Because we don't need to. There are too many classes out there with skills/spells that overlap each other. For instance: Cleric, Psionic, Cyborg, Monk, Barbarian, Knight, Bard and even Mercenary all have some way of healing themselves.

What use of Clerics now? "Nah, I just spam self repair. Then I use my meth cell and I'm all good."

So many classes have double attack and triple attack. Why don't we just give them to Rangers and leave it that way?

There are a lot of them that are like this. It'd be a pain in the ass to change/rid ourselves with so many of the skills we depend on, but as far as grouping goes, it would help it substantially. If only Cleric had heal, then more people would play them. If only Monks had a knockdown, if Knights or Barbarians had tanking skills, if only Ranger or Cyborg could attack so fast and so on…

I think it's also partly that everyone who plays right now is either insanely powerful or weak as shite. I feel like I have no peers, save for a few exceptions. And what sucks is that half of the more powerful player base is out to kill everyone. I'd never ask Crescendo if he'd like to group with me for an Abandoned Keep run, for instance.

Besides, the game would be such a drag to play without double and triple attack…

Just my humble opinion, of course.

I'll pose a serious question:

Are there any zones out there that you NEED to group in order to run through? Like, I hear that Cybertech is pretty hard and some of the levels of Hell are pretty tough. What about that new part of Heaven?

I realize that those are all sort of high level zones. It seems to me that sometimes new players will group together to run ogres instead of halflings or something like that… but if they try to go somewhere too hard, they both just get destroyed.

Interesting topic, Deneb.

It still comes down to the fact that most classes are so self-sufficient. Crescendo is insanely powerful because his class allows that to happen. And, I honestly believe that those who're at the top of the food chain are out to kill people mainly because they're bored. I remember I pk'd you, Kyosuke, merely because I just had happened to run into you.

As to zones that NEED grouping…not really…

Some zones that are indeed difficult still do not need grouping. Hell, in my opinion, is better off ran alone. Heaven and it's adjacent zone, I also solo this is various classes. Cybertech, once again, I never need any help with this place.

Short of changing the various classes (because I can't do that :P), is there anything we can do from a zone/builder standpoint to make grouping a more attractive alternative? What makes a zone hard? Aggro mobs? Mobs that assist each other? Damage searches in every room? Increased hitpoints and/or damage on mobs?

Make door in a zone be locked unless you push a button in a differnt room. For example: Room 1 has a button and person 1 waits there. Person 2 goes into Room 2 which has a locked door. Person 1 pushes button and the door in Room 2 opens and Person 2 can go through but if person 1 leaves room 1 then the door slams shut again. That way you'd need more than 1 person to advance. And then on the otherside of the door, person 2 could sneak others in or something because you'd obviously need a way to get back together once you passed the trap/puzzle.

When I said various classes, I mean that I run it with many of my multis. The point was that I don't need help running the zone, just a little exploration and knowledge of the zone and I'm good. But, I think you understood that much.

I like Tower's idea. Though, there should be number requirements to killing mobs as well, not just accessing a zone. Yes, one way to do that would to make all mobs harder, but, I think it'd be better if we changed a lot of our class' skills/spells. Mages, for example, are extremely self-sufficient. We want to not have one class complement theirself but complement another. LOCUST REGENERATION is too bad ass. Get rid of it. Yeah, I know it seems harsh (mages wouldn't have a form of regaining mana and tanking), but it's part of a process. Let's put locust regen on a bard and change the spell (now, song) a little. It can now be sung upon other classes instead of mobs so one would cast it on someone so whoever they attack will convert to stolen mana as well. It lasts overtime. And, Mana regained does not equate to one mana for every one point of damage, perhaps one mana for every ten points of damage.

I also think word stun is a problem in this sense.

If you wanted make a mob harder, just increase it's skill/spell usage.

One way, that many of you know of, to make it easier to take on a high damaging mob is to make it so you're attacking it and it does not either hit you or isn't attacking you. But, skills/spells are different.

Let's take two mobs that have both do a lot of damage, Tkk' and the tarrasque. Keep in mind that the difficulty isn't the same. Over a certain amount of time, I believe that Tkk' would do more damage than tarrasque since Tkk' does decent damage and attacks much much faster. But we're all afraid of the tarrasque. Why? One reason, his skills.

Another thing that always made me group was the help of having someone else's spells that would compliment mine. I had lecture, which was a nonviolent way to put someone to sleep and would group with a mage that had drowsy so they could keep them from waking up.
If we had more spells/skills that would compliment the abilities of a separate class, most likely a similar class so it would be unlikely someone would have the two as remort classes, it would encourage people to group together. Or possibly even a special move that person 1 would "ready" and then the second person would launch the dual attack.

Barb1 readies Double Trouble. Barb2 launches double trouble. The two launch into the Ferocious Bunny!

(though I don't know if that would be able to be done in code)

What makes a zone difficult? Well lets take at some of the zones I hate the absolute most…Bronze Citadel and Heaven. What makes these zones hard you ask? Summoning mobs. Yep, there, I said it…The single biggest reason why I hate those zones, and also the single biggest reason I DO NOT want a group there. The problem with summoning mobs is you get flooded, there is absolutely no way to keep up with how fast mobs summon short of aoeing (fission, sonic disruption, etc)

When I'm in a group in these zones, I actually have a harder time in them simple because overall damage output is lowered. What would be cool is if the original "in zone" mobs were stronger…and if they could still summon, but it needs to end there. A summoned mob should not be able to summon more mobs, cause then things just get out of hand.

Taken to the extreme, if/when hell is finally redone, if things progress how they currently are no one will run it since the mobs get progressively harder, but the only way to keep up with killing them is to be solo…but if you're going it alone then you aren't going to last long enough to kill the mobs…

So after all that rambling I guess my point is this, if you want to encourage grouping, Have less big swarms of mobs, and more individually powerful ones.

