Base AC/AMC and Tao's? - Important!

[Provectus]

Spent lots of time playing a Tao, I know why they're ****ed atm, everyone wants to solo the world.

Mir wasn't made that way and I'm considering changing the concept of the server from major pk to minor pk & minor group - Need to discuss it with Sek and Red though.

Base ac/amc, what's the problem? People gaining so much from items (that give them some of their best attack stats) that they become hit-immune, meaning they don't need hp pots/a Tao to slow the mobs or bless/heal them, so what's the use of a Tao? Well they're insanely good defence to attackers and... Ummm, red poison, great for bosses, rather poor for the vast amount of mobs (unless we can make aoe poison use red?).

I'm thinking we abolish this idea of hit-immunity, maybe make it more like "If you want hit-immunity, every item has to be pure ac/amc, leaving you with basically no attack stats", this means you can have a 'running kit', for getting to a boss - Ideal for people who don't want to play with mobs. This means when hunting you'll get hit and you'll probably get hit a lot, a Wiz won't be able to solo FF a group of 40+ mobs with no fear of death, they'll need either a Tao (to Curse) or a second Wiz to FF beside them, like in the old Euro days with TS.

Tao's are a support class, we've removed the need (and the possibility, to a certain extent) for support, so why should people play them? They're a weak Warrior with spells that are situational at best, either we throw poison attacks out to a load of bosses (Para?), or we remove base ac/amc to a degree... Or both?

Thoughts please, this is an important topic as we're talking a big difference between how the game works (and thus means I need to re-stat a lot of items, lol).

Edit: I condensed it! (Yes it's actually shorter than before, 12 step program ftw!).

[Lone]

imo base stats should be low. after a year of the LR with the base stats that have crept in with the various item changes/upgrades it meant we (by we i mean shirley :P ) have just had to go through and restat alot of stuff removing alot of base stats and replacing them with higher end stats.


Base stats should always be achieveable but as you say they shouldnt have uber attack with them.

so i'd agree lower the base stats considerably and increase the top end if people complain to much



(personally i still think Taoists are the best all round class though )

[Provectus]

I think one of the constraints that is certainly a problem for 2.3 (and before) is Tao's... Give them no base sc and they're a joke, give them loads and they're doing pretty hefty amounts of damage with poison and curse lasts forever (but to be fair, they have basically NOTHING else going for them with so much base ac/amc about, they deserve it, lol).

I must admit, Tao's do have a very strong point or two, but realistically one is only taken to certain bosses for the "If **** hits the fan" option, which in most caves you don't care about (you just run back if you die/tt, lol), but in harder ones that take an age to get to the KR, then they're worth having.

ExtremeKingsTemple; 2-3 hours with Advent, 6+ hours with Advent and Yoof, 2~ hours with Advent, Yoof and Tallis - I was great when with Adv (as he needed a good amount of healing and due to our killing speed my melee dmg + red psn was decent), when Yoof joined I was less useful, but still a core part of the group. When Tallis joined, we just shot through the place with him TUing things that took us 3 10s odd to kill, lol. I want to make places like this, strong, hard hitting mobs that require a team effort to get through, or tactics (hide the Tao in the corner!).

[kingmerlin]

Sounds like some1 has actualy thought about it and a way to get taos useful again:P gd work

[Neo]

<3 imo plz make taos relevant to mir again
ps if i make a tao who wants to be my hunting buddy

[Provectus]

Got some good ideas between myself and Dashiva last night, but I need to make sure I'm not going too far, so feedback is great (getting Ren/Sek's via msn/other sections, so I'll amend posts if they don't ).

Firstly, it's pretty clear that base ac/amc is a big problem, as it makes players hit immune, so they don't need hp pots/heals - Lower base ac/amc, np? No, in most places you NEED to be hit immune, or the mobs ravage you in a very short amount of time, so how can we fix this? Fewer mobs (not LOADS fewer, but a good portion fewer - This means Wiz's won't bomb ahead of the other two classes with easy mass lures) that hit fairly hard, this means you'd ideally (solo) be taking them 1-3 at a time, with a Tao, 5+ at a time.

As there would be fewer mobs, which makes Wiz/Warr levelling a fair bit slower, the mobs would yield more exp each, it'd also push people to use some degree of skill and control to level (my last server meant fw'ing a huge number of mobs, then circle them use an icestorm equivalent spell to do further damage).

Even if we bump the exp quite substantially, this will bring Wiz/War/Tao levels MUCH closer together, meaning we can happily give Wiz's the ability to solo bosses that Warriors have, without Warr/Tao's crying "But you level fast as hell, we kill bosses fast as hell, that's how it works", we can bring some form of balance to the game, where everyone can do everything solo to a do-able degree, but grouping with 1-2 people will make it much easier and more efficient.

[Provectus]

Putting this in a new post as it's rather separate to the last one;

The other thing that Tao's seem to 'need', to make them a decent levelling partner is... Drum roll please! ... Or not; A heal that does instant hp, rather than a very quick ticking one, I'm thinking on a 5-10 second CD (think of FlamingSword if you don't know what a CD - cooldown, is), big gaps between level 0-1, 1-2 and 2-3 (I'm thinking 50ish for 0, 70 for 1, 85 for 2 and 95 for 3); Lvl 0 = +1% hp, Lvl 1 = +2% hp, Lvl 2 = +4% hp, Lvl 3 = +6% hp. Meaning that at level 1 skill, with no sc on you'd give the person you heal 2% of their hp back, we'd then modify this with SC, maybe to a max of 10% (15% possibly - Thinking that a Warrior only has like 3k hp at 90 odd ? That's 300hp every 5/10s, lol), anything that took it over 10% could carry on like a normal heal (slowly tops you up), so there's no "SC is pointless if you just want to heal" point.

Sek's been tempting me with the Sub-Class idea for weeks (think he's made Ren a believer already, lol), but I've honestly never seen one in practise, gladly Extreme has decided to use it, so we shall see how that goes. We'll be having ReBirth regardless, as we have some VERY nice spells in store for people who get there, I won't reveal anything, but I'll say it's WELL worth your time levelling, lol.

Ren's typing a post about skill levels in general as we speak, may of already finished by the time I've posted this.

[D1craig]

the only items on mirrev that dont have defence on atm are necklace'.

rings should never have base ac or amc if any at all, armour should be the only item that has base defence on it.

the old euro items are perfect for balancing the game (the armours) the stats have never changed on them.

maybe give taos a skill (soulshield, blessedarmour) that adds base defence.

i did point this **** out after mirrev had been around for about 8 months.

with less base defence does it make bosses easier to make challenging?

[Renatus]

Like I said, needed to make some food.

Instant heals sound great, but need to keep a cap on them so they're not like sun pots on an endless supply. Maybe high mana usage? That might negate the reason to bother using it though, I like how Tao's are endless hunters, if mana drops from the mobs they kill.

SubClass thing is really interesting, I've dabbled in WoW and other games where they've had a SubClass type thing, it really does make a huge difference to the class, you can be a healer or someone who does great damage with the change of kit and your SubClass, excellent addition.

It doesn't make a difference (with 2.6) D1craig, as in 2.3 and before bosses hit xxx-xxx, ie 100-100 or 150-150. With 2.6 they'll hit xxx-yyy 100-150, 180-250, etc.

[MrMyagi]

Sub classes are good if they work well. Not sure what creative license you guys have with 2.6 but if you can write whole new skills and not rehash old ones. As in they have to do the same thing but can look different then there is a hell of alot you can do with subclasses.

You can even change how bosses work if you can do this with subclasses as you can make different bosses do different things that require certain skills for.