Recent changes, a bright future ahead

[Gothmog]

There have been a number of changes recently, a lot of them mainly affecting thieves/scouts. As I think the news posts on MUME have hinted, these changes are just the beginning of a series of changes.

It's clear that a lot of players feel that scouts (and especially whities) are now 'unplayable'. This is a type of reaction we usually see when important game mechanics get shifted in one way of the other. That said, it might also be true.

However, the latest news post is not the last one. More changes will come. The system will be altered further. If one particular sub-group of characters are worse off, it's a temporary situation. We strive for balance, and for a game that is fun to play.

Your feedback is valuable, very valuable. However, statements such as 'OMG my thief is now a lv40 useless piece of crap' aren't very constructive. But, by all means, vent if you feel that you need to vent.

Just rest assured, more things will come.

ps. Feel free to comment below.

[Adverse]

I personally might not be ultra happy bout the current thief situation (although I certanly don't think it sux completely either). However, I'm very happy bout the fact that "things are happening".

[Relim]

Hi,

I said it to you earlier (as zorc) and I said it to Ilie, but let me reiterate: it's great to have you guys back, active and really looking to add to MUME. I mentioned to Mandor that I was trying not to over-react or whine or bitch or moan with that in mind. I dont know if I managed it, though

Perhaps, for us "thief only" players, we can get an indication of the timeframe for the further updates? I dont want to train off my BN, for example, if further changes are coming in "the next 3 days" as opposed to "the next x weeks", and have to go through the whole training malarky again.

I didn't get chance to test the last version of this, since I was on holiday, but pretty much stand by my other thoughts on the initial tests.

Will play with the changes to see if I can figure out just how playable/not we've become. We are less potent, and perhaps my BN scout has simply become no-fun anymore (Mazza was always useless, but it was what made it all the more thrilling to get a kill - now it's just cumbersome and dull without escape, and I'm not terribly convinced that escape will work in pk either - especially shoot, where i'll now die 10/10 times rather than 8 or 9 ), but perhaps it's premature to say that puke scouts are totally unplayable.

Finally, I can't help but get the feeling that the changes to scout have been made after discussions with some of the older players about what they'd like to change in order to play again. There's an anti-scout feeling among many of the lab/group players; I'm not one for conspiracies (though I just stated one... oops), but just feel that it's gone far too far in order to appeal to some of the non-scout fraternity. (No doubt, I'll be lambasted for suggesting this, but the feeling gnaws away at me on this one).

Anyway - my twopenneth (I had written something so much longer, but Ilie just talked to me and covered some things off). I look forward to the further changes, and reiterate the point that it's great to have MUME so very active again.

[Rogon]

What I'm worried about is that the people who keep praying stuff like "gg you fucked up the game, buhu" will result in people losing motivation.

I really hope that won't happen though. Keep going strong! If something you don't like happens, argue for changes here on the forum, and post in a reasonable tone with good arguments.

Cheers!

[Wobbler]

Opening up a test version to regular mortals to gather constructive feedback prior to main implementation was a particularly good idea.
If one has to nag, it might have been an even better idea to keep it open for a full 24 hour cycle to allow players from all continents to participate.

[Ilie]

The problem with a full test-mume as the one we were running is that people quickly start testing many other things than what we want tested. So we either have to create a limited world that is completely different to the "normal" MUME (we did that once, but it takes quite some effort, and it is out of sync now so doesn't work any more), or we have to make lots of logs and go through them and see if someone did something they shouldn't - which is really really boring for everyone.

Or we can keep it up for a limited time and get some good feedback at least.

[Peapend]

I think that the fact that the playerbase has a voice in the new changes is essential and was very well done. I guess i mean i like how the new forum and setup seems to be consistently receptive. I can't say i understand why thieves were changed more then just hide, but i really like that there are changes being made to improve the game.

[hobit]

Gothmog Posted:
There have been a number of changes recently, a lot of them mainly affecting thieves/scouts. As I think the news posts on MUME have hinted, these changes are just the beginning of a series of changes.

I'm not sure how many players remember me, but I have been following whats going on in game and it has peaked my curiosity enough to get me playing a little bit on and off. I'm glad that life is starting to come back to this game, and I hope we get some of the old players to come back and play again.
Keep up the good work.

[Razoor]

Like Relim, I'm also very happy that the management is finally becoming more active. Every change so far has been really good, and it's great to see you communicating more with players than before.

Having said that, i think it was a bit unecessary to implement this change to thieves. The class was fine as it is, and one could tell even when the changes were suggested that it would more or less break the class in certain situations. As it turns out, a lot of people seem to find it broken overall...while i had only expected it to be useless in closeables
New ideas and changes are always welcome, but I honestly do believe that after the arguments we had around this change Ilie, things could have been thought through once more before implementation. Relim's conspiracy theory might not be too far off, talk more to currently active players rather than old ones!

Either way, from what I've understood the goal is to make fleeing an unecessary action in PK by adding delayed means of escaping, making it perhaps more tactical from a realistic point of view. I am extremely sceptical to anything that adds delays (and by delays adding forced damage, like when you escape) to the game, and I hope you wont do similar things to other classes as you did to thieves. I'd suggest leave fleeing as it is, it already gives a malus.

