Regarding relics...

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:59 pm

i don't want to sound like i'm griping about anything i'm just saying...as Garagoth and even Daeron are so isolated that on a relic run from a distant land will be impossible if defenders can just hop a boat and be there in 30 seconds setting up the most beautiful trap ever seen. its just crazy that only 2 factions have to run the entire world to get back home when others are alot closer.

Draco Nightspawn · Post by **Draco Nightspawn** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:38 pm

Happened to OA that way the other night

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:54 pm

not sure exactly what caused this....logged in my wiz(Evil Incarnate) she was in the menzo temple...haven't used her since the latest updates to the relic spawns...when i logged in she was ported 2 zones away into the legion tunnels.
this is where it gets wierd, when i checked my status to see what happened i noticed my journal was empty...no SL text at all. i was friendly to SL since i was from there. i went NS and was friendly too, only ppl that disliked me were ppl that logged in after me or that i made dislike. i believe a combo of the lag we were getting into and the relic spawning script might have had a hand in it.
just think you guys might need to keep an eye out for this. when my faction was reset all was well, but it was wierd it wiped out my journal and i essentially had no faction at all.

http://img286.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... one6mx.jpg

Post by **Metis** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:17 pm

Yes thanks for posting it. We are aware of the problem ask a DM to reset your faction and that will fix the problem.

One thing for those of you who may try to exploit this. There is a possibility, doing other faction jobs you normally wouldnt have acces to will make your character invaid and you will not be able to play it anymore and obviously none of the staff will help.

It is obvious this is a problem that needs to be looked at and the "i didn't know" won't work, since it is plainly evident using a faction you shouldnt be friendly with is wrong.

Post by **Zing** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 12:19 pm

Well there's certainly no faction altering stuff in any of the Relic code.

Put this down to an odd lag moment I think.

Go'f · Post by **Go'f** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:27 pm

Shadow Legion have been holding a large number of Relics for an extended period... When we were finaly assualted the first relic we lost was the aggresing Relic, this seems fair.

The 2nd relic we lost was ours... and then the aggressor just hid with it (Monk/SD? changing screens all the time to confuse diviner - which are useless once you have figured out they cant tell you last known location just where is it now). This looked to continue for a long time but the server reset and the two out of cradle Relics went home

It wasn't that much fun as they couldn't beat they hid the toys... playing style gripe not relic rules. (although i think there should be a mucking about with it rule - don't ask me how to quantify that though

)

Problem
after the server reset again the faction was raided and the 1st relic the aggressor took was ours, surely we should keep that one till last this doesn'ty seem fair that we hold 6 relics and with the loss of just two get no use out of them, especialy when the theif wont enter into a battle for possesion.

so because that probibly reads as a rant...

Suggestion: The cradle will not give up the Factions relic unless there are no others to give up.

Minor suggestion: to long in a non pvp location stationary and you are slain by the relic

Minor suggestion: you may not be hasted while carrying the relic and counts as heavy armour to monk and barbarian movement rate. (might be to harsh not sure)

Post by **Metis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 10:55 pm

The exact order Zing will have to explain

As long as someone is not sitting in a neutral town (avendell, frostdale) they can keep moving. This is somewhat grey area in my opinion, the players intention would be judged by a DM, this time you are talking about I saw where your flags were being carried, there were no malitious "run the flag somewhere far and just sit there" it may be frustrating sometimes but judging by their actions and occasional talk I saw there was plan to try and get through. If someone was just hiding your flag and not making an effort I would get involved.

Disclaimer: The above is my opinion the final decision will be made by the higher-ups, for you lawyers out there.

Go'f · Post by **Go'f** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:28 pm

Thanks Metis, intent to defraud the Diviner was not something I thaught was high on the list for the La faction team, but the result was still there...

And on pondering the underlying problems I would like to revise them to just the above suggestions to read

Suggestion: The cradle will not give up the Factions relic unless there are no others to give up.

Minor suggestion: Have the Diviner say last known location (in a map transition) or just not port if the text is "I cant tell you anything cause its moving between screens" I spent quiet some time tracking down a diviner who knows nothing.

(if that statement confuses you its cause I edited the post in question)

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:06 am

All I have to say is that the relic system is really proving that NS4 is WAY unbalanced (for PvP).... divine and arcane magic are still way too powerful.

By running away with the flag and not returning it was simply to be a thorn in the side of SL to tick them off mostly -- What's the point of returning the flag into the castle when there are 2 or 3 SL members camping it waiting for us to bring them to them?! That would be STUPID. Plus it was more fun wasting their time anyhow... we all had a good laugh at their expense!

I think the relics should all return to their rightful homes every day or something..... FORGET about making it HARDER to get them back, holy crap, it's hard enough as it is!

How can this server be any fun (for PvP anyhow) when you have to build cleric or mage levels into your build? that really lowers the variety of decent characters, not to mention the lack of unique weapon choices and only 1 +5 weapon -- And then you have dex fighters being useless because people can disarm them and steal the 2 hardest to get weapons from them (unknown evil kuk or storm kamas) easy (most pvp servers tend to nerf disarm) and a dex fighter can't dodge a bigbys - that's silly, especially if you have epic dodge, or consealment... then we have the Issacs -- up to 140 damage per hit, no save, no resist?!? wow.

