how difficult is pvp to get into

Fyraine

I stopped playing Impy early in 2007.
A lot has changed since back then, and I'm not sure if I want to return. I'm a little underwhelmed by Aetolian pvp mechanics these days though. It is too quick, spammy and mistakes that cost milliseconds tend to cost the entire fight. Venom classes rely on completely perfect venom selection. One imperfect choice will set you back to square one. This results in scripted offenses ruling the day.

I'm capable and happy coding offensive stuff, but I get bored in the fight if my F1 key toggles pvp mode on/off and that is all there is to it. I've chosen a set of classes there which maximise the amount of strategical choices I get to make, but - meh.

• How different is Imperian these days? Do I need to write my own curing system? I did back when I played before, but these days I enjoy the scripting less, so I'm not all that keen on writing my own from scratch. How much information is available to script with (example, Aetolia has an affliction-view config that removes the need to gather attack messages for triggers).
• What free/paid for systems are available? Are they any good?
  
• What's with the server-side curing I've heard rumours of here?
• What are the anti-magic classes like these days, as my character is classless right now, but will join Antioch if I do try to play? I can't afford to change classes if I pick one I don't like.

Iluv

We have auto-curing and it is very good. You won't need to code a healer at all to get into PvP. Currently, I know of two offensive systems for sale. Mine and Azefel's. Azefel's system is for Cmud and covers a decent amount of professions in AM and Defiler. Mine is for Mudlet and covers for all of the professions in Demonic, save Defiler (for now) and Outrider.

Fyraine

Thanks for the reply. Good to hear, I can see nothing stopping me from playing, in that case.

Offensive stuff, I'd prefer to code myself - I think.

A new question: in Aetolia, second only to curing, is tracking exactly what affs the target has. To perfection. I'm led to believe that this level of info is just not possible in Imperian. How complex do people's offensive scripts get?

Azefel

My thing works for all profs tyvm

Kryss

As complex as you want. The design of Imperian's classes tends to allow anyone to use any class at a basic level, with there being plenty of extra depth for those who want to get more tricky/technical. Of course this is on a case to case basis. Anyways, perfect affliction tracking is not possible in Imperian. Many cures don't show a third party message and the curing order itself is random. Basically, no matter how advanced your tracking is there is always a random element.

Iriaen

It's become a lot more like Aetolia's system, though there is no skill that tells you what affliction has been cured and certain damage classes are pretty overpowered atm.

One thing I have been butting heads with people about is that there is very little randomness left in the game.  There's no lucky stupidity hits (garrynbot did away with that), no rebounding stacking, aeon, retardation and no distinct new mechanics replaced any of those things.  We have our limb damage strategies without pre-restoration (a lot of people don't like that and want to get rid of them) and we have formaldehyde (random poison, also possibly being taken out) and a few random affliction passives, that is pretty much it for any form of randomness.  Nothing changes how or when you enter input once you have discovered the optimal formula for a specific match up.

Fights progress fairly linearly, if a damage class has a combination that will kill you, it will probably always kill you and this can sometimes be a 1-hit thing, or within a few hits.  The only way around this is to use some slow limb-damage based strategies (limbs heal after 1 minute of not being hit) but that is probably going to be taken out in the next classlead round.

My recommendation is that you do what I did-- hop onto a character but don't put down a significant amount of money until after you've played it awhile, that way you will know whether or not its right for you.

The good news is that Garrynbot means that you can do rudimentary combat things right from the get-go.

Sarrius

Most AM professions are pretty good. All of them are pretty viable. Outrider, Predator, Ranger, and Wardancer are Imperian unique and very fun. Priests here do not have Healing or Illumination, instead having Kanai.

Fyraine

Garrynbot?

Kryss

I actually disagree with a lot of this.

There is randomness where it matters: curing. Aetolian dodging and the like is just plain frustrating and that's the very reason we did away with it, alongside other such silliness such as aeon and retardation. Frankly I'd sooner a fight be dictated by the skill of parties involved in regards to pushing their offence/countering their opponents rather then embed retardation and then see who gets unlucky with plague. Whilst there might of been laughs to be had from that and other such things, it wasn't good or skillful.

