Shattered Kingdoms

I'll throw out a few questions and see what kind of responses it generates.

1. If you were to log-in and you're the only person on, what are the actions you would most like to do, but can't? Quest? Explore? Travel? Level?

2. Are any of those tasks just out of reach? For a basic example, if you would like to explore some underwater area and are capable of taking it on, but the potions you need to do so are hard to come by? I would consider that an example of something just out of reach.

3. What is the simplest method of making one of these things happen? Again, another bad example, but if there were an area that you needed to be size tiny to enter, but there weren't any sorcerers to assist you. One option would be to make a NPC that could shrink you for a fee. The easier option would be to just put some kind of fruit in the area that casts shrink when you eat it.

The easier the fix is, generally the faster it is to implement it. The more immediate the impact, the more rewarding the change. The more people that are able to do what they prefer, the more likely there is to be players to support those who want to RP more than anything else.

How easy would it be to give tribunal npcs the ability to be ordered to cast stuff again? I think that would be a good start to self reliance without others.

I’ve been logging in at low-frequency hours for quite a while. When I had Azoreth I didn’t feel able to do much adventuring since I didn’t have a tank. I felt very restricted in my ability to do anything solo. So all I did was just brew double heals in weak vials. So I think the “beefier pets” idea would help more support glasses go out and adventure a bit more. Though, I’m not sure what classes would utilize them. Tanks don’t need them, warlocks get elemental. Sorcerers get charms. So maybe a strong tanky pet in a priest only shop? Sort of like that warlock only shop in Ayamao?
But ever since I rolled my warlock I’ve been able to do a lot of solo PvE and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. But the restriction with warlocks is that anytime I need to recall, I can’t just pray. I have to quaff a recall potion because that’s the only way to bring my elemental and other npc’s with me. Perhaps changing just a normal recall to bring all pets back with you would resolve that issue. Because I go through a lot but rarely come across priests. A shop selling rotatable recall vials would help with that.
Some adventures and exploration require gates to get to, until one learns the path to get there. But it’s easier to gate somewhere and then work yourself back to a landmark or portal stone so you can walk back to the gate target. So an NPC that will send gates for money would help in solo exploration.
I think there are a decent amount of sources for most things. I can think of a couple water breathing consumables that work for any class. Flight is a little tougher for someone who isn’t a caster using wands/staves. For invis I’m drawing a blank except for one particular worn item that makes the wearer invis as soon as it’s worn. So maybe more readily accessible consumables? Perhaps a scout that will sell herbs that will rot. I suggest things rot on log out because pe people will be less inclined to buy out the shop so everyone can buy some.
Another solution for that would also be having trib npc’s cast again. If we don’t want perma GS or Haste then maybe make priests the only trib guards that can cast. Although some NPCs can zap and brandish.

I hope I gave some clarity onto some of your questions and my reasoning for asking for these things in the first place. And thanks for investing in the subject.

I don't honestly know, but I can say fairly confidently it's beyond my ability to implement for what that is worth.

Another thing to consider with this specific idea, and ideas like it that are basically "reversions", is that the initial change was likely made for good reason. If a change were made to allow tribunal NPCs to cast spells again we would also need to go into it saying that we're fine with it being permanent change despite the previous reason for changing it, or knowing that it is a change that would be reverted once there were enough players to support those functions. The first option is a definite change in balance, and the second option is nearly guaranteed to confuse people and possibly cause them to be upset at some point in the future.

Again, just making up examples on the fly. A shop that sells pills that have those spells is much easier to add and remove than changing core functionality of a tribunal ability. I will say though, one of our answers to the 'resurrection' problem has been to encourage tribunal membership, so it not necessarily out of step to tie something else important to tribunal membership.

Just to stress my emphasis, I'm not against or for this idea, just trying to help illustrate the different paths that can be taken to achieve the same goal.

Appreciate you taking the time, lots of different ideas here so let me mention a few in particular.

Word of Recall/Recall - Am I correct that one of the suggestions is to essentially just make WoR/Recall the same thing, but WoR can be used in combat? If so, it seems it would make brewed WoR more of a survival tool than a standard mode of conveyance, but would somewhat increase the power of any class with access to some form of pet.

