quirks

[Longbeard]

http://www1.drakkarzone.com/beta/quirks.rtf

-Above seems like an interesting idea.
Some good stuff is coming our way, surely.

However in Drakkar there is never really any public info available from developers side unless you are willing to comb through forums and it is actually posted. More often we have to rely on player comments and personal experience.

Would it be possible to actually have some sort of chart presented to us from Soyer so we could all look at it and see which quirks work together and which will have to be picked up at the cost of leaving others aside, which ones will go to that "10" point and which ones to "20".

At this point game is rather large and i personally feel it maybe a good idea to in a way revisit this concept of "user manual". But feel free to disagree and leave us in the dark as to what works and how and so on, as usual : )

[Mars]

[

Would it be possible to actually have some sort of chart presented to us from Soyer so we could all look at it and see which quirks work together and which will have to be picked up at the cost of leaving others aside, which ones will go to that "10" point and which ones to "20".

At this point game is rather large and i personally feel it maybe a good idea to in a way revisit this concept of "user manual". But feel free to disagree and leave us in the dark as to what works and how and so on, as usual : )

As with other items/gear, it will be up to the players to work out different quirks and decide for themselves which is best for them. What 1 player may say is GREAT, another player may say IT STINKS. Some players swear by a certain item of gear, while others wouldn't be caught wearing it. It comes down to personal preference. Hence, why quirks are being added, to give players a chance to "personalize" their characters and be "unique"

[Longbeard]

I would not know how it is planned to work.

However here is the scenario, you plan to get quirks X, Y and Z

You get some scroll that say, here is quirk Y for ya to enjoy, you apply it, ONLY LATER to find out that quirk Z the one you were waiting for the most is not available because you went with that quirk Y earlier.

I do not dispute that choices are personal issues, it is common sense. However will we have them?

Like i played this game a long while ago, it had cursed items that you would not be able to find out about unless you put them on, then they would stay on you in such a way that you would not be able to remove them, unless you pay astronomical amount of gold.

Like,
you open a treasure chest
and it happens to be trapped
and you did not knowabout it
and as a "reward" you are made to be a proud owner of the the ball & chain,
-at your own ankle no less!

[Longbeard]

Originally posted by Mars_Sysop
As with other items/gear, it will be up to the players to work out different quirks and decide for themselves which is best for them. What 1 player may say is GREAT, another player may say IT STINKS. Some players swear by a certain item of gear, while others wouldn't be caught wearing it. It comes down to personal preference. Hence, why quirks are being added, to give players a chance to "personalize" their characters and be "unique"

I am surprised you quoted me extencively, because it does not seem to answer any of the questions i asked, have you read what you quoted? Thanks for the general outline and encouragment tho!

[Mars]

Longbeard,

You asked if we could provide a chart about what quirks went with others, I based my answer on that question.

As I understand it, you will receive "points" which you can apply to the quirk of your choice, you will not be "forced" to accept one quirk or another, each decision of where to "spend" your points will be your choice. You get a description of the quirk and you decide how you want to apply the points.

[Longbeard]

Thanks Mars,
I have somewhat better idea of this system now!

So say i have 3 points, i should not be able to apply them to 3 mutualy exclusive quirks, i gather? This way it can be pretty cool. It's just looks like something new for Drakkar.

Very curious to see it implemented

[Frozboz]

- You can't "grunt" for quirks. They will appear at random, meaning there is little sense of accomplishment in gaining them, totally going against the way the rest of Drakkar has worked for the last 17 years.

- Sysops will hand them out, so make sure you're in their guild or good side since this will be a huge way to obtain quirks. Sysop friends will surely be the "testers", the ones with max quirks first.

- While yes, players will pick and choose which ones they want, seemingly giving your crit a "unique" feel, in reality only certain quirks will be chosen to give the player a maximum advantage. On paper, AA's in EQ looked like a good idea to make characters unique also. This is the exact same idea.

- The game will be eventually tweaked around quirks, forcing players to get certain abilities.

As with other items/gear, it will be up to the players to work out different quirks and decide for themselves which is best for them.

Translation: just shut up and give us your $7.50 a month for UGH to find out yourself.

[Longbeard]

Froz, i never said i played longer then i did, so for me it is only 6 years.

So while i know how things work most of the time here, i retain a degree of optimistic outlook about things.

You know it is my "quirk".

You with your long term standing in the community are almost impossible to disagree with tho ; )

[Longbeard]

Originally posted by Mars_Sysop
Longbeard,
You asked if we could provide a chart about what quirks went with others, I based my answer on that question.

