Oh look... Another Rebirth Topic...

[*Neptune*]

Ok, I've taken some time (yet again) to look down and read most of what has been transpiring in this
thread which I can't necessarily say for some of you. (Anything that begins with "tldr" loses all credibility
and value towards consideration). But I'll start by saying that the following is an off-the-cuff set of thoughts,
ideas, brainstorming, and otherwise conjecture and/or reaction (and does not in anyway warrant, require,
guarantee, or mean anything in particular with regards to things that exist in past, present, or future
reality) But, you guys wanted another immortal's ideas, so here goes....

As head builder and player, I mainly look at things from a small set of perspectives. As a player, I am limited by my perspective on a current system by my character and style, my aspirations and goals as a player. As a
builder, I get to realize each of those things on a grander scale. Up to this point, I'd say they give me about
the same amount of enjoyment, an amount that has kept me 'in the game' for over twenty years. When I'm
not playing, I build. That's what I do, and that's what I want to do, and that's what my focus is on. I don't
really focus or consider too many things that I a.) don't have the technical knowledge for, b.) aren't directly related to what it is that I am working on at the time, c.) I don't really have too much experience with in a game play sense (because it's hard to have a good opinion on something if you don't experience it in some
way), and d.) I just simply got other things in real life to devote my attention to like my job, where my next meal is coming from, am I going to be able to pay rent this month, etc. I'm never going to be a coder nor will I be writing code, however small and infinitesimal the amounts thereof may be. But I can work with the people in the staff and the players to try to use the current system to create some pretty neat things. This is partly why I've whipped up some, again "off-the-cuff" ideas that seem, at first glance, to be worth considering for shop ideas and improvements that would go alongside an infinite or multi-rung ladder of progression of sorts. These are:

//Gold Accumulation Bonus
//Skill Percentage Bonus
//Spell Percentage Bonus
//Water Breathing
//Perm Visage
//Access to the prime skills of secondary classes
//Access to the prime skills of tertiary classes
//Raise the caps of secondary and tertiary max_stats
//Mana Regen Bonus
//HP Regen Bonus
//Move Regen Bonus
//Age Reduction
//Weight Percentage Reduction
//Bard Song Effect Perentage (Affects more players at once)
//Bonus Bonus Dam Reduce
//Bonus Bonus Charisma
//Bonus Bonus Spell Bonus
//Bonus Bonus Undead Control
//Bonus Bonus Stab Damage
//Bonus Circle Damage
//Bonus Bonus Heal Bonus
//Bonus Excrutiating Blow Percentage
//Resist Webs
//Bonus Saves (Not Really In Favor of this too much)
//Access to Legacy Concepts
-Fargate Spell
-Legacy Strength Spell
-etc, etc
//Spell Duration Increases
//Skill Duration Increases
//Hunger and Thirst Increments/Decrements (Depending on how you look at it.)

Now, I have no idea how difficult or sweeping at the microscopic level some of these things would be simply
because I'm just not intimate with the code regarding such things. But there are a few things that have been brought up and talked about during this thread that I do have an opinion or alternate ideas to address some of the same concerns up to this point. They are as follows:

1. Comparisons to MMORPGs and WOW: We aren't WOW, We will never be WOW, We don't aspire
to be like WOW, and we don't have the funding or resources to create another WOW.

2. The Illusion of Time as some Metaphysical Currency. Nobody's time is sacred. It is not a holy sacrament to be regarded at each level, at all times, to be exalted as christ on the cross, osiris in the tomb, or the phoenix from the ashes. Once you spend time to waste time, you lose all credibility in arguing for time's sake. Spending time does not guarantee or warrant the use of someone else's time for your opinions or gains. Now, to that point, however, we do what we do because we love the game and we generally like the people that play the game. As long as the enjoyment is there, so is the game and considerations, and all the gains and merits that come with it. Regardless of momentary arguments and hurt feelings, I'd like to think that we all want this wonderful, fulfilling relationship to endure as much as I would like it to.

Now, let's move on...

