A recent trend in the last year appears to be to include insignias as the major reward for major quests/difficult areas. Insignias are essentially bound gear, except the bonuses tend to be rather lackluster in all scenarios (ie, -2 ac or 1/1 for VoD, 3/3 insignia in Sem Vida, etc). This seems to fall in line with the current team of immortals not wanting to make individual players with "too powerful characters."
As a powergamer, I would like to ask why this is such a big deal that inclusion of powerful new gear seems to be completely against current acceptable rewards for new difficult areas, such as Eragora and EHAs. Even stacking an additional 20 dr at hero tier on a warrior type will not raise average by more than **, which is hardly gamebreaking and often more a measurement of personal accomplishment and bragging rights. Several classes have gotten recent additions that are much more influential than any exceptional gear can provide, such as slip (Yes, I will point out a skill only in my own class, to prevent favoritism).
Assuming that new t1 gear is added as a reward for difficult hero areas, one can argue that it is not inclusive of newer heroes, who do not have powerful characters. I ask, why is this a factor at all, when we are referring to quests that are not one time only? The only thing stopping anybody from getting a powerful character is time. A powerful group should not feel required to group with those less powerful, as they have not put in the same time investment as these characters, and thus do not deserve the same exact chance in lotto. Let us be honest, a 999 sorceror will contribute much more to a group than a level 1 mage will. With time, they will become more powerful and able to contribute equally, and be able to win the new t1 gear themselves.
I also find the idea of bound gear incredibly lame, as one of the greatest attributes of this MUD is the ability to have several characters, and play whichever alt is needed for any given run at any given time. I enjoy playing most of my alts, and telling me that I have to choose one alt to receive an insignia is basically saying that I should be working on one alt and only one alt. You can argue for powercreep, but powercreep as a result of endgame areas such as EHA should be included.
Tl;dr version: I think insignias and other bound gear as major rewards for new areas is not an appropriate reward given the level of difficulty and the number of players it takes to tackle the most difficult areas in the game, such as Sem Vida. Making powerful new gear that is transferable will not break the game,l and make new areas be run more than once, instead of running them once, realizing the reward is not worth the time, and then never running it again.
I think the big problem with insignias and other bound equipment is that it requires you to run the character you want to increase in power, so it encourages precisely the powercreep it seeks to prevent. I should dedicate all my resources to making a 999 hero as twinky as possible, as this is much more effective than attempting to make a weak lowhero slightly less terrible, because I have to complete the content on the character I want the bonus on. Therefore the insignia makes 999 hero archers even more powerful, and offers nothing for heroes I am attempting to level through the tier. (Tying questpoints to specific characters rather than the player has the same effect, and I also object to that policy, but that is beside the point here.)
Now, I'm hardly one to complain about the state of 999 archers (I have two, and have leveled archers through the hero tier 5 times now), but the last thing this particular group needs is any boost whatsoever. New gear and insignias for the hero tier should be focused towards improving the lot of the crappier classes, not making the twinky even twinkier, as virtually all of the EHA/Eragora additions have done (t1 archer helm, t1 archer wrist, t1 fus sling, hr insignias, etc). If anything I would suggest the addition of hero caster wields a la the lord variety, and perhaps made even more powerful to offset the crappiness of sub 500 hero casters, in ways which will not adversely affect lord. Eg.
25% chance of 0 spell cost if current mana is below 2000
33% chance of +1 attack when casting dancing weapon
+25% healing power when casting divinity
+20% spell power when casting acid rain
etcetera. This is the kind of powercreep we can afford to have.
Edited by Takayuchi on Sep 27 2011 06:47
If there was a decent and simple way from preventing lords to get/farm gear in such endgame areas, it would make things much simpler. Deepways for example has a double prevention mechanism with mobs that will seriously harm lords there, while at the same time act as regular mobs to heroes - so the question here would be is this not redundant? If doing the quest is impossible without a real and strong hero, then why make the item bound?
I do believe that when quests (in the traditional sense - quest that require thinking, exploring and such) are in question, insignias should be awarded, since this or that alt has indeed achieved something of significance and should be able to brag with his insignia and show it off, however I think Atris here has an issue with bonus-giving insignia, which were never spectacular. Aside from a few points to ac here or a few percents to regeneration there, only the +xp% are "seriously" good rewards, but are, naturally, untransferrable.
