Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Comments
Yes, I was wrong about someone trying to game the forums. I suspected that ice was being bought out due to rejuvenating exterminated groves, but didn't want to bring that up here, since it's happening in real time, and commenting about it on the forums seems to take away from what's happening in the game.
I still believe that the beauty of Achaea is conflict. Whether that conflict is hand to hand combat, political conflict, religious conflict, or ECONOMIC conflict, there are lots of ways to compete and create meaningful experiences for everyone involved. You shouldn't go crying to daddy at the first hint of conflict. I got into the commodity side of thing for precisely this reason. Economic warfare. There are very few avenues for this, and it's usually over as soon as it starts, but like any battle, you don't want to be caught unprepared.
I'll admit though, sometimes conflict is heavily one-sided, and the ways to participate are rather tedious, time-consuming, and flat out annoying. I wish every player involved could come away feeling like they gained something from the conflict and interactions, even if their character lost, but unfortunately there is so much investment in our characters, and certain players use the cheapest tactics to win, that the admins have to step in and make sure that things aren't getting out of hand.
@Sarapis - Forgive me for diving a little bit into forging, but it really helps explain the problem we're facing here.
I run one of the most active forging shops (I think) in Achaea. I spend a pretty retarded amount of time forging - that being said - I can't even give away 219 speed rapiers to anyone who's over level 60 and interested in combat. In order to disembowel someone by breaking legs alone, you need a minimum of 227 speed. (That's assuming you're using queue'd attacks). I can BARELY sell 223 speed rapiers, and (currently) I can't keep any 227's in stock. In order to fight to any effective degree, you need that balance in order to survive on even a midbie level.
Now, let's take a look at what (loosely) it takes me to forge out a 227 speed rapier. The highest I've ever seen someone purchase a 227 for is 50k.
From my estimates, I think that a 227 speed rapier comes along maybe once every 250-300 or so forged rapiers. For the sake of easy conversion, let's presume you get a single 227 every 200 rapiers forged.
That's 1000 steel needed to forge. In order to reach that, you need to purchase a minimum of 600 steel. (600 steel will, after 5 total smelt throughs of 'garbage rapiers', yield 995 steel's worth of forgeable commodity):
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein
----------------------------------------------------------------
Syntax: FORGE FOR DIRK
FORGE
Extra Information: Commodities: 2 Steel
Details:
A weapon made for stabbing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Alternate solution : Go serpent and backstab people while they're bashing.
[ SnB PvP Guide | Link ]
If the solution is to simply quit one of the three Knight classes as a whole, something's broken.
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein
Exelethril forgot his /s tag.
Also, @Aelios - not that it helps right this second, but Tecton/Admin have said that a forging rework has been on the books for some time now.
I'm superbly happy and supremely annoyed at the moment. In one of the commodity shops the price had fallen to 113, the lowest I've seen it since the city improvements started, and mostly within budget. Some asshat had already bought it down to zero though
"In order to disembowel someone by breaking legs alone, you need a minimum of 227 speed. (That's assuming you're using queue'd attacks)"
Only if they have crap latency and aren't using server-side curing, since restoration only takes four seconds to go through and 227 speed rapiers will give you ~4.4 seconds of balance recovery before you're able to impale.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Grr. No wonder the pro RNG crowd has been able to keep forged rapiers the way they are (superior to level 3 arties) for so long. At least this thread seems to be another big nail in the RNG coffin, or at least RNG as we've known it.
Jules, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but please stop talking about RNG.
Trey, this jig is finally up. It's taken since like, 2006, but it's up.
Like others though, I had no idea that Sarapis had no idea, although in his position, when I think about it, it's at least conceivable. It's still kind of shocking and funny to see his reactions to the playerbase's expectations for forged weapons, made possible by a long line of incredibly determined forgers.
I don't know how to explain this properly without making it seem like I'm calling you a fucking idiot, but the problem isn't with forging in and of itself, it's with the mechanics of knights in general requiring weapons of a caliber higher than people can reliably produce. I'm also pretty sure you don't know what 'the jig is up' means. There's no conspiracy or trick here.
Pretty much the point I'm making is that you need to be a prevalent smith or competent fighter to understand the problem, and as far as I'm aware, you're neither.
It's a combination of the two. You can't balance around what forgers can reliably produce for everybody, and then keep the ridiculous outliers that will be produced - even if not reliably - because they will absolutely break combat the moment somebody has them. Then that either doesn't get balanced around and everybody's pissed off about it (except the one or two people who have them), or it does get balanced around and the people at the lower end of the spectrum take unnecessary hits.
It's the same issue as artefacted versus non-artefacted, but with a much larger variation.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Even though I am not a combatant, yes, non-combatant really doesn't mean "fucking idiot" in every single case, and this is one of those cases, because it's more of a global concept. More and more people have finally come around on this issue as they've become adults with jobs who don't have time for this probability crap (and who just might have the money to splurge on artefact weapons if they were really worth it).
If you're going to balance something around a certain set of numbers, what do you do when you allow occasional wild variations from those stats? Especially if a segment of the playerbase is hellbent on getting those wild variations? If we knights really require such fast weapons to be remotely competitive, then forging should produce them more reliably (but without any crazy outliers that are even more uber), and the artefacts should be superior to the forged weapons (not that I want to *have* to spend 3200 credits to be nicely equipped with weapons, mind you).
Jules, please don't post when you're drunk.
