The Thread of Endless Whine

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

Folks went from one year to hit the level wall, to less than four months waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (^999) before Umulak. (Nvm the fact that you had to be fairly high level already to take advantage of it.)

And despite that, yes, that too is all entirely our fault. What's your point? We should make it worse?

 

[Borya]

Re: Unholy Blade

Perhaps more incentive to slow down and enjoy the journey? Or maybe if that doesn't work, shoehorn something in (quest-wise) that has people take a look at some of the low/mid level maps that are being missed out on (that also cannot be just completed a bunch of times by one person and the results handed out (perhaps some manner of system where the resulting whatever, when dropped, can only be picked up by whoever dropped it))?

Catering to the Justice League then complaining that everyone is rushing through levels to be cool guys like them is kinda silly, innit?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

Well everyone will always rush to the max levels, that's kinda the point.

Perhaps more incentive to slow down and enjoy the journey?

Tried that with the Bloodstone ring, although it didn't help a lot when certain folks started passing them out like pancakes (plus the quest likes to bugger up). Someday we'll setup that dynamic quest system, giving everyone intensive to go back for maps they missed, but it seems every patch I get stuck working on something else. :\

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

I cannot deny your general point that leveling has been accelerating. But with umulak, suddenly it took only one or two weeks to get to the same HP as I am (800+).

(Nvm the fact that you had to be fairly high level already to take advantage of it.)

This was true only of melee weapons. You can't believe how many 100-200 HP players I saw grinding archery at Umulak with a tork bow. If you had met the level requirements for Poison Cloud, Blizzard, Volcano, or Lightning storm that was all you needed to beef those categories to whatever the cap was.


My point was that I think it's wrong and unfair for you to deny us a balanced, interesting set of level categories because it "will cause players to hit the level cap faster" when, in the end, everyone winds up hitting the cap faster than ever anyway due to negligence.

All I am asking for are weapons that exist for some purpose beyond grinding. I haven't used the DBH yet, but any blunt arm below that is used for one thing and one thing only: Grinding blunt arms. As soon as a player is done grinding, he never ever uses blunt arms again because they are both noneffective and not fun. It's true that some people just want weapons that kill everything in one hit and perhaps they are more vocal. However, I think a majority of us simply want a combat system that is a little less stale than it is currently.

Edit: I know nobody will agree with this, and I know I've only said it a million times. But I will say it again because I am right. The only solution to this problem is either an exp nerf or the removal of map voting.
Granted, that's impossible currently because there is simply not enough maps. But in my opinion, you guys should be focusing most of your efforts into getting out a large number of maps that are logically connected. This would slow leveling immensely, mitigate twinking tenfold and, most importantly, grinding would not be so repetitive and boring. Grinding on one map for a month to gain one level is not fun. There needs to be like, ten maps to grind on for every ten levels or so. Personally, I am working on getting a number of maps to you hopefully some time this year in an attempt to help fix this problem.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

[Blah blah blah... Umulak overpowered us all because you negelected us! :...( Blah blah blah]

All of which is rendered null and void by the fact that Umulak was released literally years after folks were hitting the level wall in three to four months, and even after fixing Umulak, some folks are still nearing the level wall in under two months. Umulak was just a drop in the bucket of a much larger issue.

All I am asking for are weapons that exist for some purpose beyond grinding

All weapons/spells in an MORPG exist to grind or assist in grinding (save maybe a smattering that exist for lulz, ornamentation, or quests). I've no idea what you want here. Be it rats or dragons, it's still grind.

[blunt arms are noneffective.]

What game are you playing?

However, I think a majority of us simply want a combat system that is a little less stale than it is currently.

None of what you are suggesting is going to make the combat system "less stale". Indeed, with what you are suggesting, it'll be more stale, much more quickly, as you'll be at the point where you have nothing left to do all that much faster.

>The only solution to this problem is either an exp nerf or the removal of map voting. Granted, that's impossible currently because there is simply not enough maps.

>impossible currently because there is simply not enough maps.

>not enough maps.

