Melee Combat

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Shevarash
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Melee Combat

Postby Shevarash » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:01 pm

What you like to see change about melee combat? This is an open-ended question, feel free to interpret it and answer as you like.
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Postby Dalar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:13 pm

1. Monks. Everyone loved these guys because they were prime damage and could hit a ton of times in a round. People love getting 7 hits a round because they know their damroll means something.

2. Make weapons meaningful without procs. Currently, people only wield weapons for the procs because they do a significant amount more damage than the actual hits or have some sort of debuff effect. Give modifiers for certain weapon types to hit more or less on certain races.

3. Even out the amount of damage between melee combat and spell combat (reduce area damage).

4. Get rid of fumbling at high weapon skill. If you want people to be drop their weapon, make mobs disarm more. I don't know much about IRL weapon combat, but I don't think people would fumble their weapon as much as they do in game.

5. Rangers. For their melee combat, they need a circle equivalent and +hits per round skill to compete with rogues.

6. Remove the +attack per round proc on khanjari daggers. It is still the strongest weapon in game by far for damage potential.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.
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Postby Disoputlip » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:23 pm

Make it possible to notch dodge for mages and clerics.
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Postby Lilira » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:30 pm

Agree Dalar. Most complaints I hear about Melee are usually followed up with some comment about Khanjaris.

Rangers do need some melee lovin'. Its a sad day when given the choice between a Khanjari rogue and a ranger who can backup tank, toss the ocassional spellup in a pinch, rescue (real rescue not rogue rescue), the choice always falls to the Khanjari rogue, unless archery needed. But oh wait, rogues lure too. *shrug*

Warriors I think would like to be able to do some damage, so that being a warrior means something more than being a meat shield again.

Monks... aren't those just Khanjari rogues now? *duck*
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Postby teflor the ranger » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:36 pm

More multiple target damage. Two target attacks, etc.
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Postby Thilindel » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:38 pm

Monks...yum!

Rangers - add triple attack! Nature hide. Better spells selection. Leave their tanking as is, auxilary.

Rogues - they just need downgrade. Rogues here don't reflect rogues in D&D much at all. Well, D&D rogues are pretty scary for the hide/sneak. But their melee ability after discovered sure isn't as good as it is here.

Check that other thread about new evil or new race Cyric had mentioned. That'd own too :P

Oh, have OGRE warriors please be able to dual wield 2-handed weapons. The argument is straightforward. A 2hander for an ogre is barely a dagger.

Maybe change the fumble turn into what happens to LEVEL ONE chars. They stumble but don't drop. Make weapon go into their inventory. Fumbling is quite annoying. I wouldn't have my necro wield oblivion because it's !ID and I'll be damned if I'm gonna chance ponding a *really annoying* !ID weapon. -Off note: Please remove !ID from weapons!
Oh, and IRL when you dual wield and fight tournament, it's very difficult. Amongst the padding and cheering, when you get disarmed, you're panicky. First off, you can parry MUCH easier while dual wielding IRL. We would use wooden swords. My favorite was shortsword for left, katana for right. We had to 'slap' with them rather than lunge, so we wouldn't hurt people, but you totally parry while dual wielding. Your only real offense is with your prime hand or if you dual block, the guy has to pull back, wherein you shoulderblock them. Anyway, ...

I'd ask that more class options were available. Battle(mage/cleric) should be part of melee as well.

Fix throwing weapons please! I have several that are +hit or damage but no dice show up for ID.

Make both druid/cleric receive defense skill.

Slow tripping down a bit. Mobs/players both can keep the other down. Mobs will trip you down perpetually, whereas warrior mobs will not relentlessly bash you. Good example is the little elves in DS. They trip so often. You stand, try to cast * spell duration and they can trip you back down most the time before you finish it. Life drain I think is 2 seconds to cast if you make qc, I can't get that spell finished even.

For rogue again, I think making them trip, garrote, backstab is more in the lines. The melee advantage they have over any other class is a bummer. It's sad to have to compare efhr fully loaded to a fully loaded ranger to get a versus. Khanjari shouldn't define a rogue.

Last, increase warrior dual wield. Warriors are the supreme weapon wielders.
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Postby Ragorn » Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:45 pm

1. Increased damage. I think this is more or less a given... single-target damage dealers like Rangers need to be able to compete with their area-spell counterparts in terms of numbers. Nothing else matters, if melee combatants can't deal damage, everything else you change is cosmetic.

2. Decide what you're doing with the Ranger class. If Rangers are meant to be melee hitters, then step up their damage ability with swords. If Rangers are meant to be archers, then for gods sake give us some combat skills that involve our bows. If you would like some help, I can direct you to Ragorn's Encyclopedia of Ranger Posts, Volume 1 (afire-haste), Volume 2 (hitroll-nature), and Volume 3 (offhand-woodcarving).

3. Balance status effects between melee and casters. Right now, casters do it all... they silence, stun, blind, poison, paralyze, and what have you. Reduce the status effects available to spellcasters, and put that power back in the hands of your Warriors, Paladins, Rangers, and Rogues. That ties in very well with:

4. Introduce new activated combat commands. Kick and headbutt are bland, and more or less trivial. Give bash and shieldpunch back their true power, introduce skills for Rangers and Rogues that allow them to contribute to the buff/debuff aspect of combat. A Distract skill for Rogues that raises the target's AC. An Aimed Shot skill for Rangers that blinds for two rounds. You get the idea. Something to do in combat besides assist and afk.

5. Lose fumbling. I mean... come on. I'm a 113 year old Grey Elf Ranger at the height of my combat prowess... you're going to tell me that I drop my sword roughly every 30 seconds in combat? Get rid of the whole fumble/curse mechanic.
Last edited by Ragorn on Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby selerial » Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:45 pm

While I currently play an elementalist, my first character was a monk and my second character was a ranger. I know way back when I used to think that the high level monks with 7 attacks per round for 7d9 (or whatever it was) damage were awesome. I also thought that stuff like Dawn's Fire and Swiftwind were cool when I had my ranger. Even stuff like an emerald longsword.

I think the difference now is that I have a level 50, and back then I was in my 20s for years, my monk only ever reached 37 or so. The perspective of a level 50 is that all spells and procs from weapons are merely tickles to pretty much every end game mob, seeing as they all must sit well in to the 10ks or perhaps 100ks of hps.

I believe I've actually stated this in a post a long time ago, but my opinion about the matter is simply that the very substance of combat in the mud is very slow and really not very flashy. You have swords throwing out fireballs, mages incinerating the countryside, and mobs that giggle a little at the damage and keep plonking away with whatever attacks they have.

Granted, the subject of this discussion is "melee" combat, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't really change melee combat without also doing something for casters as well.

But in essence I agree with some of what the others have said, namely, spice up melee procs to mean something and allow there to be high-dice-damage weapons. I've seen a list for the tia loot, and the armor all looked great, the weapons (that I can think of) looked very pedestrian. Make a two handed axe do 10d15, for instance, that'd be a good start. Then take all mob hps and cut them in half.

edit: I guess some of what I'd like to see is scaling the mud way down to the point where a 5 man group is viable for a lot more stuff than it is now. Virtually all "end game" zones require 15 people, and since there are often only about that many high level characters on at the times I stop by, it makes gathering the group about as much of a hassle as actually doing the zone.
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Postby Vigis » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:13 pm

Please make headbutt KO again and replace kick with something I might actually use. As it is, I only kick dragons since there aren't multiple switches and I'm not willing to lag myself with a skill that isn't going to do anything except keep me from rescuing for another round or two.
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Postby Kallinar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:57 pm

Please pay close attention to Dalar and Rags as they pretty much summed up my rant for this forum post.
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Postby Dalar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:18 pm

Keep in mind that even when using a 2h weapon, you're really not doing that much more damage than a 1h. There needs to be a 2h modifier for melee classes so it's noticeable damage.