If not, it might be time to start considering lowering the time for temporary rerolls, or considering full ones. I feel that this would greatly improve many peoples will to play, but of course I am also extremely biased on this point

Keep up the good work!

[Elaros]

I love the new changes, it even made me to log (not unretire thought, since i forgot how i wanted to reroll it )
I disagree about broken thief class though, the change didnt break the class, it did only break some aspects of tactic people (pesky rogues) were used to, and thats huge difference in my eyes. Maybe it will require some tweaking, but only time will show. Im sure, good players will post some constructive feedback for it.
More long retired people will play again to check some new strategies and changes, and thats good sign!

Keep the changes comming !

[Gwendolyn]

'OMG my thief is now a lv40 useless piece of crap'

Damn, you stole my comment!

While I certainly welcome the fresh energy put into the game by builders, coders and everyone else involved, this change was a bad move from my personal perspective of playing this game, for the following reasons:
1. It makes scouts very vulnerable in those situations they were most fun to play them for me, namely following large groups around in places like moria and other monster-infested places. Versus large groups the motto is now: 'fail an escape and die' [death by bash]. Or: 'flee and pray' [death by spam] (Heck, four seconds is like ages in spammy places)
2. Due to the nature of the change, mostly solo players (like myself) are discriminated, while large groups are even safer now than before.
3. Since a high escape skill is now mandatory for any type of scout, the fun-to-play scout/warrior combo is really hard to design now. (Though, 16 (whitie) or 18 levels (orc) might do the trick aswell...)

I really hope there will be some form of compensation for the "loss" of the scout class; after testing here and dying there i really do not feel like playing those characters anymore.

[Alve]

I still don't see what agenda you're following with the changes. Without a statement about the goal and the reasons for starting all the fuss it seems like random actionism to me. Random actionism obviously is still enough to stir up a discussion and thus raise awareness about the game and get people to play again, but I'm not quite satisfied with that policy ...

[Elestir]

Alve, there is one obvious advantage in not revealing the goal. If no1 knows what goal your actions followed, no1 can also say if you succeeded or failed. More than that you can always update your goal to what the actual effect is, showing everyone how "successful" you are.

Although to be fair, Gothmog has already roughly stated it... The goal is to make the game more balanced. He could however clarify which features of current game mechanics are seen as unbalanced atm.

[Ilie]

There are several ways to look at balancing, but this usually works prety well:

• Is some object used by everyone? (e.g. fgc)
  Is some skill learned by everyone (e.g. bash) or no one (e.g. kick) in a class
  Is some "class" over-represented or under-represented compared to what we think is right?
  Is some skill more efficient than what the goal was?
  Is there something that makes getting away too easy?

We don't want to spend too much time balancing what we have though, we really want to get MUME IX out this year, with a lot of new skills, spells, +++.

[Cuantar]

We don't want to spend too much time balancing what we have though, we really want to get MUME IX out this year, with a lot of new skills, spells, +++.

No! I'm supposed to start my PhD this year!

In all seriousness, if that's the end goal, do what you need to do to make it happen.

[Alve]

Interesting ...

I guess the thief class was over-represented among the players then? And I see ... you made escape a more attractive skill which was probably a good idea in this sense. I hope I'll be done with my thesis before MUME IX

[Snarp]

If the change was meant to decrease a thieves ability to fight with sneak in a closed in space or just make it easier for thieves to be spammed down in bottlenecks, then it was a success.

If the change was meant to decrease the overall survivability of thieves, it's too soon to judge. Personally, it will make surviving as a newbie thief difficult but for experienced thieves it should be easy to adapt too.

I think a few spells should be tweaked but apart from that mume is well balanced among classes. That said it doesn't mean coders couldn't introduce new skills or change others to perform another task which may cause balancing issues.

The changes to escape were necessary and brought a rarely used skill back into action. But will Snarp practice escape? Yes but only gradually as I level because I have nothing else to prac.

As a whole I thought the introduction and the process of the thief change to be thorough and professional.

[Babanovac]

Well, scouts are kind of unbalanced from a certain point of view. They are the only class in mume that can choose whether to fight or not. No other class has this luxury. When you meet enemies, they will hit you, spam you down, force you to flee or fight. This is not the case for thieves, their "invisibility" skill gives them advantage of choosing their battles 99% of the time. This feature may be considered as too much of an advantage.

[Razoor]

They will still have this advantage. As someone pointed out, this change punishes slowlinked and less skillful players, but a good scoutplayer will have no problems keeping to the stab'n-run PK that everyone despises so much.

[taithleach]

I seem to be in the minority that likes this change. I didn't think that scouts where overpowered, but I did find there ability to hide/sneak DURING a fight (especially something like a 2/3 room closeable) a little ridiculous. I know any game that features Elfs', Dwares and Orcs isnt exactly big on realism, but you have to keep some perspective.

It will make scouts easier to beat in a confined space, but then again I am of the opinion that they should be - they aren't a class for that.