Alright guys, in the spirit of Wrath’s post: This is going to be a long one, grab a drink.

First I’d like to say that I had an interesting conversation with Azi (I hope you don’t mind me relaying this info, it did partake over project).

The sum of it was, tanking does seem to be broken for certain classes, but implementing a fix can be an issue. I’ll be presenting some problems in this post.

1) If Azi implements a fix (I actually propose a skill to do this), if it becomes very liked by our population, most people will NOT want to give it up (See example of Locust Regen being taken away). If he puts in a fix and we see it as a “must have”, odds are he will get ridiculed and yelled at for taken it out of the game. This should not be our response. This game is a constant evolution, just like any other online game. Everything is subject to change and “nerf bats” happen often in other games, we shouldn’t be any different. If something is OP and needs to be fix for balance, then grit your teeth and bear with it. However, if it seems overly unjust, the mortals should have a say in the decision.

2) Azimuth is one person. He is the ONLY coder (From my understanding, there was typically three in the past, however that has dwindled) and with that responsibility comes a lot of weight. He can’t fix everything or add anything on any timely manner. He’s got a real job and a life (I’m guessing at this later part. Let’s face it, programmers don’t have lives). I think we need to be understanding of this fact and give him so leeway to get things down

3) A common feeling is that I see is that the game is “boring”, no end game content, and other classes are “Broken”. There is some argument about if other classes are viable, but from what I see, unless a mob can be grounded or tanked by an NPC, you’re pretty much out of luck. A few rounds with a mob will cause you to turn your tail and run. Even if you can out heal the damage, you cannot keep up and will most likely have to retreat. Unless your cleric and can conjure an unholy stalker or conjure elementals as mage, any ungroundable mob is pretty much untankable.

4) There doesn’t seem to be much interaction between Imm’s and mortals. I’m not sure what happened to the mortal council but it seems that this communication link is somewhat broken. I think this is a problem because mortals don’t get feed back from Imm’s, and Imm’s don’t really get a good idea of what they think is going on with morts.

So, now that I’ve listed the problems, what can be done? I like to present problems and potential fixes. I’d like to hear feedback from you guys as well.

1) Understand that this game is a living game. It’s constantly being evolved. If Azi puts something new in, then we all need time to adjust to it, and give constructive feed back and let him know if things are truly working. I pitched the idea of making some people “testers” so that the bulk of the population don’t get the skill and someone who is intelligent and constructive can give feedback to say if the skill is balanced or not. Imm’s have the final word, but they should be open to discussion about potential skills.

2) I think the Imm’s should consider bringing in another coder. Maybe have an apprentice where Azi must confirm the changes, but at least can write some code to start generating some new things for Tempus. I’ve had some experience coding, but honestly I think I’d break more stuff than fix it. But I’m willing to try, and I encourage other people who are much better at than me to come up and offer their skills. I think this would give Azi some weight off his shoulders when it comes to coding.

3) This is a major issue as I see it. If we can “fix” the tanking problem I think we can open up Tempus than it’s seen lately. In my experience I don’t see much zones being used other than: Drach’s, Fassan, VW, Mavernal, and other small zones. I think if we fix some classes being able to withstand more than a few rounds in battle with a mob, more zones will be used and explored. I offer my suggested skills at the end of this post.

4) Reinstate the mortal council. Give some channeled direct communication to a select few players that can either run polls, ask questions, and offer suggestions on behalf of the mortal population. This will require work on the mortals part, and allow the imms just to browse the results. Don’t give work to those who already do the work. Spread out some of the responsibility of the game. If you want Tempus to be better, you help make it better.

One other thing I’d like to make mention of: Tempus has evolved in our player base. From when it was created many of the players were young and didn’t have many responsibilities, however over time this player base has changed. While we do have some young folks coming in, much of us are full time employees with lives, wives, and kids. I don’t think that this game should take the same amount to level up and remort that it use to (Not that it is, I actually like the pace we are at now). I do think we need to invest some brainstorming into how to make this game have some “end game content”.

