posting here.

On to the more pointed topic:

A large problem is if you slow combat down even by a few rounds, mages suddenly become overpowered because of the underlying issues with art not being balanced for the new enchant scheme and enchantments being impossible to come by. I hate to be cliche, but building a house starts at the foundation. What are your honest-to-goodness suggestions about it? That's what we want here on gameplay. Half art for all classes? Remove that new impairment system? Increase mage HP base so that they don't get killed so quickly? Massively decrease accuracy for everything but leave the rest of the system the same?

I've already made my suggestions, and they're incredibly simple with little work required to make them happen.

A) Remove the feature where prone removes stances.
B) Make stackable saves able to be placed on armor. There are already plenty of ways to incentivize exotic armor through higher AC, better material, and scripts. Innate saves should -not- be what makes armor innately useful versus innately useless. The current system puts way too much onus on area builders and only encourages hoarding.

Warriors would be able to tank again, (thereby slowing down most PvP) and players would have the potential to reasonably prevent I-win spells like dispel magic, sleep and petrification from hitting them if they're willing to spend the time with other players playing the game and preparing. Also, scouts will be able to skin armor and have it be useful again, provided they're willing to spend the time with others doing the work.

As for another note, however, I feel like it's worth outlining one of the main frustrations I have with way that some of these balance changes have been implemented in SK.
I get your point here, but the thing that often frustrates me is that I really feel like some (not all) of the changes that Dulrik makes are based just as much off of anecdotes instead of data. The prone-removing-stances change, for example: What prompted that? Was there a set of data which proved that bash/trip needed a buff, and that stance defensive needed a nerf? Prior to the enchant change, if you wanted to have a good shot at making saves against casters it was commonly accepted that you should have around 20 willpower enchants. Was there a particular dataset which Dulrik used to justify changing enchant so that at most, you're only able to add +6 will onto your innate saves on gear? Was there a particular set of data that Dulrik used which made him think that MR barbarians needed to have an ability usable from the second row that can remove all buffs from their current target with no recourse given to their target?

Players don't just possess a bunch of GM characters with varying enchants of all types and varying amounts of art trains that they can simply log onto to produce the data that you're looking for. All that 90% of the playerbase can do is say "You know, ever since the enchant change it sure does seem that I'm getting wrecked a lot more from sleep staves."

They've always been top dog. Just because charm person is cast, or control undead is cast doesn't mean that it isn't melee that's at work. Casters have gotten the lion's share of their kills due to this.

When I first started playing the game, sorcerers and necromancers were top dog. It wasn't by merit of their superior spellcasting. It was because they could charm NPCs that had thousands of hit points. Necromancers had been so effective because of the sheer volume of melee attacks that they brought to the table through their animates. They were playing warriors by proxy



The sources that I obtained my information are banned around these parts. Seeing as that is the case, I will respect the forum rules, and give you nothing.