Mars,

I asked about this:

To promote diversity, some quirks will be mutually exclusive, after a certain level. For example, you may be able to gain 10 layers of Quirks A,B,C, but only one of those can go to 20. Optionally there may be some "slide bar" quirks, where you have to pick a development direction. Attack vs Defense, Damage vs Hit Chance, etc.
-From the file link posted in starting post of the thread.

My question in a way amounted to this:
can we have this presented to us with not just "A, B, C," but naming names as they appear in the actual listing. I did not see you origianl reply answer to any of that.

[Mars]

if you mean will the quirks be listed in such a way to be identifiable? then yes they will
they are also divided on screen between types, i.e. stats, abilities, ect

[Longbeard]

Ok, i will try again to clarify what i was asking, not sure i will come across at this pont at all, one more once!

Here is a scenario,

You are a paladin, you see yourself as LS and shield as you start out, byt the time you spec 1 or more times you want nothing more then to be paladin with spec in GS. completely ready to give up and RR only so that you could spec GS and go that way. (see there are no GS users in N1, so you did not even know GS exists in the game, and you missed the store that sells halberds outright) And yes i know there is one item that can now remove spec, but it is VERY hard quest for most.

so can we know from the outset which "some quirks will be mutually exclusive"?

Or will you be able to shift your points around everytime you feel like reinventing yourself or even just testing out new set of things?

Just very simple request for in a way charted "development direction"

[Mars]

I'm going to leave the answer for this to Brad.

I don't know if he has considered/allowed for the moving of points around at will.

But aside from that if you are asking for some type of chart that will show that if you apply points to A and B you get X and if you apply to A and C you get Z, I don't think you will see anything like that. but as it's a work in progress, Brad may change his mind on how he wants it displayed and "used"

[Frozboz]

Originally posted by Longbeard


Froz, i never said i played longer then i did, so for me it is only 6 years.

Huh? I can see why you have a hard time figuring things out - never did I question how long you've played, nor do I care.

All I said regarding length of time was the fact that quirks being found "serendipitously" or by accident with no grunting at all involved is totally against how Drakkar has worked it's whole life. It's a mistake.

Sysops will hand them all out to their friends to "test" them the first day it's live. This is a mistake.

Once a player has been playing long enough, they will have all the useful quirks, and won't choose the ones that won't help their crit. No one will be unique. There will be one clearly defined path in which to "max" your crit, and players will choose that eventually. This is a mistake. For example: Sure, a ment can choose to be stronger in fire OR ice. How many will choose ice? That's like asking how many ments in Ancients use icebreath over firebreath.

The game will be tuned to these new quirks in upcoming scenarios. Example: $oyer introduces a new scenario (is NL out of beta yet?). Let's call it "Flisk's world of retardation". In FWoR, there are timed trials for crits in the level 25-30 range. A highly tweaked level 28 crit, with max offensive quirks, can barely defeat the trial in time. One without quirks cannot, thus forcing someone to level higher, or to eventually get quirks in order to defeat the encounter. This is a mistake.

This quirk setup is philosophically no different than Everquest's Alternate Advancement. When AA's came out, they were a cool way to make everyone unique. In the end though, the players all had the same ones, because they were clearly defined and clearly needed.

This is a mistake.

How do you fix it? Start by letting people grunt for them, and let that be the ONLY way they get them. Having sysops pass them out just screams "abuse". Having them as quest rewards is alright, but it would be best to just have a seperate EXP bar that fills into your "quirk" exp. While you hear a lot of complaints against grunting, everyone playing this game does it. If you really hate grunting that much, you wouldn't be here. Besides, what sense of accomplishment is it if you play for hours and never get one, yet someone just falls ass-backwards into a handful, or gets their sysop guildmate to give them as many as they want?

[Stormwind]

Longbeard,

Generally speaking Drakkar has always been an "experiment and learn" environment. For example: people choose a certain type of weapon early in the game and then often don't find out until much later in their game careeers that only certain weapon types can do certain things (power weapons for example).

Usually the beta-testers and advanced players are the first to explore and experiment with these and that is often a double edged sword. Sure they get first grabs at some stuff and can get ahead of the rest of people. But they often have to deal with bugs, problems and often have to guess on things. Those who follow them get the benefit of learning from their mistakes and often are guided on what the "best" course of action is.

I am assuming quirks will be handled in a similar manner.

-Stormwind

[Longbeard]

Originally posted by Frozboz

Originally posted by Longbeard
Froz, i never said i played longer then i did, so for me it is only 6 years.

Huh? I can see why you have a hard time figuring things out - never did I question how long you've played, nor do I care.

