nothing the former grimp of tempus had a decent post in here which is why i am posting the link to the thread.

http://realm.tempusmud.com/forum/6/86/1171242405

Most of that thread has nothing to do with what im going to say other then Nothing's post.

he talks about making mobs smarter as in using their skills/spells more and knowing when to use them. well recently azimuth changed the code to do exactly this. why not take that to the next step? this would definatly take some time to get used to if mobs started acting more like a player would but i think it could really add a new level to Tempus. Each time something new goes in there is an adjustment period and sooner or later everyone will adapt to it.

When i first started mobs pretty much only attacked much like you would if you just typed kill (mob). back then mobs were pretty stupid and didnt do to much damage if you knew how to play. Now mobs are a little smarter. They cast spells that will hurt you or make you attack less. mobs that are certain classes will treat you like you treat them. as in a monk mob that is aggro will stun you and monk fuck you. same with a psi mob. i think making things more challenging is the key to keeping those players who have 15 gen 10s interested. alot of players dont do anything but sit idle now and im not far from that stage cause leveling is way to easy and repetitive. if i had the cash flow and the time/energy like most others i could level up a character to gen 10 49 in about a week or less.

making mobs even harder to kill i think would make this game more fun because it would take a little more time to actually kill a mob. class combos such as monk/borg and mage/anything can wax most any mob way to easy no matter the amount of hp that mob has. now if that mob had player like AI and the same types of stats as the player it would even the playing field. now im not talking about making the higher level zones like la'mogra which is virtually unplayable for leveling purposes unless you have a lot of time to set up. nothing says all of this alot better then me so scroll pretty close to the bottom of that thread and read what he says it makes a lot of sense.

also maybe tempus is in need of a wipe as well. maybe, maybe not. i have never gone through a wipe and maybe it is a super pain in the ass but setting up some new stuff and throwing it in with the people who play now still may not help since most everyone who plays day to day has a character that can run most any zone not matter what. i wouldnt mind the challange of starting all over from scratch.

I guarantee you that a pwipe will cause a lot of players to quit, including me.

Every pwipe causes players to quit. No one likes spending countless hours on their character just to have it taken away for no reason.

Pwipes are unnecessary and NEVER needed.

i wasnt saying that i wanted one just saying that if it had to be done i wouldnt be mad

I agree with Red. Pwipes are unnecessary and would discourage alot of current players from continually playing.

However, I do think some things need to change:

1) The current classes need revamping. Right now, Mage is the only viable class. Monks have an edge, but honestly no one plays any other primary class. Take Barbarians for example. They are suppose to be THE tank of Tempus, yet they can barely do anything. Since the revamping of mobs, they have made the game ten-fold harder for any other class besides Mage and Monks.

2) Zones are not being utilized to their full extent. There are maybe a total of 10 zones, out of I don't know how many that are not used. I think this comes to the point that Mages (Remember, only viable class) are useful. These other zones become encumbersome and annoying to do on classes that take longer to do. If you had a Monk for example who could solo all of heaven/hell/amoria, etc, without constantly having to stop, heal, continue, you would find more zones being done. If a Bard/Borg/Barb/Ranger/Psi/Phys could tank/handle more mobs/zones, you'd see an increase of use of other zones.

There are some other things that need changing, but I think fixing 1 is a HUGE endeavor (Azi has a real job guys, he can't fulfill every request), but I think fixing 1 will fix 2.

I would say that if mages are the "only viable class," that's an indication that mages are badly overpowered, not that other classes are badly underpowered.

Say that you start out with balanced classes (I know, I know. Just pretend for a second). Through some change, a single class is made much more powerful than the others. The expectation is then set for the game of being able to do stuff at the faster rate and suddenly that one class is the only class worth being.

The simplest thing to do, of course, is to rein the most powerful class back in. Once that's done, people's expectations are lowered to a more reasonable level and the game is brought back into balance. After all, the only "proper" leveling speed is what you're used to. It took me two months of nearly constant play to remort my first mage on Tempus, and that was considered talented at the time.

The alternative is to try and bring the other classes up to that previous class's power, through skill changes or equipment. A natural consequence is that all classes are going to be overpowered for the lower level zones. You can see this vividly on Tempus - zones that are intended for newbies and mid-level morts are completely abandoned.

What to do? Well if I knew that, I'd have done it. People still seem to be having fun, though.

I would not say that Mages are "overpowered". I would say they have a technique available to them to allow the ability to defeat a zone.

I would take a reasonable class (Let's take my Ranger, for example), that has decent AC and damroll. Let's put him in the ~50% damage reduction and about 50ish damroll. I would bet that his ability to sustain combat and ability to keep up combat (Healing, mana, etc) would be on a much lower scale than a Mage.

I don't think it has to deal with one class being over powered than the other. I think it has to deal with how the mechanics of the game have changed, and how the classes have never been updated to allow for the change in mechanics.

The whole idea of npc/mob AI has really been a game changer. I've noticed not only more frequency in spells, but also in the amount of times a mob will hit (I think this has to deal with double/triple attack being utilized). I remember being able to do level 1 - 4 hell on Tanin with relative ease. With the improvements with the AI of mobs, this is no longer possible.