I played another MUD where rogues had a passive skill called Distract that interrupted casters. Was kinda cool, but that MUD had front end spells (instant cast, then delay) and mobs casted alot of shit.

Also, bring back haste items. Contrary to belief, haste items aren't overpowered. You're basically saving the necro/enchanter/elementalist from casting that as part of their spellup.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby Kallinar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:24 pm

hear hear
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Postby Kramel » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:30 pm

1) Reduce the ability of non-warrior classed PC's ability to tank.

2) Reduce the effects of protective spells.

3) Increase the effectiveness of warrior classed defensive skills (dodge, shieldblock, parry)


4) Make more weapons with fancy procs for warriors.
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Postby Lilira » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:32 pm

Oh heavens yes... when casting in a group of 6 rogues, three tanks and various casters, I get SOOO tired of the AP whining for a damn haste. I just don't have time. But then yes.. I'm not super chanter, and we were under time constraints.
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Postby Dalar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:33 pm

IMHO, don't make procs more fancy so coders have more time to work on projects. Also, reduce the amount of damage weapon procs do in general. They should be reserved for special items, such as items form a long quest, or from a difficult zone/encounter. Weapons like the longsword from Drulak are silly.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby Vaprak » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:09 pm

Vaprak's personal opinion (note stressed personal):

1: Fumbles should be non-existant at maxed individual weapon skill (ie 1h slashing, 2h misc, etc) for all classes that can achieve at least a 75 in that particular weapon skill

2: Tone down caster area damage.

3: Virtually remove the tanking ability of any class that does not have the "defense" skill.

4: Tone down the protective abilities of dragonscales, displacement, and blur. Stoneskin is likely OK where it is, but maybe down a tad.

5: Significantly increase the tanking ability of any class that does have the "defense" skill, but not so much that clerics are still left wanting to AFK all the time. Stike a balance between mob damage and tanking skills/defensive spells such that a cleric is as constantly enganged in the combat as an enchanter glancing the tank for scales dropping.

6: Tone down the offensive attack ability of rogues and focus a little more upon their special abilities. Give them the 'distract' skill as stated earlier in this thread for starters.

7: Make 2h weapons actually mean something.

8: Decide whether rangers are archery or melee, pick one and go with it. I personally would pick archery and give secondary skills that enhance their archery ability such as called-shots that can blind for a short period, or cause damage to a limb causing similar effects to a 'slowness' spell for a short period. Make it so archery can do nearly the damage that monks were once capable of. Do not bring back monks as we don't need more classes to balance at this point.

9: Make headbutt able to KO an opponent and also KO the headbutter again. It sucks now.

10: Give kick a very small chance to stun for or short period dependent on size of mob versus kicker.

11: Keep weapon special procs special by keeping them on high end zones and difficult quests. Have 2 tiers of weapon procs: one for low-mid levels that are mostly just cool looking and do minor damage or < 3rd circle effects and another tier for high level weapon procs that can do decent damage and/or effects.

12: Put haste items back in. Actually put one haste item in and tie it only to one specific slot that is not neck, wrist, ear, or finger. Let people choose between perm-haste and an item with good ac/hitdam/hps. Cloaks are a good familiar standby. A tiamat tier item should be the only haste item that would have stats other than haste.

13: Let ogres single-hand two-handed weapons, but do not let them dual wield them. Let them wield a 2hander as primary weapon and wear a shield. Ogres are pathetic for tanking in many situations, throw them a bone here. I might even go so far as to say ogres can only wield 2h weapons in 1 hand and not wield any 1handers at all.

14: Bashing and bash assignments used to be a moderatly good test of warrior skill. Now you barely see bashing as a used tactic in zoning. Change this and make bash an important skill again through areas design.

15: Make it so paladins, antis, and dires of moderatly high skill level can remount in combat by passing a skill check, perhaps loosing all their defensive abilities for 1 round as penalty for doing so.

16: Give warriors of the more feral races such as ogres, barbarians, orcs, and trolls a toggable reflexive ability that would activate when the warrior drops below X% of their max_hps, such as when the Awful condition indicator is reached that would cause them to berserk, gain a temporary max_hp boost relative to their racially modified con that would bring them back up to say the start of Pretty Hurt. This effect would also increase their damage by say 25% for the short period and cause them to be unable to flee. When the effect wears off, the hps go away as was the case with the old vit spell, making death from this "adrenaline rush" ability a possibility if adequate healing is not applied promptly.

17: Downgrade khanjari and any other items that significantly define the abilities of a class. Equipment is good, equipment is fun, but no single item of equipment should define an entire class.

**Edited item 5 to include clerical heals.
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Postby Vigis » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:39 pm

Vaprak wrote:16: Give warriors of the more feral races such as ogres, barbarians, orcs, and trolls a toggable reflexive ability that would activate when the warrior drops below X% of their max_hps, such as when the Awful condition indicator is reached that would cause them to berserk, gain a temporary max_hp boost relative to their racially modified con that would bring them back up to say the start of Pretty Hurt. This effect would also increase their damage by say 25% for the short period and cause them to be unable to flee. When the effect wears off, the hps go away as was the case with the old vit spell, making death from this "adrenaline rush" ability a possibility if adequate healing is not applied promptly.


Really like that idea!
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Postby Llaaldara » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:59 pm

Vaprak wrote:Vaprak's personal opinion (note stressed personal):

1: Fumbles should be non-existant at maxed individual weapon skill (ie 1h slashing, 2h misc, etc) for all classes that can achieve at least a 75 in that particular weapon skill

2: Tone down caster area damage.

3: Virtually remove the tanking ability of any class that does not have the "defense" skill.

4: Tone down the protective abilities of dragonscales, displacement, and blur. Stoneskin is likely OK where it is, but maybe down a tad.

5: Significantly increase the tanking ability of any class that does have the "defense" skill, but not so much that clerics are still left wanting to AFK all the time. Stike a balance between mob damage and tanking skills/defensive spells such that a cleric is as constantly enganged in the combat as an enchanter glancing the tank for scales dropping.

6: Tone down the offensive attack ability of rogues and focus a little more upon their special abilities. Give them the 'distract' skill as stated earlier in this thread for starters.

7: Make 2h weapons actually mean something.

8: Decide whether rangers are archery or melee, pick one and go with it. I personally would pick archery and give secondary skills that enhance their archery ability such as called-shots that can blind for a short period, or cause damage to a limb causing similar effects to a 'slowness' spell for a short period. Make it so archery can do nearly the damage that monks were once capable of. Do not bring back monks as we don't need more classes to balance at this point.

9: Make headbutt able to KO an opponent and also KO the headbutter again. It sucks now.

10: Give kick a very small chance to stun for or short period dependent on size of mob versus kicker.

11: Keep weapon special procs special by keeping them on high end zones and difficult quests. Have 2 tiers of weapon procs: one for low-mid levels that are mostly just cool looking and do minor damage or < 3rd circle effects and another tier for high level weapon procs that can do decent damage and/or effects.

12: Put haste items back in. Actually put one haste item in and tie it only to one specific slot that is not neck, wrist, ear, or finger. Let people choose between perm-haste and an item with good ac/hitdam/hps. Cloaks are a good familiar standby. A tiamat tier item should be the only haste item that would have stats other than haste.

13: Let ogres single-hand two-handed weapons, but do not let them dual wield them. Let them wield a 2hander as primary weapon and wear a shield. Ogres are pathetic for tanking in many situations, throw them a bone here. I might even go so far as to say ogres can only wield 2h weapons in 1 hand and not wield any 1handers at all.

