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HolyKnight wrote:@Richard: Floating Skulls are weak. If that is what you are talking about. I have killed many upon many of them. I think those numbers are in relation to hit points but I could be wrong. Skulls Have no defense. Any who also the fire elements that are invisible most people call them elementars and they do drop something but not always . Don't know what it is used for yet but when I find out I hope it gets me some copper! I do agree with the whole beholder NPC perhaps somewhere in the western woods where there is nothing there. *shrugs*

@ Hadrian: I agree with you 100%, It would be nice to have something like that implemented into the game.

Yes, you are right i got one thing from them before but i had no idea what to do with it dropped it on ground accidentally and game crashed i lost the item...flame something or other it was...oh well my mistake. And all I meant by floating skulls is that there was a mistake about them. They are easy to kill yet on estralis's monster list it shows them as stronger then demon skeletons...

No not stronger they just have more Hit Points or health.

Richard Cypher wrote:They are easy to kill yet on estralis's monster list it shows them as stronger then demon skeletons...

Wrong.

today had a char strolling in the crypt.
a lot of mummies: three parchments, two trousers, a lot of red shirts two or three bales of cloth and some throwaway junk.
a dozen sceletons: one bad warhammer, two very bad "krummsaebel", one barely usable horned helmet, one real bad elvensword and 48 copper.

visiting 6 of our neighbour gnolls: a handfull of steaks, 1 bad morningstar, one bad chainhelmet.

seems to me, that the stronger gnolls are even poorer, then the poverty ridden undead.

Korm Kormsen wrote:seems to me, that the stronger gnolls are even poorer, then the poverty ridden undead.

That's right and will be changed.

Just an added point on cost, and this doesn't include the 50 copper for potions or any food potion... but in order for a fighter char to be able to go to some higher NPC's may need fairly good armor and weapons, this is just one example in a trade :

Magical Elven armor
Quite good, new (0 in stock) --- 80 silver
Good, Slightly Scraped (4 in stock) --- 60 silver
Average, Used (2 in stock) --- 40 silver

Dwarven State armor
Very Good, new (0 in stock) --- 30 silver
Quite Good, slightly scratch (1 in stock) --- 20 silver
Good, Slightly Scratched (2 in stock) --- 15 silver

Silver Steel Armor
Very good, new (1 in stock) --- 15 silver

Shield of the Sky
Excellent, Brand New ( 0 in stock) - 10 silver
Very good, New ( 0 in stock) - 7 silver

Flame Helmet
Quite good, new (3 in stock) --- 3 silver

Orders may also be taken.

Do floating skulls no longer drop rings?

They are supposed to. If they don't, drop me a note. Keep in mind that not every skull will drop a ring but only around one out of three.

Estralis Seborian wrote:They are supposed to. If they don't, drop me a note. Keep in mind that not every skull will drop a ring but only around one out of three.

I've killed say.. 10? And no rings.

Dandelion says (12:56):
Juliana has rings from killing the skulls
Dandelion says (12:56):
got one blackstone....... in an hour

I don't think that's 1 in 3

Also, I really dont think that the red demon skeleton drops are balanced. A red demon skeleton should drop maybe 50 coppers, and have say a 1 in 5 chance of dropping a magical longsword instead of serinjahs and silversteel instead of plate armor. I s'pose the helmets are okay, maybe visored helmets instead? And perhaps a mid-level shield too. I do not see WHY they drop needles and scissors...

nmaguire wrote:

Estralis Seborian wrote:They are supposed to. If they don't, drop me a note. Keep in mind that not every skull will drop a ring but only around one out of three.

I've killed say.. 10? And no rings.

Dandelion says (12:56):
Juliana has rings from killing the skulls
Dandelion says (12:56):
got one blackstone....... in an hour

I don't think that's 1 in 3

Also, I really dont think that the red demon skeleton drops are balanced. A red demon skeleton should drop maybe 50 coppers, and have say a 1 in 5 chance of dropping a magical longsword instead of serinjahs and silversteel instead of plate armor. I s'pose the helmets are okay, maybe visored helmets instead? And perhaps a mid-level shield too. I do not see WHY they drop needles and scissors...

But they are high quality scissors and needles!!!

Eeeer!? I just went in with a team that killed the necromancer demon skelly, and got a poison longsword and 61 copper coins, I thought he had his old drops back O_o Or was the poison longsword just a one off? :/

nmaguire wrote:Eeeer!? I just went in with a team that killed the necromancer demon skelly, and got a poison longsword and 61 copper coins, I thought he had his old drops back O_o Or was the poison longsword just a one off? :/

He used to drop poison longswords, but he did it frequently in the past that is where I got like 10 swords by killing that guy solo, the others i sold.