>_>

<_<

This game... Comes with more maps... Than any other mod in freaking existence... (I *think* we even beat out Svencoop's ridiculously huge standard repertoire now - what are we at, over 70?). We have more maps, included with the game, than *most* mods have combined amongst all their resources. This is true even amongst most mods older than ours (not that there are many of those).

Indeed, it was much more viable to have no map voting enabled, back in 2005, when we only had 11 maps. As then, may haps, we could at least have one on each server, and folks would still be able to play at will. Well, at the time, we didn't have that many servers (also, mind you, that'd mean 11 servers in each major server area, and we didn't have that many in any one area). But now with over 70, well, forget about it.

Now, if we had maybe some mystical map making AI, and had maybe 10,000 maps, and assumed everyone played MSC at the exact same time, at the exact same rate, every day, maybe we could have a series of maps that brought you up one level at a time without ever having a need to visit one twice. But short of the nightmarish world that'd be, no number would allow what you suggest, and we have more maps than we have any right to expect to. Since, in reality, everyone plays at their own rates at their own times, folks need to be able to get to whatever map suits their individual needs. Even with game engines designed to handle the huge open worlds required for MMORPG's, you still wind up grinding in the same areas for hours. (Or you wind up with repetitive instanced dungeons, which are basically same-diff.) ...and despite that fact, they always give you some method of rapid transit from one area to another at one point or another. Effectively allowing you to change your area/map at will. Otherwise, their world would be too erratically populated to allow any but the most dedicated of tiny cliques to play together, making the whole multi-player effort, rather pointless.

Now, it's true we don't have enough high level maps to accommodate all our high level players, while at the same time, we have more low to mid level maps than all our low to mid level players feel worth their time bothering to visit while they are still in that level range. I suppose if all 70+ of our maps were fully self-adjusting in some way, they might accommodate the whole range of our players, but it would make the whole leveling thing much less rewarding (plus increased chaos when mixed-level folks got together).

 

[Orochi]

Re: Unholy Blade

Folks would level faster, that's what would happen. It would rather defeat the purpose of making some skills harder to level than others, as it's been since the beginning of time, ie. to make optimal leveling more difficult - to, at the very least, force folks to go back and grind out older skills. (Think we've only been over this point a half billion times...)

I'm not sure why you think people leveling faster is is a bad thing, frankly. Most games like this have a level cap around 75-100, yet you seem dead-set against never going above 40. Raise the cap, make the enemies more evenly spread out among the levels. You've been clustering every new "god-tier" weapon into the 30-40 range. Spread it out a little. You've got 60 more levels to work with. Use 'em.

Again with the "It's how it was originally set out so it must be followed." mantra you use to justify underpowering some skills like Martial Arts. Just because it was set out like that at the beginning, doesn't mean it can't bloody well change. The original concept certainly never called for all the bastardizations to the story and land, but some of it turned out all right. All people really want from MA at this point, I think, is an intermediate weapon between Demon Claws and Bear Claws. If you don't want to make a load of new MA weapons that's fine, but at least make the progression natural and not "forced weakness".

People will keep going over this point because they're convinced you're wrong on this subject. Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with them on certain issues.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

This game... Comes with more maps... Than any other mod in freaking existence... (I *think* we even beat out Svencoop's ridiculously huge standard repertoire now - what are we at, over 70?). We have more maps, included with the game, than *most* mods have combined amongst all their resources. This is true even amongst most mods older than ours (not that there are many of those).

I'm not saying we need 'moar maps'. I'm saying we need more organic maps. Maps that enhance the game in some way other than providing us with an arena to kill stuff. Half of the MSC maps, maybe more, do absolutely nothing for the game except act as loot piñatas. To illustrate this point more clearly, I will write out a list of maps that advance the game as well as a list that do absolutely nothing for the game.

Maps that advance MSC:
Edana
Thornlands
Heras
Mscave
Sfor
Calruin
Bloodrose
(Old)Helena
Daragoth
Deralia
'A dangerous pass'
Keledros Ruins
The Keep
Aluhandra/Shadahar Palace/Villa (but not Aleyesu because of that nonsensical boss fight at the end)
Gertenheld Cape/Forest/Cave
Gatecity (<3)
Lowlands/Highlands/Lostcastle/Skycastle
all of the Island maps (especially Ara and excepting Isle1).