14: Bashing and bash assignments used to be a moderatly good test of warrior skill. Now you barely see bashing as a used tactic in zoning. Change this and make bash an important skill again through areas design.

15: Make it so paladins, antis, and dires of moderatly high skill level can remount in combat by passing a skill check, perhaps loosing all their defensive abilities for 1 round as penalty for doing so.

16: Give warriors of the more feral races such as ogres, barbarians, orcs, and trolls a toggable reflexive ability that would activate when the warrior drops below X% of their max_hps, such as when the Awful condition indicator is reached that would cause them to berserk, gain a temporary max_hp boost relative to their racially modified con that would bring them back up to say the start of Pretty Hurt. This effect would also increase their damage by say 25% for the short period and cause them to be unable to flee. When the effect wears off, the hps go away as was the case with the old vit spell, making death from this "adrenaline rush" ability a possibility if adequate healing is not applied promptly.

17: Downgrade khanjari and any other items that significantly define the abilities of a class. Equipment is good, equipment is fun, but no single item of equipment should define an entire class.

**Edited item 5 to include clerical heals.


/Signed.
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Postby Tasan » Fri Dec 02, 2005 12:05 am

Vaprak wrote:Vaprak's personal opinion (note stressed personal):

3: Virtually remove the tanking ability of any class that does not have the "defense" skill.



This would basically need to be a mudwide rebalancing of AC on caster equipment. Certain zones seem to have gotten away with using far too much AC on already good items. It's a good idea obviously, but requires a LOT of work.

Vaprak wrote:5: Significantly increase the tanking ability of any class that does have the "defense" skill, but not so much that clerics are still left wanting to AFK all the time. Stike a balance between mob damage and tanking skills/defensive spells such that a cleric is as constantly enganged in the combat as an enchanter glancing the tank for scales dropping.


Recombine invokers and enchanters back into the sorcerer class. If defensive skills get a boost, enchanters will likely suffer the same fate as rangers do now. You will get more milage out of bringing stoning classes.

Vaprak wrote:7: Make 2h weapons actually mean something.


Also implement 2h skills like pommel etc.

Vaprak wrote:8: Decide whether rangers are archery or melee, pick one and go with it. I personally would pick archery and give secondary skills that enhance their archery ability such as called-shots that can blind for a short period, or cause damage to a limb causing similar effects to a 'slowness' spell for a short period. Make it so archery can do nearly the damage that monks were once capable of. Do not bring back monks as we don't need more classes to balance at this point.


Personally, I'd vote for toss archery. If it's kept, there needs to be a way to for arrows to survive a crash.

Vaprak wrote:14: Bashing and bash assignments used to be a moderatly good test of warrior skill. Now you barely see bashing as a used tactic in zoning. Change this and make bash an important skill again through areas design.


With a reduction in area damage, you would see this in most zones anyhow. As it stands, things die too fast to cause real problems with spells. I would also suggest a way for mobs to continue targetting spells at people that flee the room, unless the mob is still engaged in melee.

Reduce the number of ways that non-fighters can interrupt spell casting.

Fix the archaic barely slashes crap to be more informative. If Pava is hitting a mob for 110 damage, I want to see it from the first hit etc.


All I can think of atm.
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Postby Corth » Fri Dec 02, 2005 12:53 am

Kramel wrote:1) Reduce the ability of non-warrior classed PC's ability to tank.

2) Reduce the effects of protective spells.

3) Increase the effectiveness of warrior classed defensive skills (dodge, shieldblock, parry)


Yes. Let it mean something to be a tanking class. Protective spells should not be the end all and be all of whether or not your gonna get hurt while tanking.
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Postby Gurns » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:38 am

I agree with a lot that's been said. I think there are a number of basic changes that should be made. Here's how I think of it, in three groups of ideas:

This first set of ideas are based on "make melee more 'realistic'".

1. The bigger the weapon, the more it hurts.

No dagger should do anywhere near the damage of a typical 1h sword. No 1h sword should do anywhere near the damage of a 2h sword. This is per average hit, so it's mostly about dice and +dam. But it's also about procs, if you're talking about weapons that are of an equivalent level. If you've got a dagger, a 1h sword, and a 2h sword that are all equally top-of-the-line, their procs need to be about the same, too.

For purposes of discussion, I'd suggest that an average 1h sword should do twice the damage of the average dagger, and the average 2h sword should do twice the damage of the average 1h sword. But this ratio should also apply to the top weapons, too. The best damage dagger should do one-quarter of the damage of the best 2h sword, per hit.

2. The bigger the wielder, the more it hurts.

STR has something to do with damage these days, but it should have more to do with damage. A barbarian with a weapon should do twice the damage per hit of a halfling with the same weapon, maybe more.

3. Number of hits per round should be something reasonable

The more hits per round, the sillier fights look, IMO. It's hard to think of these fights with so many hits per round as anything other than cartoonish. It should be 1 hit per weapon per round, unless hasted when you have a chance at 2. Rarely, halflings dual-wielding might get a 3rd hit unhasted, and a 5th hit hasted. A super-ranger-haste shouldn't take you to, what, 12 hits per round, but should be 6 (3 per hand), max.

And take away hitall. There are 8 mobs in the room, and you can hit them all in one round? What did they do, line up for you, and let you run down the line?

4. Armor should reduce damage from hits. Wearing armor doesn't mean you're less likely to be hit. It means that when you are hit, the force of the blow is spread out over a larger area. You take less damage.

On the other hand, the more weight you wear, the harder it should be to dodge. Armor is a tradeoff, you get hit more often but you take less damage each time. Again, this is somewhat STR based, since if you're stronger the same weight isn't as debilitating.

5. I'd like to see crits be dependent on a combination of STR, opponent's armor, and LUCK, in that order, and in an interactive combination. So if you hit really hard, you're more likely to crit. If your opponent has weaker armor, you're more likely to crit (you're more likely to break through or deform the armor). If you hit hard and your opponent has weak armor, you have even more chance of critting.


The second set of ideas is based on balance between melee and casting:

6. Nerf area damage. Targeted damage for both melee and casting should be much stronger than area damage, per mob. I'm thinking that a good balance point would be that you wouldn't bother with area damage spells unless there were 3 or more mobs in the room.

7. A PC of the best melee class, when equipped for damage, should do as much targeted damage per round as the best caster class, when casting targeted damage. Raw damage is raw damage. The skill comes in attacking mobs with poor AC and high MR with melee, and attacking mobs with good AC and low MR with casting.

Possibly, mob MR would have to be investigated, and lowered in some cases. However, I think it would be better if mob MR stayed the same as now, and some additional player skill method of reducing MR was introduced.

8. Weapons procs shouldn't take over for casters. I think procs should be weaker than similar spells cast by a PC, and that no weapon should have more than 2 procs for any given wielder. I can see weapons casting half a dozen different procs for half a dozen different wielders, but if it's more than 1 or 2 to a customer... Trying to balance melee vs. casters by giving fighter PCs ways of acting like casters just doesn't sound right, and I think makes things harder to balance.


The third set of ideas is based on balancing the various melee classes. But it's also based on having it be more effective for melee if the hitters work together.

9. Rogues shouldn't be a stand-up, face to face, melee class. Whether you think of them as assassins or thieves or a combination of both, that doesn't say "melee" to me. Rather, they are a "hide in the shadows and surprise attack" class.

So mightily nerf their melee skills by capping their "offensive" at something low, maybe 60 or 70. Get rid of "circle" entirely. And remove "trip" from their skills.