The imms did a wonderful job with hardcore mode, however I’d like to see some more improvements on the benefits of this, besides just extra Life Points (Maybe a decrease in amount to remort, because the residual risk of playing a hard core character is raised)

I’m also hoping to become a builder and develop some new zones that may offer some more excitement to the user base. I encourage others to “give back” if they think they have the time or good idea to do so.

Listed below are my ideas for some skills that might make tanking more viable on Tempus:

Parry – Ranger: 15, Barb: Level 10 For Rangers: Passive skill that allows for blocking an incoming attack. Must have dual wield weapons in order for this to work. Each level increase in amount of chance to block incoming attack. The amount of percent blocked will have to be tested, but I would imagine at Gen 10, level 49, somewhere near 50-75% blocking chance. This ONLY applies to autoattacks, special moves (Sweepkick, behead, etc) would not be affected.

Barbs: Must wield two handed weapon to be useful. Forcefully blocks the incoming attack with their weapon. Maybe give a chance to disarm by brute strength being used to block the incoming attack.

High Speed Tactics – Borg, level 21 Borgs have program that can increase the processing power that they observe movements of their enemies. By doing so, they’re able to predict the project of incoming weapons at the borg, and thereby blocking or moving out of the way.

Shield Mastery – Knights, level 22 “Knights may learn to use their shields to deflect an attack entirely, rather than merely use it for protection.” Increase this passive ability just like parry, so that more auto attacks are blocked. Shield must be used to make this effective.

Sorry for the long post, but please be constructive and give some feedback. If you've got a better idea, please offer it up! If you think I'm crazy, give some reasoning as to why I'm crazy (besides the clowns)

Thanks, -Aconite

What is your purpose? Would you make all classes to be able to solo every content in the game, or would you rather like to see 2-3 players group in higher level zones?

That sure was long. I'll try to respond with an equally long post.

Yes, I agree that tanking is broken. I'll describe tanking for each class as best as I can.

Cleric: Good - I used to run around with 90+ damroll and use my mana to spiritual hammer things or heal myself. Tanking wasn't too bad because of good cleric's healing abilities and ease of getting damage reduction, though sometimes my mana couldn't keep up even with all of the different methods of getting mana back that was available to me. Also, simply taking damage (pretty much the original definition of tanking) and healing it back got to be a hassle with having to repair my equipment so frequently. So, I switched to stigging (stigmata) things. It was easy and fun for a little bit. The requirements were basic equipment and certain zones like rhtom must be loaded. Evil - Leveling as an evil cleric before you get unholy stalker was easy for me because of the hitroll bug but I imagine that it's probably rough now. Once unholy stalker was available all zones opened to me.

Knight: Good - Good knight was my first class that I got past gen 5 and one of the classes I enjoyed playing when I first started. I thought they could tank pretty well because they had decent HP and could heal themselves but I also only ran easy zones. Getting through those tougher zones required that I used id insinuation (when it wasn't a remort spell) to have mobs tank for me. Evil - I was able to get more damroll as an evil knight so even without horned devils or id insinuation I could take down certain mobs with psychic surge before they stood. Before I had any of those spells, I used lunge punch. Lunge punch is decent, that's all. Tanking damage is rough because of the crappy heals and low damage reduction.

Mage: Mage was probably the only class that I didn't mind taking damage. Mana shield coupled with locust regeneration is AMAZING. Enough said. Well, mages still have a lot of tricks to not take any damage. Either you make put the mob on the floor somehow and dish out some fast damage or you make another mob tank for you. Leveling was also easy because NEO droid guards gave pretty decent exp. Not that cyborgs shouldn't give decent exp but because they're SO weak to lightning it's stupid.

Ranger: If I couldn't get enough damroll then I wouldn't play ranger. While they could tank and heal it back, that's pretty much all they could do. Spamming sweepkick was boring.

