Useless Skills and More

If you have an idea post it here
Post Reply
Mantorok
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 4:57 pm

Useless Skills and More

Post by Mantorok »

After returning to Drakkar after many years away, I notice that many skills things are either entirely useless, completely pointless, or simply overlooked. I'm only looking at this from the PoV of a thief, so I encourage other players to comment on their own experiences.
  • Trapsack.

    What is the purpose of this skill? To prevent other players from digging in your sack? We have sysops for that, and all players have access to them starting at level 1. Are there any creatures that steal from players, thus giving this skill a purpose? Dragons will mug you when flatted, but this skill hardly affects that, nor does it poison dragons who attempt it.

    I don't have an alternative idea for this ability. If thieves cannot steal from players, this ability needs to be removed or replaced with something usable.
  • Charge at skill 15.

    While understandable for some weapons (halberd), this skill is insulting with others (bow). Skill 15 should be a milestone in a player's life, and I like the idea of having a new ability to play with, either passive or active. Different weapons should have different abilities unlocked at skill 15. Perhaps bows get a passive bonus to hit, or daggers get a bonus to excellent hits. Maybe staff gets a bonus to blocking, and axe gets the ability to cleave (automatically attack a second enemy if the first swing is a kill shot). It would make weapon choice more important than figuring out which weapon hits hardest in the end-game. This leads me to my next statement.
  • Weapon choice is uninspired.

    Current weapon choice is based solely on what is available at the end of the game, and there are some clear winners. In Nork, halberd is the only viable weapon until the very end of the segment, when things like saber and Berovar's greatsword become available. Until then, you just can't compete with anyone using a halberd. There needs to be more useful weapon variety. Killers aside, only certain weapons are seriously considered in certain segments. I'll use Nork as my example.

    There are ten weapon skills, most of which have no viability at all or are dubious in their usefulness. Nobody in Nork uses axe or shortsword because they are easily outclassed by anything else. Mace, bow, dagger, throwing, and staff have uses for certain classes or situations, but are generally not viable. Mace users have Smasher's mace, Mentalists have Chipper's staff, there's the returning axe for throwers, etc. Then there's greatsword and longsword, both of which are good choices for the end of the scenario, but have no viability before then. This leaves us with halberd, which has easily obtainable, very powerful variants of itself throughout Nork. From level 1 to level 50, halberd is the weapon of choice unless you need to damage a power lair.

    We need to get some competitive mid-level weaponry in the game to spice things up. There also needs to be a viable end game weapon for each class of weapon. The term 'stick' was coined for a reason. Years ago, players knew that halberd was the path to the top of the game and not much has changed since.
  • KM5 silver crossbow.

    This weapon is a joke. Given the locality of it and the difficulty in obtaining it (two rare, random drops), plus the fact that only a thief can get to the NPC and trade for it, it should be better. Current testing puts it at the same strength as a wooden shortbow. As far as end game weapons go, this might be the worst in Drakkar.
  • Skilling anywhere there is real risk or challenge.

    In Nork, the best skill is found in places you can kill things in one hit or less. Even at higher skill levels (15 to 20), the best skill per hour is found in places like Nork -3.5 and the Yeti caves. Below is a typical example of productive hunting at these skill levels.

    Image

    In order to gain maximum skill per time spent hunting, you have to hunt areas that are of no challenge. In theory, hunting KM-5 should be more rewardining than sniping goblins in N-1 at skill 17, but this is not the case. Skilling is reduced to mind-numbing clicking-to-beat-respawn tactics. No dancing, dodging, healing, or any other actual player skill is required. I want to be rewarded for hunting somewhere that make me put forth real effort into both killing and surviving. I'm not sure how to fix this; maybe re-implement some of the old skill gained per swing or hit, or increase the skill gained per kill in higher end areas?
I'll add more to this as I think of things, but these are the points that were on my mind at the time of writing. Feedback and discussion is encouraged, as well as adding to the list of griefs.

Thanks for reading.
Last edited by Mantorok on Sun Nov 14, 2010 7:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Terrel
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2002 5:36 pm

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Terrel »

Interesting thoughts, presented in a solid (non-whiny) manner. Great job! :)

Agree on all points.

User avatar
Poldarn
Posts: 107
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2003 8:43 pm
Location: Queensland, Australia
Contact:

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Poldarn »

Terrel wrote:Interesting thoughts, presented in a solid (non-whiny) manner. Great job! :)

Agree on all points.

+1

User avatar
Quaternion
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:57 pm

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Quaternion »

Focusing on mentalists the following are obsolete/useless skills.

Corspray - this was meant to have had an upgrade but it is still useless.

Confusion - stops having any effect very early on. I actually really enjoyed using this spell while it worked and think it would be nice if there was a primal upgrade to it.

