Shattered Kingdoms

He's giving it to the guards, so technically the country is hoarding.

What do you mean by buffer than they are designed?

Then every PC must be naked. They are as they are designed. EQ only makes them buffer. Same applies to NPCs.

Being smart and prepared is what SK is about. Where RP and tactics collide, remember? Preparation is the mother of all tactics. In potions/herbs, in spell ups, in good EQ, in enchantments, in everything.

There are barely any suits of armor or decent weapons that are held by tribunal NPCs. Unfortunately, there is a MASSIVE amount of diamond, adamantite, mithril, and energy armor in the game. All weapons do the same damage regardless of material, only subtype/magic damage matters. Hoarding by NPCs is not a problem at all in the mud, currently. The only items I know of that have even been used that were remotely good on tribunal NPCs were items with high limits that had extra copies still on the NPCs that loaded them.



Many tribunal NPCs were originally designed to be stronger, however their weapons or armor have a low limit and therefore were quickly scooped up, leaving the NPCs excessively weak. Being able to equip NPCs counteracts that and is a brilliant way of putting more tactics into a game that prides itself on its tactics in player killing.



Removing enchant armor and enchant weapon from the game would also level the playing field, but their existence creates a game where tactics and preparation are key to survival. Even a newbie tribunal member can find an iron pike and hand it to every one of their tribunal NPCs. It will drastically increase the power of the many of their NPCs that load shittier weapons. What's wrong with this? It has nothing to do with "high level high ability players vs less experienced players" - it has to do with people who spend time on their tribunal and people who don't give a [REDACTED].



Show me the tribunal NPCs that are seen with full suits of "diamond or better enchanted eq and 8/8 weapons." These NPCs are also most likely summonable, insta-rapable by any competent solo player, and required immense effort to be put in to give them that set.



Removing the ability of players to do as they will in a game where players supposedly run things is a mistake. I personally believe bounty NPCs should be removed and tribunals should be able to move their NPCs freely, anywhere, war or not, teron or not. I think banish code is stupid and should be useable on all players. Wimping the abilities of tribunal leaders to order their NPCs around is a bad idea for the RP of this mud, as well as the tactical/pkilling aspect.


EDIT: For full disclosure, I have played characters in every tribunal except the guardians, and I currently play one, and I don't think I have equipped a guard of mine more than once before, because I am [REDACTED] lazy.

Why is it harder for inexperienced players? Because they don't know the MUD well enough to know what weapon is best, or where to find good ones. It's not clear that veterans are really being IC by knowing, either. How much does a cleric really know about swords, considering he can't hit an orc with one?

It's true there are tactics in preparation work. But the more emphasis the game puts on preperation, the less scope there is for casual players, and players that are here primarily for roleplay. It's "tactics and roleplay combined". Enchanting weapons for NPCs isn't doing a thing for roleplay. Why choose to make it a good tactical option? From a game design perspective, preperation work should have strongly diminishing returns.

That doesn't really change the problem.



Seems like the solution is to put a higher limit of reloadable items on guards then. I'm all for that. Give them a [REDACTED] outfit, and then prevent them from removing it, taking items while on duty, and wearing non-regulation items. Guards are not designed, and have frequently been stated by Dulrik as not designed, to be anywhere near a match for a PC of equal level. That's why there are so many of them.



Are you really comparing full suits of diamond and +8/+8 weapons to an iron pike here? I don't really see the relevance of your argument about removing enchant spells, it seems like an argument of rhetoric rather than substance to me. Have a high limit iron pike load for all guards, I don't care. Whatever imms believe is balanced. Again, that's not really the argument at hand.

And yes, you're right, some people don't give a [REDACTED]. But that's only comparing one tribunal to another. What about comparing one tribunal to players not in a tribunal? They might give as much of a [REDACTED] as could give them a herniated sphincter, and it wouldn't matter. Laziness of other tribunals is not an excuse for anything (and indeed at the moment they don't need an excuse, because it's fully within the rules to twink out your guards).