I do not believe i wrote a post offencive in the slightest, i however presented some background. If you don't care for that, well then you don't. Hope it does not add to the level of stress you are under, you come across as a little bit under stress at the moment. But don't know if you care to hear about it or not.

[Longbeard]

Originally posted by Stormwind
Longbeard,
Generally speaking Drakkar has always been an "experiment and learn" environment.
-Stormwind

Thanks for taking time to post.

My observations seem to be very much like yours.

It now seems to me that issue i was talking about gained in only seeming importance because i was forsed to clarify my own clarifications and thus ended up posting way too many posts. I don't care one way or the other, i am fine with Drakkar as a game if i enjoy enough to play it, i will. If new changes deminish my gaming experience i will likely take a break.

[Longbeard]

Alright i guess i can post one more, my thoughts are revolving around this and i feel like at this point it is not important if i posted too many posts because i already did.

Here:

To promote diversity, some quirks will be mutually exclusive, after a certain level. For example, you may be able to gain 10 layers of Quirks A,B,C, but only one of those can go to 20. Optionally there may be some "slide bar" quirks, where you have to pick a development direction. Attack vs Defense, Damage vs Hit Chance, etc.

Now,
Lets say there is a perspective thief that considers to apply some of the quirks.

Make all quirks that are thief class split into sets of 3 different types, give it a name and set it up as "subdivision" of "Greater Brotherhood of Thieves". Set each subdivision with a trainer, maybe even come up with unique "quirky" graphics while you are at it?

Possible types:

Highway Robber,
With main ability of increased transmute rate, the idea is that line of thought amongst thieves is after goods and money, they should have higher accuracy at hitting too. A few other quirks can be designated to them to complete the set.

Assassin,
Line of thought mainly after removing red boxes off the screen, so naturally, high damage is it as well as increased hide ability with larger weapons.

Combat rogue,
Be some one who would at times be found in open combat and this would use the ability to suddenly disappear and in the middle of the fight deliver backstab from shadows.

All 3 can share extended backstab as they get better at quirking(?) so that it carries onto next target.

I just would like to *IF* possible to see what is going to be that:
"some quirks will be mutually exclusive"
as in what sets of them will work as such

Surely i would not mind getting all of them!

[Frozboz]

But you see what I mean about "uniqueness"? I'd dare say that 95% of the thieves are going to choose option "B" (if they can only pick one), since fast killing is what generally they are there for..

On paper it looks great though, three unique choices.

[flisk]

What I interpret Brad to mean by being "mutually exclusive":

Some classes might have certain quirks that are exclusive to them; I'll use the Combat Quirks Brad has listed as the example:

Improved Reflexes
Improved Accuracy
Fire Dancing
Ice Dancing
Enhanced Armor
Enhanced Melee Damage

Let's assume the max number of quirks you can use in each of these is 10; Let's say you are a Mentalist. You may be able to actually place up to 20 quirks into Fire Dancing and/or Ice Dancing; while a Martial Artist cannot. However, a Martial Artisit may be able to put 20 quirks into Improved Reflexes and/or Enhanced Armor but nothing else.

That is at least the way I understand the "mutually exclusive" term to mean.


As for the "slide bar", I understand it to work like this:

Let's say you have an option of 4 Quirks:

Attack (how much damage you can do)
Defense (how much damage you can take)
Hit Chance (how often you hit)
Dodge (how often you are able to avoid hits)

Let's say you decide you want to concentrate on your Attacks and Hit Chance (hey it's nice to hit often and do lots of damage); you can dump your quirks into those two options; and once you hit 10 Quirks in those it may open them up to hold an additional 10 quirks while limiting the amount you can dump into the remaining two. In other words, you have become a flurry of attacks instead of a huge chunk of armour (which is what would happen if you concentrated on Defense and Dodge).

Let's say you decide you want to concentrate on your Dodge and Hit Chance; (same scenario as above) you may be able to dump 10 points into each of those; then once that limit is reached it could open up to hold even more points; but then it might limit the amount you can place into Attack and Defense.


I will also clear up additional confusion (the words in the quotes below are taken from the quirks.rtf link you posted in the first post of this thread):

"They will be given in a serendipitous manner, normally while the player is actively involved in combat. A sliding scale will be used to disassociate the gains from hours online so that people wont feel required to "script" for quirks. Quirks may also be awarded for completion of quests, missions and sysop events."


That means that you WILL gain quirk "points" by being in combat (grunting), but not by simply standing there doing nothing.

You "may" also gain quirks by the completion of quests from NPCs.