Now granted that both sightbringer and -chron- have made some powerful builds and are excellent at using them to their fullest, the fact remains that clerics have the most melee damage possible (then add fighter weapon spec for+4 and 6 monk levels for a speed boost and a pile of free feats not to mention all the enhancement, AoE and protection buffs!!!) I have built a couple clerics, and they are insane.. I can own 10 ice giants at once at level 16 without even taking any damage!

I think I'm gonna go and play on some other servers and see how they have fixed these -mostly bioware- unbalances...

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:18 am

while i do agree some aspects are unbalanced...i'll try to stay in focus here. in my opinion the relic cradle should not release a factions own relic until last. that gives up the whole point of "the relic is so sacred to the faction it transcendes all factional alliances". if it gives it up first or second then thats like giving in to a bully....does this make sense?

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:37 am

Yeah, I do agree on that point -- either have the factions own relic come out last OR have the relics come out in the order they went in (which perhaps is the way it is?)

As for the unbalance issues I brought up -- they are intertwined with the relic system (99% PvP since the NPCs are pretty much no threat in any city to any lvl30+), it was mostly the relic system that brought this out in the open (for me anyhow).

What I forgot to mention is the relic system seems to have actually LOWERED the amount of city raids... so almost seems like the intention by the devs to make more raids has actually had the reverse effect.

And getting back to the other problem earlier in this thread -- some cities are very close together and others are distant (especially if you can't use boats to return relics) yet again making the relic system show that the world is out of balance in other ways, interesting and varied YES, but balanced?? No..

But NS4 is still a lot of fun to RP, or group to fight bosses, or test your builds solo vs. other PCs or NPCs... or to hunt the bought lvl40's that log on for 10 minutes to pk people not even half their level. It's a huge, and rich server, and I hope to see it complete in the near future!

Post by **Metis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:58 am

As far as the relic system a couple points. It definately was not implemented to be the focus of NS just an addition. We are looking at the pros and cons of it, its only been live for 9 days so everyones constructive comments are not falling on deaf ears. The city distance is another issue that is not being ignored, yes for all you from Garagoth. Judging by the flows of new content I am sure you can see the amount of effort being put in, which I can say for a fact more is on the way.

As far as overpowered builds for PvP, that is something for another thread (although there are probably a ton of them). In my short time here I see most threads offering an opinion on this topic turn into a flame war and get locked. All I can say is I play here and see many of the builds, there are a good many that build for their character for fun with PvP being an afterthought and they have a great time.

So keep the constructive critism coming, well thought out opinions are always welcome.

trent · Post by **trent** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:28 am

Maybe perma locking that door in the secret tunnels might distance neversummer city and Menzo a bit .... with that door its only like a 4 map trip from one relic to the other. Making people have to run through the underdark seems more realistic in terms of getting to and from menzo anyway ...

Garagoth isn't all that bad .. sure its kinda out there ... but not overly... you guys have a secret passage that gets you kinda close to R.K .... A.O is close enough to t.c and n.c is close enough to a.o .... seems the distance between cities is fine other than the secret door thing in the orc place ... Just think if you manage to get all the relics it would be l.a and s.l that would have to make the walk back

I have noticed less and less lagg every day .. whatever you devs are doing keep it up

...

I like the idea of epic areas being on another server (just don't want that nightmare of one going down and having your most fav char stuck there for a month

Well sorry for the random post of ideas .... had a bit too much coffee

Keep up the awesome work guys ... even the little tweaks don't go un noticed

Trent {FoN}

Nemesis Revised · Post by **Nemesis Revised** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:52 am

congrats to the devs too!

the relic system just needs a few more tweaks too. Such as the one i mentioned to ya ingame

also, i think issue of lag (alongside issues that arise because of lag such as dialogue mismatches, etc) can be fixed if we came back to the cluster system. Although it might be tough to impplement for certain issues such as: if a relic is captured, itd be nice to announce it to all servers

but aside from that, thanks plenty

Post by **Zing** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:12 am

Well reading all of your feedback is certainly interesting.

You may not feel that everything is balanced or exactly how you would like it to be but hey, if nothing else then at least we've given you a reason to care!

Maybe a vote on the relic cradle order would be appropriate. Personally I think it's great that you can handicap the relic bonus of a faction by stealing their own relic - especially as it's generally the second out of the pot. I TOTALLY understand and recommend stealing the home faction relic and hiding with it if you wish. Hell I'm willing to give +10% xp to any char carrying one! (disclaimer I'm definitely NOT saying that is going to happen). Why should SL (or whoever) who seem to have the most high levels chars have all of the pie? Stealing the SL relic and running off with it is a whole new side-game I didn't really foresee, but i reckon it sounds like alot of fun.

One last thing - if you choose to ignore the relic system then that is fine too. Nothing has changed on the server for you than before we put it in.