My thoughts on the matter are - if an item or reward is a end-result of an involved quest (especially 1/alt quests), then let the player get it (bound or not) and be awarded with an insignia (example: steel skeleton potion). However, if an item is fodderable (however hard), a point-and-kill affair, then it perhaps makes no sense to make it bound, as long as the builder has other methods to prevents trivial foddering by lords (if this was the reason of the bound flag at the beginning at all) (example: deepways).
As for the powercreep factor, I believe that as long as new heroes (and many not so new) wear gear like killing gloves or scorpion tattoos, that the powercreep has not seriously affected the game. I agree with Atris that perhaps several tiers of "t1" gear could exist simultaneously - those that are easy to get, fodderable, within the reach of c tele mob in question, and the other tear, if not much more upgraded than at least with a plethora of added bonuses, saves, etc on the items themselves, making them disticntively better that the regular stuff but also much harder to get.
I'm sure Eragora is the staple of such gear that is mostly un-soloable and some items are much better than midgaardian stuff (but require 3-4 people groups to attempt even getting them), so if Eragora can, why not EHAs? It's highly unlikely a group will form to farm eha-gear with any regularity.
Takayuchi wrote:
New gear and insignias for the hero tier should be focused towards improving the lot of the crappier classes, not making the twinky even twinkier, as virtually all of the EHA/Eragora additions have done (t1 archer helm, t1 archer wrist, t1 fus sling, hr insignias, etc).
Aside from that gear in Eragora (which actually has less HR than midgaardian stuff and is druid gear mostly due to mana bonuses instead of HR), Eragrora also has AC gear, lots of mana gear, some HP pieces etc. Please check out the wiki. Pure arc gear (and again only an equivalent of midgaardian stuff) is only the ulexite wristguard from quarries and the improved fus sling from Akrikto. I can't speak for Sem Vida, I haven't been there yet.
Takayuchi wrote:
If anything I would suggest the addition of hero caster wields a la the lord variety, and perhaps made even more powerful to offset the crappiness of sub 500 hero casters, in ways which will not adversely affect lord. Eg.
25% chance of 0 spell cost if current mana is below 2000
33% chance of +1 attack when casting dancing weapon
+25% healing power when casting divinity
+20% spell power when casting acid rain
etcetera. This is the kind of powercreep we can afford to have.
And here is the actual jackpot. I fully support this idea - to make specific insignias to help those classes that actually need help, especially at early stages like small casters/healers or similar. Is this kind of insignia possible at all?
The sub101 hitters will likely still have their hr/dr insignia bonuses from DC quests, which are all but useless on casters (who, let's be frank, will in turn get the regen bonuses form remort races, but that's kinda way too late)..
I'm not against bound gear so much, but I do think more things like the kinetic damage that lord weapons have would make more options for weapons instead of what has the highest dr and avg damage. It is also annoying and aggravating when gear is bound but useless to the person who gets it. No high-end bound gear should be useless. Either it should be somewhat class dependent on what you get, or you should be able to trade it in for money gems. Anything to make it something you don't just drop on the ground and sacrifice it for 0 after taking the time to get it on that alt.
It's weird to say that only archer gear is getting better in Eragora though.
There is a new top double weapon. A new top manifest hold ac piece (though you have to discover the recipe). There is T1 mana gear with more hp which helps smaller casters.
There are 10/10 blades that can be farmed with a group, and though in a difficult place, you can get 10-20 per repop. New best bag (other than quest point bag), new top ac wrist, and mana arm. New top mana wrist too.
This is just a few things from a few of the Eragora areas, and so it's hard to argue that there is no new T1 stuff, or that it is all bound, when it just isn't the case.
Something I do agree is that questpoints should really be across alts, and not on who you happened to be on. They are hard enough to get, and you have people sacrificing who helps the group the most for who they want the qp on. I also don't like super weak insignias. What do you do with 1% xp bonus? It's just entirely negligible.