The quirks given out by Sysops are simply a "blanket reward" that will be awarded to an event; something that everyone who participates in can benifit from; they won't be given out by the Sysops to "friends" or "guild members" for testing. Brad chooses whom does the testing of certain things, not Sysops.

edit - added list of combat quirks for reference

[Darge]

There will always be people who want to be "teh l33t", so they will carefully analyse each quirk, think of every possible use of each one, and of course wait to hear the results others get with the quirks before they make their choice. This ensures that they are the best of the best and when they get the quirks that are the ones they decide are most beneficial, they remain so. Remember when the larger theives in the game all found out killer ss gave +10 agility? I do, and i remember how many of the larger theives either went ss for that very reason, or heavily debated it with themselves. Others remained dagger (or whatever other weapon).

My point in all this is that, of course there will always be a "best" something in the game, either for all around or for certain situations, and those who wish to be at the top of their game will get or pick those "best" things. The chance for uniqueness in no way lies upon the shoulders of the one who makes it, but upon the one who picks it. The only thing you can put on brad's shoulders is how usefull each quirk (or item) is, and im quite sure he took suggestions from players for some quirks, so suck it up.

Sysops handing out quirk points...eh, i could really care less what they do anymore. I didn't start playing drakkar 5 or so years ago so that when the announcement of quirk points being handed out by sysops, and the possibility, or lack thereof, of favoritism, was made, i could moan and groan and scream "SHENANIGANS!".

To get back to what i garnered was the main point of this entire topic, a user manual for quirks of some sort would be nice. Something that for quirks would have a nice little graph of some sort showing "this quirk cannot be selected if you have selcted that quirk" or "these are the 3 main choices of which all can go to 10, but only one can go to 20". Something to give us an idea of what people are doing. Its great to tread on uncharted territory, but when you cant erase the past mistake (short of a reroll im guessing), then maybe something to let players know what they are getting themselves into is in order. Especially if your (brad) going to have quirks that can only be selected once pre-requisite quirks are chosen, and quirk points are limited. I can imagine the lament of someone who was working towards a certain quirk, and finds they cannot select it because they spread other points too thinly.

[Longbeard]

Originally posted by Darge
To get back to what i garnered was the main point of this entire topic, a user manual for quirks of some sort would be nice. Something that for quirks would have a nice little graph of some sort showing "this quirk cannot be selected if you have selcted that quirk" or "these are the 3 main choices of which all can go to 10, but only one can go to 20". Something to give us an idea of what people are doing. Its great to tread on uncharted territory, but when you cant erase the past mistake (short of a reroll im guessing), then maybe something to let players know what they are getting themselves into is in order. Especially if your (brad) going to have quirks that can only be selected once pre-requisite quirks are chosen, and quirk points are limited. I can imagine the lament of someone who was working towards a certain quirk, and finds they cannot select it because they spread other points too thinly.

Now!
You must be a MIND READER! no one else seems to get what i write,

[flisk]

No no, it's not that what you wrote was not understood; it's just that what you are requesting (a manual that details out the system); it's not to that point (yet).

It's not possible to create a manual for something that, for the most part, is not set in stone.

I'm sure that once it gets to a more complete state you will see more information about it.

[Barbarella]

Dunno what da fuss is about, I understood from the initial post too.

<<<<< heads back to bog & screams in delight as she dies AGAIN!!!!

Maybe we can get fixed what's broken before new challenges come out?

bah, nm, forgot I was talking drak & not some of the other games out there now

oh yeah & i RARELY read forums so if ya wanna flame & want response to it? maybe next year hehehe

[Volcom]

Brad chooses whom does the testing of certain things, not Sysops.

Do you really think that brad doesn't have favorites of this game, its doesn't really matter what root you take someone somewhere will have a problem with what you have decided to do. It will never be totally fair, that thought was never in my head from day one, but it would be nice at having the chance to be fair...

Volcom__JIHAD

[Frozboz]

That means that you WILL gain quirk "points" by being in combat (grunting), but not by simply standing there doing nothing.

Webster's definition for serendipity: "The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident."

This seems to suggest quirks will come RANDOMLY. Grunting for exp, you gain a certain level every so much experience points. You're guaranteed to gain a level for your time spent fighting. Not so with quirks. I can't see how you think you can grunt for them.

Ok, so you get them in combat. Does this mean I can head to Alerian zoos with a 70/34 crit and mass kill? The more I kill, the higher chance at gaining quirks right? After all that's in combat.

Stupid idea, stupid implementation. Just allow people to gain them every so much experience, based on level.