Maps that do not advance MSC in any way whatsoever:
Lodagond 1-4
The World Walker series
Umulak
foutpost
Catacombs
Cleicert
Kfortress
Lostcaverns (or whatever the 'eye of Zyogli' map is)
Wicardoven
Nashalrath

Are you perhaps seeing a pattern here? Because I am.
I'm seeing a problem too. At least up until the sorc_villa patch (A++ job with this patch, btw), nearly 100% of the good loot was clustered in maps that do not matter or have meaning. The only exceptions are Old_Helena and Sorc_villa.
The other problem is that, over the course of the last couple of years, with the exception of Shad_Palace and Sorc_villa (and to a lesser extent Thanatos, even though it's kind of random and comes out of nowhere) we have seen nothing but 'meaningless maps' in every patch.
Over the years, you guys have done a fantastic job at modeling and coding, squashing bugs and generally making the game a far better experience (in other words, I appreciate what you do despite my criticisms). However, when it comes to maps, I feel like the effort put forth was subpar. So many of the maps in this game have no relationship, no consistency, no foresight, no oversight, and most importantly, many of the maps in this game have no goal.

Now, if we had maybe some mystical map making AI, and had maybe 10,000 maps, and assumed everyone played MSC at the exact same time, at the exact same rate, every day, maybe we could have a series of maps that brought you up one level at a time without ever having a need to visit one twice.

You fundamentally misunderstand my point and that is probably my fault for being inarticulate. I am not looking to have so many maps that I 'never have to revisit one twice'. What I want, as the above list suggests, is an organic series of maps - where every individual part works in concert together to accomplish a common goal.

I'm not sure why you think people leveling faster is is a bad thing, frankly. Most games like this have a level cap around 75-100, yet you seem dead-set against never going above 40. Raise the cap, make the enemies more evenly spread out among the levels. You've been clustering every new "god-tier" weapon into the 30-40 range. Spread it out a little. You've got 60 more levels to work with. Use 'em.

Supposedly, for whatever reason, 60 is the level cap. I guess half life freaks out if your stats are too high or something. At least, that's what I've been told. It would be nice if the system could be reworked, (even if it means nerfing) though, to allow us to get to at least 75. Although, 100 would be ideal, of course. Likely an impossibly mammoth task, though.

Again with the "It's how it was originally set out so it must be followed." mantra you use to justify underpowering some skills like Martial Arts. Just because it was set out like that at the beginning, doesn't mean it can't bloody well change. The original concept certainly never called for all the bastardizations to the story and land, but some of it turned out all right. All people really want from MA at this point, I think, is an intermediate weapon between Demon Claws and Bear Claws. If you don't want to make a load of new MA weapons that's fine, but at least make the progression natural and not "forced weakness".

I agree with this, at least to an extent. I think it's foolish to say that we need to do things one way because 'that's how it has always been'. The Catholic church held power for many centuries. Before the modern era, how would you feel about someone who believed that the church should lead the state because 'that is how it has always been'?

But at the same time throwing away tradition 'because it is old' is naive, stupid, and dangerous (at least, in the real world its dangerous). I do believe that the system we have should advance and evolve. I do not believe, however, that it should evolve without looking back at the past, both for inspiration and guidance.

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

Re: Unholy Blade

This was true only of melee weapons. You can't believe how many 100-200 HP players I saw grinding archery at Umulak with a tork bow. If you had met the level requirements for Poison Cloud, Blizzard, Volcano, or Lightning storm that was all you needed to beef those categories to whatever the cap was.

umm, I wish I had those items at 100-200hp :?

 

[FER]

Re: Unholy Blade

Lodagond 1-4
The World Walker series

I think those two are related to the plot, at least much more than the other maps below them.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

Lodagond 1-4
The World Walker series

I think those two are related to the plot, at least much more than the other maps below them.