I honestly think that classes (Primarily melee/tank classes) need a function / mechanism to be able to tank and handle mobs on their new level. This would spice up the who list in more than just two primary classes (In my opinion) and also foster more exploration of the game in general.

tl;dr - Classes need to be updated with the new mob AI to stay "competitive"

-Aconite

I'd like a wipe. But wipes need some sort of gravity to pull in players. New material for existing and old players, advertisement for experienced and inexperienced mudders. So, no. No wipe, at least not now.

aconite:

1) http://realm.tempusmud.com/forum/3/405/1249822815

-Read that if you haven't. Also, it does sound like you're saying that mages are "overpowered". I can totally see why they would be, though. In the end, mages aren't the only viable class. You're just spoiled like everyone else.

2) That really has nothing to do with class differences.

Creating new challenges for players is great. But, creating mobs with player-like intelligence (or even near player-like) is impossible with our workforce. That's just saying that robots will never have emotions, though. New AIs on old mobs? I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. Sure, I have to make sure I run around with more sav_psi now that psi mobs trigger more but running Gith is still nowhere near as challenging as a pk quest. Get my point?

I read through the post. I see that some people have conflicting ideas of what is doable and what is not doable.

Seems to be a clear line of "old schoolers" vs. "new school" players. Are we new people missing something that the rest of you guys are not?

Also, I'm not spoiled like everyone else. I understand that Mage is a very useful class as it currently stands, and when push comes to shove, even Caden admitted to using his Mage when all else failed.

I just believe there needs to be a review of "tanking" classes, and how they are able to deal with the mobs hitting so hard and casting so often.

Maybe creating some passive skills for melee type classes that give some parry abilities would be beneficial in them standing in battle for more than a few rounds.

The AI is already up'd, and I don't see a need for increasing it anymore than it already is.

And I like to see anyone do Githyanki without an extreme amount of difficulty (Other than say Mage/Psi).

I think that adding some scaling remort class benefits would fit here.

Cleric - Evil cleric doesn't need as much, but perhaps making heal spells cheaper to cast with every gen as well as more powerful for good clerics

Bard - I don't have much experience with bards, perhaps someone else could suggest something.

Mage - do they need more?

Barb - Passive damage reduction scaling with gen, perhaps 2.5-5% per gen?

Ranger - elemental branding gets cheaper and lasts longer.

Thief - Sneak and hide have a greater chance of even defeating true see and sonic image with a 66% chance at gen 10 of not being seen by anything at gen 10

Monk - not sure

Knight - Add a gen scaling summon archon ability, at gen 3 it summons a lantern archon, eventually going up to a buff sword archon or something.

Merc - not sure… maybe the merc automatically acts as if he/she is specialized in all the weapons he/she is using since they're weapon masters, or perhaps just all guns. Then at each gen it adds another catagory of weapon and at gen 10 it's just all weapons? Not sure…

Cyborg - Additional implant slot - interface - can be loaded into regardless of having an implant since the borg natively has an interface. Also starts at 3 chips and goes up to 5 or 6 at gen 10.

Psi - psychic feeback scales from the maybe 5-10% damage returned (I forget if it's a percent or set #) to 30% gen 10. OR actually a better one is psychic feedback starts at gen 3 as 3% of damage "taken" redirected to attacker and moving up to 10-15% at gen 10?

Physic - not sure…

I'm not saying these are all equal, they're just ideas. What do you think of the idea?

In the off chance I've botched something with a bigger char, sure, I would log. I have a couple of surges on at all times just in case. It's a formed plan B, so to speak. I think it's a reasonable safety measure. I'm sure you could try the same thing with a monk. I like how quad dam meteor storm doesn't f*** around.

(and now for some space where every sentence doesn't start with the letter 'I') Barbs finding a suitable passive redux amount would be sweet. It's a fun class, kinda hard to tank sometimes thou.. esp if you're talking about group tanking. A mass taunt move to get stuff that's fighting groupies, to switch to fighting the barb, would be a helpful addition. Imagine a battle scene where a huge barbarian is drawing copious amounts attention due to swinging a battle-ax around and screaming like one of those tennis ladies. The text equivalent of being a big graphic(?). Huzzah! It might work out to something like a passive rescue toggle for groupies? or sort of like a mass defend? It would have the benefit of not setting wait state on the person(s) being rescued due to the nature of the action.

It could be the dawning of the age of rage.

That sounds like a pretty awesome idea, Caden, but what do you think about giving that same ability to the good Knights instead (it'd give me a reason to play one, I suppose)? It seems to fit their MO better, in my opinion–I could totally see a Knight swearing an oath to protect his party members etc. Barbs as they are seem much more geared towards attacking than they are defending or protecting people–both in their fluff and the way their mechanics are arranged. I can totally see a Barbarian taunting as you describe, but doing it with the intent of protecting his allies seems a bit out of character. Doing it to piss off or scare his opponents, however, seems to fit better, and I think Intimidate already covers that in terms of fluff.

Mechanically, Cleave gives Barbarians a very damage-dealing-focused playstyle, and whenever I'm playing mine, I'm always finding myself spamming Cleave and hoping the other guy drops before I do. I guess in short I don't see the Barb as much of a tank–as it is, those 2000 hitpoints a Barb has fall very quickly, and I'm not sure a mass defend would even be worth using unless you're an uber-player with some very nice clothes. Of course, if Barbs were given some sort of natural damage reduction that'd change everything.