A few things i'd like to see in the game. (player friendly-non balance factors)

[old.Tohtori]

- Alt-Vault: Basicly a way to trade stuff with your alts so you don't have ot trust a stranger or find a friend and interrupt their play.

- Telepads: We have teles to SI, BG's...why not build ones for the major populated areas. As an example in Midgard they could be, Ft. Atla-Gotar-Mularn. Enough with the horsey rides. Save those for the smaller towns.

- Trainers outside Aegir(SI only): I hate it, since my comp ain't uber, to run through the city with major lag(meaning a slideshow) to my trainer and sometimes LD just because i'd like to train. Other way would be to give the crafters a place just outside the city(with merchants) to lessen the lag in the main area.

- NPC Crafters: We all know how bitchy it is to find a crafter to do a better quality armor/weapons then those in the shops. I suggest some NPC crafters from who you could buy an item. It would cost a bit more(10% as an example) and it would take a moment for the NPC to make it. By adjusting the quality, you could get a masterpiece but it would cost even more and take more time to make.

- NPC Group members: You know it. Tanks, healers or pullers. You could basicly "rent" them. They would share your loot(common loot), cash and exp as a normal player. If they die, they die unless you can resurrect them in time.(say two minutes?). This would give those classes that are having trouble finding a group, new players trying to find a group and just people who have a hard time finding a group to have, maybe a bit more fun.

Just my ideas. These really wouldn't hurt the RvR situation so i don't think anyone would mind.

EDIT: Yeah yeah, i made sense...get over it.

 

[)nick(]

How about no, but lets nerf savages anyway!

 

[gengi]

Good ideas, well put, succinct, sounds UOish (some of the ideas, the teleport one, Kal Ort Por 4tehwin111!!!) NPC group members, good idea but how to control them, would probably need turn based combat ??? NPC crafters, how do you fix prices ??? The trading thing is good, but you may as well just have one huge vault for the account. Trainers, don't see any need to change but I play hib and have a reasonable comp so I am willing to concede that point

later

 

[old.Tohtori]

Originally posted by gengi
Good ideas, well put, succinct, sounds UOish (some of the ideas, the teleport one, Kal Ort Por 4tehwin111!!!) NPC group members, good idea but how to control them, would probably need turn based combat ??? NPC crafters, how do you fix prices ??? The trading thing is good, but you may as well just have one huge vault for the account. Trainers, don't see any need to change but I play hib and have a reasonable comp so I am willing to concede that point

later

Don't know about UO but i can answer a few.

NPC Group members could just consider you as the leader, follow and aid in battle. Basicly like bonedancers bonies. Also an interface like with a pet could be a possibility. Nobody said they would be like actual groupmembers but they'd be an alternate for sologrind. And the lack of reason in AI would encourage(?) people to find playergroups.

NPC crafter prices would be compared to the actual item prices. As an example:

A Steel Battle Axe costs 3g at normal prices.

You go to an NPC crafter and say: Craft Steel BAttle Axe 95

A Crafted Steel Battle Axe(95% Qua) would cost 10% more(3g30s)

You go to an NPC crafter and say: Craft Steel BAttle Axe 100

A crafted Steel Battle Axe (Masterpiece) would cost, say 30% more(3g90s).

And so on.

The trading vault i said up there is an account vault, just bad wording on my behalf.

 

[amazingsteve]

Originally posted by -nicolas-
How about no, but lets nerf savages anyway!

:great:

oh and about ditch horse rides and givf teleports, we whined when they didn´t get horses, now we got them, u still whine

 

[warlock_es]

Originally posted by old.Tohtori
You go to an NPC crafter and say: Craft Steel BAttle Axe 100
A crafted Steel Battle Axe (Masterpiece) would cost, say 30% more(3g90s).

Are u kidding ?
MP stuff is about 13.25 times more expensive than material cost for one item.

Alt-vault:
Good idea. However, in Foundations you can simply use your house vault.

Telepads:
NO WAY. It is MMORPG, not Quake 3 with it's personal teleporter.
Present teleporters is just a nesessary evil.

Trainers outside Aegir:
Yeah ! Givf !

NPC Crafters:
NO WAY.

NPC Group members:
Good idea, but i doubt Mythic can make it.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Originally posted by amazingsteve

oh and about ditch horse rides and givf teleports, we whined when they didn´t get horses, now we got them, u still whine

Err...when didn't you have horses? Beta? They've been around as long as i can remember. And i didn't whine, heck, make tiipii using more expensive. That should fix it.

Originally posted by warlock_es
Are u kidding ?
MP stuff is about 13.25 times more expensive than material cost for one item.

Don't know about prices, just an example.

Originally posted by warlock_es
NPC Crafters: NO WAY.

Nice comment. Care to reason it as a sideorder?

