New Spawns and T2A philosophy.

[Gilgamesh]

Personally I believe that the spirit of this shard is accuracy with regard to game philosophy rather than a blind obedience to every miniscule detail to OSI's often ill-thought through modifications.

I have to ask the question: which is more important - people using all areas of the game or people only using a small % of the game?

I halfway agree with the first statement but believe that the base or start of a free shard should be attempted 100% accuracy, and then after people get used to it (yes maybe that takes some time?) then if there are serious problems players have with an aspect we can talk about changing it.

Second statement, I think (especially in a free shard with a fraction of an OSI shards population) concentrating players is very beneficial. I used to use some crappier spawns when I started on Divinity because the giant roving pk guilds that were there for the first month of 2.0 release didn't bother with them. If the concentration goes up to high in a good spawn then pk's will start to frequent, and if pk's come around too often and are too successful at killing and looting pvm'ers they will move to worse but safer spawns. Allow the natural effect of players playing to try and solve a problem before resorting to coding a fix, as per my philosophy at statement one that a lot of the "problems" players have with a certain aspect of free shard accuracy are because the player base hasn't been able to adapt, learn how to use it, or balance itself out (pk's are a big balancer imo) to the aspect yet. Things should be given a long time to sort themselves out and non-accurate changes should be for serious problems or overwhelming player opinion.

[Gilgamesh]

My memory on dispelling is that lower level monsters like gargoyles couldn't dispel your stuff if you had GM magery and maybe eval? but that dragons could instantly dispel and often did, although many a time I was able to cast two ev's before they could dispel one and both would still be there when the dragon was downed.

Also is it just me or do monsters cast through melee damage here? They do have to actually cast their spells, correct? I think I saw an ogre mage machine gun eb's at me faster than the casting time should have been, and through melee hits.

[Faust]

My memory on dispelling is that lower level monsters like gargoyles couldn't dispel your stuff if you had GM magery and maybe eval? but that dragons could instantly dispel and often did, although many a time I was able to cast two ev's before they could dispel one and both would still be there when the dragon was downed.

Also is it just me or do monsters cast through melee damage here? They do have to actually cast their spells, correct? I think I saw an ogre mage machine gun eb's at me faster than the casting time should have been, and through melee hits.

Actually the Energy Vortex had a chance to resist the dispel, quite similar to how resist works in the first place. If the mob's magery and eval wasn't high enough the Energy Vortex would resist it. If a successful chance to resist the dispel occurred a clumsy effect would occur instead of the dispel effect.

NPC's never casted spells like a typical player back then. They were on a static timer of a few seconds and casted their spells instantly. It didn't matter how much damage output you put on them it was not possible to disrupt their casting. This would be quite obvious when you had two EV's on an lich lord and it is still casting EB's and Exp's on one of the EV on the ledge of the LLRoom.


PS

Straight from '99 Stratics site on killing a balron with EV's and BS's.

Tactics for killing: Melee combat is *absolutely* futile and will only get you quickly killed. The most efficient way to kill a balron is to to trap it... Find natural formations in the dungeon the balron is in (rocks, stalagmites, etc), and get it trapped on the other side of it. Once the balron is stuck, let it spend all of its mana trying to attack you (but be prepared to heal!). Once it casts only level one spells (magic arrows, feeblemind,etc.), or Evaluating Intelligence reveals that it has less than 4% mana remaining (roughly 20 mana - enough to dispel), cast energy vortices and/or blade spirits beside it, and let them duke it out. It usually takes two vortices, or up to eight blade spirits, to kill a balron. To keep your blades and vortices alive longer, cast reactive armor on them. Also, casting poison on the balron early on will keep its life slowly draining away, making your job a bit easier.

Reference: Balron
http://web.archive.org/web/199902181015 ... m/hunters/

Proof that it was futile to cast an EV or BS on a magic casting NPC before it's mana was wasted. I remember vigorously how this worked back in the day. People are either unfamiliar with this function, thinking back before dispelling was implemented, or are simply used to the way it was on UOSA before it was fixed.

The only other possible way of avoiding the dispel from a monster was using map fixtures with your EV's and BS's, so that it would not dispel it.

[Gilgamesh]

Ok fair enough, but I guarantee I used to take down (once in a while) dragons without having either of my ev's dispelled. I suppose there is an element of chance to it.