User avatar
Darge
Posts: 672
Joined: Mon May 03, 2004 2:54 pm
Title: The Raging Storm

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Darge »

Quaternion wrote: Corspray - this was meant to have had an upgrade but it is still useless.
When the new armor degradation changes went in years back, Corspray broke.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

User avatar
Quaternion
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:57 pm

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Quaternion »

I was under the impression that the corspray problem would be addressed due to the skill 38 bonus

http://www.kingdomofdrakkar.com/forums/ ... 51&p=48927
38 - Mentalist gains 5 additional EP regen per round, damage from Corspray/related abilities is increased
So is it not working a bug?

Quat

User avatar
Darge
Posts: 672
Joined: Mon May 03, 2004 2:54 pm
Title: The Raging Storm

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Darge »

http://www.kingdomofdrakkar.com/forums/ ... =40&t=7151

(In my post) The notation that something is off with Corspray in the mentalist section was likely not paid any attention, or couldn't be tracked down.
SIN
My father was a wolf, I'm a kinsman of the slain, Sworn to rise again
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain, The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will, By divine right hail and kill

trav: you bad bad girl

User avatar
Longbeard
Posts: 267
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2002 8:38 pm
Location: Boat to Aleria

Re: Useless Skills and More

Post by Longbeard »

Mantorok wrote: [*] Charge at skill 15.

While understandable for some weapons (halberd), this skill is insulting with others (bow). Skill 15 should be a milestone in a player's life, and I like the idea of having a new ability to play with, either passive or active. Different weapons should have different abilities unlocked at skill 15. Perhaps bows get a passive bonus to hit, or daggers get a bonus to excellent hits. Maybe staff gets a bonus to blocking, and axe gets the ability to cleave (automatically attack a second enemy if the first swing is a kill shot). It would make weapon choice more important than figuring out which weapon hits hardest in the end-game. This leads me to my next statement.
Well i strongly feel that charge is a very important ability to gain on any weapon but bow, and even on bow it maybe a good thing to have handy for the skilling bonus of on-hex killshot/hit, it's just not important because bow is really ranged weapon.

Remowing charge from some weapons and keeping it on others will make it impossible to skill chargless weapons almost 100%, because sometimes you will spend good 10 to 20 rouunds to be on same hex to hit something.
Charge must stay i would argue.

Ability to gain different special ways of use weapons seems to be rederved for paladin class though and most of them come way after skill 15, considering top skill now is 38/39 and paladin can gain shield bonus and there are party abilities in the mix, well there are ways, but i don't see a mentalist doing something special with staff, if they want added defence they can just skill it to 35+... Which mane have done it seems
[*] Weapon choice is uninspired.

Current weapon choice is based solely on what is available at the end of the game, and there are some clear winners. In Nork, halberd is the only viable weapon until the very end of the segment, when things like saber and Berovar's greatsword become available. Until then, you just can't compete with anyone using a halberd. There needs to be more useful weapon variety. Killers aside, only certain weapons are seriously considered in certain segments. I'll use Nork as my example.

There are ten weapon skills, most of which have no viability at all or are dubious in their usefulness. Nobody in Nork uses axe or shortsword because they are easily outclassed by anything else. Mace, bow, dagger, throwing, and staff have uses for certain classes or situations, but are generally not viable. Mace users have Smasher's mace, Mentalists have Chipper's staff, there's the returning axe for throwers, etc. Then there's greatsword and longsword, both of which are good choices for the end of the scenario, but have no viability before then. This leaves us with halberd, which has easily obtainable, very powerful variants of itself throughout Nork. From level 1 to level 50, halberd is the weapon of choice unless you need to damage a power lair.

We need to get some competitive mid-level weaponry in the game to spice things up. There also needs to be a viable end game weapon for each class of weapon. The term 'stick' was coined for a reason. Years ago, players knew that halberd was the path to the top of the game and not much has changed since.
Thigs have changed, there is a full set of weapons available at level 30 that are power weapons, they are in game and can be very effectively helped to. Access to NL remains important though. These weapons work well on nork scale, i would say too well. No where near level 55 exp "killer" weapons, but still very good.
Also level 55 in fact now is middle of the game it looks like...

[*] KM5 silver crossbow.

This weapon is a joke. Given the locality of it and the difficulty in obtaining it (two rare, random drops), plus the fact that only a thief can get to the NPC and trade for it, it should be better. Current testing puts it at the same strength as a wooden shortbow. As far as end game weapons go, this might be the worst in Drakkar.

For some reason bow is consistently underpowered, maybe it is feared to be too powerfull if it is a hard hitter?
Big bow was asked for b4 and often as i recall.
And yes KM5 bow is a joke, agree.
Things like counters in e-nork that should be populated by vendors questors, fun house in e-nork that should be a different fun house from reg nork, trainers that should quest you and actually be there in e-nork are similar to KM bow to be upgradable to something better.
There must be more places, more quests, more things to do all over the map and in harder to reach areas.

Just some thoughts

Post Reply