Iriaen

Garrynbot is the term for the server-side healing system, which never makes an error based upon things like stupidity, stuns, etc.

This sounds great in theory, but errors from things like stupidity and stuns were a major source of people dying in the past, and those sources of player losses were not replaced with any new mechanics that get people killed in analogous circumstances.

Fyraine

@sarrius
Thanks. I think I'll just join Antioch and then ask around IC to help decide on a class.

One thing: I particularly like being able to see hidden people. Do any of the AM classes have a heatsight/lifevision equivalent (I mean for seeing hidden people, I don't care about illusions).

Kryss

Autocuring doesn't make 'errors' per say but it's still affected by stupidity and stuns. How this is different from a client side system that was properly made I don't know.

Iriaen

Here's how auto curing and affliction classes work now.

You start placing afflictions, Garrynbot heals them perfectly, then after enough time passes you have stacked afflictions onto Garrynbot anyway because of the ratio of affliction placement to healing rate.  Once you have enough afflictions on your target, you can burst damage them with your afflictions (hunter brainmelt) or give them a mana damage debuff (diabolist infirmity).  For example, the main reason to give evileye afflictions as a diabolist (Malignist) is to stack infirmities, which lower the mana thresh hold on catharsis (absolve) by 10% a pop.  So once you have the maximum of 3 infirmities, you can absolve someone at 80% max mana.

Saboteurs are a bit different because hypnosis allows you to overwhelm and lock someone with afflictions, but basically you have your damage classes (discover an attack order that kills a specific target, it will always work barring some shield spam), affliction stacking classes (stack your afflictions, do damage or get a damage bonus), and your limb damage classes (these may be getting an overhaul, since people don't like parry as the method for resisting them anymore) and then you have saboteurs/renegades.

Outriders are a bit of a gray area since I've been had both limb damage losses to them and damage losses to them and knights can go sabres for afflictions (at which point, it plays just like a sabre knight always did against a perfect healer) or claymore for damage.

Iniar

You can lock as Diabolist/Wytch

Iriaen

That's not really true for Diabolist, I don't know about wytch.  It might be possible if you're using fast statpack, but even at level 90 and with a surcoat, most classes could damage kill me while I was in fast long before I could have a chance of locking them.

Maybe it's different if they don't have asthma at the top of their healing queue, but that is a pretty easy thing to handle these days.

Fyraine and I have a long relationship in these games, I think he will go and try it himself, I am encouraging him to do so, but I think he can get something out of what I am writing here instead of having to learn it himself.

Fyraine

Iriaen said:

Garrynbot is the term for the server-side healing system, which never makes an error based upon things like stupidity, stuns, etc.

This sounds great in theory, but errors from things like stupidity and stuns were a major source of people dying in the past, and those sources of player losses were not replaced with any new mechanics that get people killed in analogous circumstances.

Ah thanks.
You might have a different opinion of it if you played on an overseas latency. In the past, it didn't matter much, but Aetolian combat has gotten to the point where I inspect a log and don't find a particular fault/mistake where I can think "Okay, well next time I will do Y instead of X and I won't die there."

Instead, I see that over 10 rounds of combat, I'm 2 full seconds of curing behind my target. So I'm pretty excited by the idea that this may be removed from combat.

That said, I do appreciate your input. I'll do as you suggest - use the server curing and see what I think.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Sarrius

Fyraine said:

@sarrius
Thanks. I think I'll just join Antioch and then ask around IC to help decide on a class.

One thing: I particularly like being able to see hidden people. Do any of the AM classes have a heatsight/lifevision equivalent (I mean for seeing hidden people, I don't care about illusions).

Amazons/Rangers and Outriders possess lifesense in Trailblazing, which if I recall right, is a strict mechanical reprint/copy of lifevision.

Illusions aren't an issue here, they aren't a combat component of any class.