Edited by Ginta on Sep 27 2011 13:55
I generally feel that the benefits of gear that is found in difficult but permanent areas should be relatively small over previous t1 (but it should still be t1), simply because given the permanence of the gear it will always be there. Also, given enough time, small powercreep will continue to add up. I'd rather have temporary/quest stuff bring in new powerful t0 gear that is only available during a specific event or time window, but I think for that to work there needs to be a constant cycle of such areas or quests.
I agree that the bound aspect is crap though, and I have been vehemently against bound gear for a very long time. Bound gear basically punishes the person who runs an alt that would benefit the quest group the most instead of whatever alt they feel like twinking out even if that alt is of little help. I think the questpoint system has potential for making powerful gear that fits in with that Atris (and I as a fellow powergamer) want, but there need to be some changes:
1) Revamp the catalog prices, basically all of the prices are totally ridiculous now that potw is gone. Alternatively you could actually start running enough quests with enough actual qp rewarded so that the prices aren't so crazy.
2) Add some of the cool new bonuses that have been implemented as options to be added to gear in the qp catalog at reasonable prices given whatever the expected average accrual of qp.
3) Either remove the binding limitations completely, or get the dev team to figure out how to implement a bind-to-multireg list. I don't want to sell my nice gear, but if it is bound to just 1 character 99% of the time it is crap to me.
Zen wrote:
3) Either remove the binding limitations completely, or get the dev team to figure out how to implement a bind-to-multireg list. I don't want to sell my nice gear, but if it is bound to just 1 character 99% of the time it is crap to me.
I did some searches on this earlier (and I agree it would be a great convenience), so this is the items i found in ideas:
Armathus
2003-07-16 13:24:53 allow bound gear to be saveable but NOT usable by charecters who have been designated "alt of"
no
Rapid
2008-05-07 16:03:15 Bound gear should be able to be used on all alts
no. Which part of 'bound' is unclear?
2010-09-20 18:29:07= 6450=Tiera=another way of "binding" gear to an altlist or something. Similar to how insure can allow alts to use gear with altof set.
yeah, could be useful. Don't like working through the code for it though.
to ideas.
I think those earlier responses were from a time when the only bound items of note were either twinky imm-quest items, and the Girth of the Most Holy, so those responses are to be expected.
I think people are forgetting: a key advantage of insignia are that they don't compete with gear. First, they do not devalue existing gear or quests. Second, they don't require you to swap anything out or refodder it. I'm not proposing insignia for all future quests, but it's not a one-sided downgrade from gear.
Also, think of the 3/3 insignia: can you imagine any piece of hero hit gear item with an additional 3/3 on it? That would instantly obsolete everything else in that slot, no exceptions. It would be level 51 lord gear. The only time such a huge boost in power is warranted is if something replaces lowmort gear (Amethyst Circlet, for instance). You can complain that you can't transfer that gear to an alt, but if that prize were transferable gear, it would not be nearly as good.
WinterRose wrote:
The sub101 hitters will likely still have their hr/dr insignia bonuses from DC quests, which are all but useless on casters (who, let's be frank, will in turn get the regen bonuses form remort races, but that's kinda way too late)..
Yeah, this is why I see all of the recent additions favouring archers. The addition of crit to the wrist slot, or 3/3 insignia, benefits every single shot the archer makes all run long. Slightly better managear lets a caster cast a couple more times, that's it.
The new t1 weapons, for the most part, are not really actual improvements. They just add HR or some other random stat, which is basically useless. There are no DR gear upgrades in Eragora, afaik.
Edited by Takayuchi on Sep 27 2011 22:38
WinterRose wrote:
The sub101 hitters will likely still have their hr/dr insignia bonuses from DC quests, which are all but useless on casters (who, let's be frank, will in turn get the regen bonuses form remort races, but that's kinda way too late)..
Yeah, this is why I see all of the recent additions favouring archers. The addition of crit to the wrist slot, or 3/3 insignia, benefits every single shot the archer makes all run long. Slightly better managear lets a caster cast a couple more times, that's it.
The new t1 weapons, for the most part, are not really actual improvements. They just add HR or some other random stat, which is basically useless. There are no DR gear upgrades in Eragora, afaik.