Beefier Pets - Can I get a bit more elaboration on this? For instance, is it just about having a nice thick meat shield in-front of you for survivability? Is it about the pet having enough health to survive a full combat or more about excessive downtime? Is there something that would help fighter/adventurer classes in a similar way as a pet?

Spells for Coin - What amount of coin is both affordable enough to be used regularly, but still onerous enough that the people who can cast those spells personally would be in high demand to avoid the high cost? It's important that anything we put in doesn't directly discourage someone filling that role themselves at a later date.

I dont think he meant merging WoR/Recall. Maybe buff up Recall to make pets recall with owner. That way your still restricted by the normal conditions of combat when recalling. Have recall work in the same way as WoR to maintain group formations with pet, so we can use the pet WoR code as a boilerplate code. Not sure how WoR works code wise, but it should work with the different types of recall such as cabal recall, tribunal recall, and normal recall. I think a shop selling WoR is overpowered, because anyone can get away anytime now without preparations. The WoR potions in the adventurer's guild is balanced because it quit-rots, and you have to work to get access to it. But a potion shop selling WoR... NOPE

Pets are fine as is. I suggest bringing back pets that are magic immune which would help newer players level easier. Not those crappy mechanical rats in Upper Craeftlin. Was this removed because someone figured out a way to twink it? Magical weapons? Magic attack based weapons are rare though. Instead of making something, just boost up the HP of the magic immune Upper Craeftlin pet to the HP of a normal pet.

I think the prices of spells are good as is. Players that are rich can afford the luxury of bought spell. I remember watching tacorobot burned through 20 obsidians to refresh because he was too lazy to regen PE and had me as a MR tank. I do think buying a gate from a city healer might be beneficial to the game (an obsidian would be reasonable to prevent abuse).


A personal idea. Have a tier based system of features to be enabled depending on how many players are logged on. 1-5 players, enable auto ress. 5+ players online disable auto ress. 10+ players online, bonus XP. 5+ people in party, bonus 10% damage to party in the Outer Planes. 7 players online, everyone gets double coins from NPC. Could be anything! Numbers can be tweak to balance it because I'm just using those numbers as an example.

Disable wizinvis to make it seem like IMMs have a more physical presence in the realm, so no more hiding as an IMM. Sending a tell to an IMM would be like a prayer

Command Typed: Tell Algorab You suck as an IMM

"ou pray to Algorab: 'You suck as an IMM'

Followed by a swift slaying. Since we're praying to an IMM and it better be important! So mortal immortal type of relationship is still maintained.

This will increase the number of players while making it seem like the realm is still being moderated.

I think algorab’s understanding of recall vs WoR is accurate and the following reply was arguing the view that Algorab already stated.
Yes. WoR, recall, cabal recall, and tribunal recall should all pull pets with you. WoR would be the only way to escape combat via recall (excluding a couple scripted items out there).
If this were implemented it would negate the concept of recall vials in shops being OP. If you wanted to survive combat, mainly PvP, you’d still need to get vials brewed.
That being said, I don’t think rot recalls that are sold for a very high price would be OP. That’s my personal view.

Cost for gates: I think an obsidian would be fairly steep but would be fair. I would probably be upset if gates were priced higher than 1.5 obsidian. If we were able to go with a scaled price, based upon the number of the people logged in, I’d say 5 plat if there are 5 or less. 1 obsidian if there are 6 to 10 players logged and then 1.5 Black I’d there are any more than 10.
But the scaling of prices based on players would be code-heavy. So I think 1 obsidian would be a happy medium.

Cost for consecrate/enchant: this hasn’t been addressed by Algorab. But I think someone should be able to get three ap/mp/mr on a full suit for 10 obsidian. Guaranteed lands on each of the bought enchants. Trinkets or containers should cost 5 obsidian for 3 runes on a full set of trinkets. So whatever that boils down to for split cost among each piece.
Maybe 1 Black for each piece of equipment. So 3333 copper for each bought enchant.

