Shattered Kingdoms

I feel as though the current system promotes earning your LT's and then creating a new character that can use them. I agree that LT's should be usable on the character you currently have.



In regards to training and making it easier, I think it's okay the way it is.
If you play your character for long enough, the time spent training is such a minute amount of time compared to their whole life.
However, if we're wanting to draw new players in, it might be worthwhile to come up with some sort of shortened lifespan for a first character with an immense boost to exp gain. Or if there were a set couple of pre-made characters that everyone would recognize as newbies. We would know that we should interact with these characters and welcome to the game. Playable for perhaps a week, and starting off at mentor/master level. However there is room for abuse. You play the "i'm new" character and then get a quick rogue gank or two and then go back to your main.
But I do think that there should be some way for a first time player to experience some prime sk before deciding to make the full grind from amateur.

Enchant Armor for Necromancers.

Rogue class re-balancing.

More XP while leveling.

Centaur fire vulnerability reduced/removed.

A way to constantly improve character ability/progression past grandmaster.

More players and more players who shake things up would excite me to play.

Centaurs should be less garbage. I'd suggest removing the fire weakness personally. Centaurs weren't popular before the repeated warlock buffs, now they're awful.

Classes should be more normalized. Warlocks in particular are way too powerful and need to be reined in, or other caster classes need to have some utility added. Here's some thoughts to that end.
•If other casters aren't buffed, warlocks need to be taken down a peg. They provide the best group healing spell in the game, the highest damage spells in the game in both single-room and ranged combat, and a concentration-less elemental that's in some cases immune to NPCs you're fighting.
•Necromancers and shaman should get enchant/consecrate respectively.
•Raise dead and breath of life should not drain XP.
•Necros should get a skill that lets them command their animated undead with zero order lag when successfully invoked.
•Scouts should be much less frustrating when taming pets. No one complained that scouts were taming too easily before tame got nerfed twice.
•Hellions should get rescue.


Bugs need to at least be addressed and important ones fixed. I posted about fury and weapon speed not stacking 2-3 weeks ago and haven't even got a reply as to whether it's even a bug, let alone whether it's being looked into. That's a glaring weakness in one of the two staple tank classes.

The monthly dehoarding code needs to be revamped. It's ridiculous that someone can lose leader flags due to inactivity yet not lose GM level gear. The playerbase is smaller than the last time I remember, yet there's less loot available especially in regard to magical devices. That's wrong.

Disarm needs to stop throwing weapons to the ground if you can't pick weapons up mid-combat.
End-game areas, especially the newer ones, need to be less about trudging through dozens of the same NPC and more about unique challenge and boss/group fights.
Random drops are bad. Locate-able gear is good.
Joining a tribunal/cabal shouldn't feel like a big gold farming chore to constantly keep up with the passive account draining that wars put on the faction balance.

There should be more conversations about the rules, and when the majority of the playerbase expresses concern over something it should be addressed. In the recent example when a player was punished for abusing the take command, the overwhelming majority of players posted that that wouldn't have thought using the take command in that way was bug abuse. It was a situation which harmed no one and gained minimal advantage and could have just as easily resulted in a warning and public post, but the harsher road was taken. It hurts player retention when the staff readily admits that players who have been punished for any reason are not only actively monitored much more than other players, but are also treated more harshly than other players when they do something even slightly shady.

Game balance changes like repeatedly buffing a single class should be floated by the player-base as a whole.

Giving the NPC track code a limit that would make them turn around would probably make the game more newbie survivable.

Sk needs more antagonists. To this end I see enchant armor for necromancers as a good idea. However there is a fine line between an antagonist being good for the game and one being bad for the game. SK doesnt need to be "fair" it needs to be fun. The issue comes when unfair game play is used negatively rather than positively.

To the end of time/fun the law code needs some work to reduce the time waste it can cause. The price of a loss attacking a city is too high for most outlaws its basically deletion unless someone else helps them. There needs to be a hard cap on player time for jail. Be that a day or week real time. There are a few ways I can see this happening the easy way every Friday at X time people in jail get dehoarded at send to their stones (homeless go to Teron) in prep for the weekend. An NPC jail attack that happens semi regularly this could involve PCs to stop or assist. "Life time" jailed people could be offered a creation option that would let them start a new character as a mentor (no skills/spells trained) to help them replace their old character(would include a deletion of existing character).