3. Revamping Areas: I think it could very well be worth revamping some areas and things to meet the requirements of the current system and players that we have, sure. But I doubt that the players and I will consider the same things altogether. I'd like to see an upscaling of some of the descriptions and presentation of the areas that have been neglected or have been around since the birth such as the Catacombs. To me, that's part of what I enjoy about building and areas in general; What's the story here? How did this mob come to be a skeleton? Or how did this mob become a ferryman? That's all terribly interesting to me. There's a problem with going around revamping everything outside of descriptions and presentation though, and it's mostly in the long run. I'll use an analogy here: Imagine, if you will, you are climbing a ladder that reaches upwards to a point that lies outside your possible field of vision. No matter how high you climb, you can never seem to reach the top or even see it for that matter. You spend so much time raising yourself up the rungs, that you don't notice that the ground is no longer visible after a certain point. At that moment you realize this, a question pops into your head: Where are you on the ladder? The point here is I, and I would dare say much of the staff, have no desire to scale things so high as to leave the ground out of sight. And by this, I mean to say that giving the world to the top level characters while providing a mere handful of grains of sand for those who aren't trying to achieve the same things, are content with being low level, are content playing a different way, are casual players who log in just a handful of times a month or year, or otherwise aren't really worried about becoming more powerful or engaging in things that they don't already have available to them. Back to the revamping areas, sure, some of them most decidedly need to be addressed, others not so much. It is my most endearing intention to provide wholly new content in context of new areas rather than spend all my time going back through 400 zones and making sure they are up to date with the current state of the game because repackaging the same areas as something new seems not only disingenuous in some way, but runs contrary to my mission to provide new area content. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it's not really a primary focus.

Let's move on...

4. Hardcore Characters: When I worked on another mud, we introduced what we called hardcore characters. They were bigger, meaner, faster, more adept, and more powerful. There was one catch: they only got one life. We found this challenging to see how high of a level we could get. (I think we only got to level 25 at our highest) but like the coliseum, once we reached a new plateau in levels, we found it greatly rewarding. Anyways, I've been pondering how something like this might go over here as some of the arguments that have been in this thread have been centered around maintaining the challenge of the game. That, to me, could be quite challenging and, perhaps, even rewarding.

5. Ad Hominem approaches are unhelpful and unproductive, and do nothing to address anything of value nor does it move any topic of conversation forward.

6. "Worthless" things. The elements of the game that are deemed "worthless" have become so because we've increased so much over the years - the attainable zeniths of spells, skills, requirements, mob caps and capabilities and equipment caps. This is not likely to change in its present course, and speaks volumes in regards to the attempts to maintain a balance across the board and a point I was trying to make in bullet number 3. This brings me to the comments regarding the concept that immorts don't listen to what players want. That simply isn't true in such a blanket regard (or disregard depending on how you look at it). For
example, Teker asked what sort of EQ people wanted to see, and he and I have been filtering the EQ creation process alongside of my area building with those taken into account. You can see this in the item that Charybdis loads in the Water Plane Extension. But to imply or suggest that we should dump huge, sweeping changes in all at once isn't reasonable; that implication runs contrary to a fundamental logic, that logic being one of an Aristotelian nature that says simply that once you begin changing the properties of something, it becomes something else. Now, that's not to say we aren't interested in evolving or evolution of the game shouldn't be expected. But making such huge changes all at once isn't an evolution, it's an outright creation of something else.

7. Caps. Some things need to be capped like things measured in percentages because you shouldn't have some things with no element of percentile risk. Spell casting and skill performance is a good example of that. There cannot be a hundred percent guarantee with some basic elements of the game or else there's no risk and no challenge in that regard. Other things don't matter such as, say, linear measurements such as hunger and thirst.

-----------------------

Ok, so now that we're past all of that....

I won't concern myself too much with any decision process regarding how the costs of each new shop element should be scaled. One, I don't really care. Two, I'm not as intimately knowledgeable about the shops as some players and staff members. But I'd be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on some of the ideas I've presented today as way to support multiple, if not infinite, rebirths and progressions. I've taken some of the ideas from you guys and some from my own musings. I haven't really considered too many repercussions other than the things I've already discussed, so there's that. Also, keep in mind that none of these things are the result of any conversations with other immortals. This means that anything contained within this post is no indication whatsoever that you should or could expect any of the things I've addressed. You guys asked for the opinions of other immortal staff members, and, well, here I am.

Also, I wouldn't take this as the entirety of my/our ideas and plans....

There has to be _some_ mystery, after all

-Neptune

[Teron]

Apparently, I mistook Breeze's description of the avatarshop as a statement that it won't be changed, because reasons.

I guess, I was wrong.

Other concepts are deeply outside the topic of this thread.

Moving on.

I have to note that perm visage requires an option of perm glamour, because glamour can't be cast, when visaged, and to restrict bards from perm visage would be unfair.

To continue the list of things that increase linearly and aren't capped:
- damage,
- hitroll,
- hps/mana/mvs.

