Improving Imperian

Wysrias · August 2015

I would love it if I could do something with charms other than litter the floor in exasperation after long hunting trips. Possible ideas could include:

- Expand your bracelet into a full gown, reducing the damage taken from underworld bosses
- Merging them into consumable relic-charms that increase the effect of all defile/sanctify actions at that shrine for the next 15 minutes
- Create fashionable but loud bangles that temporarily increase experience gain in underworld zones
- Fuse into charm bombs that can be set off in the underworld, creating a commotion that skips to the next spawn wave
- CONFIG CHARMS OFF

Iniar · August 2015

Curious:

my ping generally sits around 350 ms...

when I do 'ARTIFACT POWER LIST', it takes 1.6s to return a list...

is there a way you can optimise this code? Possibly stripping out the Upgrade column for an as-requested option?

Wysrias · August 2015

Part of me wonders if that's responsible for some of these massive lag spikes lately; part of me wants to blame Iniar for them now because it's convenient.

Jules · August 2015

Speaking of artifact powers, could we possibly have items that have multiple powers list the credit values of those powers individually, with the sum total (which is all you get right now) at the end?

EDIT: if this has a high probability of worsening the lag problem, not worth it. The main reason I would want it, is that sometimes artifacts do change values, or you bought at a discount, etc... not because I mind busting out the calculator, per se.

Iniar · August 2015

Lol, I did this:

and uh

lagged it all.

Jules · August 2015

Obelisk control has become waaaaaay too stabilized (don't worry, I know better than to say anything about prying those obelisks from people's cold, dead RL hands

) but yeah, fun obelisk battles are no more, and I am pretty sure unlikely to happen anytime soon. Sure, part of this is AM's population dominance right now (which, yay, berserker is exciting, but I bet it doesn't help with that). But I think the real problem is that, again, people like the actual perks too much, and are VERY determined to keep them, and "lock them down" as much as possible. So, using the tools available to them, very smart, very determined gamers have locked down obelisks to the point that... it would be incredibly daunting for people to even try.

Maybe we need things to fight over that have enough of a "hook" that people will come fight over it, but which provide only a very temporary buff. It should also be a buff that can't be "stockpiled" in any way - encourage people to use it while they have it. Shard falls are a great mechanic, but most of our players have PLENTY of shards I think, and the only real reason to go to a shard fall is to PK. So you go, and usually no one shows up, and then you have to harvest

(although, of course, when you're a wee newblet, unattended shard falls are the BEST). I have to say, I don't totally get this mindset, but I am finally admitting it's real. I just don't quite know what to do about it. For me, the fact that Imperian doesn't make me go bash when I lose is all I need. The more "worthless" the objective, the better, as far as I am concerned because then I can just enjoy the battles, and if we win great, if not, hey, it really does seem to be true that if the other side NEVER wins, they won't keep coming out. But a fair number of players just don't seem interested unless there's a perk they feel is worthwhile. So, I guess we need some objectives that aren't almost worthless, but that ARE temporary, and still not TOO big, or people will get overly emotionally invested/pissy when their side doesn't get them (and it also tends to give the winners even more of an advantage which is bad). What about like, mini-obelisks that give a certain obelisk power or shard skill the circle may not have, but can't be defended with outposts at all, and which return to open status after a certain amount of time no matter what, and must be recaptured?

Khizan · August 2015

Fun Obelisk battles never existed, that's why nobody wants to do them.

Jules · August 2015

Oh. I thought they were fun

nvm.

Khizan · August 2015

An Obelisk battle is basically an hour commitment at a minimum, going up to 2+.

Also the thing is... a lot of the cats like obelisk battles, but the cat herders universally hate them. This is because all the cats have to do is follow the leader and stay awake so they can hit buttons. The herders are the ones who have to constantly deal with tactics and movement and keeping people in place and making sure that people don't decide to 'help' by leaving their station and making sure the node guards aren't AFK and letting nodes get capped out from under them while they watch netflix and etc etc etc.

Jules · August 2015

But you love cats

Eldreth · August 2015

There is also no incentive to wrestle away an obelisk - I can use a red shard and gain access to anything my side doesn't have.

Khizan · August 2015

Jules said:

But you love cats

Yes, but let's be honest; my cat is totally the one doing the herding here.

Eoghan · August 2015

Let's try to stay on topic, please.

Khizan · August 2015

Can we please get a CITY SCORE and CITY SKILLS like we have for guild/sect? It would make helping lowbies so much easier.

Iniar · August 2015

Can we please get a re-write for shop code? The syntaxes are really messy..

Garryn · August 2015

A rewrite is unlikely anytime soon, but if you have a "worst offenders" list, we may be able to improve things some.

Ultrix · August 2015

Re: Announce 3098 and making elections only requiring 2 people - awesome! Now, can we get it so that when someone tries to START an election, there is a little "countdown" to when the election will open for voting? People seem to get really confused that the election doesn't open immediately when a person challenges.

Jeremy Saunders · August 2015

Aritfact powers list should be better now. Watching it though.

