Level Restrictive Areas/Discipline

[Greneth]

After reading a bit in the Towers thread it got me thinking, usually people farm smaller areas for either heads/imbuements. This can be a real pain for any Adept-Hero as you really are limited as to where you can gain decent experience. Would it be more beneficial to continue creating level restrictive areas or to rework the discipline stat? As you progress higher discipline is needed for higher level NPC's, but what if it worked in reverse as well? The higher your discipline is the more you will not feel the need to attack/waste your time with smaller creatures. This should prevent imbue/head grinding in areas where higher levels really dont need to be and alleviate the need for area rework/construction.

[Cherek]

After reading a bit in the Towers thread it got me thinking, usually people farm smaller areas for either heads/imbuements. This can be a real pain for any Adept-Hero as you really are limited as to where you can gain decent experience. Would it be more beneficial to continue creating level restrictive areas or to rework the discipline stat? As you progress higher discipline is needed for higher level NPC's, but what if it worked in reverse as well? The higher your discipline is the more you will not feel the need to attack/waste your time with smaller creatures. This should prevent imbue/head grinding in areas where higher levels really dont need to be and alleviate the need for area rework/construction.

Interesting idea, but it would of course become a real headache when you need to kill something smaller than you while solving a quest. Or someone you need to pass to get somewhere. Or simply when you feel like smashing some ants in your RP. And probably a number of other scenarios.

Also... it would probably lead to low-discipline races likes goblins would get yet another perk, and give you even less reason to focus on DIS as a stat. Personally I also kind of prefer solution where you dont get messages like "You don't feel like attacking this creature because its so puny". _I_ want to decide what my character wants to do or not.

However!

Perhaps we could merge your idea and what Mortis did in the Tower of Arms?

What if when a much bigger character attacks a much smaller NPC, you're simply too big and too strong so you just crush it into a messy pile of blood and broken pieces of equipment where nothing can be gained. No skulls, no leftovers, no EQ, no imbues. However you would need to add some type of flag to quest items so they arent broken, but besides from that it could work? Might even be pretty cool, and it would make pretty good sense when someone with almost god-like powers fights something puny. I mean it's basically impossible to kill an ant without smashing it into something unrecognisable.

You could if you want add some randomness to it of course, so not everything breaks every time, but enough to make farming imbues and skulls in newbie areas less useful.

[Arman]

I think what Greneth highlights is maybe we don't have a good progression of areas for all levels and alignments?

Maybe that is something we should do an audit of? Hunting grounds, looking at alignment, mortal level suitability, and whether any special attacks/difficulties are taken into account when allocating combat xp? Because we have a lot of areas... so maybe a few less used ones need to be re-worked to fill certain mortal level gaps?

[Laurel]

Just revamp exp in Kabal and Kalad. It's a huge area with loads of mobs that give hardly any reward for killing (with rare exceptions). Hence it's dead from the players' perspective.

When asked by players of below rising hero characters I usually struggle hard to give them suggestions as to where they could grind alone.
Lizards are too few. Kendermore is a bother. Wights can be a struggle at this level without special eq and skills. Dwarves hit hard for this level without special eq and are goodie. Dephonians are right size, but hit surprisingly hard for their size. Infidels are few. Trolobies are few and it's Holm (2shot in darkness by someone?).

Tower of Arms should be a good solution to this. Please rework Kabal and Kalad in a similar fashion?

[Nerull]

I'm in favour of restricted grinders to "protect" the small/intermediate players and currently doing some thinkering in that department to see if there are some good/acceptable solutions.

[Greneth]

I would love to see many of the old areas reworked, all of Kabal would be a great start. Khalakhor, Terel Forest, Haven Dwarves, Pax Tharkas, Kalaman, Icewall, Goblins/Trollshaws, Isenguard, Edoras, Calia Undead, Delphi Temple, Water Kroug, Calian Sea.

Most of these areas have never been looked at or nerfed to the point of not being worth the effort anymore. Tbh I would like to see areas starting at hero+ made more challenging. Give people a reason to have to pay attention instead of setting scripts and watching tv. While making areas below Hero either inaccessible or unable to gather reaources heads/imbues/coins for those much too large.

[Amorana]

Give people a reason to have to pay attention instead of setting scripts and watching tv.

The problem is, in my mind, that we'll never get to a level where things are not scriptable. In a MUD environment, it's simple in/out... a logical progression of how things work, things can be accounted for. It isn't like an MMO, where you are teaming with 10 people and any of them could be at random targeted for a special ability, and each of you has a defensive cool down to see the ability coming at you and pop it. There's no fire to move out of, because if you did, you'd leave the room and be out of combat.

It is hard to come up with a scenario in a MUD environment that isn't scriptable. Give players enough time and reason to do so, and there will be a script to account for anything.

[Greneth]

Give people a reason to have to pay attention instead of setting scripts and watching tv.

The problem is, in my mind, that we'll never get to a level where things are not scriptable. In a MUD environment, it's simple in/out... a logical progression of how things work, things can be accounted for. It isn't like an MMO, where you are teaming with 10 people and any of them could be at random targeted for a special ability, and each of you has a defensive cool down to see the ability coming at you and pop it. There's no fire to move out of, because if you did, you'd leave the room and be out of combat.

It is hard to come up with a scenario in a MUD environment that isn't scriptable. Give players enough time and reason to do so, and there will be a script to account for anything.

Its not difficult, if youve got an area where mobs have increased crit chance and chase I highly doubt your going to set a script and watch tv. Why? If you panic and run into the wrong room? Dead. Set wimpy to brave and a row of crits come? Dead. You would need to pay attention to every fight. There are several ways to implement challenges to prevent complete scripting.

Ogres/Trolls who prevent you from leaving the room yet can throw you into another random room. Increased crit chance, spores in the air which randomly stun with no notification, a forest where you lose your sense of location as thinking you go east but travel in a random direction everytime.

There are several and while im sure fully scripting IS possible it would not be worth the effort. You beat a pattern with unexpected randomness.

[Boreaulam]

Give people a reason to have to pay attention instead of setting scripts and watching tv.

The problem is, in my mind, that we'll never get to a level where things are not scriptable. In a MUD environment, it's simple in/out... a logical progression of how things work, things can be accounted for. It isn't like an MMO, where you are teaming with 10 people and any of them could be at random targeted for a special ability, and each of you has a defensive cool down to see the ability coming at you and pop it. There's no fire to move out of, because if you did, you'd leave the room and be out of combat.

It is hard to come up with a scenario in a MUD environment that isn't scriptable. Give players enough time and reason to do so, and there will be a script to account for anything.

Its not difficult, if youve got an area where mobs have increased crit chance and chase I highly doubt your going to set a script and watch tv. Why? If you panic and run into the wrong room? Dead. Set wimpy to brave and a row of crits come? Dead. You would need to pay attention to every fight. There are several ways to implement challenges to prevent complete scripting.

Ogres/Trolls who prevent you from leaving the room yet can throw you into another random room. Increased crit chance, spores in the air which randomly stun with no notification, a forest where you lose your sense of location as thinking you go east but travel in a random direction everytime.

There are several and while im sure fully scripting IS possible it would not be worth the effort. You beat a pattern with unexpected randomness.

I don't want to break your illusion that you cannot script anything.
For case, that you suggested. Set a script:
Go kill,
Check health after every kill,
if health is low, wait 5 min
go kill

Not much of thinking.

The difference between video and text. Processing video is much more difficult for scripting than text.
I can hardly think of automatic checks/mechanics that I cannot automate.

[Nerull]

It's because the content is static and predictable.

Can you make a script doing logical deductions/advanced puzzles or dynamic content?