Richard Cypher wrote:

nmaguire wrote:Eeeer!? I just went in with a team that killed the necromancer demon skelly, and got a poison longsword and 61 copper coins, I thought he had his old drops back O_o Or was the poison longsword just a one off? :/

He used to drop poison longswords, but he did it frequently in the past that is where I got like 10 swords by killing that guy solo, the others i sold.

Er, now he is uber... and should probably drop better stuff...

yeah he totally should and i cant believe you only got 61 copper he used to drop like 85 or more...lol

The demon necromancer is so challenging and risky, a reasonable drop for this SHOULD be around 100 coins and a high quality item of rarity.

Fact of the matter is, this thing is so powerful even if you have a mage, no one is going to be making "easy money" because they will die on the second attempt most likely and lose everything.

As of now it seems to be a "useless" npc on the map almost. No one wants to go near the bastard.

Yeah, Nathan and his "team" i.e. Dom and Will (:P) got pretty lucky the first time round; Dom only took around 12 health bar's worth of damage and Will about 4. We got some rubbish stuff. Second time we couldn't defeat it, because it summoned around 18 skeletons. I then saved us 4 times, but Dom kept going back "I WANT TO KILL IT".

Eventually as we were getting completely pwnt, this time Dom stuck in a corner (i.e. I couldn't wind him) screaming HEAL every few seconds, while I was too dying from a few mages and warriors, with nowhere to close anything off and the necromancer doing nasty magic and summoning more things on me while Dom is still screaming it crashed. Lucky.

Regardless, from the second time I've seen how ridiculously hard it can be to defeat, and I don't think an average blade and under a silver can make up for that, especially as it'll be mostly whole teams of people trying to defeat it.

From what I understand Nitram is going to change the Demon Skeleton Lich when he has time.

Now as for the drops of the Lich he drops 50-100 copper. If you will read Estralis' posts throughout this thread he has made it very clear that the focus of the NPC monsters is not suppose to be focused on coins but rather the items they drop. Currently the Lich has these quality items as a possible drop

Magical Broadsword
Elven Silversteel
Cloud Shield
Diamond Ring
Sorry left one out Fire Axe

The problem Estralis has expressed to me is the worthlessness of the weapons and some armor IG. Right now they have little or no value but this will take time to change, but when accomplished things like a serinjah could be sold to an NPC for a reasonable sum. Until then other ideas need to be expressed besides the NPC needs to drop more copper because obviously Estralis is not going for it. So if you want to help in other ways send a PM to Estralis or even me as I am trying to workout ideas for quality drops an NPCs should have.

HolyKnight wrote:From what I understand Nitram is going to change the Demon Skeleton Lich when he has time.

Now as for the drops of the Lich he drops 50-100 copper. If you will read Estralis' posts throughout this thread he has made it very clear that the focus of the NPC monsters is not suppose to be focused on coins but rather the items they drop. Currently the Lich has these quality items as a possible drop

Magical Broadsword
Elven Silversteel
Cloud Shield
Diamond Ring

The problem Estralis has expressed to me is the worthlessness of the weapons and some armor IG. Right now they have little or no value but this will take time to change, but when accomplished things like a serinjah could be sold to an NPC for a reasonable sum. Until then other ideas need to be expressed besides the NPC needs to drop more copper because obviously Estralis is not going for it. So if you want to help in other ways send a PM to Estralis or even me as I am trying to workout ideas for quality drops an NPCs should have.

THE OLD DROPS!

Like everyone's been SAYING.

e.g. fire axe, magical serinjah etc. etc.

Those are the drops ( except magical serinjah is no longer a drop)

I want to help you to understand my "logic": Some say, "monsters should drop more coins (because the items they drop are crap)". From this topic you can see that other players are not satisfied with the prices of the NPCs that dictate the value of one copper coin: http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... hp?t=24469

So, the value of a copper coin might get changed, sooner or later. The value of a copper coin is not a constant. Making the value of the monster drops relying on the dropped copper is neither reasonable nor promising - all it would cause is lots of work, now and in future.

So, the drop value should depend on the items dropped. That some items are considered worthless is a flaw of the rest of the game, not the drop system. I assume you get the difference. Changing systems to meet the requirements of a game flaw is sort of stupid.