Tribunal farming bounty NPCs to deplete accounts should probably be looked at as well. Gathering coin for tribunal/cabal banks is not inspiring game play with a time cost. Depleting tribunal/cabal balances is not inspiring game play with a time cost. Im not sure the exact solution but limiting time cost and enabling player conflict is likely the direction it should be taken.

I think something big that would excite a lot of people to play would be much more transparency on mechanics, such as showing the numbers for accuracy, speed, and damage on weapons. Or even showing the damage dealt on individual attacks. Roleplay can still reign supreme, but this mud could follow the path of new online games and eliminate mechanics ambiguity that discourages number crunching nerds from playing.

I have removed some posts that didn't conform to Dulrik's guidelines in the first post:



Thanks to people who have submitted ideas. Keep them coming.

Easier access to players building rooms, items, magical devices would be a huge bonus, too. Anything to add to customizing chars and allowing them to spend time doing so is a huge bonus to longevity.

I'd like to see the four questions about character names in the creation process reduced to one question.

Put some more thought into this.

I actually agree with the idea to loosen up on the RPPK requirements (to what extent would obviously require a debate). There were several times as a new player I was killed for what I felt like was no reason, but it ended up becoming a great opportunity for RP and learning about the game rather than detracting me from playing the game. It caused me to seek out allies, avoid enemies, presented opportunities for intrigue, etc. It ultimately gave the game a sense of urgency and excitement I currently feel is lacking unless you actively seek it out by A) joining a tribunal, and B) starting a war, that not everyone in your faction may want to go along with.

I've wondered about a PVP flag people can use that would be heavily restricted (can't use with hellions/pallies/necros/rogues/elves/delves, etc. Can't be used in any faction. Can't be used if wearing scripted or god-like quality gear, etc). But if there are people who really just want to log on to RP and nothing else, let them do that without becoming hoarding characters or interfering with politics. It is probably impossible, and not something I myself would toggle off, but I feel like there could exist some middle ground.

Scouts I think need some love. Taming is really a ridiculous process. To have a character with tame mastered and max charisma and require 200+ tame attempts at times for certain beasts is unnecessary and I have literally logged out due to frustration with this fact. Ambushing with spears would be cool, being able to skin more types of hides again, even if it was limited. I realize the last two once were possible with scouts, but I'm unfamiliar with the reasoning behind removing those features. I think adding innates to skins semi-recently was helpful, but it didn't feel like enough. I'd even go so far as to suggest upping their damage so they're a bit more useful to groups.

Let sneaking PCs know if they didn't sneak successfully. Not immediately, but when they move, much like slipping out of the foilage for camo'd scouts.

What end-game content I've seen does seem to rely heavily on a very basic group makeup with sorcerers and necros being much less useful. I think changes that encouraged more of these two classes would likely be beneficial though I don't know enough about mechanics to suggest what that would be. I've considered rolling a sorc myself and stopped because of warnings that I'll be ineffective in end game and PvE is a priority of mine.

If you're invis and in the room with someone who can't see invis, the people who can't see invis shouldn't get notifications like, "someone gets a scroll of petrification from somthing." Similarly, if you leave a group that isn't in the same room as you, people shouldn't be able to ascertain that you just left Bob's group. They arguably shouldn't see any notification at all that you left a group that's not in the same room.

Remove the law system from the North if there's no tribunal to enforce it, much like Teron.

Possibly look into shortening max jail time, or enact parole after a set number of in-game hours/days has been reached. "We'll let you out, but the smallest infraction and you're right back in and serving the time."

A more newbie-friendly quest or two in the Academy would be nice to give you one more thing to do there.

Give more city guards/officials basic directional advice for players (when asked about spots like the bank, magic shop, armor shop, maybe even training areas nearby). Especially when starting out, I feel like it's common to have no idea where to go and with door exit labels being removed unless you walk around opening them all, I think this would be a decent alternative. You could even have one NPC per city who stands by the inn and will physically lead characters to designated spots in the city. Alternatively, update/post clearer city maps on the website for reference.

More flavor things for RP heavy people. Distinguish between sipping and drinking a drink to make drinks last longer. Also customization of basic armor for a cost. Might seem useless to some players, but it would be some added flavor for the RP heavy crowd or people who want unique looking or matching outfits but don't have the time/ability/group around to go get a high-value set from endgame content. Could be limited to non-exotic material types (ie: no water, fire, energy, etc, nothing scripted or god-like). This was pretty popular on the last mud I played.

I'm sure there are more important fixes, etc than some of my suggestions, but sometimes I feel like a little flavor goes a long way.