Shattered Kingdoms

Giving it to bard would fall into their repertoire.

This may be true. My purpose is to let mercs better fulfill the tank role. I don't feel like swashies fulfill the tank or DP3s role very well. Giving taunt to mercs allows them to peel attackers away from non-tank targets.

Give every class a way to pin people in a room, something that you type skill song or spell and is there, not reliant on an outside NPC

As people learn to brew and scribe, they often have to grind out the spell for a long time until mastered, to ensure better efficiency of brewing and scribing. What if we added a bit of code in here to make it so that people could (rarely) become better with a spell -while- brewing or scribing it? They'd get the normal chance to become better at brewing/scribing, but also have maybe a 50% normal (compared with casting the spell) chance to become better with said spell. Thoughts?

Edit: I think this should be a thing because the caster IS invoking the spell, thus channeling power and concentrating on the spell, even if not uttering the words themselves.

I've been gone from the game for a bit (RL sucks) but I concur. Swashbuckler is alright to play, but not especially useful in end-game material. I wonder how dual wield would work for a rogue though. Obviously their circle stab and backstab will be more potent with a two-handed weapon, but they'd have to be front row to really make dual wield worth it, and if we combined this with their normal third attack, that would be a six-strike rogue.

Yep. That's basically the idea. Make rogues the damage dealers they want to be.

I still think scouts need something like marksmen or something. They are ment to be the best people with bows, but yet they still are not as good as lets say a mercenary who specs in bows or crossbows.

Bump.

I think restoring tribunals to their original state would add more options and incentivize joining one. While I understand why abilities to cast were taken away, it just feels ..like less.

I remember being able to enchant gear and rez an ally, make gates etc and that was fun.

With less players and playing a light alignment in a dark aura heavy playlist, your options seem to be rolling a class that can enchant/gate/brew or just playing grey aura.

I think it would be a good step in the right direction, even as a trial period or test to see how it works out and have players vote if they want to keep it or just be restored to what we have now.

Here I am with a list of random suggestions after being back playing for a bit. Note - this is mainly from the perspective of the class I play (hellion), and I have sat on some of this for a bit to consider even posting. There’s already some great advocates for other classes in this thread so listen to them. I love the idea of shooting for the moon with new ideas, but there’s some basic issues of fun/convenience that I think would be a lot to make it easier to play some lesser played classes and stick with them (and use existing stuff). If we stop wanting anything we’re dead, right?

S “Remove active breaks” tier

Poison/plague: the (positive!) change made to increasing their tick time has completely pooched how long they last on weapons as maledictions; done within under a tick, kind of useless. Don't see a use case for the spells when this is true.

The supposedly still broken “new” skill for midnight: reducing attacks to 1 when mastered, has I think since I left or not long after when it got put in. can't get to the forum to whine about it there. maybe be nicer about the room-affect spell's mana drain cost.

Loyalty tokens: I know this isn’t a break, but it’s S tier. I think there’s benefit to letting characters use LT they earn to prolong them playing those characters. If I didn’t have ~20 in the pot coming back I’d have just noped out. I know it’s dumb, but it’s just a nice thing that is still limited and can be cashed in to promote exploring the game some more, y’know?

forumid: the help files for cabal skills are awesome but gated in forums, so this is kinda rough to have broken. If unable to accommodate (which is very understandable and I cannot fathom the PITA it was migrating servers), can we just put these help files in game? I know this runs counter to the design philosophy of cabal mystique, but I think flattening the world for new (or older and forgetful) players is nice.

A-plus-tier: low effort buff/balance tweaks to the class I am currently playing obviously thanks

hellions/locate object: not getting locate has been like a 20-year-long-wedgie stuck in any hellion player's quality of life backside. Please give relief. More on this in A-minus tier.
Solution: give

Hellions/dominate: A max int human/helf hellion still can't sleep holding one w/ no other spells, and whatever details I could offer are moot beyond that. The prolonging of combat and harsher emphasis on mana management has drastically highlighted how imbalanced the spell still feels in terms of risk/benefit for a hybrid class. It hasn’t ever come back from weapon subtype implementation, and it just feels bad to use still. Great, I can get a one-hit-and-dead bard NPC that can sing songs of war, free shrink/enlarge, or a barb with toughness scaled around ‘cotton’.
Solutions?: remove NPC level cap (or raise it greatly) OR reduce concentration to the point a max int non-deep-elf hellion can sleep OR (worst of the 3 but giving options) keep the same level cap but otherwise swap to a tame-like skill rather than an onerous held spell. It really feels not-fun to juggle and hurts when you realize these are NPCs the classes you're fighting are leveling on at veteran.

Hellion/necro/sorc, shield spell: concentration and the mana cost to maintain just never make it viable for any of the classes that have it to actually cast it. I am genuinely curious if I just don't understand something (likely), but I doubt we need more than two hands to count the times in the past decade someone actually intentionally typed c shield.
Solution: consider adjusting it to be timed with no concentration rather than untimed with mana drain. Make it self cast only maybe for balance purposes? Anything that drives up the value/usability of the spell, as it is one half of the intimidate + shield combo that hellions have as competition for sanctuary. I don't even know if I care if the actual # value of the MP provided is raised, but why not? Give these classes a real and unique manner of magical protection.

Hellion, envenom: this feels like it fits wildly well in with the cursing/debuff skillset. Feel free to forgo all the other tweaks and give Hellions envenom, or just pick and choose. I don't consider locate a buff as a long standing injustice, so that should just happen even if you toss the rest of this trash in the bin.
suggestion: give

A-minus-tier: rebalance/give quality of life perks for classes I don't play but tried when poking back with fresh eyes
adventurers, lore: I know SK design philosophy is unique, but I have to say I’ve been on a non-zero amount of muds where basic identify falls into a universal tier of spells/skills everyone can have. Democratizing in-game item understanding is something I would advocate for, and lore exists as the skill/adventurer version.

shaman/warlock, identify/locate: same as above.

sorc and necro, shield spell: Fix shield spell as above and also watch sorcs and necros benefit. I think they are the ones who also get it, but 90% of SK knowledge has fallen out of my head.

whatever other people asked for in this thread that's easy

scouts should be apex bow predators: IDC what needs to happen otherwise whether it's an equivalent to specialize bow + another bow-specific enhanced damage or what

shaman, necro, and hellion, malediction buff: this is just stupid fun of tentative actual usefulness, but let them cast their maledictions on a container rather than a weapon and getting all eligible items in the container debuffed, so long as they have enough mana to do it. You show me a sprite shaman or delf necro in the back row hucking a knapsack of throwing knives covered in maladies and I will show you a stupid but fun time. It's insane how many tries it takes to get a malady to land on a PC that's not naked.

rogue, scout, hellion if you give it to them, envenom: haven't tooled with the skill enough to know if it needs buffing, but for dumb fun's sake consider as above with acting-on-a-container, so long as enough herbs are present. I think this is more a scout buff than anything, but I know this is high-coding-intensive so least likely.

C tier: least reward, little effort, but fixes something that hurts me deeply and personally

mastering spells: I’ve played this game half as a mobile mini game since poking back, just to spam skills/spells to mastered in otherwise downtime (might as well be transparent, @ me). It is almost comical seeing how many hundreds (or over a thousand) casts it can take to get a spell just from superb 1 to mastered sometimes. This isn’t my change hill to die on, but just throwing it out there that a small mercy would be tweaking spell improvement tick rates for literally every class that can cast.