Things that are limited:
- item limit (perhaps, increase by 20 per rebirth?),
- move speed across several types of terrain: grass/stone (think ettins), desert, underwater, etc. (10% speed increase per rebirth, 9 times max),
- pet points for necros/clerics,
- raise the caps of primary stats, so mages could mem more, and others gain some stats as well.

I do have to note that access to primary skills (even to 1 from another class) would be the most lucrative reason to rebirth, determined by the number of rebirths the characer did.

[Filk]

This is partly why I've whipped up some, again "off-the-cuff" ideas that seem, at first glance, to be worth considering for shop ideas and improvements that would go alongside an infinite or multi-rung ladder of progression of sorts. These are:
//Gold Accumulation Bonus
//Skill Percentage Bonus
//Spell Percentage Bonus
//Water Breathing
//Perm Visage
....

These are mostly good ideas. Some of them clearly fit into current ideas of avatar shop update and rebirth stats shop.
Some others are really interesting for players, but probably will be cut down by other immortals. Like another classes prime skills, though its perfectly fit into rebirth idea. Maybe with raised exp values for levels(Like {number of rebirth}*{current amount} for each level of any rebirth cycle).
I would heavy appreciate that if eventually we will come to that idea realization.
Few others are working ones, but just not that important for players. Good to have, but nothing to aim for.

3. Revamping Areas: ...
The point here is I, and I would dare say much of the staff, have no desire to scale things so high as to leave the ground out of sight.
And by this, I mean to say that giving the world to the top level characters while providing a mere handful of grains of sand for those who aren't trying to achieve the same things,

I mostly meant tunning some mobs in areas that never beeing runned to more interesting values for players. No one will run area, if mobs there twice harder then in another area, with same exp output (if not count pops for sure). There are several of such areas on each continent for any random range of levels. Not about raising old areas for top players objectives. Though there are plenty of groups areas there, so its still counts.
Its just slow and steady work. I even would like to do it, if my application will move further eventually.

4. Hardcore Characters: When I worked on another mud, we introduced what we called hardcore characters.
They were bigger, meaner, faster, more adept, and more powerful. There was one catch: they only got one life.

I personally dont like that idea. Never was a fan of one-life characters. Though it probably not that hard to implement, but requires a lot of specific decisions. And worth only if player saying, that they will play that mode. Which i highly doubt in our conditions and game concepts.

6. "Worthless" things. The elements of the game that are deemed "worthless" have become so because we've increased so much over the years - the attainable zeniths of spells, skills, requirements, mob caps and capabilities and equipment caps.
This is not likely to change in its present course, and speaks volumes in regards to the attempts to maintain a balance across the board and a point I was trying to make in bullet number 3.

Its a question of will to do that mostly. Any situation can be resolved if somebody want to take care of it and have approvement to do that.

7. Caps. Some things need to be capped like things measured in percentages because you shouldn't have some things with no element of percentile risk.
Spell casting and skill performance is a good example of that.
There cannot be a hundred percent guarantee with some basic elements of the game or else there's no risk and no challenge in that regard.
Other things don't matter such as, say, linear measurements such as hunger and thirst.

No one asks about removing randomness in basic concepts iirc. So that is hipothetical question.

I won't concern myself too much with any decision process regarding how the costs of each new shop element should be scaled.
One, I don't really care. Two, I'm not as intimately knowledgeable about the shops as some players and staff members.
But I'd be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on some of the ideas I've presented today as way to support multiple, if not infinite, rebirths and progressions.

Most of the ideas we(and you in that post) writes ends with two things.
1. Nobody want to do it, because its hard and we all have life etc.
2. Veto from immortal team(there is opinion around, that its mostly Splork's veto, though noone knows how its exactly discussed inside).

So me and Gorka concentrated now on exactly one idea of futher character progress. Which requires least of coding.
And we even got Teker's agreement to do it. So all we need now is approvement.
Maybe some discussions about scales after we got agreement that thing should and could be done.

[*Breeze*]

2. Veto from immortal team(there is opinion around, that its mostly Splork's veto, though noone knows how its exactly discussed inside).

1. Splork and I email and I can call him if need be

2. Atm I have final say on most things.
2a. I rarely veto, and the current staff has approval to do most things. They email me before doing them mostly.

3. Your application is in my hands. Just trying to decide how to proceed.

4. I already commented on the only way I would consider non primes to use prime skills... not as powerful (scaled) and use more of whatever points it uses..mana moves etc.