But this discussion is very important and I am the last one who states the current monster drops are well balanced. But some want to reinvent the wheel. Monsters drop a great variety of items, with different qualities, depending on the monster strength. Here and there, there are inbalances, as with the gnolls and the demon skeleton lich. These inbalances have to be spotted and corrected. But I doubt the game becomes a better one when monsters drop thousands of copper coins and nothing in addition or drop dozends of items each. The current system guarantees one item for each monster and in average, another item in addition. But monsters can also drop up to 4 items, depending on random.

I am still asking you to trace specific inbalances. That e.g. demon skeletons drop short swords as a common drop is of course an inbalance. This is one number in one script that has to be changed, this is not a big deal. But a brand new system requires 31 scripts to be written from scratch and I doubt that there will be any reasonable benefit. All of us know that mummies dropping serinjahs is also an inbalance in favour of the players, but hey, let's don't mind, OK?

I have to apologize; our devs did serveral nerfs on the monster drops I was not aware of. So, I based my claims on wrong assumptions, or better, on outdated informations. I am really sorry for this.

This gives rise to a new question. Currently, both, crafters and fighters complain that they are not rewarded properly for their actions by the game. The key to solve this are the NPCs IMO. But let us assume we'd have "fair" NPCs - what do you think about the balance between crafters and fighters?

Example: Even a total noob can go to the temple and slay 5 mummies, going home with some scrap after some minutes. For the same scrap, a crafter has to spend much more time and effort, but there is no risk of loosing anything while crafting. Also, A high skilled crafter can produce useable products of any kind while a high skilled fighter has to compete with demons to get random items of comparable quality. What do you think about all this?

Well for that low scale crap that fighters get from mummies and stuff is how it needs to be. Crafters do not have such a high risk for their job. Where as fighters put their lives constantly on the line for things. It is hard for a fighter to get decent armor for their "trade". In order to do so they need to get atleast some money in the beginning from the mummies and other weak monsters. Crafters only need the starting package money for buying one or two tools, then they can just work. I mean say a beginning crafter makes plates or nails. Those are the easiest thing yet their is high demand for them if you think about it. So even crafters get money soon but with no risk so that is why it should stay a slower gain. Fighters get smaller amounts of money faster so they can purchase the armor and weapons they need to help them survive and go on to fight stronger things that provide more income i.e. weapons and armor, coins, sellable or useable items. The balance is fairly well set up right now just that thier is not enough income so people are not ridiculously poor right now.

Edit: I would also like to add something else. When you fight bandits above the Northern Woods, it is very off balance. They rarely drop anything at all. They should atleast drops some daggers occasionally, I know they drop small healing potions which is good, maybe they should drop some plates since they are humans and would need to eat, or maybe a meal every now and then. I mean food is expensive and any fighter needs to be able to mak a few simple meals for himself since money is tight and without plates we can not. But anyways that is not why I posted here. I posted here because I was fighting Goblins with my daggers and had some coin and was like dang, I do not have any mor food time to leave. I followed the path out and there was a bandit there, so I engaged the bandit. He stole 64 copper coins from me, and when I killed him I got nothing back. WTF is that? Then another one stole 20 and i got three back at another time. This is ridculous if you beat the bandit you should get your coin back. I mean what they steal your coins then throw them away? This seems very silly and should be fixed if you ask me.

The balance starting out seems fair. Crafters that want to learn, can start out making and selling low end items. Right now, crafters can also go for the mummies to get extra coin. A crafter can sell their low end wares to NPC's for less then how much it cost to make them usually, but get experience and can a lot of time gather their own supplies including trading with other crafters. Their increased experience eventually pays off in selling goods at higher and higher prices. Right now though, there are no or very little buyers.

In the past, these buyers have been mages and fighters usually. Other crafters won't be buying from them, they will just try to craft what they need themselves (unless there is a skill cap allowed say just 4 high end skills to be learned, with more low end skills allowed, I don't see this changing). Without the food spell as it was in the past, the only way a mage can earn coin is to team with a fighter (let me know if I am mistaken).

So, the economy is based on the NPC's. With dropping loot instead of coins, if the loot is good enough, the fighter and mage will keep it and use it.... food, weapons and armor. This will take away from the crafters being able to sell this item. If the loot is bad (this includes not worth carrying due to the weight and low sell-back), then it may as well be nothing because it is thrown away. Increasing the loot, making it more usable, or saleable will help the fighters and mages but not the crafters.

