Herbs needs to be looked at

[Kvator]

So the Rangers have been recoded finally to match other "balanced" guilds? Great news!
Or is this the attempt to down-balance everything else to match the untouched Rangers, because wizards don't want to touch them even with a long stick?

Btw. Kvator - I didn't mean smoking cigarettes ... I meant a different combo I did enjoy!

I know what u meant, and it's baaad combo (i do not consider beer to be 'alcohol' though )

[Arcon]

So the Rangers have been recoded finally to match other "balanced" guilds? Great news!
Or is this the attempt to down-balance everything else to match the untouched Rangers, because wizards don't want to touch them even with a long stick?

Btw. Kvator - I didn't mean smoking cigarettes ... I meant a different combo I did enjoy!

As far as I know they have not been recoded and I have my doubts they ever will. And this is not anything about down-balance other guilds. Its a discussion about herbs and how some herbs or a combo of herbs/alcohol makes some abilities less useful. And how those herbs affect general game balance.

It might seem that it is an attempt to recover balance for the rangers, it is not, it just happen to exist several herbs that mimic the abilities of the rangers and others.

[Mortis]

It is one thing to say an herb granting darksight for a half hour eliminates the usefulness of a dark sight spell, because the effects do not stack.

It is another argument to say that an increased rate of healing eliminates the usefulness of a healing spell, because the effects in fact do stack. The person with a healing spell gets the same increated rate of healing in addition to their healing spell. You'll need a definitive argument to demonstrate how this is a problem.

These forums are great for discussing things like this. However, one person deciding something is now a "problem" and calling it that does not necessarily make it so.

Lars created the base code for this world, and one of his wishes for the future was that alcohol be left as a healing aid without penalty, because he saw coming together at inns as a social thing that he loved. I'm always touchy about changing alcohol, because I agree and frankly it's fun.

[Laurel]

I do remember the moment the general public learned of the super-duper herb whitehorn, that you needed no herbalism skill to search for - just pick it. At that point of time Laurel was unable to win in PvP stand-offs only on 2 occasions: the enemy was a certain knight wiz-alt with Kit's sabre and ggs or the enemy was one of Shinto's friends munching tons of that herb I knew too little about. That time when suddenly there were great weapons hidden in Terel but not accesible to Shinto's non-friends. Same with private rooms turned into stashes in Terel, where even Calian Shinto-friends participated in.

So if you're saying the combo of whitehorn + skunks (reworked since then, or?) + alcohol is the issue, I am saying "get rid of whitehorns". There was a time when attanar was a great healing herb ... sure. But wizards somehow wanted to code shit players will like them for and sped past attanars' healing just like they sped past Rangers' recode.

Again - deal with the core issue, don't screw the mass - balance all herbs with instant-heals. Rangers have books about those and I bet they can help wizards to tackle this as a big project.

edit: actually not only great weapons, but also armours started to pop up in Terel noone knew about ... silver-studs in place of steel-studs in the usual leather armour and suddenly you had the best chest armour in game ... but who knew that? ;p

[Zestana]

Come off it already. Shinto and Crew was 15+ years ago. There stuff doesn't still exist in the game and what's left of it (at least what is useful) is known to the masses and the remaining things that aren't known are fun novelties that serve no real purpose.

As to the whitehorns. Unless you are one of the 4 guilds (2 of which have their own heal) with enough herbalism to search for whitehorn by name the most you can get per run through Terel is 10-20 whitehorns. Not even laymen gardeners with the gloves can get enough herbalism for it. So you can eat a whitehorn once in a period of time just over a minute. A ranger can fire off about 25-30 heals in that minute.

You're comparing apples to oranges now.

Mittikna got fixed so its slightly more useful than bilberry now which is pretty useless. If you actually want to talk about herb reform. Instead of nullifying a system that is already functioning fairly well in regards to healing why don't you discuss how enhancement herbs should be changed to one every 20 seconds so that you can actually see a benefit from them.

Remember.... SCoP is slated to be closed. No one except a few know what spells they are going to be receiving when they reopen and maybe they won't even have a heal or it will be mild. Rangers may become the forefront of the healing guilds in the game after that.

[Chanele]

These herbs takes away the need for the class healer, may it be a Ranger, SCoP, PoT or layman users. The problem with people outgrowing the content is greatly increased with such combat aid. This is wrong in my opinion, a mixed team would be the ideal, today only more damage in team is needed.

