Shattered Kingdoms

In all the years I've played SK, there was only wimping towards the necromancer class. Let it be a code update by Dulrik himself or some random immortal, who in his personal sense of balance decided to act.

The question is:
What -IS- the point of those changes?
Balance? Change of the class gameplay?

Seriously, I haven't seen a single change improving the gameplay of the necromancer convenient even by the slightest. People avoid necromancers not because their are hard to play and die so easily, it's the inconvenience of class itself.

In the 3.5 years of Delear's life, I've never used more than 5 to 8 undead, let alone a single instance that I've raised 21 wraiths to regain a relic. Necromancers DON'T need more undead; Yet, I don't agree with this hard-coded restriction.

The worst and most devastating change that was ever made, was the added concentration to animate dead spell. It reaches so deep into destroying the class that I need a 10.000 words essay to begin with.

I would suggest this:

Before any change takes place, let the reason be determined first. Then examine the effects upon the class, RP-wise, Gameplay-wise and PK-wise.

For example: Removing the timer of the animate dead spell

RP-wise:
1. Necromacers might actually take the time to roleplay when they are on a mission. As is, ignoring most of what happens around them is normal for the sake of the 20 min wraith timer.
2. You may see necromancers walk around more often, instead of hiding in HQs or in safe places in general.

I see no cons RP-wise

Game-Play-Wise: This would be a TRUE blessing and explore friendly change. I would even consider returning with a necro-
Surely no cons here either.

PK-Wise:
1. Necros will have a better chance to defend themselves when unprepared. Not that it will make much difference, since the class can be annihilated by almost any other class, even when prepared.

2. They will be able to respond faster to PK or any other request involving firepower. Even though buffing a group of undead usually takes some time, it won't be near to what happens now. Teleport away to prepare and if your foes are fools enough to stay there for such a long time, you will have a chance to get involved. Usually there is none around and you'd be lucky if they are still logged on.-

Cons:
Warriors who choose only melee won't be able to surprise a necro as easily.


Seriously, in this kind of change there are no downside effects but any hard-coded restriction like limiting the total number of undead must have. Even if it's totally required, it will still have a negative impact on the class in general..and that is reducing it's potential. I understand that removing the timer couldn't happen before due to the unlimited number of undead. Now and after the latest wimping, the concentration restriction is not required any more.

Cheers.-

Stopping casting while moving would, on balance, hurt this game. I certainly don't think it should be anywhere near the top of the priority list of things for D to work on.

Walk-in holy words are a fun tactical feature of SK. They can be difficult to time and execute and they balance out the powerful cabal spell wielded by the MC. If we're worried about the impact of holy words in some particular instance, let's fix that instance rather than screw around with move-casting in general.

Also, follow-casting is pne of the only ways to land a kill with some casting classes and, again, forces tactical decisions by the enemy (i.e., do they abandon their followers to escape?).

Final strike should be removed from the game anyway.

Oh, and game balance and playability should far far far outweigh game "realism." See also: shovels.

I agree with everything Jhorleb says, and I only read part of it.

I do agree that the animate timer should be dropped completely.

Now that there is a limit on the number obtainable, and you pay a concentration cost, it would make the class much more playable to not have to stop so frequently and find new NPCs to animate. Also, exploration is silly as a necro when your party keeps falling apart so often.

I like that undead should be leaving the game and entering with you, it again takes the "pain in the [REDACTED]" factor out of necromancers.

At the same time I agree that charms and control undead shouldn't leave the game with you, HOWEVER it would address the issue of game crashes leaving people high and dry.

Picture an IC world where you are out in Cain Techt with prince lathron fairly well equipped and taking hits.. SUddenly there is an earthquake, and prince lathron has... completely dissapeared. Gone, POOF. Now you have to leave, get him again, and start aaaaaaall over again. There needs to be some type of fix for this, and only charms logging out with you fixes it (that I can think of). I'm open to any other suggestions that resolve this glaring problem with charm/control classes, but there needs to be SOME fix, and charms leaving the game with you are the only one I can think of.

I mentioned earlier in the thread what I thought was the essential point of the change. Just the possibility that a necro could attack something with 40+ undead made it impossible for NPC encounters to be built in a way that was balanced for regular players but not a push-over for a necro.


This is a good point and I actually agree that with a hard restriction on the number of undead, we will soon be able to relax some of the other restrictions that were trying to accomplish this (unsuccessfully).

I actually wouldn't mind taking the timer off of wraiths (or increasing it greatly). I think this would let necros be very scary without letting them ever reach the absurd levels of damage output that they enjoyed previous to this update. It would also promote interaction, like Im2old4u said. I'd also imagine that this would be a suitable compromise between the two camps that have been arguing in this thread over the necro change.

It gets my stamp of approval.

I do agree with Im2old4u, that the timer on undead should be removed as it definitely does hamper a player's ability to move about freely when after about 40-50 minutes they have to stop and raise new wraiths, or whatever they want. I would always want my necromancer followed by an entourage of undead groupies just to look cool (at least that's what the necromancer thinks) and not be bothered by a restriction that hamstrings RP. Not that I think it takes long to get some groupies going, it's just annoying to have to do it over and over again.

Sounds like a cool idea, but I'll posit this idea. What stops me from using things like protection pills and sanctuary pills to reduce my concentration cost to 0, and still drop a holy word from another room. It's an idea that sounds pretty intuitive, and should be implemented, but unless it's going to be impossible to cast at speed run, I don't see it as actually working. I'd suggest making it go up when walking, and further increasing while jogging, but just be impossible while running.

I don't see a problem with people walking in with holy words. Final strike I agree should be removed from the game. It's a worthless spell. The sorcerer that casts it has to sacrifice themselves only to be met with enemies that get resurrected moments later and run and grab the loot they lost, then go back to their regularly scheduled rampage. The sorcerer, in the mean time, accomplishes nothing, but removing himself from the list of people who could defend against the attackers. I've had several attempts of enemies to cast final strike on several different characters of mine, and none of my enemies successfully landed it either. The casting time is brutally long, movement from room to room adds lag on top of that casting time, and I've only ever been struck by 2 final strike spells, both of them being from friendlies, one from Camby, and the other from Eisenvahl. Everybody else just failed hardcore at it. I mean there was even this one sorcerer, I think his name was Umiro that polymorphed into a pineapple (talk about telegraphing intent), and vaporised an empty room while trying to kill a group of Adepts.

A) Final strike should have a 5 room range in all directions. Every [REDACTED] thing in sight should be vaporised, not just the current room the sorcerer is casting from.
B) The no rez flag should be removed. I don't think I've ever seen a final strike spell actually be effective. Sure, people have died to it and lost their loot, but that's a temporary setback.
C) The casting time makes it impractical for just about any attack. I'm actually astonished that people who are enemies have actually died to this spell.