Also, ignore @Iriaen - he is the resident troll right now and has no clue what he is talking about. A lot of his posts in this thread err on the side of pessimism because he thinks he's correct about what is 'ailing' Imperian.

Iniar

Server side curing is the only reason I can play. The game's queuing system and separator are also excellent to combat that latency. (Thank you, @Garryn)

Iriaen

I'm not trolling, Amazon fresh really is amazing.  The free Aquafina bottles are going to more than cover the $300 / year cost of this thing.  And I can find things, like blood oranges, that are normally really difficult to get.

Ahkan

Imperian's pk is stupidly accessible. Your involvement and productivity is directly related to the amount of time/$$ investment you're willing to put in. There are about 30 people in this game who have one or two very basic combos that get them incredibly far in this game. You can buy a system that will you bump up a few notches where you're tracking afflictions and getting into the more complicated strategies, but you're still going to have to figure it the how and the why of what you're doing.

Shardfalls are no retribution pk. Get in an area and kick the shit out of everything not on your team.

Monoliths allow for retribution. Alliances get hazy here. Lots of fun.

Team-FFAS hybrid teams are made up 'randomly'. Kill everyone not your color. (not a race war)

Posturing/Raids: Circle sits outside another city and provokes a fight. You will be bountied.

Obelisks: The Alterac Valley of Imperian. Waste between 1hr and 4hrs  (usually at some weird time) to fight over and objective with 0 story line. Attacks are bountied. This fuels the shard research system which is like QoL upgrades for the game wrapped in drugs.

1v1: Arena duels, battles for honor, and the quest for the true favor. If you want to white knight it up, ask for a duel on market.

Grab a vialbelt (we all stock fulls)

Tap all necessary vials.

Bring your 1 button macro to  shardfall and have some fun.

optional: Ignore Iriaen.

All the classes are 'good'. Some are easier than others. Some are cheaper than others.

Templar, Warden, Cleric are 'cheap'. Wardancer is tri-trans with low tier artifacts required.

Summoner, DK, Defiler are cheap.

No clue on magick, tbh. Mage is 'cheap', rg is cheap and reliable. Nfc after that.

For more details, ask 

Fyraine

Cheers.
I joined the WD and have been learning WD abilities. I'm not sure why I picked them over ranger, but I did and that is what I'll have to use for a while at least.

I'm not finding any help files on this garrynbot stuff, though I still have plenty to read.

Edit: Aha, I found the wiki, and it explains all.

Iriaen

Just set up your autocuring priority list (if you remember anything about the game, you'll realize that the defaults are pretty bad) and you should be good to go.

Also you want to understand that numbness turns into paralysis after 8 seconds, there's no more paralysis in the original sense.

Curing times are subtly longer but from the player's point of view it doesn't make much of a difference.

Peace (I don't think wardancers have it, so it's sort of moot) has a 5-second or so cooldown.

Hmmm, what else.  I dunno.  Wardancers are in a good place right now so you will probably be fine playing them.  Part of my bitterness is I came back and went straight into Diabolist who aren't in a good place.  Then I went summoner which, while cool, is not the kind of experience I had been looking for.  So I'm still a little lost.  If I had stayed on as a limb damage class, which I almost did... but knifeplay stances always made me rage.  I want to hit the leg now, not do a dance.

Azefel

Autocuring is far from perfect, which is why I make so many credits

Leikara

Shards = ylem, basically. Shardfalls = lessers, but spread over the whole area, versus one room rushing. I'm a newb and I have lots of fun cluelessly bumbling around at smashing people at them! 

Iluv

Iriaen said:

That's not really true for Diabolist, I don't know about wytch.  It might be possible if you're using fast statpack, but even at level 90 and with a surcoat, most classes could damage kill me while I was in fast long before I could have a chance of locking them.

You can lock even in wight and it is easier to do with Lich. Diabolist has access to all the toxin afflictions (which include numbness and clumsiness) and certain mental afflictions (like peace) which slow down damage professions.

Edit: Clumsiness is also in evileye, which makes it even more evil.

Azefel

clumsiness is the bane of physical attack professions