Also I'm glad you proved that balrons can be poisoned cause I had a disagreement with some asshat on this forum months ago about that and also remembered quite clearly my method for killing balrons (taught to me by someone, I forget) was to cast a poison field near the wall where you can "trap" them (they just don't walk around it to you with their shitty AI) and you would just drain their life down slowly with repoisoning until they're red lined.

[Ezp]

Ok fair enough, but I guarantee I used to take down (once in a while) dragons without having either of my ev's dispelled. I suppose there is an element of chance to it.

Also I'm glad you proved that balrons can be poisoned cause I had a disagreement with some asshat on this forum months ago about that and also remembered quite clearly my method for killing balrons (taught to me by someone, I forget) was to cast a poison field near the wall where you can "trap" them (they just don't walk around it to you with their shitty AI) and you would just drain their life down slowly with repoisoning until they're red lined.

Maybe that's because you casted your EV on the natural hills in Destard? Thus the Z axis bug was in affect. The EV was on the hill and the Dragon was below it and unable to dispell. Just a thought

[platy]

poisoned monsters had a very low % chance to dispell i remember.. i used to keep monsters poisoned so they'd attempt to cure instead of dispell..

[Faust]

Monsters didn't cure until the UOR publish.

[Maleficia]

Monsters didn't cure until the UOR publish.

Correct.

The monsters are not teleporting then dispelling. They are targeting and dispelling. I had cast 3 EV's on an orc mage, and not one got close to the orc mage before *POOF*. I remember mobs dispelling, but it does seem like it needs a little termpering.

[Derrick]

We'll be working on these issues very soon. I'm in the midst of moving us to a new server which is almost complete.

[BloodyBandage]

Not sure if there was another change on top of this but when I was going through dungeons I noticed mobs aggroing extremely fast even when only on the screen for a second. Also spell casters such as elementals are casting on me before they are attacked or before they get a hit in. I believe once they either melee you, get meleed or attacked in some way then they should cast. I know it was like this for a little while.

[Derrick]

Not sure if there was another change on top of this but when I was going through dungeons I noticed mobs aggroing extremely fast even when only on the screen for a second. Also spell casters such as elementals are casting on me before they are attacked or before they get a hit in. I believe once they either melee you, get meleed or attacked in some way then they should cast. I know it was like this for a little while.

It should still be like this. It's possible that someone else had been fighting them and that had enabled their spellcasting. I'll test though. Thanks!

[Maleficia]

It should still be like this. It's possible that someone else had been fighting them and that had enabled their spellcasting. I'll test though. Thanks!

No, They are mana dumping when targeting. I have been getting lit up by flamestrikes from fresh spawns.

[Faust]

I have had no problems with them spell casting before being damaged or attacked. They are probably just walking over traps which triggers their casting.

[Derrick]

They will also begin casting if they are withing tile of you, even if you don't hit them.

I'll look into this, it shouldn't be possible but I'm not ready to say it isn't

[Gilgamesh]

Ok fair enough, but I guarantee I used to take down (once in a while) dragons without having either of my ev's dispelled. I suppose there is an element of chance to it.

Also I'm glad you proved that balrons can be poisoned cause I had a disagreement with some asshat on this forum months ago about that and also remembered quite clearly my method for killing balrons (taught to me by someone, I forget) was to cast a poison field near the wall where you can "trap" them (they just don't walk around it to you with their shitty AI) and you would just drain their life down slowly with repoisoning until they're red lined.

Maybe that's because you casted your EV on the natural hills in Destard? Thus the Z axis bug was in affect. The EV was on the hill and the Dragon was below it and unable to dispell. Just a thought

No it was in Wind. I used to be able to (rarely, like 1/3 of the time or less) get off two ev's and have them kill the drag before it dispelled either of them. Usually if you tried to double ev at least one would last long enough to get the drag down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/3 health and poisoned. You could wait for the poison to take it below 1/2 while meditating and then double ev again for the (usually) kill. Of course lower level monster to drags had much more trouble dispelling and would be able to be taken out by just one ev. I forget where daemons were in the mix but I think they had more trouble dispelling as well. Once you start to get into the highest level, anything past a drag imo, ev's become pretty useless for soloing. You have to poison and then maybe finish with ev.