As for pets: I think that a beefier meat shield is what people are looking for. But it needs to be evaluated for what class needs the beefy pet. I don’t think a merc is going to need a meat shield. That’s why I mentioned a priests only pet shop near zinobian.
Also there is still a MR pet in the Zhensh lands that can be used for spell casting. Ask around IC.

Thinking about the The Matrons and Ulryn’s quest got me thinking about ethereal. I’d like to see a pill that could make you ethereal for like one tick. It would allow some adventurers get past doors that can only be passed through in the ethereal plane. Very high priced. Maybe even rot on log out.
But I also don’t want to see rogues be able to eat a pill and instantly backstab. Maybe you’re paralyzed for one tick and then it lasts for one tick.
Idk. Ethereal doors are just as bad as no magic rooms if you’re adventuring solo.

I was trying to think about pets in greater depth. If we’re willing to consider new pets to allow better solo PvE, perhaps we should look at things that would provide needed aid to each class.
A priest needs something tankier. A merc might need something he could fly on (though those exist out there). A barbarian might utilize something that can cast magic missile to pull an enemy from a different room.
I’m just spitballing here. But if this is something to consider then maybe we should consider something that each class needs and make that pet only available to those classes.

Locked doors: what about a set of lock picks that cost ten obsidian and are one time use? I recently had to find a weak wand of charm and charm a very low level NPC (took multiple tries) so that we could take him to pick Dracolich’s door.
There were 2 other players with me. It took 3 people ( when we have low numbers) to get past a single door. If you wanna drop the coin, you should be able to pick that lock.

Symbol dispensary. Algorab's temple in Teron has scripts that can spawn one. Every other religion should follow suit with a very clear way of how to activate the scripts. Kneel and worship for symbol.

Post locations of religious spells on the astral board. *Edit* Also include self induction locations if it's not the same place. It would be preferable if they were merged in such a case.

Resurrection sold by astral NPC at major cities at the cost of 5 obsidian. Need someone to request on your behalf.

Recall vials sold by astral NPC at major cities at the cost of 1 obsidian and disappear when you logout.

Heal vials sold by astral NPC at major cities at the cost of 2 obsidian and does not disappear when you logout.

Gate available by astral NPC at major cities at the cost of 2 obsidian and 50% refund on failures.

Enchant/consecrate scrolls that work by keyword and not scroll skill. 100% success rate up to 3 and 30-50% after that.

Remove air room debuff for all charms. This also applies to the lamp to bypass no-magic or long distances.

Cut leveling. Let people who already hit GM start as expert.

On the topic of buffing pets or guard NPCs, no. No to everything. Reroll into another class if you want to explore. Priests are not suited for solo exploration and they never should be. Unless there's going to be a complete overhaul of how pets work and everyone is issued a permanent pet based on class, but it's more likely I'll be asked to join the staff before that happens.

Same for etherealform. The debuff that makes it tick away your mana continually is bad enough. Giving everyone the option to go ethereal makes it a useless spell for defense, and if it's not meant to be a defensive spell anymore then remove the continual mana drain. May as well give everyone resist elements and mirror image potions.

Pick lock is iffy for me. I don't think anyone wants to actually play a rogue/bard, but end-game content forces you to have one and in most cases you only ever need to pick lock once in those areas. After that you're just dead weight or a liability. While I'm in agreement that it would be a nice tool to have, I think it might discourage people from playing rogue/bard entirely. I'm a maybe on this if there was another barrier set in place so anyone can't just spam these tools. Perhaps only allow one per person within a 24 hour period, issued by tribunal/cabal NPC, and a cost of 5-10 obsidian from the coffers.

Lore is another one. Most people GM bards and only pull them out to lore. Honestly, it's stupid since everyone shares keyword phrases, which is a good thing. So I'm a maybe on this one for the same reasons in my previous suggestion. People wouldn't have any reason to play a bard if lore wasn't unique to them anymore, but who is playing a bard in the first place? It would also be nice if people could actually see the lore of an item on their own instead of having to make someone copy/paste and fiddle with parsing. My suggestion would be similar barriers as pick lock tools.