Posts made by OlivePit

From this post I wondered if I could make a mage tank and use aoe spells to 'taunt' enemies and then spam slows/entangles to keep them in place/focused on me while relying on lots of heals and mage armor to stay alive. I made a 18 str, 10 dex, 18 int, 18 con, 6 pre, 6 cha. character for this purpose and started him with gladiator abilities -cuz so strong and that heal, ooph- I am currently working to fill him out with skills (cobweb, heals, fireball, etc) , but so far it is working vs mobs rather well !
The down side is that I cannot wear heavy armor and any armor I do wear is not considered when using mage armor, and mage armor is not giving all the bonusses it should, but that is another matter.
Food for thought-

yea. I tested it on mobs too. watched it for an hour (while I was working heh) and it never died or lost the effect, when i attacked it after the hour there was no indication that it had lost any max health at all. If it worked it might be a good ganking deterrent for mages to use on enemies... maybe?

@Xzait
I cant speak to that as I did not know of the game when it was available but probably would have bought it if I could if just so I could give other players the opportunity to support a different vision than those currently being offered by the governors/guild leaders in the game.
Like putting down a city with a market.

I understand the concerns of naked griefers and mid-end game pvp.
But if you want to combat the naked griefer issue then just make mana directly connected to equipment and not stats. Give mage equipment, like, 200 mana per item, leather 100, chain 50, plate 25... or something. That way a naked player has no mana to cast spells with and is not an issue.

But this patch forgot about the players who click on the mage starter package and join in the game.
Before, the experience of starting a new mage lived up to the warning on the tin "medium". It was not easy to kill mobs and an errant ice spike might get the attention of two or three baby black widows and you would get knocked down, ok. Moving on to the goblin camp it was again hard, but not impossible to take on one goblin and maybe a wolf.

This is no longer the case.

And when comparing the struggles of playing a mage at start with playing a melee? It is obscene.

I am building a larger argument and comparison to illustrate how this patch caused more harm than it could have possibly alleviated in the realm of low to mid pvp and pve which is where all players get their first experiences and impressions of the game, not late game with full city tech, numerous unlocked abilities, 40+ talent points, and enchants.

The bottom line was gutted.

This is my opinion from personal experience trying a new mage in solo pve content, and from having a T3 kitted mage with T2 enchants and numerous talent points.

I admit that I may be in the minority... but believe that it is not the case.

I personally see no point in playing a mage when we are simply easy targets for any melee pvp player and emaciated pve farmers. We cant even jump down a cliff to run away.

I will go to melee until a patch comes to remedy the situation.

I have faith, for now, that the developers will correct this. I just hope it does not continue into the next alpha.

@mansair said in Bounty Hunting & Jails - Official Feedback Thread:

Simple: the bounty hunter needs to move the prisoner with a wagon jail to the jail.

Same gold, same time in prison, same karma system.

This is ok only if all pvp'ers also have to move their victim with wagon to their plot or city to get any of the equipment or items off of them. Even Steven. Or do you just want special treatment as a misunderstood murderer?

XD I go up to 200% but never thought the game would even allow you to go up to 1000% ! hilarious !

It is great how quickly they assessed the game state and made changes.
Presumably they will continue to do so as the game (and perhaps this alpha) progresses.
Go back in, play the game, find new balance or breaking points for them to address.
It would be nice if we did not have to build a new character and grind out all the skills and knowledge points -again- to adapt to these changes tho...

I think that the prevalence of power word silence as the go to pvp skill / strategy gives more evidence and weight to my initial concerns that int and cha are required stats.
This alpha seems to have proven that high willpower (from int, talents, enchants) and high charisma (from stat or gold equipment only available to tanks) are very much necessary for pvp.
At this time in this alpha it would seem that light armor classes are crushed by melee classes with high charisma (from gold metal armor/weapons) and willpower (from talents/enchants or moderate int) as they are free to use power word silence to nullify the light armors edge of having access to more abilities and laugh at light armors inability to match or counter metal armors stat boosts.

@Xzait
I think that if you had a market place you could put a infinate buy order for wheat or meat at 1 gold each. This would allow them to help the cities bottom line while not requiring a new permission system.

I believe that what the southern alliance did was very much along the desires of the devs and should be fully embraced as the go to strategy. Well done ! If I were a wandering player I would defiantly want to be part of that alliance especially if all their cities had markets where I could trade for the things I cannot produce myself.

I grudgingly agree.
The accomplishments of this test are that we see how cities build up when not cooperating with other cities to create diversified services, how location to gold coin farming is important for resident activity, how unbalanced a partially implemented equipment and skill system can be.
To move on from here and learn from those lessons we would need to reset the whole map, allow for groups to discuss with each other possibilities of trade partners, pick city locations more conducive to trade.
If the devs want us to test sieges then we need quick access to said tech, bash each other around in the spirit of testing, not griefing.
I believe that too many people thought of this alpha as a sample of the end product and not the test it is.
The presence of progression and progression frustration (chaotic pvp grief) is evidence of that.

From what I hear of the PVP test there was almost none of this bs. The free availability of equipment and skills made it so death was a momentary inconvenience, not a 20+ hour grind of recovery.
If this is to be the siege test the same supply should apply. All stuff available so we can spend more time testing the siege mechanic with different strategies and builds and less time grinding for gear or skills.

I believe that the jail system could be really good... but requires being implemented in a environment where combat is balanced and fully implemented, not this mess where so many skills, items, and enchants are simply not avalible... There may be a counter to gold chain armor power word using rageing melee monsters allowing mages or archers to matter more than they do now, but it is simply not implemented at this time.
The combination of jails, equipment/skill grind, half implemented skills/equipment, AND city sieges is just way too much and has made a number of players give up on the alpha.