Jeremy Saunders · August 2015

I have coded up city skills, score, and inventory. I will load that up tonight or tomorrow morning.

Iniar · August 2015

Jeremy said:

Aritfact powers list should be better now. Watching it though.

Heaps better, thanks!

Septus · August 2015

So, I've never noticed this before, but ranger doesn't have targeting built into the skills. Given its basically 100% required (compared to knight or whatnot where its just a bonus), any chance it could be? Its kind of unfortunate when you have to learn weaponry as a newbie, when initial lessons are such a high demand resource.

Ario · August 2015

Septus said:

So, I've never noticed this before, but ranger doesn't have targeting built into the skills. Given its basically 100% required (compared to knight or whatnot where its just a bonus), any chance it could be? Its kind of unfortunate when you have to learn weaponry as a newbie, when initial lessons are such a high demand resource.

This has been a thing -forever-. It's such a pain for novices, and I'm really surprised it wasn't addressed sooner than now. I remember old warden scrolls still had 'put x number of lessons into weaponry for targeting'.

Iniar · August 2015

I missed the mad heyday of Cairnopolis.

One of the nice things about it was the ability to side step the grindy grindy grindy part of the game and allowed people to avoid that suffering.

Similarly, to alleviate the pain of the grindy grindy grindy, I am wondering if we could implement a experience-leech effect;

a mutual agreement between a senior player and a junior;

allowing greater leeching of experience than that offered by ring share;

and can be leeched at distance;

initiated and maintained by a roleplay mechanic, think psionic implanted brain leech gogo.

I hate grinding. #fightTheGrind

Kristos · August 2015

Currently when you take multiple kill 250 creatures in X city in the Underworld you have to go 'turn in' the first one when you complete it. Is there anyway to make the one that is not complete start to count towards the kill counter instead of having to stop bashing just to turn in the first one?

Yurii · August 2015

For the time format in HELP CUSTOM PROMPT, can we get a H:MM:SS format?

Jules · August 2015

PK rules are... deceptively simple. You look at the file, and it seems simple, short - straightforward. In actuality, the rules are a lot more complex. The amount of fine nuance is incredible, really, and if I didn't have people around to explain it to me, I would be completely baffled by it. The answer probably wouldn't be more detailed rules, per se, as admin has explained their rationale for not being more specific:

In an effort to enhance the freedom of roleplay in the game, we deliberately do not set out hard and fast laws to govern player killing.

Alright, got it, but how do we ensure that every player has a firm grasp of the PK rules as they are practiced? For example, "everyone" knows that if you're in the desert and you're known to cause trouble, just being in the desert means you're open to being attacked (I think? This is how I understand it from ring. If I am wrong, great example of how this stuff isn't clear to people who aren't completely immersed in it). Basically, even as someone who has access to people who probably understand this stuff better than anyone, I wish I understood them more completely, and I wish that every player who might not be able to ask super knowledgeable people directly, could do the same. It's important from both a CYA standpoint, and yes, if it's warranted, people should feel confident about issuing (and know with near certainty whether their issue is valid or not before they press the button). I don't really know what to do about it, other than perhaps provide people with more scenario based examples? Say on the wiki or something? Perhaps posting illustrative (old, but still relevant) issues with all names and personally identifiable information removed?

EDIT: the most important thing here, is actually understanding how to keep yourself out of trouble and/or situations you want to avoid in the first place, which means you need to thoroughly understand the PK rules.

Iniar · August 2015

If you're making an oblique reference to issues, this would be my tldr version;

there are probably 5 people in the game who won't issue you if you attack them unprovoked

don't attack anyone unless you have good reason to

log everything

Issues in theory are meant to protect people from cyber-bullying (aka rule breaking). In practice, it is used by 85% of the population as a means of retaliation. A vicious cycle ensues of I can't win, I'll issue, I don't learn (because I issued rather than understood what happened), I lose again, etc. After a decade of this, you're going to be hard-pressed to change this mentality.

Khizan · August 2015

Most of the issues filed by the people like <redacted> and <redacted> have nothing whatsoever to do with the PK rules, which is why they are all dismissed.

Understanding the PK rules will not help you avoid their issues because the issues and the PK rules aren't related in the slightest, they're based off of "I don't want to be attacked so they shouldn't be allowed to attack me". I mean, the issue we were talking about earlier boiled down to "I'm a frequent combatant who was standing in the same room as other combatants in the middle of an active fight and I got hit by an AOE attack and then somebody hit me and I didn't die"; I do not think it is possible to clarify the rules enough to avoid things like this.

Iniar · August 2015

Khizan said:

Understanding the PK rules will not help you avoid their issues because the issues and the PK rules aren't related in the slightest, they're based off of "I don't want to be attacked so they shouldn't be allowed to attack me"

This.

Ailish · August 2015

The game has 0 negative consequences to PK death. There shouldn't be ANY PK rules as far as I'm concerned, aside from obvious griefing.

Improving Imperian

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