Uh, no? The weapons that I used for most of my bashing from level 70 to 80 were my broadswords that only had 141/170/150 and 149/170/152. They aren't exceptional damage or speed by any standards and I still managed. If I can bash from level 70 to 80 with a race that clearly doesn't suit the archetype and average weapons, I don't see why a specialized race designed for the archetype can't with average weapons.

It's always been like that. I hate that chart that lists your percentages because it's misleading. Really your wonds go up from 0. Each level of wounding is just a score threshold. When you hit critical there is still a long way to go before it maxes out, and so percentage there doesn't really mean anything. But Estarra likes that little stick figure dude so it stays.

Can we have more correct numbers on the stick figure dude, then?

Yeah, I've always thought that was weird. Why do wounds start at 100 and go down? Why not start at 0, having 0 wounds, and go up from there?

Something else something brought up is why the critical level of wounding is greater than the combined total of light/medium/heavy. Also, there is the matter of some afflictions that you cannot get no matter how long you keep attacking the limb. Take slitthroat, it is nearly impossible to pull off, yet the description says heavy wounding and can be done with jab or swing. But it usually never goes off until at least critical and no matter what it cannot be done with a jab, only swings.

Malicia and me jabbed at Narsrim's head for a good minute straight, getting his head down to below critical and nearly 0, but he never got slitthroat once. But a hack down at his heavy wound gave him slitthroat.

Based on feedback, the test server has been refined some more. I think we're getting close to a good balanced mix. The change to make DEX modify wounding has been rolledback. Wounding is now a mix mostly of STR and partially boosted by DEX. Glomdoring faelings have also been modified. Hopefully this will be the last round of changes that we will test. (Which yes, implies that there are other of changes we have not yet revealed and may or may not also include.)

Secondly, about wounding. The wounding level is the minimum level needed to even have a chance of inflicting that wound. So if slit throat requires heavy wound level, if you are 1 point below heavy then you have 0 chance of slitting a throat. If you are 1 point above then you have a slim chance. You really need to get deeper into the wounding level to get good odds.

Thirdly, I'll bring up the stick figure with Estarra, but last time I did that (which I think was even before opening) I lost the battle, heh.

roark *invoke divine fire*invoke serpent*whatever the command is for trueheale* then ask, you won't lose then!!

actually thats been bugged lots of times. You cannot get slitthroat from jabs. You can even get the message but it wont proc.

oh, forgot to add the sometimes better than double opportunity to poison too, hehe.

thanks again for all the effort Roark! Hope to get some time on the server again soon.

The AB help file is wrong. I will correct it.

I'm going to close the test server tomorrow, barring any major unexpected surprises. This is your last chance to give it a try and offer any feedback. Note that there have been many adjustments since I first started this experiment, so if you tried it before then it may be all new now for you this time.

I like the stick figure maaan.

I know nothing of the code so I'm making this up, and hope its not so far off that the concept gets lost in the details but here is my psuedo math of how I think it would work.

Percision I think its a concept of how well/often you pull of an affliction. A Modifier to the percentage roll. If a person has heavy damage then they have a 0% chance to pull of a crit wound. Once in the Crit wound stage, the Percentage leaps to 1%. Now based on the percision this 1% gets bonuses. If you Percision is Maxed, then the %1 goes up to 90% lets say. (each skill would have it own cap I think) So a TAe'dae with Low DEX and a score of 100 on his weapon would maybe pull off the attack 20% of the time, but a Faeling with high dex and 200+ on his weapon would be pulling off the attack 90% of the time.

Now the change is that a TAe'dae would be doing 8 -10 points of wound damage, meaning that after just 3 hits the person is at Critical, however the Faeling would be doing 2-4 points of damage so that they would not get the person to Critical untill after 8 hits or so.

Ontop of this, Skills like Crush and Pulp would increase your percision so suddenly a TAe'dae while using the special skill of Crush would have his percision jump from 20% to 80 or 90%.

I hope that made sense, and I appologise if its just too complicated and not going to happen. I think it would be a good way to balance without screwing anybody over.

Edit: Oh and thank you for all the work you guys are doing, your making 'boring of hack and slash' into something much more interesting in both concept and practice.

I think that'd be a tad complicated, particularly compared to the existing setup. Trying to get that balanced properly would be difficult. (Heck, this change is less radical and has been quite tough to get right!)

I can't think of a single game where Massive damage is a better solo alternative to less but quicker dammage, unless they have the exact same DoT. Sometimes it makes sense in a game of rock paper scissors and there is team coordination but I don't see that happening in a Mud environment that has limitations on more than one charachter.

Its the Bane of game creation, unless you somehow made Race specific skills within a skillset, but I imagine thats even more of a nightmare.

I find what the most interesting about the race balance is that all the races that are meant to be good warriors (high str/con, low int/dex), with the exception of Dracnari and Brood Viscanti, actually suck as warriors (and everything else). It is because of three things: 1) Low Int - cant surge well and not having enough mana to clot, focus, resist absolve/toadcurse; 2) Slow balance/eq penalty - not only affecting attack speed, but also recovery from ectoplasma, epilepsy and other balance/eq hindering afflictions; and 3) Slow writhe/tumble time.

A Taedae, for example, can be balance-locked easily or writhing slower than the opponent regaining eq. That is why a non-specialised Merian is more suitable to be a warrior than a Taedae or Igasho.

That is a race problem more than a class problem though, it's almost inevitable when you have such extreme races like tae'dae and igasho.

You're closing the test server? awwww. I spend more time on there than on the real server. And i'm not even a warrior, well, my alt is, but i've hardly used him on there.

I agree it is race balance problem rather than archtype. But how often do you find a non-warrior Taedae or Igasho?

Even races like Taurian and Orclach, although to a lesser extent than Igasho and Taedae, are also having a hard time. Low int, slow balance/eq, and slow writhe/tumble totally outweigh the benefits of high str and con.

I just find it strange that typical warrior races are not working as they should. And with the new changes in the formula with dex and size, I can imagine that they will only get worse.

hmmm we're kinda missing like crazy... anything related to that was touched? Or are we just really unlucky for some reason? hmm...