To some degree I can agree with you. However, the relationship these maps have to the plot is never mentioned or explained in anyway. It's just "votemap lodagond' and then suddenly, there is Maldora, the big epic villain in MSC. It just comes out of nowhere. Furthermore, what is lodagond? It's just some random floating... thing where maldora apparently lives. I think this series has a lot of potential, but the only way it could ever realize that potential is if there was foresight. The map tries to elaborate on the MSC mythos, but it does not work organically with it at all. It defines randomness.

 

[Orochi]

Re: Unholy Blade

Yeah, I found out from Keldorn that the reasoning behind it is that the exp and stuff goes funky after a certain level.

 

[Keldorn]

Re: Unholy Blade

Sure is whiny babb-er.. "sexy zombies" in here.

Level cap can wait until there are more high level maps, or at least one free roam one.

Only gripe I might have with it is that I waste a ton of exp, so there isn't much for me to do besides twink nubs, which isn't really my thing.

In b4 someone says there's too much emphasis on high level content and not enough on mid level content.

(In which case I would point to Thanatos, Gertenheld_cave, Dragooncaverns, Idemark's tower, Catacombs, and that there are >8 old low-mid level maps that new players just skip/ignore in favor of grinding like madmen on ara, daragoth, or islesofdread1.)

Btw, I'd say that Wicardoven, ww1-3 (though these maps go ignored), and the Lodagond series are fine if you don't need giant walls of text to understand what's going on.

Spoilerz-

WW series: Talk to the priests in Edana. Derp.
Wicardoven: Where is the unbalance coming from? Who is organizing the orcs/giving them more strength? What the hell is with all the random undead shambling about? (Not that Maldora is the ultimate reason for these things, but he does help)
Lodagond series: Fragment tells you that you're supposed to get there by going beyond the desert, but Aluhandra West hasn't been made, so there isn't a transition for the map.
Level cap- 40-45 in a single weapon skill takes about 41 million exp. This is about 3-4x the exp it takes to get from level 1-40, LOL. Also, not sure if anyone who hasn't hit the cap has a reason to complain.

 

[zeus9860]

Re: Unholy Blade

Man, someone should lock this thread before it gets out of hand >_>

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

I really don't understand how this is 'getting out of hand'. All anyone has done is voice an opinion. Nobody has leveed any insults, nobody has said anything rude and nobody is trolling anybody else. If this thread gets locked, literally over nothing, I'm just going to make a new one.

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

Re: Unholy Blade

Man, someone should lock this thread before it gets out of hand >_>

SOMEONE LOCK THIS THREAD BEFORE IT BECAME STUPID

 

[Stoned]

Re: Unholy Blade

Like it hasn't got out of hand in the first place :roll:

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

I'm not sure why you think people leveling faster is is a bad thing

Okay, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of gaming no one under the age of 60 should have (and anyone over, not suffering from dementia, should be able to work out)... It makes ZERO difference if the cap is 10 or 1000, it's a matter of how much the game has to offer at the high end of the level cap, whatever that cap maybe. WoW started with a cap at 50, because they had nothing for characters to do after 50, similarly D&D online (and we) started at 20, for the same damned reason. In our case, once you hit the level wall, you've nothing to do but twink other players, making them hit the level wall faster, accelerating the vicious cycle, and all other MORPG have level caps, and limit how fast you can level, for similar reasons. (Leaving aside, if you can level instantly, there's no point in having levels, or an MORPG, for that matter.)

I'm not saying the traditional weaker stats is the best way, but it's the only way we got, without redesigning over 100 weapons and over 1000 monsters and over 70 maps and the entire damage type resistance system, and having everyone yell "nerf" when their stronger stats are brought down into line to even it all out. Deal with it.

[We have too many non-lore maps!]

I've no idea what this has to do with the subject we were on... But I should point out, in your list, a great number of the maps you mention also have no lore at all, but of the ones that do, most of them had no place in the lore upon their creation. Nearly every new map and every new boss we have had, has been inserted into the lore post creation. (In some cases, a year or more after their addition to the game.)