I agree 1000% Most games have a large mob that will spawn a number of minions to do its bidding. Tempus has large mobs that spawn hordes of other large mobs that then can spawn the original mob type again. Anyone who's ever seen what happens when you get the High Priestess of the Silver Tower teleported and then have devils start attacking the archons until all of Modrian is filled can see that porting mobs could use some rework.

Agreed, ported mobs that port more mobs bars grouping. Doing this would definitely promote grouping in areas such as hell. Although, it would just make it easier for someone to solo it. The grouping problem that I see still exists.

*Doing away with this would definitely… is what I meant to put.

Not necessarily Deneb, as long as the mobs are more difficult (I'd assume the mobs would be made stronger in exchange for their losing uber-port gen 23409230 skill)

How much harder are we talking about?

Not particularly sure…a good start would be more dam reducts/pro lightning on those kinds of mobs though…

Sounds right on to me.

Would there be a way to code an aura around a monster to emit a status changing effect? In addition to being shielded from elemental attacks themselves, a high level mob could emit an aura of -50% prot_lit and attack hardcore with chain lightning.

And while we're on the subject of elemantal status effects, it would be cool to see more done with that. I know there are already mobs that are more vulnerable to certain elements (robots vs electricity is the only one that comes to mind), but what about mobs that take it the extra mile and actually absorb those attacks. If I'm fighting a lightning elemental and cast lightning bolt on it, it should probably heal instead of just having less damage taken. If that would be possible, we could also have very high level mobs have very little weakness to elemental attacks except 1…and then during the battle have it engage a skill that changes its elemental weakness.

interesting…

i need to agree with this…

players shouldn't be so self-efficient.

all the mobs should be uber hard. even the weak ones.

how about make them 10 times harder to kill, and gives 3 time more experince.

get rid of locust and the really cheap spells and make it so that you don't have repeated spells/skills. (only have one stun spell and one physical stun, one sleep spell and one sleeper, and so on.)

hope that made sense…

Cast

Everyone will hate this, but just friggen do away with remorting to a different class. Instead, you should have characters remort into a more powerful RACE instead of another class. Also, it seems that there isn't anyone that can do much coding reading this, but there are MANY things to do to increase pbase/grouping. I know, for me, when I log into a mud and it doesn't have a map where you can see yourself runnin' around in the prompt: I quit. Alright, I'm rambling now, but another way to increase grouping would be to have 2 seperate kingdoms–or warring clans–in which the pk engine is geared towards group pk. Obvioulsly, this also could work with mobs, but bleh. OK, I go sleep sleep.

YO!!!!

that's an awsome idea!

2 kingdoms that are constantly at war. pkilling players in the other kingdom gives prestige points. And people should get something good for having a high prestige. eg. have access to certain shops (like 100 will grant you access to here, 200 for here, 400 for there etc.), discounts in shops, the imp takes less gold when ur item is sold in an auction, etc.

The prestige points should decrease when you do get pkilled. and the benefits should not be available anymore after it drops below the requirement.

I think that that prestige point should be visible so that everyone (including the other kingdom) can see what it is.

It shouldn't go below 0 'cause that's just mean.

the looting systems should be different though… it should be arranged so that the player should drop their most valuble equipment and lose all his/her cash/gold. That way, you won't be completely crippled after getting pkilled.

Yes, exactly the type of situation I was getting at there. Prestige points or warpoints, doesn't matter what they're called. This would obviously encourage more pk..I don't know how many ppl are evil as opposed to good, but it would seperated as sime as that(talking about alignment).

This might seem somewhat of a shotgun reply to this thread..

As to the topic line, "people don't group as often",

As often as what? I'm not really sure what it's being compared to. I've run in plenty of groups, It's certainly more fun that way.. and in most cases safer too.

I doubt it has much to do with a contrast of players either being too big or too little. Even a mort can contribute to a fight in which a remort is leading. Perhaps it's the mental state of, I'm just a mort, there's nothing I can do, I'll just sit here like a sponge. Throw a hiptoss, a vertigo, a gouge.. "shake what yer momma gave ya".. It'll help, and speed things up.. and it'll make people want to have you in a group.

If you can find a way to wipe out a zone on your own, good for you. Treat yourself to a soda, and smile that you're crafty enough to do it. Of course, having a group to support you will make things go more smoothly.

If your aim is to butcher all the classes, and force people to group, (removing locust/jacking all the classes/removing secondary classes) It would seem rather misguided.. If people want to play, the base will go up.. If people want to group, they'll group (more xp can be had by a mob killed by multiple people, as opposed to one person alone). If people want to PK, they'll PK.

It makes me wary to see things that are intended to force people to do something…

What if there's a character that was raised by wolves, and doesn't like humanoid types.. a loner, a rebel. "Oh sorry, you have to group, Mr. Teen Wolf, and BTW who's your multi?".

If everything in this thread were stuck in it could be painful.. I don't look forward to hopping on, and seeing no-one I would consider grouping with..(because they'd rather see me dead) and not being able to squirrel a zone alone, I'd be screwed, and would have to rent, and try again another day..

Sunday morning… might aswell forget about Tempus.

-C

"..But Mr. Jones, I don't want to drink the kool-aid…"

Then fuckin' pass that shit over here if you ain't gonna drink it.

i thought it was a good idea…

if we are going to use this, then maybe we should make clair, psi locate, and spirit track only work on mobs and the people in your own kingdom.

thieves in this case can probably disguise to be another class and change the kingdom flag.

mercenaries… well, self explanitory, mercenaries.

things would be really fun if we have this implemented…

• Cast