But do increase any multipliers to backstab if the mob is on the ground, and if the rogue is hidden. You can see that my image for a rogue fighting in a melee is for the rogue to hide, and when the mob gets bashed, to jump out and backstab it. Then disengage and hide again. I'd also make garrote less likely to land, unless the rogue is hidden first and unless the mob is engaged in battle.

I see the ideas for a "distract" skill mentioned, above. This would fit well with my notion of rogues, and could be used as a temporary MR reduction skill. Again, I'd say that it should be more successful if the rogue is hidden first. Rather than jumping out and stabbing, they jump out "where they can startle the mob".

I believe this type of rogue would require more attention to play, during battles. The rogue would have to know his or her group, get the timing right on when to hide (before the bash succeeded, I believe), would have to choose to backstab or to distract (or garrote), and in a fight with multiple mobs, would have to choose which mob to backstab, distract, or garrote, in what order of priority. I think it's a fairly straightforward set of decisions, but I think you would have to be paying attention.

I do find the notion of being able to hide in a room during a battle to be a bit odd. But I think it works as a "fade out of attention" notion, that is, just the opposite of distract.

10. Rangers are actually a good class for melee already, IMO. The only real problem they have is that a puny rogue with tiny daggers does more damage than a normal-sized ranger dual-wielding swords. With the changes I've suggested above (swords do twice the damage of daggers, rogues don't get to stand up and slug it out toe to toe, and the best caster doesn't do any more damage than the best fighter), then rangers don't have that problem.

I'd give rangers the "trip" skill. My image of rangers is lightly clad, fast, dual-wielders. So they'd go for STR and DEX and AGI, but not much armor. I see them as being the main melee damage dealers, with the best individual defensive skills (weight and thus armor should make your defensive weapons skills less effective, too, such as parry and riposte). And as now, they can tank if necessary, but they're not that good at it.

11. Warriors I see as, well, warriors. Tanks on both offense and defense. They should be dealing more damage with each hit, which would come about with the dagger/1h/2h sword thing, plus the STR modifier I've suggested.

They should get a few more viable skills, so it's not just rescue and bash. I'd add "trip" to their list, too. Not to the same level as rangers, who would get the highest skill, because I see warriors as clumsier. But I also suggest that "trip" be implemented as a skill combination. If two players try to trip the same mob in the same round, they should be able to trip larger mobs than either could trip alone, and be able to trip larger mobs than either one could bash. Again, a coordination of skills requires that people be paying more attention.

12. Paladins and Antis. Who the heck knows? Put in all the above changes, and see where they end up. I think they'd get "trip" like warriors, and benefit from the dagger/sword balancing.

13. Bards are even less a melee class than rogues. But there's no one more distracting than a bard! *flutter*


With these changes, I would expect lots of adjusting would need to be done. Maybe all spell damage would have to drop. Maybe most weapons dice would need to go up. Maybe mob hps would have to come down.

And even if everything I've suggested was implemented, I don't think that would be the end of the changes, either. People have suggested a number of other things, above, including a reassessment of defensive spells versus skills. But I think that if all of the above went in, then there would be a solid foundation upon which to implement further changes.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:02 am

Above all, make melee able to contribute to the outcome of a fight and less dependent on support casters....

in terms of offense:

with force missiles and quick mems and ability to mem out in nearly any fight, the strength of area spells, and the number of MR mobs in game melee damage is really no different than spell damage while suffering from being blocked/dodge/parried and absorbed by stone. You could give mob spellcasters a spell or an ability to reduce or eliminate spell damage or simply turn spell damage down.

in terms of defense:

pretty much all players tank the same with blur scales and displace until the spells fall then they splat. Make mages take at least 30% of every hit regardless of spells and rogues/priests take at least 15%.

--------------

All utility melee commands should be made with very very minimal lag but with a timer like bash. Kick, ShieldPunch not sure what else.

Make size affect damage. A giant that lands a solid blow on a reduced halfling should literally squash him into oblivion. Conversely, a less than dextrous giant trying to hit an agile reduced halfling should have quite a bit of trouble doing so. If a giant lands a kick on a halfling, it should stunbash his ass.

Make weapon sizes matter. Smaller weapons should be more agile enabling you to land a blow you mightve missed with a larger weapon. Larger or longer weapons might be able to crit more often or get improved bonuses from strength.

Get rid of the auto - assist commands, make people play their melee classes and target.

Make high level mobs dodge bash much more often creating the need for smart bashers or stunners that can pick up a bash.
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Postby Lilira » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:47 am

Mmm...

Bards = taunt!!! Come on!! We're talented with words! Some more than others.

Gurns taunts the High Mage of Bloodstone.

The High Mage of Bloodstone stops casting suddenly and charges to the attack.

*rofl*

Actually.. I'm rethinking that. Gurns, I think you have far too much sense to do something that stupid... That's more me. *grin*
Last edited by Lilira on Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Malia » Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:35 am

Hrmm i guess i look at rogues diffrently.. i think rogues for damage should be on par with rangers, i look at the rogues in FR and they do about the same damage as rangers, look at the fight betweein Drizzt and Artemis, shrug they are almost equall to each other. So if yer basing it on FR then you should make the classes bout equall, with each having its own specialty

Id like to see rangers archery fixed a bit, its something special to them that no other class gets and i have fun doing it too. Need to fix arrow loss problem because 6 boots and 9k cash later for 24 arrows to lose them to 1 crash sucks.

Bring area damage down a bit, bring melee damage up a bit but it should in no way be equal, a mage that throws 3 force missles should hit harder then a warrior hitting you with a sword. A mage throwing an inferno should do a hell of alot more damage then melee can do to each target.

I think overall warriors should have a primary roll of tanking, that is their function and the class should be geared around that function, Rogues and rangers should be your melee class and each class have its function but about equal on melee damage.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:27 am

mages are supposed to be front loaded damage where melee is steady good damage. I agree with that. But because mages mem so fast and mobs cant have more than 30k hps there is never a long enough fight for melee to come out ahead even if the damage rates werent comparable. ( I still advocate bringing back some sort of memming penalty, like the 30 second mem penalty) alternatively maybe we could up the max hps to 2.4 billion.

Make it so you can not QC while tanking or that your spell even gains *s on cast time while tanking.
Make it possible to abort any spell while tanking due to the difficulties of casting while trying not to die.
Make defensive skills < 60 not work at all while casting (or with a significant penalty).
Make it critical that only fighter types are tanking.
Last edited by kiryan on Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Lahgen » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:02 am

I must respectfully disagree with your assessment on enchanter buffs and warrior tanking, Vaprak.

Honestly, when they rolled up warriors, did they expect to become like Sephiroth at level 50?
Or do they just want to be the sole macho dominant badasses with the non-physical types being weak worthless wussies?

Now, personally, I do think that warriors could be upped just a tad. But then again, what use would enchanters be if warriors weren't interdependent on them?

If enchanters didn't stay vital, a warrior could just take all damage and maybe a cleric, with no need for enchanters at all. So, if that's the case, why not just delete enchanters?
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Postby Corth » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:51 am

Kiryan:

I agree with your take on how mages should be front loaded heavy damage and melee should be more steady damage, and that meming out of fights quickly messes up the balance between the two. However, bringing back the 30 second mem penalty is a worse idea than extending res effect time. It is a timesink of epic proportions. Frankly, it is just not fun.

Here's a question. Why cant we have offensive spells miss their target a certain percentage of the time? That would seem more realistic... and it would help bring magic damage down relative to melee over the long fight while preserving the idea that a spell which hits should hit much harder than a round of melee from a ranger/rogue.
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Postby Vigis » Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:12 am

Lahgen:

If you think about it, a warrior should not need a spell caster to hold their hand in order to fight. Warriors were trained to do nothing except fight. Granted, having an enchanter should make the fight easier, just like having a cleric makes the warrior live longer, and having an invoker makes the mob die faster.