 

[Khalen]

Cool a free (no irl cash) buffbot cleric for rent would be nice Because I think that is gonna be the class most rented and still people would go solo then basically.

The alt vault is nice idea too but as said a housevault is similar in some ways.

The NPC Crafters gonna be cheaper then normal ones? Nice way to destroy crafting in my opinion...

I've got a new one tbh.

What about a kind of guild agenda ingame (and personal if needed). And some sort of PM system when someone is offline.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Originally posted by Khalen
The NPC Crafters gonna be cheaper then normal ones? Nice way to destroy crafting in my opinion...

Actually i didn't say that. I just don't know all the prices. The NPC crafters would charge -more- then a merchant would for, an axe as an example:

Axe cost in shop: 1g

Axe cost in NPC Crafter: 1.5g

On a sidenote, i just quote the stuff that is not positive feedback. On the positive, thanks

EDIT: Oh and yeah, housing, forgot

 

[old.ivan]

Nah, bud, hiring mercs as your groupies would just ruinate the entire MMORPG concept imo. If a person wants to play with AI controlled players he/she can go play M+M series or Diablo.
Besides it will be rather hard to integrate, imagine being a cleric and running a band of npc tanks/casters ... how long will it take to assign with which spell to pull, who should guard which char etc etc etc .. a good number of management issues will have to be resolved.

NPC crafters is a good idea, but, personally, even given a chance to buy from an npc i would rather support my own guildie who invested cash and time into the craft


edit : at least for me the social factor in this game that makes my day, not the chance to be uber superior and pwn

 

[Driwen]

axe in shop costs 1 gold and is 85% then material cost for crafter would be around 70 silver. Lets say 94% with npc crafter costs 3 gold? As otherwise the 85% shit doesnt get sold anymore. If you want to implement this imo, it would be for the people who have the money to get higher quality and cant be bothered to find a crafter. So it should be damn pricy.

ok so 94% 3 times as expensive as merchant? Then 99% 6.75 gold? MP 40 gold? So that would be make it:

3 gold npc, 70 silver crafter material cost (would still need some to get profit)

6.75 gold npc for 99%, 1.58 gold crafter material cost for 99%
40 gold npc for mp, 9.28 gold crafter materialcost for mp.

Now this gives you a punishment for going to the npc and leaves 85% still as a reasonable option.

 

[old.Tohtori]

A small clearing on the NPC Group issue.

I didn't actually mean that you would hire mercs, shamans and such. Just a simplified version of the main classes:

Puller

You select a target and click on a [pull] button on the interface. The appropriate NPC then shoots, throws, insults the mobs mother and effectively takes aggro from a distance.

Tank

Select mob. Press [Attack] on interface and the tank attacks the mob. Nothing fancy.

Healer

Works as the bonedancers healer. Heals when needed. Limited manapool naturally.

Buffer

Provides buffs to your char, not big ones but still something.


The classes would do what they are meant to do, so a healer won't attack a mob and will get ganked if the mob attacks it. So you wouldn't be runningaround with a group of pallies by your side, just some realm "volunteers".

Thanks driwen for the technical mumbo

 

[chretien]

Account vaults will be in foundations as has already been said.
Telepads, not pro or anti particularly. Id be more interested in every horse merchant selling tickets in both directions.
Trainers outside major cities - er there are. There are about six trainers per class dotted around. Why go to the capital if you just want to sink some skill points?
NPC crafters. No, no, no, no, no! All it would do is make a lot of people very bitter that they'd wasted tons of cash and weeks of /played. Who'd order an MP from a player which could take days to make and cost a variable amount when they can go to an NPC and get a guaranteed price MP in minutes. I wouldn't be against merchants selling all tiers of equipment but at 85% quality still (although I suspect that tailors would be upset at the loss of trade from armourcrafters if that happened).
NPC group members, why not play Baldurs Gate if you want to control a whole party?

 

[old.ivan]

I see, i must have misinterpreted your initial post.
All-round ok idea, but i would rather see tasks all the way to 30-35 as a substitute to the groups <when theres lack of em>.

 

[old.Tohtori]

chretin:

Trainers are not around the Aegir area as i said.

About the NPC crafters. They would ofcourse take time to make the MP, again, minutes is just an example as i don't know how long the crafting takes, costs, whatnot.

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by chretien
NPC crafters. No, no, no, no, no! All it would do is make a lot of people very bitter that they'd wasted tons of cash and weeks of /played. Who'd order an MP from a player which could take days to make and cost a variable amount when they can go to an NPC and get a guaranteed price MP in minutes. I wouldn't be against merchants selling all tiers of equipment but at 85% quality still (although I suspect that tailors would be upset at the loss of trade from armourcrafters if that happened).

uhm the idea is that the order does take hours and it costs 4 times as much as the base cost for the crafter. So lets say the crafter asks for double the amount, you still loose twice as much on going to that npc. Now I dont know, but I think mp's are generally expensive enough from crafters. Now I would have to pay 2-3 times as much? To be honest I would rather find a crafter, besides it giving me more joy when I have it.