Thief: Leveling a thief sucked more than leveling a ranger. Moot, of course. Anyway, I didn't like stun for leveling. Sure, it was accurate but the waitstate was never reliable (it's random) and backstab always overrode that waitstate with its own crappy waitstate. So whenever I tried a stun/backer/retreat thing I usually took some damage that I couldn't heal. Other than that trip, like sweepkick, was a pretty shoddy knockdown.

Barbarian: I liked playing barbarian a lot, but that was because I started playing it at a time when my clannies were leveling other chars. They tanked in their own method (usually by knockdown) and I spammed cleave. I couldn't imagine leveling by tanking damage so I never did.

Monk: Like barbarian, damage was high but monks have methods to avoid tanking. Besides, zen of oblivity gives quite a bit of damage reduction. Tanking for monks aren't too bad.

Bard: They have audience members, which sometimes sucked but can come in threes and were a random class (some could use skills some couldn't). They have aria of asylum for damage reduction and rhapsody of rememdy for healing. Scream, sonic disruption and dirge for damage.

Mercenary: Hammy and shoulder throw are both pretty good knockdowns. Crossface is pretty useful, too. But they can't tank.

Physic: I've never played prime phys but I can imagine what it's like. Lecture and alterations are fast so they can dish out some fast damage. I also imagine that they couldn't tank very well since they have crap HP and no heals.

Cyborg: They can tank better than most fighter classes because they can heal themselves, they have decent HP and low damage reduction. But it's all shot to hell because they take way too much damage from electric attacks.

Psionic: Almost in the same league as a good cleric in the sense that they have great damage reduction and can heal themselves. But they can also mess with mobs and have better damage capabilities. Tanking with psi is easy.

So, there. It's quite easy to point out that spell caster classes generally have an easier time leveling because they can tank better than fighter classes. Most fighter classes have to avoid tanking to run a zone, although not always with ease. Most spell caster classes can avoid tanking and most can tank.

From 1 through 10, 10 being the best how would you rate each class' ability to tank and to avoid tanking? Here's how I rate them.

Cleric Good - 9 to tank and 4 to avoid tanking, Evil - 5 and 8

Knight Good - 4 4, Evil - 4 8

Mage - 10 10

Ranger - 6 2

Thief - 1 3

Barbarian - 3 2

Monk - 5 9

Bard - 5 7

Mercenary - 2 7

Physic - 4 5

Cyborg - 4 1

Psionic - 7 6

That's the run down on how I see classes and tanking. I'll definitely be back later to talk about other issues mentioned in this post.

I like the input Deneb. I haven't done many classes outside Mage, Cleric, and Ranger. Ranger being the most difficult, Cleric being middle of the road, and Mage being the easiest. I look forward to seeing what else you've got to post.

To Betonfal: My idea is to have some functionality of being able to solo. I imagine that some zones that are now ONLY tankable by Mages would expand to be able to be soloable for most other classes.

However, I would imagine hard zones (La'Morga, lower levels of Hell, Githyanki, etc) would require a group. Basically Clerics, Bards, Mages, Psi's would be utilized as "support classes", and Rangers, Barbs, Knights, and Borgs would be the tankers. Thief, Monk, Physic, Merc's I see are more middle of the road and some kind of balance would be needed.

That's my idea of how this would turn out.

-Aconite

Another idea (Given to me by Storm)

Barb, level 1:

Toughness: Passive ability that builds up a damage reduction of barbs. Since they are a tribal people, who defend their lands and battle the earth elements, they have grown accustomed to the harsh living conditions. They pass the ability on, generation to generation.

Starts at level one with 2% damage reduction, per level it increases until 36% damage reduction. (Trying to meet Monks reduction)

I'm back to talk about issues with implementing a fix. I'd first like to ask anyone who reads this why you think tanking is or is not broken.