I'm not even saying it should be punishable to twink out your guards, because I can absolutely understand the reasoning behind it from a player PoV. I know I did it while I was in a tribunal (although again, that is some years ago now). It should not even be an option.



Well, D-A was intimating in some other threads that he does it (perhaps it was +7/+7), so I'm going to have to go with CoN. If you want to talk about immense effort, I disagree. The difficult part is in getting the suit and enchanting it originally. Once you've done that you can repeat it for weeks. Your 'most likely' argument doesn't really wash.



Sorry, removing the ability to turtle your cities is bad for PK? Tell me what pills you're taking, I want two.

Forsooth, I will emote killing you then and you will emote dropping dead.

Then we will emote the jloot and I will emote the scripted phat items that I looted firing their scripts.

It's a MUD, not a MUSH.

As on veterans being IC by knowing, compare works on every single class. Asking around warriors as a priest also works greatly to know what weapons fit better each NPC.

On the casual gamers who are in SK for the RP, the casual gamers who RP don't gain levels as fast as others. Should they also hit GM just because they are for the RP a few hours per week and not for the tactics? Or should they get tons of phat lewt loaded on them no matter how many times they get PKed by others? They don't have time to go and hunt eq nor PK to get it back it seems.

PS: Enchanting weapons for NPCs makes wonders for roleplay. See how many times lighties have died to level 30 NPCs with enchanted battlespears/battlewhips/khopeshes. Then we RP as badass darkies and make fun of them and all that RP darkies do when they kill lighties anyway.

None of your last post is a suitable argument for this thread, D-A.

Can't newbies just use the compare command, or ask someone ICly what type of weapon they should give their guard NPCs....? It isn't like finding a battlespear is hard or anything. It isn't like there are elite super weapons that are being used instead of [REDACTED] iron ones.



The fact remains that equipping your guards takes very little time to do, but people are just lazy.

You quoted the 'hoarding' of eq by tribunal NPCs as one of the reasons to change the code. This, I agree, is not really a reason.



Which guard NPCs are equal to PC's of their level? Regardless, I still think that being able to equip guard NPCs adds a tactical element to the mud that would be lost if it were removed. Fewer tactics and fewer options is a bad thing.



Show me the full suits of diamond and 8/8 weapons that are on guard NPCs, please. This doesn't happen, and for a reason - it would be a huge waste given how easy it is to kill guard NPCs, and it would actually have almost NO BENEFIT over giving the NPC an iron weapon and steel or tanso-steel armor. Equipping two NPCs with iron hunting spears is more productive than equipping one with a 8/8 landsknecht, ask any veteran.



Buff 'guard' NPCs are not why cities are hard to attack, the only reason cities are buff is because of bounty hunter NPCs, everyone knows that, chief.

There are not many sets of diamond+ armor that have high item limits - and when they're all taken up by guards, as I am sure you can admit there is the potential for, then players don't get their hands on it. I think it happens in reality, you (surely) admit the potential for it to happen. Therefore, it's a valid reason that you haven't properly disputed.




Any guard NPC with an HP pool equal to the HP pool of a similarly leveled fighting-based character, currently. Sure, AI isn't quite up to par with human intelligence, but that's an irrelevance.

Sorry, I'm all for tactics in pvp, I dislike tactics used primarily to turtle up your city or give you a NPC of almost PC-value just because you're in a trib. It's [REDACTED] lame.



I can't because I don't really play, and even if I did it wouldn't matter. I am not comparing equipping two guards with weapons to equipping one guard with a good weapon. I am saying neither should be able to wear non-regulation equipment to give them an advantage.



That's part of your problem - you can't argue without comparing laziness of people in some tribs compared to dedication of others. I am not saying some tribunals should have this removed and some should get it because their players are lazy. I am saying EVERY tribunal should have this removed to remove even as much as the POTENTIAL for this abuse.

Like that's an issue for D-A?



Then it should not be such a big issue to make the change. As it clearly makes little to no difference, it is clearly not a huge tactical advantage.