 

[chretien]

Something I'd like to see is an editable in game journal. Basically it's a simple text editor which you can open from the command window and saves when you log. Currently I keep track of crafting orders on a forest of post-it notes stuck to my monitor, would be dead handy if I had an in game scratch pad. You could even have the current guild and alliance motd at the top of every page. Yes I know I can alt-tab and use wordpad or whatever but I like to immerse myself in an RPG and don't like to tab out and be reminded I'm playing a computer game.

A mailbox system for leaving notes for other players who aren't in game would be nice. Perhaps it could be a notice board in the player or guild house. You're told when you log in or zone that you have a message waiting so you know to go to the house and read your mail.

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by chretien
A mailbox system for leaving notes for other players who aren't in game would be nice. Perhaps it could be a notice board in the player or guild house. You're told when you log in or zone that you have a message waiting so you know to go to the house and read your mail.

mail box sounds to high tech for me, but with housing and you have a house. Maybe they could leave a note there and when you get around to visit your own house you can see those. But imo no notifying of you got mail, as thats kinda weird.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Originally posted by driwen
mail box sounds to high tech for me, but with housing and you have a house. Maybe they could leave a note there and when you get around to visit your own house you can see those. But imo no notifying of you got mail, as thats kinda weird.

Too high tech? Well let's use a carrier pigeon like they did back in the days

You enter a zone and a bird poops on your head and leaves you a note.

 

[chretien]

So there are no clas trainers for your class anywhere else except Aegir? only one set of class trainers anywhere seems a bit odd to me. I can't speak from experience as I don't play Mid but I know for my class (paladin) if I want to avoid Camelot or Gothwaite I can go to Ardribards Retreat, Caer Ulfwych, Caer Diogel, Fort Gwyntell or Swanton Keep.

As for the NPC crafter idea. I've spent a full week on masterpiece sets before. They also cost about 15 times the base price on average although there is no way to guarantee that (I've made MP plate legs that ended up costing 27 plat). How are you going to price MPs so that people can afford them without destroying the pc crafter trade? If it's only a little more than the average player crafted set, people will go for that because it's a guarantee that I can't give them. If it cost outrageously more then no-one will use it. Why destroy a large part of the community like that?

 

[old.Tohtori]

No trainers outside Aegir, not sure about the other town but i don't think there are any there(if i remember correctly).

There lies the problem with the NPC Crafter. Ofcourse it should cost more then a player would. Perhaps an average cost/time table could be greated.

Also, people usually pay only after the job is done and this could be achieved by placing the completed item(if it took, say, 3 days to make) into the vault. You would then "trade" it out of your vault with the appropriate plat/gold/silver.

EDIT: Mostly this NPC crafter idea is to support the low level playerbase.

 

[-Lonewolf-]

They will never introduce buyable NPC's to group with because of many reasons

1) How many can you buy? Where does it stop? How quickly will they react? Too many variables to consider? Do they buff? Instas? End chant? Fight? Etc etc etc

2) Mythic want people to group in PvE and RvR its what made EQ so popular and prevents solo playing so why would you have NPC's just to promote the soloing ideal, I can see a hundred infils now with NPC Clerics

There are many more technical and moral issues but no point going into them

Oh and as for portals the problem with them is where do you stop putting them if you put too many the land is not experienced and people just zap through them AKA UO's recall stones spell

 

[old.Tohtori]

Lonewolf, like i said up there you wouldn't be hiring mercs, paladins or things like that. But true, they probably wouldn't add that into the game.

Another idea i had for the solo"hell" ease:

-Some minor pets. Such as a dog, to give a minor PvE add. A kitten to give you a "morale" buff of sorts. Something fun and not too heavy as aid.

Probably right about the tele-adds. Bad idea. This is why discussions work

 

[allnewdave]

The crafter problem has been addressed wit the player market system. See Camelot herald for patch notes on the subject.

I also believe that guild housing addresses the vault issue. In a crappy Mythic style way.

Horses are another system (and there are many in DAoC) of wasting time. I hate them. Portals everywhere is the sensible option.

Hirable NPC's is a funky idea, tanks n stuff would be easy but to create AI for healers etc would be pretty hard.

A simpler idea, and not really a bad one would be a Pet Hire NPC. Where a Healer class could hire a tank pet an assasin a buff pet and so on. The mechanics are already in the game for this. And I cant imagine it being one of teh hardest things to implement.