Sarapis is *finally* hearing directly from multiple posters what really happens with forging (and is sort of comically surprised about it). Of course I'm going to comment on that, but I didn't even start this one. What is the problem? Let me enjoy this
Remember that I pretty much had nothing to do with Achaea from about mid-2006 until spring 2012, and basically nothing at all to do with it from 2008-2012 other than the backend accounting, legal, etc.
I leave most of the combat stuff to Tecton and Makarios, both of whom are much more knowledgeable about it than I am. I know how combat works at a high level, which is good enough, most of the time, to work on systems that touch combat.
For a very, very long time the best combatants would have absolutely insisted that "forging is fine, arties have great to-hit" as a united front anyway, because frankly, the top tier combatants mostly liked it that way. Even for a "fucking idiot", it's kind of telling when people say "arties have great to-hit" while doing massive batch orders in search of the next holy grail 240+ rapier. Basically, you as admin would have had to be closely watching what happened with artie sales and forging and such (you know, with all your spare time), and said "wait, WTF"?
It's only when people like Antonius, Jarrod, and Rangor started to publicly shift their stance that you'd be hearing about this from anyone who has "PK cred", and of course it's always good to listen to those people, because they really do know more than us "fucking idiots", but as with all people, sometimes they're also self-serving.
No, for "a very, very long time" people have been saying forging and knight weapons are broken and for "a very, very long time" the issue has been ignored. Ever since Clem nerfed rapier reults 6-7 years ago and in his usual fashion ignored all the evidence that showed his choice was short sighted and ignorant. This was an admin created state. Adjusted away from a setup where it was possible to get the rapiers with the stats you needed to fight as a knight.
Every forging change submitted under the original classlead system was rejected, every classlead submited under the new system has been rejected with the exception of smelting. Even after changes to knight combat like the extra writhe time with two broken limbs the issue of dsl speed and the starts required to reach the speeds knights need to pull off their finishing moves was never addressed. You're so far off base with your accusations and so misinformed it is comical.
There is no player conspiracy here to keep a system that is broken, that has been broken for years. Nobody has ever argued in favour of what we have now and your accusations that people WANT what we have now is why Trey pointed out how ignorant you sound.
Oh jeez, the pro-probability folks have totally have argued *exactly* what I stated, like a broken record in fact... but whatever. At least we seem to agree that workable weapons need to be more accessible, and if the only "workable" weapons really are the extreme outliers, that's a problem.
This is not a forging thread. Bitch about ice or gtfo.
I am completely fine with that. Get on with it, by all means. I just wanted to enjoy the moment of this issue *finally* getting the "wait, what?" response from admin, and no less than the Big S at that (although I have a feeling Tecton is in touch with it already). I read the thread and couldn't believe my eyes. Lots of big shifts in a variety of areas over the last few years, mostly good ones, and always with a certain contingent absolutely kicking and screaming.
[ 2337] ice
@Jules You've been saying that people have said artefact weapons are fine and good for fighting.
That's never, ever been the case by high end knights. We've always, always said that artie weapons are shit for high tier fighting (unless you want to just try for straight dsl damage).
As for your other arguments, I can't really comprehend what you're saying and I haven't been able to get a point out of your posts.
So, about that steel...
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein
Cooper said:
While true to an extent, I think it's a smidge important to clarify that the only benefit Artifact Rapiers have is the guaranteed to-hit (making venoms other than curare, on the regular, an option) and the insane damage for the speed you're getting.
Runed, they're epic rapiers. A little slow, but epic.
Outside of that though, you'll never ever ever see a talented bard with a Soul Piercer. You'll never see a DSB or Affliction knight with a Soul Piercer (unless they're just arti'd up and dont want to worry about forge decay).
While it might be a little off topic, it'd be really cool to see forging speed upped a ton. Keep commodity cost at what it is, but just make 'batches' available. (10 rapiers at once, for instance) - you can even keep the "awesome uber stat variances" that are involved. It would vastly increase revenue for IRE in terms of Credit Purchases, it'd increase a retarded amount of commodity use, and players could get the weapons and the sort they're after, pending they pay.
I'm not sure how it would tie in to the commodity systems, but... just an idea.
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein
Cooper, I've heard the "but artefact weapons have great to-hit, forging is fine (as I go make my bulk rapier order with Trey)" argument countless times over the years. Only in the past year or two have people been backing off it a little, mainly thanks to Antonius and Rangor publicly discounting the old to-hit argument. Still, arties vs forged is only one part it.
If 235-240+ rapiers are what a knight needs, fine, balance everything around that, but do it in a way that most people have access to something that works without heroic forging efforts, and where people who are willing to pay more get something better, both in terms of forged, and certainly artefact goods - within reason.
One "pretty good" rapier by current game standards shouldn't take hours and mountains of steel to create, but it does, exactly because determined forgers have been engaged in mutually assured probability madness for years now (which to be fair, they do because they *can*). People *have* to have 240 rapiers because forgers continue to will them into existence, and they then become an in-game standard.
My fondest hope is that they'll get rid of probability entirely so that you buy weapons that have certain stats, based on quality tiers, perhaps with some allowance to move a few points around as you like, but you'd always know exactly what you're buying, no chance involved.
I bought 250 at 66 :P
What a coincidence, Kini, I'm paying 105-110 per for bulk! Get me 10k and I'll fund your fleet so hard.
If I may, I'd like to dissect your post (however this might not be the best metric for it).
My edits are noted above in bold italic. Hopefully that helps explain things!
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
-Albert Einstein