Indeed, if we were only to add maps that were part of the original lore, we'd have a total of 7 maps (as even the MSC 1.0 release added at least 4 maps that had nothing to do with the lore, and even MS 1.3 had maps that were just there to add something to do.) We're made up of community donations, and mappers and modelers tend to do what they want - it's not like we have one super-mapper dedicated to creating exclusively lore oriented maps. Most of the blue spots have been there for four years or more, and even most of those have no direct impact on lore or are also well outside the original lore. (Plus, as I was recently reminded, during those once-in-a-blue-moon instances when a mapper does want to do a lore map, they do not necessarily want to do it in a way that makes any sense to the nature of the plot at hand, or want to make an epic-lore map low level, etc.)

SOMEONE LOCK THIS THREAD BEFORE IT BECAME STUPID

Too late.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

But I should point out, in your list, a great number of the maps you mention also have no lore at all, but of the ones that do, most of them had no place in the lore upon their creation. Nearly every new map and every new boss we have had, has been inserted into the lore post creation. (In some cases, a year or more after their addition to the game.)

I do not mean to suggest that every map should be blatantly story driven, or that Lanethans (often contradictory) lore can't be modified or added on to. What I do mean to say is that the maps need to work with the game in such a way that it provides immersion - we need to feel like we are in the land of Daragoth. When I enter the 'great plains of Daragoth' I do not feel as if I were in 'the great plains' at all. Rather, I feel like I am in 'the great football field'. The map is simply not big enough to express what it sets out to do (which is elaborate a region of the continent) - therefore we need more of them. Crow (I think) did a great job with Lowlands/Highlands/Lostcastle (excepting the bizarre plot-line that I happily ignore). Traveling through these maps really helped made it feel like the 'plains of Daragoth' was more than a simple arena full of orcs and xp - but the region is not done yet. It needs to keep going all the way up to the volcanic mountains that separate Daragoth from Shender. That 'region' will be forever incomplete until that happens.
Perhaps the best example is what Rickler did with Aleyesu and Aluhandra (again, excepting the bizarre plot-line in Aleyesu). These maps are simply two small little 'pieces' of the giant Aluhandra desert. But imagine for a second how that sense of immersion is going to be ruined the second someone makes 'The Thunder Plains' and that map is simply 'tacked on' to Aluhandra because we have nothing else to put there.

(Plus, as I was recently reminded, during those once-in-a-blue-moon instances when a mapper does want to do a lore map, they do not necessarily want to do it in a way that makes any sense to the nature of the plot at hand, or want to make an epic-lore map low level, etc.)

This should, simply, not be allowed. You give mappers way too much freedom. Rickler, for example, should not have been allowed to insert his 'keledros time travel' nonsense into this game. Nobody should be allowed to contribute something that degrades the game. I admit, regrettably, that it's okay to add stuff like Umulak (because we have no dedicated mapper), so long as the map is disconnected and doesn't actively interfere with the game. But mappers should never be given total freedom to do whatever they want simply because they contributed something. If I recall, we waited years for Shad_palace to be released because Rickler demanded too much in terms of XP and loot. Why can't we apply this same standard to lore?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

Well, we do have our limits, obviously. We don't let folks completely rape the core lore (such as Little-G did with Nashalrath), nor do we let mappers dictate terms that completely break basic game balance in an effort to get folks to play their map more (we don't let mappers determine XP or treasure, for the most part). But like I said, if we forced mappers to just work on planned maps, and didn't give them a fair amount of freedom, we'd have 7 maps, instead of 70+. I think having a game world ten-times the size it otherwise would be is worth a little chaos.

Mappers map because they want to create worlds - they tend to have very specific visions. It's difficult enough to get them to stay within the bounds of ours without tying their hands so much that the effort no longer satisfies their desires.

 

[FER]

Re: Unholy Blade

I know that beta worldmap link has descriptions of concept maps but some are missing.

How exactly are the thunder plains?

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

It's one of the original lore maps that has no lore to go with. Plains, in general, do not work well with the Goldsrc engine, but it was basically supposed to be just a really nasty barren land that only the most foolhardy of adventurers go to, with no real explanation as to why everything there is so nasty. Likely just a large free-roam map of high-end nastiness, open to nearly any quests or explanation the mapper might desire.

Worldmap also sorely out dated, but alas, busy.