Higher player population and activity will make a more robust and balanced pvp environment that is not just random grifers or wandering hordes.
Players who have unlocked the abilities of a mob can provide pvp protection to other players working to get the skill in return for some/all of the gold collected as for the learning players the gold is not the main point.
At the moment there are simply too few people for such a large area to have meaningful pvp ballancing.
If we were all restricted to 1/10th of the map area and only 6 cities max I bet the farm that players would be looking out for each other and have serious organization and cooperation.

democratic voting. gotta keep the residents/citizens happy to keep leadership.

@Ostaff
If you make it free then it has no value. Currently it clearly has value as people want it and are talking about it. The issue is that those in control of the buildings and tech choices dont listen or care.
If neighboring cities communicated and worked together to assist each other then the situation would be different. As is each city is afraid of not having total control of a thing and that fear pushes them toward self sufficiency while ignoring interdependent commerce and negotiation options.
The governors need to stop being afraid and talk amongst each other. This is a problem they created and only they can solve.
If the groups had negotiated trade deals between each other before the alpha began then there could have been diversified cities and more profit for the entire population. This was the responsibility of the governors and guild leaders.
Case in point is the alliance of cities and guilds in the south.

Fear caused this stagnation.

The ability to respec the city tech tree would greatly aid in this alpha testing process. @Prometheus

Not bad. although that would eliminate the possibility of claiming a city location before the game starts... Which I am not opposed to at all.
I would love to see all players have to choose a port to start from and then have to wander a map hidden by fog of war until finding a spot camped by monsters that they need to clear before building a town and getting access to anything other than their default crafting menu.
Have the starter towns be off the map locations that once left can never be returned to.
Instead of locking out resource nodes of areas not in a cities region just make them camped by monsters (that give no gold). If a city exists then the monster spawn of that region is reduced.
It still would heavily encourage large group organization, communication and cooperation.

@Houngar
Ok, make it so that cops have to escort criminals to prison.
Then make it so that criminals have to escort their prey to specified 'victimization' locations.
That would defiantly be fair right?

@Harleyyelrah
Good point... perhaps make it so only residents/citizens can put things up for sale?

@Harleyyelrah
I think that what Kazzier is saying is that a marketplace would be a significant draw for them, and potentially other players, to become residents of a city.
As such having a marketplace would be one way to advertise how cool your city is and encourage others to join thus allowing you to rank up sooner and get new points.
If a city does not choose a market place they are kinda saying they do not care about the larger more casual player base and their interests. And that is their choice. But if a neighboring city puts in a market place and draws your residents to them and you rank down as a result, know that is a consequence inherent in the system and one that your city decided was worth while in exchange for XYZ.

We also need to establish the value of things.
Starting with the value of a player hour would be good.
Since the game seems to be built around an average of 2 player groups for most the pve content it might be best to use that as one variable.
From that if we determine the amount of money 2 players could reasonably be expected to earn in pve gold coin farming per hour we could then estimate the gold coin value of a player hour.
Next we would need to determine the time cost of collecting, transporting ( assume close node to city), and refining each good. Measured in player hours (activity) and game hours (smelter/tanner/crop growth).
With those two metrics we can establish a value for most goods in game.
With that people would have a base line of value to work from and empower markets as a place where you can trade player hours in the form of coins and know what 'fair' value might be.
I will start measuring some of these metrics but I am sure others could do so as well.

@Ostaff @Kralith
Limited choices builds diversification and reliance on others to fill gaps which builds cooperation or at least quality interaction.
If this game had all the cities claimed then each city would try to compete for citizens/residents and tout their different tech choices. "we have a market, live here and you can trade your farmed mats for gold" sort of thing.
A single city was never meant to be self sustaining and should not be. build trade alliances, encourage diverse city neighbors. I focus on metal tech, you focus on leather and wood, or what not.

Only allowing governors to place farm plots within the city greatly effects the usable city area. I would like to see us able to place them outside the city at the cost of having to trek the harvest further to bag.

I agree that the city size should allow for enough space where if you only build prestige buildings and roads you can reach max rank. As a sacrifice you have to rely on other neighbors for resource storage and farming which otherwise would take up city space and not give prestige required to rank up.
I do not know if this is possible or not as I do not have those permissions.

**For the alpha at least I would like to see cities able to re-spec their tech tree to allow for experimentation. To avoid abuse make buildings that are no longer unlocked simply not accessible (same with their crafting stations) and make a long cooling off period between re-specs.

If you give governors the ability to kick out residents then it needs to carry a heavy cost (like 10k gold -spit balling-) as that house takes a lot of time and effort to build, stock, supply.

Possible issues:

1. There is no scarcity issue or resource restrictions.
   I was told that in the last test nodes had to be secured by cities before they could be harvested, and then only by that cities citizens or residents.
   This is certainly not the case now as anyone with a hammer or axe and time can get whatever resource they want.
   Note: this is not true for farming resource nodes. Thus the ability to restrict nodes is possible, why is it only implemented for farm nodes and not ore/tree/rock nodes?
2. Cart theft not working.
   I theorize that if cart theft was a thing then long distance resource gathering would be more risky and less done. There would be more trading in light processed materials instead. (still pvp issues but that is another post)

I agree that the tech tree is slow but that is mostly due to low player population. With a higher population more cities would be claimed and more diversity in tech picks would happen leading to specializations which would need trade to fill in gaps.
Right now each is trying to be self sustaining, the ones that work together are part of large groups who have claimed multiple cities close to each other. (way to go southern group guild)

City building space would not be as much of an issue if we could place farming plots out side of the city but within the region. They are more inconvenient as packaging stations are only in the city but make up for it by freeing up space in the city for buildings that give prestige.