Aconite:

1) I remember very well when Azi changed locust regeneration. Yes, he changed it. He didn't take it out. But the change made the spell practically useless to any mage without high damroll. So you bet us mortals had a say in it, it was overly unjust. I also recall that when Azi was justifying the change he said that he never had problems with mana when he played mage. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Azi plays morts nowadays. I understand that Azi might feel pressured into pleasing the morts but the locust change is a bad example of that.

I think I would've been more at ease with a nerf to mana shield. Something like setting a max percentage lower than 100% would've been fine with me.

2) Yup, he is the only coder. Not only that, any changes to codes do not pass any sort of inspection. It's ALL in the hands of Azi. Which is a problem. Obviously, Azi is only one person and thus he can't foresee everything.

By the way, I don't think any of us are getting in Azi's face and demanding him to fix things immediately. I, for one, have said that a multiple of things could use some changes and I've always given some sort of suggestion. On here, us players discuss and state our opinions but I rarely see Azi voicing his opinions. So forgive me if I'm wrong but it doesn't seem like Azi feels pressured into reprioritizing Tempus and his own life. "…giving him leeway to get things down"? What are you talking about?

3) Every online role playing game I've played always had issues with end game content. Fixing this problem is really difficult and I think we should address that in a different thread. Broken classes/gameplay should come first because it affects newbies negatively. But I will state my thoughts on Tempus being "boring". I am bored when I log onto Tempus. But that's now. When I was leveling I had a lot of fun tweaking with my equipment, finding high experience yield/high risk situations, exploring unknown zones and learning about the potential of classes I've yet to play. Now, what I enjoy is PK, finding ways to make my monk more powerful and active discussions about Tempus (like this).

4) You're right. Like I've said in 2), I rarely see Azi post on realms. There are countless suggestions and discussions from the players, but I can't but feel like our suggestions go to waste. It'd be nice to hear what the coder and admins of Tempus think so we know if we are going in the right direction or not.

I disagree about what you said about hardcore, but put that in another thread and I'll say why there.

Those suggested skills won't fix the issues with tanking. In fact, I don't think adding or taking away skills is the solution. I think we need to rework damage reduction.

we were talking about this the other day and i still dont see how one passive skill is going to reinvent these classes. shield mastery dont need to be changed it already exists and is one of a knights best skills.

even if parry works in a sense like shield mastery in blocking attacks you dont block enough attacks to still be able to stand in and throwdown. it may help so dont get me wrong im not saying that we couldnt try it out cause im all for new things.

while tempus is ever evolving we dont have the immortal staff available to be able to put in enough new stuff or any new stuff to make the mud any better then it is right now. Trisken was revamped in 2008 by the whole immortal team. we are on the brink of 2011 and it is still not open to the public. as of right now there is only a handful of builders. Tiax, Origin, Eclipse and Axe. Wish oversees everything but other then him no one gives much input on new stuff. unless tempus pretty much goes into overhaul mode and hires a shit load of new builders and at least 1 coder i dont see much new stuff coming.

i agree with deneb no one has ever came here or in game and demanded a change. azi fixes crash bugs and keeps things running. at this point any new skill/spell that he decides to take the time to implement im greatful for.

Here are my thoughts on what we can do to make melee "tanking" classes (bard, borg, and maybe ranger) actually be able to tank that wouldn't require a huge overhaul:

1. Raise their max dam redux. If this seems too powerful, could have something like a defensive stands where damroll is reduced to get the benefit of the higher max.

2. Increase the amount of armor they get from items, perhaps with some limitations.

Also if people wanted classes like mages to be less able to tank you could just apply the above in reverse. But I think raising the viability of the tanking classes is better than nerfing current classes.

Bard should be barbarian.

Betonfal: MUDs are a dying breed. Not just Tempus. And, I know of a particular mmorpg (online rpg) with an amazing system that just won't work for Tempus simply because we do not have enough players. While I would like to promote grouping more (Tempus already does this wonderfully), if classes couldn't solo then most people wouldn't be able to experience all that Tempus has to offer. As of right now, not every class can solo. That is not fair for those who only have time to play one character, especially if they choose classes like cyborg.