As it is, there are mobs that you can solo as a bard that I can't even come close to killing. Bards have limited defensive spells (displace, shadow armor) and can heal themselves. As a warrior, I stand up to a mob that is several levels below me and take a beating. There is a simple reason that a warrior cannot solo effectively, it is because so many other classes solo so well. If an elementalist or a bard or a necro can solo a mob easily, it is given more hitpoints and a bonus to the damage it deals out.

The melee engine does not take into account how good a person is at fighting (as warriors are presumed to be). It takes into account how badly other classes will twink the mob.

I'd suggest that melee classes be given some way to counter against melee. Seriously, how is it that a mage can beat the hell out of me in hand to hand combat when I keep him from casting any spells. . he should not be able to.

I think that folks are on the right track with lowering the tanking skills of some classes and increasing damage output and tanking skills on others. Mages are supposed to be able to do a lot of damage in a very short amount of time, but unless they have spells to protect them, they shouldn't take too much to kill.

Oh and BTW Gurns. . .I don't want trip, seems like a nancy move to me :P I'd like to see stomp!
Kramel sends an elite fortress guard sprawling with a powerful bash!
You stomp on an elite fortress guard's head causing severe damage!

or

Kramel sends an elite fortress guard sprawling with a powerful bash!
You attempt to stomp on an elite fortress guard while he is prone and miss! Your knee twists painfully as you fall sprawling to the ground!
Nerox tells you 'Good deal, the other tanks I have don't wanna do it, and since your my special suicidal tank i figure you don't mind one bit!'



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Postby Cap'n Touk » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:12 am

1. Tanks and Tanking

1a) There should be a larger difference in tanking ability - spelled or not - between tanks (war, pal, anti-pal) and non tanks. I could see a middle tanking range for clerics, rangers, and dire's.

* Make defense skills A LOT more effective. The classes that don't have them, or have them capped lower will notice more.
* Cap the amount of HPs you can gain from equipment or otherwise make it so tanks get a noticeably larger amount of hitpoints.

1b) There should be an increase in defensive SKILL power, and a decrease in defensive SPELL power.

* Again - make defense skills more effective. Compensate for this with an across the board decrease in defensive spell effectiveness. Perhaps even decrease the effectiveness of combinations of spells - dragonscales, blur, and displace is insane.

1c) I'd like to see damage mitigation instead of damage avoidance.

*Instead of getting hit for 100dam every 3rd hit, getting hit each time for 33dam. Maybe even a skill where unless the mob crits, you just ignore any damage less then X - that level 50 invoker might hurt like hell if he gets inferno off but.. I don't see him swinging his staff hard enough to hurt my level 50 warrior in full plate armor.. ever.

2. Melee Damage and Weapons

2a) Weapon dice should be in line with weapon type.

* Daggers shouldn't do anywhere near the damage a sword does. I know if you use one right you could kill me in 1 hit.. but .. I could use a sword horribly wrong and still kill you in 1hit. If this gets put in I apologize profusely to the sucker.. errr.. area god that has to do it.

2b) It should matter what weapon you choose.

*I'm a big fan of anything that requires that you think to perform optimally. If you need a mace to fight the skeletons, and a flaming sword to fight the trolls, and an axe of free movement to fight under water that's SO much cooler then just "oh ya I have an ebony bladed longsword for all situations".

*It used to matter if you had an ebony to blind mobs, or a giantbane to bash giants, or a glimmering..shimmering? mithril longsword to stun things (point proved, I can't even remember key words). Now casters can do everything so much better there's no point. Recurring point - I get bored if all I do is bash/rescue.

*I'm in favor of adding haste back on items, if you need to get hasted, someone will haste you. It's not like having a haste item is going to change the result in the fight, all it does is make the caster have a longer spellup - time sinks are the suck.

*Two handed weapons should do atleast as much damage as dualing. A paladin/anti-paladin should do way more damage with a 2h then when dualing, and the reverse should hold true for rogues/rangers. Also - would be cool to see ogres dual 2h weapons, but changing both at once presents a balance disaster.

3. Damage and Class Niches

3a) Every class should have a niche where they're more useful then any other class in a group situation. Classes that are "good at everything" aren't good at everything, they're "worse then someone else at everything". Group forming is a matter of - I need a healer.. if you need a healer you get a cleric, not someone that's "pretty good at healing and also good at some other stuff".

* Invokers, Rangers & Rogues all have the same niche and most of the time invokers are the best at it. Across the board area damage should be decreased to the point where in the same amount of time that an invoker can kill an entire room, melee should be able to kill between 2 and 3 mobs. Thus - in fights against up to 3 mobs, having X rogues/rangers would lead to FASTER killing then having X invokers. Otherwise what's the point of ever bringing rogues when you can just area everything?

In addition I would reduce the amount of targetted damage that invokers can do to equal or preferably less then a decently equipped (say 30-35 damroll) ranger/rogue can do per round.

The examples here are using the damage classes, but the idea should hold through non-damage classes. Druids/elementalists/psi's should follow the same rules with paladins/anti-paladins/bards, and clerics/ enchanters should match warriors.

4. Skills

4a. All melee classes should have skills that are REQUIRED in combat.

*Bash is a required skill, but that's it, nobody cares if you kick, shieldpunch, headbutt, trip, disarm or circle a mob. So what's that leave everyone to do? If you're a warrior you count 3 rounds and push "return" to bash your target again.. if you're a rogue you do the same with circle, if your a ranger maybe you kick, maybe you watch out for silly tanks who rescue the scaled rogue instead of the half dead cleric.

This is a really tricky one to fix, one huge change that would help is removing almost all ability via spells to prevent mob casting by stun / paralyze / immobilization (exceptions being major para, power word stun etc). Then we'd HAVE to kick/shieldpunch lag mobs. Maybe ranger kicks or some new skill could break a spell being cast by large opponents (shieldpunch won't break spells already being cast). Maybe rogues could have a version of ensnare that prevents a mob from fleeing combat. However it's done, I'd just like to see more skill involved in playing a melee character.


Just some thoughts i've had on changing melee and some ideas how to implement them. I care more about the intent of what's changing then how it's actually accomplished, there are a lot of good ideas in the preceeding posts.

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Postby Vaprak » Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:15 am

Lahgen wrote:I must respectfully disagree with your assessment on enchanter buffs and warrior tanking, Vaprak.

Honestly, when they rolled up warriors, did they expect to become like Sephiroth at level 50?
Or do they just want to be the sole macho dominant badasses with the non-physical types being weak worthless wussies?

Now, personally, I do think that warriors could be upped just a tad. But then again, what use would enchanters be if warriors weren't interdependent on them?

If enchanters didn't stay vital, a warrior could just take all damage and maybe a cleric, with no need for enchanters at all. So, if that's the case, why not just delete enchanters?


(Typical Vaprak's personal opinion disclaimer:)

I think you missunderstand my point. As it is now you blur, scale, displace a tank. Tank walks into a fight and doesn't get scratched, hardly at all, until one or more of those spells drops. At the point when the spells drop the tank gets completely owned. As it is right now it doesn't matter if that "tank" is a level 50 warrior with good EQ and skills or if that tank is a level 50 invoker that has the same spells cast on them. When spells drop, you get completely annihilated regardless of tanking skills.

I'm saying that if a non-warrior type is trying to tank with a full array of spells they should still get owned rather quickly even when the spells are up. The warrior-type with spells should significantly out-tank a mage or a cleric or a rogue with spells. I'm also saying that when spells drop there shouldn't be such an immediate and vast ownership of the tank when that tank is a warrior-class.

