Posted by The Arcane(VIP) on December 26, 2000 at 12:00:58:
In Reply to: Re: Here's a thought... posted by sparky on December 26, 2000 at 10:01:22:
> My point was that it's not "all or nothing". That's a choice that you make as a player. If you want it all, you're gonna be sitting around a long time. If you don't like the spamming so much, just stick with a couple of them. If you're branded "useless" because you only have two or three of the shields...well, I don't know...it just seems kind of stupid. ...initially, the imms didn't necessarily expect people to master all six paths. Perhaps this is why in their initial implementation, many invoker damage spells were so over the top--aura/barrier/shield didn't exist then, and if you only assume someone will have one or two shields, they need to do obscene damage or they'll be weak as hell. However, as it stands now, aside from being expected by groupmates to have all six shields if you're over level 40, invokers really aren't a viable solo class without all six (or close to six). Why not? They need the damage reduction. Let's compare them to other mages: necros: have wraithform, an army to tank for them when needed, and the ability to heal themselves fairly quickly via vamp. conjurers: have minions to fight for them, and of course archons to keep them healthy and let them tank transmuters: have forms, of course, and haste/slow to further assist with tanking An invoker, on the other hand, has to sit there and absorb punishment while casting spells... and if he gets lagged out, he becomes totally useless, whereas a necro or conjurer have their mobs to continue doing damage, as can a shifted muter. End result: you need all six shields to be competitive. ---- As another aside, there's also a lesson to be learned about game design here, I think. In a competitive game of this format, you can't underestimate the lengths to which people will go to get a leg up on the rest of the crowd. To use a really simplistic example to illustrate my point... let's say you make it so that if a player uses the kick skill on Young Jim 10,000 times, he gains insight into asskick, which kills anyone who does not also have the asskick skill, instantly. You might think "Sheesh, who the hell is going to spend 300 hours kicking Young Jims," followed up with "Well, if someone's dedicate enough to kick Young Jim that many times, then they deserve a reward for it." No one does it for a little while... then one anal player who wants to exert his dominance over his fellow man vicariously through his character kicks Jims day in and day out, and finally gets the vaunted asskick skill. Suddenly no one else has a chance, and the game isn't fun for anyone else anymore. Sure, occasionally you can assassinate or PWK this guy before he asskicks you, but for the most part, no one stands a chance. So in order to be able to have fun playing the game again, ordinarily non-anal players also have to engage in this tedium. A year later, a newbie posts a log on the forum arguing that asskick is overpowered, and a half dozen elites reply "Sheesh, are you dumb or something? You have to go kick lots of JIms before you rank past 20, or you don't stand a chance. Everyone knows that." Ok, maybe I took that a little too far. :P But the analogy still holds (sort of). Real life, game theory, and past experience on the mud all show that players aren't going to back off the arms race despite its suboptimal outcome. But unlike in real life, there are people who can alter the rules of the game itself and thus the incentives of the players. If some omnipotent being had turned nuclear weapons into wicker baskets, the Cold War would've ended right when it began. Maybe something along those lines wouldn't be a bad idea here.