A rising hero Neidar with said herbs can tank all contents, what can a myth do? Should we ditch the entire class "healers" or let healers be just that, warriors be warriors and tank be tanks.

I do not agree with Mortis regarding it all adds up and are therefor ok. If I find a sword that gives me the ability to slash will it be a problem? Not by this logic since it will not intefere with other peoples slashes but add up to the total damage dealt

[Kilrayne]

Strongly disagree that herb/alcohol combination removes the need for healers. As Mortis indicated, healers have the same options available to other players, as well as a spell that provides instant healing in addition to the effects that alcohol and herbs can provide. Cultivating herbs takes time and effort, but allows access to virtually anyone, but is still not the equalizer that it used to be before the time delay was set.

There's an "economy" of sorts to be considered here as well. While I can agree that mittikna could use an adjustment, I feel the current time was too harsh. Not all players (read: smaller players) have money or strength to sweep through the realms and acquire items that provided darksight/darkvision. Mittikna was a way that smaller players could gain temporary darkvision for times or areas when they needed that sight. Now they get maybe 3 minutes of sight, which comes with a 1 minute buffer in which they can consume no further herbs.

Likewise, the economy of herb/alcohol combination is that players get to kill and grow faster. Not sure Genesis will attract more players if you have to stand around for five minutes to heal before moving on to the next foe. A possible side-effect of such a nerf would mean larger players might consider downgrading their kill areas as to move faster, instead of having to sit around longer. This would cause these grounds to be less fruitful for the next rung of players, who would also move to other grounds, and so forth.

We need to ensure that changes support the majority of the playerbase, and not just the very large.

[Greneth]

Strongly disagree that herb/alcohol combination removes the need for healers. As Mortis indicated, healers have the same options available to other players, as well as a spell that provides instant healing in addition to the effects that alcohol and herbs can provide. Cultivating herbs takes time and effort, but allows access to virtually anyone, but is still not the equalizer that it used to be before the time delay was set.

There's an "economy" of sorts to be considered here as well. While I can agree that mittikna could use an adjustment, I feel the current time was too harsh. Not all players (read: smaller players) have money or strength to sweep through the realms and acquire items that provided darksight/darkvision. Mittikna was a way that smaller players could gain temporary darkvision for times or areas when they needed that sight. Now they get maybe 3 minutes of sight, which comes with a 1 minute buffer in which they can consume no further herbs.

Likewise, the economy of herb/alcohol combination is that players get to kill and grow faster. Not sure Genesis will attract more players if you have to stand around for five minutes to heal before moving on to the next foe. A possible side-effect of such a nerf would mean larger players might consider downgrading their kill areas as to move faster, instead of having to sit around longer. This would cause these grounds to be less fruitful for the next rung of players, who would also move to other grounds, and so forth.

We need to ensure that changes support the majority of the playerbase, and not just the very large.

Im still confused as to why no one can buy lamps or torches anymore and must have mittikna. We need to quit holding peoples hands and making sure everything is "easier".

[Kilrayne]

Sure they can have torches or lights. They can also get mass attacked when they ignite them. Herbing can be time-consuming and annoying. I'm not a big scripter, so generally I'm watching the screen while "you search for such and such herb" scrolls along. Why nerf fruits of the labor?

[Hektor]

Saying that casters have the same access to skunk berries and alcohol is true. Saying that we can actually use alcohol and are not affected negatively by doing so (some more than others) is not true.

I for one do not see Hektor as much of a support class for anything but small players or in pvp situations. Larger players have very little need for healers, especially with the heavy inflation in various healing and self-sustaining options (items that increase regen, herbs that give regen+heal, AC (items and guild abilities), skills, evasion) etc.

Note - I am greatly in favor of more guilds, more options and more abilities for more players.

However as we massively increase tanking and self sustaining utility (and we really have over the past 8 years) then the value of and need for team support guilds (such as bestowing defensive traits to teammembers, rescuing teammembers, debuffing of enemies or just a good plain old heal) have reduced severely.

So, in that perspective, I am in favor of looking at reduced effects of healing beyond guild abilities and reduced AC beyond guild abilities as it promotes teambased play. It should never be to the point that it becomes ruined naturally.

Just a thought.