The best way I see to accomplish this is to make all non-warriors tank like absolute junk, even with spells. To do this decrease the effectiveness of spells and decrease the effectiveness of armor class for mages. Then make warriors tank about the same as they do now by upping their skills to compensate for the loss of spells. The problem here with that idea is that you need to bring clerics back into the mix as well. Right now clerics hardly have to do any healing until you get to a really tough fight.

As it stands right now, the only reason to bring a warrior to tank is more to do with the rescue skill than any ability to actually tank.
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Postby Lilira » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:23 pm

*sniff*

Vaprak! Don't take my -110 AC! *grin*

Actually, Dragonscales while very nice are indeed insane, though I'll tell you now, when the hits do get through they HURT!!!! Perhaps downgrade the amount of damage they can take before dropping? Or just drop the duration length in general.

BTW Lahgen.. with PWB, feeb, reduce, scales, blur, and AC, I very rarely need a tank. More often I find myself looking for a voker to come help me blow stuff up, and only cus its faster. So in reverse, its really stupid for a well-trained, battle-hardened warrior to depend so heavily on a mage. His skills should make him pretty close to untouchable unless he has SEVERAL mobs on him at once.

I liked the idea someone posted (sorry.. sooo not awake yet) about making any defensive skills a mage has just not work during casting. I'm standing here casting this spell, blow my qc, so my Dragonscales looks like **************. I'm paying attention to getting that spell off, I don't have time to dodge that incoming saber from the guard I've annoyed. Ewww... and it critted too. Messy. Anyone know how hard that would be to code? Just curious.

I disagree with taking defensive skills away from mages all together, unless you drop the To Hit on mobs. Mages can't take a hit, but they should be able to duck with the rest of them if they aren't actively casting.

I also disagree with AC becoming close to meaningless for mages. First, mages with high AC are typically already sacrificing hit points, and frankly, I'd rather be harder to hit than harder to kill. In zones with switching mobs, AC is life. Eya who has a really crappy AC but tons of hps gets switched to and folds like a card table. Leri gets switched to and her -110 AC keeps her from getting hit long enough for the tanks to get around to rescuing (important for an enchanter, whereas invokers are expendable).

Please yes, downgrade damage some on invokers. Make spells miss (except for magic missile, cus that would just be WRONG). Better yet, toss them up a little higher on the "Oh shoot me now" list. Just balance melee for the other classes so when the invokers get nuked the damage can still happen. As it is, I'm noticing trends where in a group of say 30 people for a certain dragon fight, only one/two slots for invokers will be reserved, whereas 3 or 4 for Izans is not unheard of. Melee is finding its place in dragon fights or high magic resistant areas.

Oh and a quick aside, but its melee related... What is up with hitall? I'm a mage standing in the back of a group of 14 other people, 7 of which are melees and actively engaged with the one big mob we're fighting. That one big mob does a hitall and suddenly I'm in the fight? How in the world did one hit get past the 7 people ducking and dodging around him? Would it be possible to set hitall up like the area's thing I've been seeing lots lately...

The black griffon warrior does a hitall but Lerinala is out of reach! (Can't remember the exact words, I'm not a tank personage...) If this has been done, I apologize. With battle spam its hard to catch some things if I'm looking at other stuff.

Just my decaffinated 2c.
Last edited by Lilira on Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby daggaz » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:24 pm

I agree with most of your ideas Vaprak, but you aren't being quite accurate about the tanking ability of casters. We don't tank nearly as well the tanks do.

Since the last melee changes went in, I definitely noticed a difference between how I tank mob A and how a warrior does it with the same spells. Consider the following fights, with -100 ac, scales, blur, and no debuffs on the mobs.

Most high level mobs will land quite a few number of crits on me if I actually tank more than two rounds in duration. Crits, of course, go right thru spells. The tank never takes as many of them I notice.

Also, scales drops much faster for me if I tank multiple rounds...as more normal hits land than they do on a tank with defensive skills. The effect is very noticeable.

On an extremely strong mob, like high level duergar/ogres, I notice that being fully spelled really only gives me a small chance of survival. It is very common for such a mob to simply decimate me within one or two rounds, critting hard right thru spells, and causing scales to drop REAL fast. A tank with equal ac lasts much, much longer, tho they do take more crits and usually require a healer.

For multiple mobs, (love the changes that went in for that) all of the above effects are just multiplied. Just two or three ogres, and I can splat in one or two rounds very easily indeed. Something like Jot Gatehouse, and chances are I wont live for the last guard or two to even get a whack at me.

That said, its possible to get way over -100 ac (should this be possible?) even for casters (should *THIS* be possible?), and a good soloist caster knows better than to stand there and take it when you can usually do the old hit-n-run instead. Toss in a good blind and you can really turn the tables.

This is something a tank cant, and really shouldnt, be able to do.. which brings me to the point where I do agree with you. Tanking abilities for non-spelled tanks are totally fubar, high lvl warriors take way too much damage regardless of defensive skills, even just on one-on-one. Trolls seem to be the only race that can solo anything, and only because they can self-regen. Tank abilities need to be vastly improved, just limit the amount of bonus tank-classes receive from defensive spells. IE, if you have great defensive skills already, and awesome armor, adding blur and scales isnt going to make as big a difference for you as it does for, say, a terry-clothe robed lvl 5 gnome sorcerer.

Would also severely limit how much effect you would get out of being both blurred and displaced, for all classes. (should be hard coded in the spell flags) As it seems to me, they are nearly the same spell anyhow. Perhaps make them completely unstackable, with displace simply a longer duration form of blur as far as the game machine is concerned.

Still think tho, that if a tanks' spells drop, and you are standing there in a gatehouse tanking Multiple Giant Mobs, well, you should go down fairly quickly regardless of things. Not insta splat as it seems now, but fast, depending on how many mobs you are actually tanking. Maybe a round or two or three for the casters to react, depending on things..
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Postby selerial » Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:19 pm

I agree with Vaprak in regards to the tanking ability of the mud's so-called tanks.

Back in Soj2 I had a warrior, say level 35 or 40, who was in HP. I was either at or near the level of the mate with the twisty bracelet. I believe I had a cleric with me, and decent armor (call it -90).

If you look at the description of the mate, you're going to have to conclude that he's not armed all that well, and is probably wearing some sort of sailor uniform made of cloth.

Me with something like a gleaming holy longsword (cymrych/glimmering mithril) ended up "barely hitting" him for a few rounds, while in that same time he killed me.

So a reasonably well trained warrior in heavy plate armor with a magic sword and caster backup can get smashed by (well, two actually) mobs in a couple rounds, but can only barely scratch them at the same time? This is just bad.

Also mentioned are the casters who can outhit tanks. It seems like most high level mobs just do damage in range X, no matter whether they're a caster, tank, or hitter. And that damage is always higher than what a PC can attain.

I actually wanted to make one more comment in regards to my previous post. I said that the Tia weapons were pedestrian, but I had forgotten about the dagger. That's a great weapon. And yet I still haven't heard anyone mention it, just people talking about the circlet + khanjari. Shouldn't a Tia dagger outclass a quest dagger? I guess not.. (not to mention one could point to a trend of the fact that the dagger was very strong and the other weapons were more like show pieces)

edit: content
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Postby Verarb » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:30 pm

hey i was just wondering do druids get lumped into a cleric's switch priority for mobs?.

I've noticed im like always the first one to get switched to and smacked, which is kinda silly i think.

Fear doom?
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Postby Ambar » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:17 pm

Verarb wrote:hey i was just wondering do druids get lumped into a cleric's switch priority for mobs?.

I've noticed im like always the first one to get switched to and smacked, which is kinda silly i think.