You keep saying things that aren't true. Either go explore and identify the gear, or stop posting hearsay that is false. The current top double weapon is 6/12. 12 means higher DR. 6 means lower HR. This means the opposite of what you claim.
Yes, melee classes get more out of bonuses because they never run out of being able to hit. They also can't dish out as much damage in one round as a surge 5 disintegrate. That's called class differences. Even if you raised spellpower for casters, it would still be limited by their amount of mana, while melee can go on forever.
I just want qp to mean something. You need such a silly amount to actually do anything. And you can't actually get them.
For example, as of right now, the QPs that have been awarded since about May.
QP from a hero quest in May.
QP from a trivia quest in June.
QP from the POTW (May/June/July).
QP from a lord quest (late August).
I think the most for any single quest was 30 qp.
So, with all the opportunities to get qp, how can someone *not* get 150 qp to get an imm macro potion (150 qp) within a reasonable timeframe? Or 10 quest arrows?
Surely 250 qp is worth 11k pracs (500 hp or mana, or you could spend 1k pracs and get 250 hp).
Want to regen hp an extra 5% faster? That'll be 350 qp? Or a number so unobtainable that you may as well just stay sub101 and use the DC insignias.
Don't forget the discount you get when you burn 700 qp to get a wand of quest (full restore) with 10 charges instead of spending 350 qp to get 5 charges, like a sucker.
Or you can use 700 qp to remove a stat point from a weapon! Those weapons just aren't worth using if they have a -wis or -int on them! Better blow a couple of years worth of qp on it.
1. I understand where you guys are coming from with the bound gear. Although I did speak with Ctibor and he confirmed that in Sem Vida specifically, you have the option of choosing what alt to put the insignia on.
But it is also a trade off:
a) the reward for a very hard quest should not be passable to hero 1s who would not survive more than 2 minutes in an area
b) bound gear tends to have slightly better stats to compensate for not being able to move things around
c) it doesn't solve all problems, but most gear can be moved to a different alt if you morph. (of course, altlist would be preferable to this.)
2. I do not understand as much the disliking of insignias:
a) Some insignias are specific to the player, others are given to the entire group (see: Exploration Outpost for group insignias)
b) insignias convey prizes above and beyond the gear you are already wearing. So that 3/3 insignia will also help you, even if you are in tank gear, or, worse yet, naked.
2b. The effect of an insignia is based on:
a) when, if ever, it will decay. 50 levels vs hero 999 is a very different thing. The first would be a higher prize. But then, a builder must also compensate for people who do not wish to level and will thus keep the insignia forever. Though Ctibor's uses a different decay method (which I won't spoil here.)
b) The realization that players will not complete just one quest, but they will complete many (as more are introduced). You might think that -2ac or -3ac is low, but it will stack up, especially if the insignia is meant to stay around for a while.
3. I agree that gear that is significantly better than tier 1 should be mostly be found in temporary quests to keep the supply low.
We are quickly running out of gear slots at hero where the best piece is low mort gear. Which is what I usually look for first when designing gear to put in, which also has the added benefit of a higher base. Items such as killing gloves are overpowered for their level, because they do not leave much wiggle room between high low mort and Lord but are so easy to obtain. So that's one slot that can't really be improved on easily.
Takayuchi wrote:
You keep saying things that aren't true. Either go explore and identify the gear, or stop posting hearsay that is false. The current top double weapon is 6/12. 12 means higher DR. 6 means lower HR. This means the opposite of what you claim.
Oh, sorry, so there is 1dr of upgrades for hero 250+ war/bod and 0 dr for everyone else, gotcha.
I think if something is going to be bound, it had better be pretty darn useful to the char it's bound to. I have a lord level quest sash that is -10 better than a regular bloodsash (or whatever the new equivalent is). It's on a character I don't use at all. My question is, should it really be bound? I mean, 10 ac in 2000 is hardly OP.
Zaffer wrote:
I just want qp to mean something. You need such a silly amount to actually do anything. And you can't actually get them.
For example, as of right now, the QPs that have been awarded since about May.
QP from a hero quest in May.
QP from a trivia quest in June.