Oyster keeps bringing up Lodagond for some reason (just find it odd, as it's one of the few maps that's both spawned and connects to a lot of lore). We were originally going to have the Lodagond fortress do some low fly-overs of Thornlands, and maybe some other low level, high ceiling maps - just for show. Not got around to it (maybe when we finally do a Thornlands recompile, which be long overdue). World Walker was to be accessible from Hall of Deralia, as a quest given to you by the King thereof, and said WW series was supposed to get you access to Lodagond (after Maldora pays a "visit" to the king in another encounter), but again, busy, thus Hall of Deralia being on the long list of things that keep getting back-burnered.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

I think having a game world ten-times the size it otherwise would be is worth a little chaos.

From a pragmatic standpoint I do agree with this somewhat, although I wish, if at all possible, efforts would be made to unify our disconnected maps and connect them to the game world. I also don't see what is stopping you from changing the text in Aleyesu so that it just becomes a boss fight with a random wizard, rather than some stupid story driven plot about Keledros and time travel.

How exactly are the thunder plains?

I can answer this because I am a loser!
The Aluhandra desert is surrounded by mountains, save for the coast to the north. The moisture from the coast causes violent electrical storms. Visually, there are ancient 'lightning rod' like towers that are still standing throughout these plains, presumably built by some ancient civilization (probably human?). It can only be speculated what caused the downfall of this society, but I like to think it was caused by an increase in the electrical storms that plague the area.

Oh, and for those of you in possession of 'ye ancient midis', give a listen to the midi titled 'MSTHUNDERCLIFFS' (I presume this music was written by lanethan specifically for these plains). It's rather good - one of his better works, even.

Edit: I see posts have been made while I was typing.

Oyster keeps bringing up Lodagond for some reason (just find it odd, as it's one of the few maps that's both spawned and connects to a lot of lore).

The reason I bring this up is because, whatever the plot is to lodagond, it's not very clear. This is probably the same problem World Walker has.. If HallofDeralia were ready that map would go from being rather random to making total sense and working with the game instead of being tacked on to the game. If there were some kind of entry way to lodagond other than voting, that would really help immensely.

...And your 'original ideas' about lodagond could not get any cooler. I'd absolutely love to be able to see lodagond flying around at random intervals in random maps.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

Well it is admittedly a bit silly, but so is traveling back in time to Old_helena. Keledros isn't part of the lore, but he was *the* major bad-guy throughout all of the early days of MSC anyways, so if it gets us a good map, no harm done. For some reason bringing up Old_Helena made a bunch of mappers want to jump onto the time-traveling band wagon a ways back. That urge seems to have calmed since, though, certainly, some *good* maps, illustrating lore of past ages, could come out of such bizarre methods.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: Unholy Blade

That urge seems to have calmed since, though, certainly, some *good* maps, illustrating lore of past ages, could come out of such bizarre methods.

I agree with this completely, and I think Old_Helena nails it on the head (minus the phone booth). The premise is simple (read: not uber epic), the kingdom is being invaded by the Blackhand and Helena is in the process of being sacked.
Furions continuation of old_helena has a lot of potential in my opinion. If the storyline is carefully crafted (without the mappers ego getting in the way) then it can explain how the kingdom of Deralia actually won the war with the blackhand. It can also flesh out specific details, like how long ago that last war with the blackhand was. That still might require more than just one map though. It'd be cool to extend it even to the plains of Daragoth and have it show the penultimate battle between the two forces, where the kingdom was finally able to go on the offensive after winning a major battle.

Another great thing that could be done is to take us all the way back to the age of blood and allow us to fight with malgoriands army itself. Specific details of that period could be fleshed out, like major battles, or the political turmoil that must have ensued due to all of the Chaos.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Unholy Blade

Well, Helena's not really part of the lore either, it's just been around forever. Only reason old_Helena was brought in, is because it had an epic and exciting battle back in MS1.3 that the MSC Helena lacked. It was a gag for the sake of nostalgia.

Time traveling of any sort does have the potential to kill lore, when your lore isn't centered around it. But, yeah, going back in time to see sh*t go down would be fun.