Fear doom?


isnt that priest class in general??
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Postby Ragorn » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:32 pm

Yeah, I'm going to agree with Vaprak. Dragonscales is something I forgot to go into.

The way damage is handled on Toril is extreme to the point of being comical. You cast Temporary Godly Invincibility on your tank, he stands as tall as a titan for a few rounds, then the spell falls and he cracks like an eggshell.

Interdependence between classes is an important part of Toril, but we've grown to the point where Warriors rely on Enchanters, but not necessarily the other way around. When you can post a Cleric with 1300 hit points up as your tank, something isn't clicking. Classes like Clerics and Rangers should have the ability to "not fold like a house of cards at the first hit," but should not be able to take any kind of extended thumping.

Long story short: /me too vaprak
- Ragorn
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Postby Dalar » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:39 pm

Blur is godmode, not dscale. You can be completely invincible melee-wise right until the blur drops. Then you begin getting hit.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby kiryan » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:48 pm

THE ABSOLUTE 2 TRUEST THINGS SAID IN THIS WHOLE THREAD.

Vaparak -

As it stands right now, the only reason to bring a warrior to tank is more to do with the rescue skill than any ability to actually tank.


vigis -

The melee engine does not take into account how good a person is at fighting (as warriors are presumed to be). It takes into account how badly other classes will twink the mob.
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Postby Maedor » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:24 pm

selerial wrote:
edit: I guess some of what I'd like to see is scaling the mud way down to the point where a 5 man group is viable for a lot more stuff than it is now. Virtually all "end game" zones require 15 people, and since there are often only about that many high level characters on at the times I stop by, it makes gathering the group about as much of a hassle as actually doing the zone.


Scaling the mud down so that 5 people can do everything is a *very* poor idea. I love doing solo and small group stuff, but not requiring a full group...in a group based mud..or the biggest zones would be detrimental to the game.

As for khanjaris, I think the hit/dam bonus and/or the vit procs should be lowered if anything. The extra attacks are a lot of fun to watch, and generally increase my enjoyment of the class, and the mud (much like people liked seeing monks get 7hits/round etc). I also don't see many people who actually DID the khanjari quest crying for downgrades. That quest is long, and you give up some nice eq, and hunt for a lot of very rare rares. People who did the quest should get some ort of compensation for the significant downgrade that you non users are begging for. That being said, I do agree that khanjaris could use a little downgrade. That could be in the form of only letting it proc primary/offhand, or making the proc heal instead of vit, or giivng fewer hit/dam, or proccing less often. I'd persoanlly really hate to see it lose the haste effects. Stacked haste is just fun to watch :) Proccing half the current vit would be my current suggested downgrade...it keeps the dagger proc in line with the difficulty of the quest, and appeases everyone who bitches and moans everyday about how powerful it is. I'd alsos uggest downgrading the hit/dam bonuses, but it seems that melee in general will be getting beefed up, so that bonus will likely fit in fine when the other melee classes/eq get some love.

Oh, and making a 10d15 axe would be dumb. That would make all hit/dam eq worthless, since your wielded item does all the damage.

Ok, im done rambling at work..

peace
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Melee or not?

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:24 pm

I completely and totally agree with Vaprak's and Kramel's ideas for melee. I think what both of them said pretty much sums up the main problems/solutions to melee. Kiryan's post prior to mine is also completely 100% true. Many have mentioned VERY good points as well: Reduce weapon proc damage on certain basic weapons, Warriors needing more basic damage (specialization +hit/dam?), make the hitdice of weapons ACCURATE based on the weapon type. A dagger in DND is 1d4, for example. Maybe they can be 2d4 here max, for instance.

I had this massive message typed up and then deleted it when I realized something. Most of the troubles that occur here, mainly having to do with melee/class balance, stem from one basic idea: Is this mud "based" on ADND or is it completely different? Are our zones "based" on ADND but not our classes? Is the idea of "based" limited to just the fact that we are fantasy and our hometown is called Waterdeep? Many people keep going back to "oh but they did this in this book or in this novel". But at the same time, DND had hps based off of race, not class. It also didn't have many of the classes we have here. I think the argument of "cause we're just "based" on ADND" is used only when it's convenient. I LOVED 2nd Edition ADND because we all felt it was extremely well balanced. Each class had its own role, but could be PLAYED(RP) by the character/DM however he saw fit. Each class had its primary core, and then sub-classes, or utility ones:

Fighter: Warrior/(Anti)Paladin Utility: Ranger/Dire-Raider
Priest: Cleric/Druid (yes Druid) Utility: Shaman
Mage: Enchanter/Invoker/Psionicist(?) Utility: Conjurer (Necro/Elementalist)
Rogue: Rogue (thief/assassin) Utility: Bard

No Illusionist? Nope. Delete the class. It's like having an Arcanist, or a Wu-Jen. Classes that might sound cool in ADND, but when placed on the mud create problems. Just because it sounds cool, doesn't mean it needs to be added. Hey let's add the Swashbuckler, and the Mercenary again, and the Supercoolevilclass! The mage class currently has 5-6 different options. That's a bit much.

But what if I like being a class that summons carts to attack? Not here? But what if I like being a warrior and doing alot of damage? Well, do it. You might not be as good a tank wearing all ac/hp gear, but you'll dish out more damage than one wearing all hp gear, like in the old days. And besides, lets be truthful, a warrior can kick my ass in arena as he is now.

Having these defined roles for each class, I THINK, help make the purpose of each more defined in order to help balance the classes a bit. Once this is done, you can notice immediately how each of the 2 core classes in each division usually separate into a damage version and a defensive version. The Paladin might be make for a better tank, but the warrior might do more damage while tanking. The Enchanter/Invoker is the same idea. As is the cleric/druid, although I feel the druid NEEDS more damage and perhaps a little more healing. Immediately one can see the advantage of the Rogue. The rogue class is both! The problem NOW is that the rogue can do both TOO WELL. By doing so, the rogue eliminates COMPLETELY the roles of other classes, like the Ranger, like the druid healing. How? Because without the Rogue, a group needs to fight their way directly through zones. There is less twinking without the Rogue, and other classes need to step up and help, like the druid, like the Ranger. Adding the Illusionist's spells to the batch just makes it even worse.

People constantly complain (as do I) about how the Ranger needs upgrading in melee, niche and whatnot (See my old post from old Ranger) Perhaps. But I keep wondering if it's not that we need upgrading, as much as the previous paragraph. Perhaps we do our job just fine, and actually dish out alot of damage to a target. The problem is, that role has been completely eliminated because of the existance/over-poweredness of other classes or spells, like the ones mentioned in previous posts (blur, dragonscales, displacement, power word blind, force missiles).

So what the hell is Adriorn talking about if this topic had to do with Melee? Well, I think Kramel, Vigis/Kiryan and Vaprak summarized the BASIC problems with melee. If you wanna fix melee, check out their posts, and mainly their posts. But all this crap I just said is to basically illustrate how the problems with "melee" aren't just about "melee" really. Class balance might help resolve the melee issue without even having to touch melee MUCH. And thank god I deleted all the crap I had initially written :)

Then again, I'm an old fool, who's extremely vocal about his personal views on how things should be, and doesn't necessarily think things through well. So if I screwed up anywhere, ignore it and let an old dork rant. I do it with the sole intention of helping make this place the best it can be. I've always been a fan of simplicity. Perhaps one good idea comes from it :P

Adriorn "But I've never been flamed!" Darkcloak


P.S. For those who recommend giving trip to Rangers, remember we're a class of expert swordsmanship/marksmanship. Tripping my opponent has nothing to do with my class. But perhaps disarming him does. Shrug.
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Postby Verarb » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:40 pm

wow how come on your list, druids are listed as a subclass of clerics but shamans are utility? shouldnt it be the other way?.

shaman heals = druid heals + 100 X 30(man group).
so it should be cleric/shamen as they are right now. druids are just taking up potential mudders.