 

[-Lonewolf-]

I am not being negative just throwing in problems so you can discuss it more fully

Anyhow about pets wouldn't happen what would stop a group of 8 people all hiring pets and then using them to help in fighting mobs

You'd make PvE so easy with buffed pets as well as people fighting mobs it would be like a 16 man/woman group

Just my thoughts

 

[old.Tohtori]

Didn't take it negatively at all and all comments are welcome.

Ofcourse these pets/npc's/whatnot couldn't be used in group situations. You have to hire them solo, if you try to join a group while having a pet:

[You must release your pet first]

Explained with the fact that it only likes you

 

[allnewdave]

It would need to be 'balanced' so that the pet took a players worth of xp and loot. Thus 8 people with 8 pets would have to fight twice as many mobs to get the same xp/cash.

What I had in mind was a solution to a missing class in a group.

Examples:
7 tanks and 1 buff/heal pet.
Mages and Healers with one taunt pet.

I wasnt thinking purely of the solo player.

 

[hiban]

Agreed, the teleports is a but too futuristic. But the "rent a grp member" sounds promising... Would be cool to hire someone. kinda like a mercenary in diablo 2. Also, you should be able to chose what kind of NPC you want to hire. Like pac healer, aug shammy, cave shammy etc... Could work as a normal pet. Put on passive, and he heals and buffs only. Defensive: stuns/hits/nukes/dots/debuff when u get hit. Send to attack and he attack speed debuff/stuns or throws a bolt/dot or whatever... This could be a very nice add to the game, especially for us who arent LAME bb users! (its more like i dont have a 2nd comp, and dont wanna pay for another account, but anyways ) imo, they shouldnt be able to ress you/you cant ress them. When they are dead, they are dead. Also, u would lose him if u die/ld/port etc, just as any other pet. Ofc, as Tohtori said, wouldnt be like a real player. No high dmg output, no 500hp heals, no 75 stat buffs... just something to help the fight a bit. Kinda lika pet or charmed mob. i also think they should be pretty expensive... it should be like the last thing to do if u cant find any grp, or u need help with an epic that u know u have to kill an orange mob.. etc etc

Strange noone thought about this before? Atleast i havent heard or thought of it myself before.


15th edit now (sigh..) these shoulnt be usable in RvR ofc. Give them limited conc/end/pow or make buffs on 10-15 min timer

 

[Driwen]

Originally posted by old.Tohtori
-Some minor pets. Such as a dog, to give a minor PvE add. A kitten to give you a "morale" buff of sorts. Something fun and not too heavy as aid.

a kitten that you can buy and use only when solo and it gives an 1% increase in damage vs mobs? Just more for the fluffy factor than for real, also when it gets hit it disappears. Kinda like the fylgja pets of the midgard goa quest? "Dies" when you attack, itself attacks or gets attacked or if you are in a group. Now just remove the part of when you attack and you might have a semi useful pve add thats funny?

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

Originally posted by old.Tohtori
- Alt-Vault: Basicly a way to trade stuff with your alts so you don't have ot trust a stranger or find a friend and interrupt their play.

Not a bad idea. I think they're doing something about this in foundations.

- Telepads: We have teles to SI, BG's...why not build ones for the major populated areas. As an example in Midgard they could be, Ft. Atla-Gotar-Mularn. Enough with the horsey rides. Save those for the smaller towns.

I'd rather see many, many more horse routes, and more direct routes. Ideally, player controlled mounts.

- Trainers outside Aegir(SI only): I hate it, since my comp ain't uber, to run through the city with major lag(meaning a slideshow) to my trainer and sometimes LD just because i'd like to train. Other way would be to give the crafters a place just outside the city(with merchants) to lessen the lag in the main area.

Like the horse routes it's a compromise between convenience and creating a 'real' world. I wouldn't complain if there were more trainers. One way might be to make all base class (Seer, Viking, etc.) trainers capable of training any of their sub-classes.

- NPC Crafters: We all know how bitchy it is to find a crafter to do a better quality armor/weapons then those in the shops. I suggest some NPC crafters from who you could buy an item. It would cost a bit more(10% as an example) and it would take a moment for the NPC to make it. By adjusting the quality, you could get a masterpiece but it would cost even more and take more time to make.

We have NPC crafters, they're called merchants. They produce crap stuff, but it's better to promote player tradeskills. I'd rather add stuff that makes it easier for orders to be taken and fulfilled by player crafters.

- NPC Group members: You know it. Tanks, healers or pullers. You could basicly "rent" them. They would share your loot(common loot), cash and exp as a normal player. If they die, they die unless you can resurrect them in time.(say two minutes?). This would give those classes that are having trouble finding a group, new players trying to find a group and just people who have a hard time finding a group to have, maybe a bit more fun.

Nope, bad idea. The reason the game works is because of the interdependence of the players. NPC mercs would just turn it into a solo-only game. There are plenty of classes who can solo, I suggest you try one of them.