Probably more I forgot to comment on but I am on my phone in my car waiting in parking lot

[Driven]

So from the looks of things, it would appear that Breeze is in support of rebirth providing prime skills, although they would be nerfed to some degree and cost more. When I made such a proposal a year back, I suggested opening up prime skills accordingly to classorder at each rebirth. For example, Driven is a mo/dr/ma/cl/ne/wa/ba/th, so first rebirth would make druid prime skills available, second rebirth would make mage prime skills available, third rebirth would make cleric prime skills available, and so forth. The idea didn't catch at the time, probably because fewer players were rebirthing and the game wasn't quite ready for it.

From a nerf point of view, here was my proposal:

Mage
- Frostbolt Costs 30 mana instead of 25. Damage is 7% lower.
- Mirror Image Costs 25 mana instead of 20, only able to cast 3 of them instead of 5.
- Reflection Costs 90 mana instead of 45.
- Blizzard Costs 65 mana instead of 50.

Cleric
- Dark mace Costs 90 mana instead of 45. Instead of completely busting sanc, it does halfway between sanc and busted sanc.
- Aerial servant Costs 100 mana instead of 50. Hitpoints of servant are 85% that of the cleric’s servant.
- Circle of healing Costs 150 mana instead of 85.
- Kylas delight Costs 500 mana instead of 250.

Necro
- Death pact Costs 200 mana instead of 100.
- Wraithform Costs 150 mana instead of 80.
- Ritual of Resurrection Costs all of your mana to create and to summon again from juju charm (and must be at max mana).

Druid
- Canopied Arbor Costs 70 mana instead of 35.
- Shield of thorns Costs 120 mana instead of 60.
- Shapeshift form to form Percentage learned 15% lower than druid prime.
- Actual forms Prime-only forms would cost 15% more (piasa, for example).

Bard
- Song of the mist Costs 20 mana instead of 10.
- Knights blessing Costs 40 mana instead of 20.
- Call of the sidhe Costs 10 mana instead of 5, charms created have only 1 charge.
- Dance of the seven luck gods Costs 150 mana instead of 100.
- Knights prayer Costs 60 instead of 40.

Monk
- Focus/Kensai Focus takes 2 more iterations, Kensai takes 1 more iteration to achieve full focus. Damage added to deathgrip/wraithtouch 15% degraded.
- Presage/Prediction 15% lower percentage of success.
- Wraithtouch Damage reduced 10%, costs 5 more mvs.
- Deathtouch Damage reduced 10%, costs 5 more mvs.

Warrior
- Parry 15% lower percentage of success.
- Second wind Costs 80 mvs for non-avatars, 40 mvs for avatars.
- Heavy armor proficiency Opens up AC to -12.0 instead of -14.0.
- Riposte 15% lower percentage of success.
- Massive critical hit 15% lower percentage of success.

Thief
- Circle Costs 5 more mvs.
- Apply poison Duration only 3 minutes, damage / other bonus from poison reduced 15%.
- Sleight of hand ?? Unsure what this even does ??

[*Breeze*]

that only works if the player keeps their CLASSO the same each time though.

[Driven]

Yea, I think that's a reasonable restriction that most people would agree to... 2nd rebirth sets you back to 1/1/1, 3rd rebirth sets you back to 1/1/1/1, etc.

[Josiah]

Driven's proposal looks like all kinds of fun. Not digging the doubled cost of some utility spells like shield of thorns, but most of the other numbers are within reason.

It looks like a lot of work, but it would definitely bring a lot of new life into the game.

If the skills are designed so they can be zeroed out during rebirth, I don't see why we'd have to lock people into a classo as long as we have a mechanism to remove skills they no longer have access to. I like the ability to alter classo to give a different feel to each life.

When does access to these skills open up? I'm not sure we want a warrior mage running around newbatia launching frostbolts... although I'm not sure what harm exactly it would cause. Probably screw up coliseum rankings for sure!

I'd probably open access to past life skills at level 1 avatar. A rebirth char can get there very quick if they aren't screwing around, and after that point most of the potential for abuse goes away.

[Josiah]

Arguments against infinite rebirth:

1) Players will get too strong!
2) Infinite Drachma is bad! (See part 1)
3) Ain't nobody got time for that! (Yeah, this one is totally a strawman)

I'd like to challenge the assumption that autoquests need to be cleared every rebirth. The initial quest/coliseum reset for Josiah (Nov 2016) was done almost as an afterthought.

While it has been enjoyable going through some of that content again, it may not be appropriate for serial rebirthers to get that same benefit every time. This could help mitigate concern #2.

We could reset autoquests every other rebirth, or every third, or even never again after the first time. After a single rebirth, I'm already in the position of considering the purchase of tokens of extreme alteration rather than actual quest equipment.

I don't have a rebuttal for concern #1, although some previous players have suggested that it can be safely ignored.