QP from the POTW (May/June/July).
QP from a lord quest (late August).
I think the most for any single quest was 30 qp.
I agree the QP cat stuff is high price, but I also think it should be fairly hard to get. However, a few years ago, it seems to me anyway, QPs were more commonly gotten. I think rather than change the price of QP cat items a better solution would be to more frequently offer methods of obtaining QPs. At least back to levels of 3-4 years ago, preferably more, perhaps with some new methods thrown in.
Vath - I'll be brutally honest. As a person, I don't like powergaming. As a result I don't like catering to it. This is a flaw on my part maybe.
In general, speaking as an Immortal, I feel a game like Avatar is hard to govern. We definitely have a roleplaying aspect. Many of our areas and quests have a large story aspect. But due to the way things are set up, it's also a simple hack-n-slash game where being the buffest pays off.
I'm not sure we'll ever go either way completely. Any suggestions on how to balance them perfectly? Let us know.
Laazarus - I fully agree. As the one responsible for the lack of decent QP rewards, I can tell you that this has been a constant struggle for the past few years for various reasons (the biggest one being time & dedication)
Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I will start another offensive to pump some qps into the world.
I think this discussion has split into several separate aspects of gameplay:
1. QP issues, such as QPcat re-balance, should be solved regardless of others. The QPcat has some antique offerings such as risk-free morph attempt (a remnant of the previous times where levels were lost), too high prices for others (Zaffer mentioned the 10 charge wand and the 700qp stat removal), but I'd like to add some other items like the whetstone or rogue tools, or even the humble bag, which noone uses since they are simply way too expensive in the current low-qp gain climate.
Furthermore the web page (this one) has also a different set of prices making things even further confusing:
(even featuring a 1600QP unbind for all except imm quest and UD gear!)
I'm hoping that with Kariya's and other IMM's efforts there will indeed be more QPs to be had in the coming months and even years, as since May/June and the PotW gone we're indeed left hanging, so to speak.
2. Insignia awards for quests. It is my belief that these rewards should stay but be enriched by variety. Bonuses to skills such as spells, spellpower, spell costs, ability lag (!), extra chances of combat abilities (hitting, parrying, dodge), flat bonuses to damage, are all insignias we had a chance to see with the Downfall lately, and could be implemented to enrich the player characters in most interesting ways, especially ways that gear itself cannot do.
For example, (a random one), perhaps an Eragora Deep Sea Diver insignia should not give bonuses to XP but should give a player one week of water breathing instead? Perhaps the Mountain Adventurer should not give AC (thematically makes no sense), but give a large reduction in move costs? Or the Bane should give large bonus to saves vs gas and similar?
I'm sure many of these bonuses could keep the thematic feeling of the area and quest in question and not be a simple hr/dr/ac stacking.
Please note that insignia in no way prohibits awarding gear as well, can (and should) often accompany one another.
3. Bound gear. If mechanisms to prevent abuse exist (as demonstrated by Deepways), bound gear makes no real sense. Bound itself is ok, as long as it can be redone to be bound-to-altlist (with the exception of UD gear I suppose).
Mayhaps bound is the wrong flag here? Perhaps Restricted could be coded as a new flag to allow such behavior and to allow gear as UD girth to remain bound without doing major rewrites?
As it is now, even insured stuff cannot be used by altlist, which is really tragic and very problematic when having to swap valuable gear in a hurry (to do a fast cr perhaps?)
4. Powercreep, upgraded stuff for major quests and hard areas - these are going to happen eventually anyway. Powergamers will always want the new gear and so far every new area has offered an improvement on some front, no mater how small. While I disagree with 15/15 weaponry and such large and flat bonuses (and they are indeed large, no matter what others say), I'd always rather see the same t1 gear, but enriched with bonuses, saves, ability points, and far more importantly (and much more fun) - the "odd" stuff.
If I had to choose between a 9/11 wield that has 1% chance of doing something awesome like bash, or a 10/10 wield that in 1% cases does double damage, I'd be hard pressed to choose the right weapon.
As it is now - there is but a single piece of equipment for every slot and you know which one is the "best" without exceptions. I'd rather see alternatives - same gear, similar stats, but different "behaviors".