P.S. oh if yer gonna do house cleaning on classes delete druids too.
Grandfather current ones!
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Postby Thilindel » Sat Dec 03, 2005 2:45 am

Silly, but give druids group cure critical. Druids do get a version like that in D&D.

Make bards/rogues max ALL 1h skills at 75. Bards should be as good at hitting as rogues. I understand they can use piercing, but bards are jack of all trades, they shouldn't have one skill higher than the rest as far as melee attacks.

I said it before, give all the clerical classes a form of defense. They should be somewhat competent at tanking.

Bards shouldn't be penalized on circle while singing, just a varied version. If someone were singing and trying to strike my flank even, it destracts the mob's tanking of the warrior or whatever it's fighting. That should disorient mob (or PC tank if multiple mobs are fighting for that matter) somewhat.

If headbutt were to be changed to KO'g again, make the KO duration short, like minor para. KO on either side is too powerful. Fell frost proc's are rather too strong as it is. Sure it's rare, but it's basically power word kill, even if mob is few wounds.
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Re: Melee or not?

Postby Gurns » Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:12 am

Adriorn Darkcloak wrote:For those who recommend giving trip to Rangers, remember we're a class of expert swordsmanship... Tripping my opponent has nothing to do with my class.

What, you don't fight to win? Tripping him, throwing dirt in his eyes, throwing your cloak over his head or over his sword. Done right, these are very effective tactics. A real sword fight, after all, isn't like some fancy school or salon, where you stand up, face to face, and thrust and parry, taking turns. It's a messy, dirty business. ;)
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Postby Thilindel » Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:05 am

Just sunk in on me: Make max_dex MEAN something to non grey/drow/halfling/gnome.

It's really dumb that other races do not get the racial bonus attacks when said race achieves the dex level of a grey elf or higher. Saying it is a 'racial' bonus is not logical, considering a grey elf or higher NEEDS 88 dex (respectively) or higher just to get that bonus attack. Mtn dwarf barely doesn't hit the 7 base hitroll naked. That's the notch when you start getting seemingly a 6% chance to get xtra innate attack. You can max_dex them up to 8 hitroll (on what would be naked) yet no innate attack...

I read other's thoughts on Ogre's dual wielding 2handers. I do see them either primary 2h, offhanding 1h, or 2h+shield. I could see if 2h gets upgrade that dualing would be big imbalance, despite Ogre needing virtually perfect dex just to get 5 hitroll. Offset being due to haste.
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Postby amolol » Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:24 am

OFFENSE!

ok.. lemme start with roges... they need a downgrade. period

rangers: add triple attack remove bash add trip

warriors: should crit more than anybody else period end of story.

anti's: are fine

pali's: are fine

DEFENSE!

clerics : should get some damage lovin. toss them double attack let them notch dodge higher and give them shield block capped out at like 50 or so

druid/shaman: see cleric

aside from that. i would like to see an actual damage counter to see howmuch damage one does per hit im sure this is easy as pie to code since the game hasto know it and tag it to a player anyways.

reduce area/spell damage in general idd say reduce the caps on anti/pali defense skills. if the warrior is supposed to be the best. shouldnt they get higher caps period?
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Postby Yasden » Sat Dec 03, 2005 6:29 am

Anti's are not fine, in comparison to paladins.

A once-a-day innate, compared to 3x/day that fully recovers anyone.

Paladins receive a 25% xp bonus from evil-aligned mobs, putting their xp table on the same plateau as rogue xp.

Last, but definitely not least: Guard.

While I could say a ton of things rehashed from everyone else's post, I think these critical things need to be address for anti's themselves. As well, the heal mount spell could REALLY use upping. At 50th, you can pray only 4 of these, and it takes quite a few mems to recover a 2k hp mount. Anti's need a skill akin to guard to bring them back into the desirability category for groups. Hell, warriors do too, for that matter.

I don't know if a 25% bonus to non-evil aligned mobs would offset any sort of balance, unless you're xping in DS/Seelie/Seers/Serene. Another possibility might be to give them extra damage xp for damage dealt while using mounted combat.

Lifetap's usefulness could really use an increase to 3x/day. The amount is...arguable, considering you're stripping a mob's hitpoints away from it to regain your own. That's abusable if it restored your full hps 3x/day. Maybe keep the current rate as it is, bump the rate up to once every 4 minutes. Ambran's "out of combat" proc does roughly the same thing.

While you can say that anti's and paladins shouldn't be the same...I say they should be the same, function/nichewise, but polar opposites of the align/moral spectrum RP-wise. People roll one or the other strictly for that reason, or rather did until the implementation of the guard skill.

As for melee roles...mounted tanks should be damage specialists on horseback, while rangers and dires should be damage specialists in regards to archery. Rogues, straight melee, warriors should be more primarily defensive, but have staggering offensive capabilities when using 2h at a slight (not huge like it is now) disadvantage to tanking skills.

Clerics should have the option to train in weapon skills...but I'd really rather see that as some sort of series of skillquests (minor to moderate difficulty) to gain the necessary skills (double attack, etc) to do it, as it's not a mandatory part of your profession (unless you're a cleric of a war god). These skills would have to be severely limited in their cap, or else everyone will roll cleric tanks.

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Postby Thilindel » Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:53 pm

If I'm willing to walk around as a mage with 200 hps to achieve 41 hitroll, let it mean something. Both piercing/bludgeon max at 50 for mage so despite all the sacrifice of losing hps, mages still don't hit well when mob is blind, faerie fired, or even stumbled as well.
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Postby kiryan » Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:57 pm

Dire raiders are 1h dual wielding damage specialists mounted by design. Archery is their secondary skill. However, in actual practice, Archery easily outdamages their dual wielding.
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Postby Thilindel » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:03 pm

Sure it isn't melee but for the love of god, remove losing concentration on 10th circle spells. High lvl mobs don't fail, nor should we. When a lich fails FIVE rots in a row, that's just absurd.
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Postby selerial » Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:43 pm

First off I want to say that I do sort of feel like I'm trolling this post (the whole one, not Maedor specifically) a little because I'm mostly criticizing without too much constructive to say, but I guess that's because the combat system in this game is something that's always bothered me, and now I've been given a forum to let that out. Anyways...

Maedor wrote:Oh, and making a 10d15 axe would be dumb. That would make all hit/dam eq worthless, since your wielded item does all the damage.


I just wanted to point out the *EXTREME* irony of that statement. What do you suggest should do the damage, someone's shinguard? Their helmet? Their wristguard? We're talking about normal melee here now, not something like headbutt. If anything, armor shouldn't contribute any damage at all to a weapon's melee capacity. At best, it should have something like a minor fireshield effect where a spike will cause someone to take a couple points of damage on impact. Magically enchanted armor might be light and allow for a bonus to hitroll, but plate should really almost be -hit, and leather generally +hit, and beyond that the only thing that should effect damage dealing capacity is the weapon that you're doing damage with, barring extreme cases like gauntlets that increase your hand movement speed, which still isn't really causing the weapon itself to hit any harder.

Ultimately my comment really should have probably referred to "the" axe rather than "an" axe.

As far as the five man thing goes, that really stems from the "ideal group". An ideal group should have a warrior, a mage, a rogue, and a priest. That's really only four people. While this is something of a tangent and could be argued to be off the topic, I think that the problem is that melee really can't be fixed in the state it's in now. The entire system is pretty much balanced to make melee mostly inefficent at killing mobs. To alter it at all, it's my opinion that you'd probably have to drastically alter the entire system.

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