[Gorka]

I don't like much driven's proposal, complicated to implement, difficult to balance if something is not quite right and there is no justification for some of the figures he's choosen... and once again, it's destroying the idea of primes. It's always the same people who come out with a boner at any suggestion of weakening primes. I love the idea of difference, it gives the game flavor and supports the idea of people working together based on there skill sets. You mess with that at your peril. Does the game get better by making Sochi redundant in a group... does the game get better by making Ezekiel as a mage redundant to 1.1k warrior mana with massive BONUS_SPELL_BONUS eq?

Also when I look at his proposal in the context of a solo xp run, I'd only stand to gain advantage from death touch. When the rubber hits the road, not many prime skills in this game get you xp faster, and if other primes skills are to be less economical, then how will they be much better than the non-prime options we all have now? At the end of the day, I'd much rather more power in my prime skills.

Here is the stats from one of my xp runs...

REPORT Run Num: 1 Run Time: 664 Run XP: 116092891 XP Rate: 629419288.55422 REPORT Time Resting: 16 Time Standing: 420 Time Fighting: 225 Time Sleeping: 4

It's a reoccuring theme in every run... normally more time is spent in the standing position than any other position during the run. Most prime skills won't effect these numbers... the elephant in the room no one talks about is in this mud is mobility. These prime skill ideas are like over sweet cakes and sickly chocolates, they seem good for us, but either make little difference or potentially could ruin what makes each character special.

[Driven]

Gorka will never have the spell saves, the spell bonus, the mana, nor the mana regen of Ezekiel, so how is gaining access to frostbolt changing the unique nature of the classes? You will still be better played as a warrior than a mage, but now you have some more toys to play with. I don't see the issue. Sochi's songs can affect far more people's than yours ever will and so we will always go with his gods of war over yours.

[Driven]

I have a lot more to say, but it's hard on mobile. This game is not only about max xp/minute. Just because you don't increase your effeciency in xp doesn't automatically disqualify a feature from something that is fun or worthy to strive for. Getting piasa will be silly awesome. Getting second wind and parry will be silly awesome. Getting the ability to have mirros and solo Yrdan the ninja. Trust me when I say wraithtouch is awesome. Playing with a juju zombie and building a new eqset for followers... with second wind will be amazing. Do they all increase my damage/millisecond? No, but they are FUN.

[Filk]

2. Atm I have final say on most things.
2a. I rarely veto, and the current staff has approval to do most things. They email me before doing them mostly.

Breeze, would you be so nice and comment that post
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4851&start=30#p38852

And aprrove it, or say why you think its not posible.
So Teker could start working on it when he have time and desire

4. I already commented on the only way I would consider non primes to use prime skills... not as powerful (scaled) and use more of whatever points it uses..mana moves etc.

Well. Its good point. And Driven offered some mostly good confines. While i agree with Gorka, that a lot of non-prime things doesnt change anything at all, it still could be fun to have.
And with rebirth stats shop, that would be another way to improve chars in two different directions. So player could choose if they want to rebirth to add diversity to their playstyle, or get exp for extra stats. Any purchases in rebirth shop should follow same rules as avatar shop do for non 9x40 - only 1/2 applies.

[Driven]

Agree, Fluffy, I see the rebirth shop as a short-term thing and the rebirth progression more long-term. Let's get a creator-decision on the rebirth shop so we can move forward with that.

[Gorka]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MStoUfrsCig

Gorka will never have the spell saves, the spell bonus, the mana, nor the mana regen of Ezekiel, so how is gaining access to frostbolt changing the unique nature of the classes?

Go check my 6+ high scores in the coliseum, and then try and tell me my mage powers aren't already functioning higher than most mages... and here you are wanting to fiddle with it more. It already has players bleeting discrimination and white warrior privilege. The fact of the matter is, I out blast a large proportion of mages in this game with my saves and spell bonus already without even second winding, and it's kind of stupid... and you want to fiddle with about 20 of these game balances all at once. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Your idea sounds attractive, in the same way beauty is only skin deep. I'd be more inclined to make a common new set of rebirth skills every rebirth can get to try and limit non-prime specialization, while strengthening our prime identity. Say no to sloth communism and equality of outcome! Let people be individuals who are special for a reason so we are forced to work together better. You're attacking the very foundation of the game - that is warriors, clerics, mages, druids, necro's, bards, monks and thieves come together because of there individual inadequacies to group so that they are better together. I don't think we should mess with such a core foundational principle of the game, there are millions of other ideas to try without "putting girls in the boy scouts."