Diophan: Your suggestions sound like giving inherit properties for classes. I don't know where I stand on that. I'd prefer it if that kind of thing was done only for races.

We should start with how much damage reduction we get from spells.

This time I'd like to offer an idea on damage reduction (DR).

The most basic knowledge about DR is that it will reduce whatever damage you take by a percentage. For example, nopain gives 25 DR so whatever damage you take it's multiplied by 0.75. Any more DR you have is simply added onto that number. ie if nopain is 25 DR and dermal hardening is 10 DR than your total DR is 35. There are other factors like armor class on your equipment but that's basically it.

This is a problem. Not only is getting DR through spells the easiest way to get it, it also gives the most. This also goes along with the issue with casters tanking better than fighters. A single spell gives a huge amount of damage reduction, at least I think anything more than 10% from a single spell is a lot. Coupled with how DR increases algebraically, I think it's safe to say that DR from spells is probably one of the main causes of the casters/fighters tanking problem.

My suggestion: We split DR into two parts. Let's call them armor DR (aDR) and simple DR (sDR).

Now aDR is basically the same as the current DR that we know it as right now. It's the DR that's a max of 75% and the one everyone wants the most. The way we obtain aDR in my suggestion would be by armor class, mostly.

Then, sDR is now DR whose operation is a subtraction instead of a multiplication. They're typically obtained by spells or inherit class properties if you will.

Together, they work by reducing damage by two parts. First, aDR multiplies whatever incoming damage by whatever decimal number it is. Next, sDR reduces that damage by whatever integer number it is.

For example, a player with .45 aDR and 20 sDR (a lot of DR) is fighting a mob. The mob attacks and deals 100 damage before reductions. First, that 100 is reduced by aDR, 100*(1-.45) which leaves us with 55 damage. Then, that 55 is reduced by sDR, 55-20 which leaves us with 35 damage.

How do we obtain DR? aDR is obtained through armor class, the higher your armor class the higher your aDR is, however the formula I'll propose is a bit more complex. aDR will now increase geometrically or at a deaccelerated rate. For example, -20armor will give you 6 aDR but an extra -20armor (-40armor) will give you 5 aDR.

armor = a, aDR = (-0.05*a) / (15 - 0.1*a)

With this, the limit is 50%. Obtaining something like 30% should be fairly easy to moderately difficult while getting that last 20% will be hard to nearly impossible.

sDR is simple, like the name says. Let's say sanctuary and shield of righteousness gave 10 and 6 sDR respectively. The numbers are simply added together to get 16 total sDR.

Also, AC-apply will be considered as sDR for which ever position the damage is aimed at. For example, if you get beheaded and you have two 12acap white dragon scales then it will reduce that damage by 24.

How will this effect tanking and Tempus' gameplay in general? Definitely hard to say but it's a must answer if you like the idea. I like the idea :P. So, I think this new DR system will equalize tanking between caster and fighter classes a bit more. While, with Tempus' current material, casters will still be the better tanks because they can obtain more armor than fighters as well as getting extra DR through spells the difference won't be as great. I think this would make further fixes easier to implement such as placing +KNI flags on equipment with better AC. Unfortunately, this creates a large rift between the reduction of damage from regular rounds and higher damages like ones from skills or spells. This new system will also affect certain classes greatly. Classes with spells that add armor will receive huge benefits but those could be changed to do something else. This does not address how much damage mobs can do, which I think is fine because that's more builder side.

That's it. A later post will contain suggestions for changes in specific spells and general classes with this idea in mind.

Good point about grouping, Deneb. One of the main issues is not only the lack of players, but the lack of players around the same level.

I play a mort regularly though, and I still don't think the locust regen change was unjust. I just depend a lot more on fleeing and potions than is apparently expected by other mage players - a slow and methodical approach.

Sorry if I don't post that often. I do read every single post and think about it. The magic of RSS feeds!