Shattered Kingdoms

Those were actually made about a year ago now as a small code update by Dulrik. I was just the one who made the news posting about it, and updated the help file.

There are a lot of other similar small code changes I would love to see, but those can only come from Dulrik.

I think, one of the most important things that probably needs to be looked at is...

Scripted stuff for darkie priests. You need priests who are on at various points of the day or darkies are never going to get anywhere.

I'm sorry, but I am always going to die on this hill, IDC how many people try to tell me "but symbol of pain is so strong!" It's not. All the darkie religion spells are almost useless. I don't want my priests casting attacks, I want them supporting and buffing.

You are actually deliberately crippling yourself if you ever make a darkie priest, because you are committing to having a weaker set of spells than your cross-aura counterparts, AND you're going to be stuck with getting hit by BoG, the most powerful PVP spell in the game on the best class in the game. And on top of all that you're going to have to deal with having less melee/support to help you do what priests do than if you just went lightie.

Give me some dark aura items that cast mirror image or resist elements for priests only, give me a ring or necklace or something that is scripted to change a darkie priest's aura so they can avoid BoG, give me some mana-restoring things that only work for darkie priests, something for detects, etc etc.

Agree on the IC-ness of it, but both occasions it ended up with at least one less player playing a dark aura character. That to me is the larger concern if the issue is creating and maintaining a stable base level of evil characters if that makes sense. As much as people like having cool toys, they hate having bullies come and snatch them up more.

I'm definitely open to ideas on ways to make non powerhouse dark aura characters more valuable and less like feeder fish for the couple of strong mechanical players that hop around. Although I will say I've had more productive thoughts on it from this discussion than some others.

I'm autistic and excited, which unfortunately can be interpreted as criticizing and demanding.

Give me IC Algorab or somebody coming down and forbidding dark aura adventurers from fighting each other.

No room for that when the 15 people who list has 1-2 darkies on it.

Tell them to get their [REDACTED] together and focus on what's important.

I'll give them a shot.

Do you all have a working list of broken doors/rooms/quest NPC interactions? Are you still actively monitoring bug/typo/idea? What's the best way to forward that stuff on to you? I have sort of a rough mental list of places and things that are very specific and I've been trying to log them lately. I could also type it all up into a single list and let you do with it whatever you want.

This is an Apprentice to Mentor area and already has more high level gear than it should for its level. There could be room for a usability pass, but not much room for just straight up addition.




A Journeyman to Mentor area that is largely based on story. Already has quite a bit of gear in it. Not really room to add much more, and definitely not anything end-game.



There is also a set of adamantite and mithril in this area that are usually available, at least parts of them. Along with some other assorted odds and ends. There could be room to do something here though as it's at least a Champion level area.



I want to say the nerfs were almost entirely related to the material type of the gear, and not anything else. Currently the area is maxed out on gear because it's really only a Expert to Master area. Also, while the Vaerlsarlak portion of the area definitely exists, and is slightly higher level, it's mostly just as a place fight a boss that doesn't require you going to the outer planes. The sickles in that portion are supposed to be mediocre because again, the area as a whole is a Master area and at the time there weren't any mid sickles in the game at all.

Since I made this area I would be happy to move some power around, but in all honesty, the Chancel was made in response to building trends of the time where most of the cool gear was zappy, and we didn't get to see lighties and evil people actually fight over religious gear anymore. That's why pretty much all of it was open game, if clearly dark aura themed.



I want to say the answer is yes as far as the bug/typo/idea goes, but worse case scenario, specially if there are some real problematic ones, would be to PM/Email a staffer like myself or Meissa.

You jest, but I'd be fine with a divine edict if that's what the majority of players actually wanted. In my older and marginally wiser years I've come around to a lot of ideas I was once against that discourage PK or reduce the possible harm from PK just because I realized as fun as PK can be if it's too harsh on the losing side you are quickly going to run out of fun to be had.

Can somebody with much more in game knowledge of this area go over it with a fine tooth comb with me? Because I feel like I've been through nearly every bit of it, unless there's something really obscure that I missed. Also, there are two parts of the game that I believe register as the Pits of Az'pook. Are they interconnected? There's the pits with the Quyling, where the portal drops you off, and the ones under N'Kashya. Most of it I can get through solo, but some of it is a royal pain in the butt and no one really wants to go there, so mapping it IC is rough. I'd be happy to build some kind of interesting IC story/guide around it too.

lol can barely keep up. Love that it's a real discussion.

background, ignore and skim to ideas header unless you're bored
Let me continue to preface that this is just from the perspective of someone well past their prime on understanding the metagame lewt aspect of SK, but mechanics is mechanics. It looks like that the overall cumulative changes to systems bloated the 'meta' of the game up past these darkie cabal benefits and made them less relevant. Stats feel even less important than they were. It feels like a race for high accuracy subtypes/certain massives, and doped up armor prot and reflex runes on two (and a half?) classes and the rest of us are spectators in PvP or off playing a separate game. Add another two classes (shaman, paladin) when you factor in PVE, but the end game anti-magic trolling hurts pet-based casters. Paladin is the half class that if it goes into one of the two lightie cabals can be put back in the PvP space.