Speaking as a builder who has used both insignia and bound gear in some of my areas, I thought I would share some of my own personal thoughts on this interesting topic.
First of all, insignia are a relatively new addition to the game, and as for myself, I am still exploring their uses and what benefits they can have for a character or for a group, as well as how they can alter the play style of an area. These things are a learning process and will no doubt develop over time. Feedback is useful and interesting. It does take time for these new ideas to come together though, and to be implimented. As new areas go in, or older areas are revamped, the insignia options will expand naturally and some will be seen as more useful for certain players than others - like equipment.
One thing we need to consider as builders is that there is no limit on the the number of insignia a player may have at once. Unlike equipment which is limited by the amount of slots, it is perfectly feasable for a player to pick up 20 insignia which each boost something by a small amount - say +1%xp - which totals up to a whopping +20%xp. As such, we need to be careful in considering what rewards, if any, can be attached to an insignia. Insignia are now appearing with somewhat more frequency than before, and we shall probably be seeing a lot more of them in the future. While I am delighted to see people sporting insignia from my areas, I would not want to add in bonuses which prevent other builders from also adding in similar bonuses if they wish by cornering the market on a single +20%xp insignia.
Also, in my area different insignia have different purposes. Some are there simply to allow players to complete quests and track those quests. Sometimes a quest is intended to be only done once, or sometimes it is to limit the amount of times a quest can be done to prevent foddering for an item I want to be somewhat rare. In other cases, the purpose of the insignia is open doors for further quests and allow players who own the insignia special perks. Bonuses on the insignia tend to be incidental rewards, more than the reward themselves. They allow bragging rights and may give some slight bonus - but the bonus is rarely supposed to be the reward itself.
Alot of the insignia which I use are temporary ones. The reason for this is that I do not want people to do the quest just once, but I'd like them to be able to go back again in time and explore more and enjoy the quest again. If the rewards coming from the quest are not enough entice a player to repeat the quest from time time, then that is fair enough - not everyone is interested in the same things - though, however, if noone is interested in doing the quest at all, that's a bit sad, and I would at the very least bear that in mind for future projects. I might even go back and make some alterations to the original quest and improve on it somewhat - as in the case of Fungal Forest.
I do not believe that insignia should in place to 'fix' a class or race. If there is something wrong with a class or race, then we should look at overhauling it and solving the problem at source, not patching things over with an insignia.
On the subject of bound gear; one reason I use bound gear in some circumstances is because I want people to repeat the quest. A tricky to obtain item is much easier handed around between characters than it is to be got again. Having designed a quest, I want people to do it. After having put a great deal of time into designing, writing and an implimenting something I think is cool, I want it done as many times as possible. I want the player to appreciate that piece of gear and know that it is special. It might not be convenient, and it might not fit well with slinging all your gear off of one character and throwing it onto another, but if you really want that item, then you need to do it again with the character who wants it. Again, not all characters will want that item, and not all players will be bothered to get a tricky piece, but if you do want it, I don't think it unreasonable that you do the quest again.
Bound gear CAN be a pain. But then, hopefully the rewards are worth it. If you feel that it is not really worth your time in seeking it out specifically, then you do not have to. If you happen to come across a piece which would work much better on another character, then you have not lost anything by just stumbling across it. There are plenty of junk items out there which can be sacrificed if you don't want them. If you DO want the item for a certain character, then that character should do the quest. If it is difficult for that character type, then it was probably designed to be so. One example could be the armbands in Deepways. They are definitely easier for characters like rogues or archers to obtain incidently than by a mage or wizard happening across them - but I did not want them to be so easily obtained. If the mage or wizard wants them, they will have to put in a bit of special effort.
All this said - I have been very interested in people's opinions on the matter and these are things which I shall consider for future projects. Feedback is very useful for builders - and in fact for anyone who contributes to the mud in any way. It is good to know what people are thinking. Issues with insignia and to a lesser extent with bound gear (in my case) are something I will think about in designing future areas in the hope that areas and the quests they contain will be enjoyable not only for me to create, but also for a range of people to enjoy and feel satisfied with.
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