When a cabal and an evil religion spell works around buffing stats, and two more useful stats for combat (dex/str) have better spells everyone gets access to - it makes for a bad day for their relevance. The light cabals overall completely bypass some of the systems that got inflated, and don't rely on stats so hard - which is why they weren't affected equally. We can't build around that, and I'm afraid to try to as if by some miracle a code change ever comes it's going to push for undoing a lot of work or end up in the same situation where builder-based buffs are cumulative with code fixes and we go lopsided again. I want to make sure some root causes as I see them are spoken into the universe because I'm trying to avoid acting on those by building some darkie utopia.

I also don't want it to sound like I want any of the code changes undone - I love a lot of the changes and the way the game feels now in so many ways. It's really good, honestly, especially after seeing all the progress after the huge gap in time between my play sessions. I think a few intentionally placed buffs in some right places would rebalance things a bit better.

I think the normal peeing contest of alpha dawg darkies is not a cultural concern right now, and I wouldn't want it to be a limiter to trying to solve some problems. I would also probably tarnish someone in a cabal if they got scrappy over ore - that's just kind of a personality thing. If it goes sideways, we can address it then.

ideas
Fist got the buff to give them items to enchant because they needed to get back in competitive tier of stats with the combat system inflation of accuracy and speed. A good start would be to limit ki straps to skinnable materials (with top end being dragonscale) and have no special damage types, period, full stop. They're plenty balanced just having acc mods on a no-innate-enchant item, and/or with mercs able to spec in them - which was like the whole point of the items in the first place. I was one of the vocal advocates to get them in the game, so this isn't some fist-hating catharsis here. Just raw mechanical discussion.

I think Taco's onto something here, too, with the item buff thing. I think a ki-strap mirror image (focus crystal of scum and villainy?) conferring buff spells on crucibles that only fires in conjunction with their spells might not hurt the Crucible if we can't get a code solution. Have them be specifically placed not unlike ki straps - not all in the HQ and some needing some work. Have some RP later if they get code buffed that eats all the focus crystals of scum and villainy. They can have one or three metagame-supported zappy subtypes near their HQ (consider: Krychire, the high level barb area in north Uxmal, maybe be crazy and put one or two in a scandalous room in the Taslamaran palace). I'd probably suggest focus crystals of scum and villainy hold the crucible-triggered buffs so warriors/adventurers aren't locked into weapon types and maybe casters get buffs too.

IDK about the cleric thing. I don't think there's a non-code solution so I don't know if I want to try - what would flip the switch from a dark priest being "meh" to "appealing" if it's not the religion spell? I stand by the ironguard Ch'zzrym items as an idea.

I just honestly don't know what building (besides specific items for the Crucible) really attacks a problem that, with new loot, will get dark auras back up the ebb and flow tides of player rotation. I hate to be a wet towel but it feels like a more fundamental issue. More creative people than me may have an idea for dark aura priests - I think that's not a bad idea. Get a religious item that sings songs of magic on them lol?

[worse more frivolous idea]

Okay, hear me out. Marfik parties the everloving #$*& out of the Citadel of the Gods. Aludra's puking in Thuban's toilet kind of jam.

One of the minarets falls off of the Citadel of the Gods, falls through five planes of existence and back onto Pyrathia. It literally ends up being two doors: Sargas' broom closet, and the door to Ehrenfeld (Sargas afterlife of eternal war). The first place anyone hits in Ehrenfeld is the tavern where everyone gets beer and salted meat before going to the eternal war. That said, the bouncers don't let players through to the battlefield who don't belong there. So you just get to visit the tavern.

They hate light auras. They'll fight dark auras. Maybe they have a terrible fight club in the basement full of zealous paladins that took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in the tavern. Maybe that fight club got one too many paladins and they build a bastion there. Maybe it's like a puzzle maze Anti-Nightmare Temple where dark auras get to use protection for once ever in their forsaken PVE lives.

IDK just spitballing. That can be a place to put loot. Edited to fix typos because screw proofreading.