I understand somewhat (just a little) the value of the copper fluctuating (inflation/depression) but still think encouraging the loot, and changing this instead of the coin is not a good answer for the upper end NPC's.

The lower end NPC's could possibly drop things a crafter would need in their trade, and a little food, weapons etc. to help those crafter, fighter chars just starting out (I don't have a good answer for the mage chars starting out). The higher end NPC's though IMO, should drop less or no loot and a lot more coin. This would let the fighter build up enough coin to be able to start buying first low-end products from crafters, then increase to high-end items.


The NPC's also need to buy more and different product and sell less. Why should a crafter tailor make anything cloth-wise except a green robe? That is the only thing bought until you get to leather goods. Why do NPC's sell bread, and food items... this should be left up to crafter chars to sell, along with bags and other needed/wanted items.

I must say that if you throw any items away at all then you should not be complaining about being poor. I keep every sellable item I find, from cheap daggers to full leather armor and anything in between. Crafters make other robes because people buy them. Why just make green robes that sucks. I mean whoop dee do you can sell them yet people do not want to buy green robes. They like other colors too. Also, npc's should keep on selling their bread and other food items. There are not always other characters who cook on and you can not choose when someone should eat or not.

Richard Cypher wrote:I must say that if you throw any items away at all then you should not be complaining about being poor. I keep every sellable item I find, from cheap daggers to full leather armor and anything in between.

I keep some also... the ones worth carrying and selling...

Crafters make other robes because people buy them. Why just make green robes that sucks. I mean whoop dee do you can sell them yet people do not want to buy green robes. They like other colors too.

My tailor char has actually sold two the entire time ig...not many buy them

Also, npc's should keep on selling their bread and other food items. There are not always other characters who cook on and you can not choose when someone should eat or not.

You could eat apples, any fruit you can pick, cook ham etc... There may be more crafters that cook if they could sell without competing with the NPC's

All of this is just ideas however, the main point being that IMO more coins should be dropped then loot on the higher end NPC's...that this would balance the economy better. This is just viewing it from a practical standpoint however, not economic.

Juliana D'cheyne wrote: In the past, these buyers have been mages and fighters usually. Other crafters won't be buying from them, they will just try to craft what they need themselves (unless there is a skill cap allowed say just 4 high end skills to be learned, with more low end skills allowed, I don't see this changing).

The higher end NPC's though IMO, should drop less or no loot and a lot more coin.

1) 4 high end skills... alright, you can speak 2 languages, which other skills would you like to keep? This is totally non-realistic too, because, someone who knows how to use a sword and shield can have the ability to cut down trees and play an instrument well, but if this skill system was brought in it would be impossible, since you need 4 high level skills (slashing/concussion/distance weapons/puncture, parry, slashing and tactics) to have a decent fighter character.

2) More coins? Why? A demon doesn't need to spend anything, and killing things like the necromancer demon skeleton and dragon etc. is the only way to get REALLY high level items (to name 2, fireaxes and magical broadsword) that no crafter can make.

The only complaint I really have about the monster drop system is the inbalanced monsters, namely the demon skeletons and the demon skeleton necromancer.
There aren't many fighters that can take a demon skeleton alone, maybe with high level equipment, it usually takes at least 1 fighter and 1 mage or 2 quite good fighters. They aren't exactly easy to kill, compared to a floating skull, which drops 20-40 copper and a gem, and dies in a few hits compared to fighting a demon skeleton, which drops 30-50 (?) copper and a high level chance of a serinjah sword, WHEN THEY USE MAGICAL LONGSWORDS!! IMO, they should drop 50-70 copper, and have a 20% (?) chance of dropping a magical longsword (as the best drop). At the moment the items I have seen them drop are copper (100%) serinjah (90%) shortsword (30%), scissors (15%) parchment (15%) needles (15%) two handed swords (10% or less) and plate armour (10% or less). I don't see how this is balanced, because the demon skeletons do a lot of damage to equipment, and you'd be very lucky to find someone that pays a high price, even a silver would be surprising, for most of these items, so just increase the copper value a little and have a 1 in 5 chance of it dropping a decent item (magical longsword, since, like I said, they USE them) and I think they would be balanced, or if they were made weaker. As for gnolls, I haven't fought a gnoll for a good while, so I can't remember what they drop, but perhaps if they had a chance of dropping a visored helmet (good quality) and steel plate armor (good quality)?

rofl 2 skills.

e.g. you could not parry, dodge and slash. Or you could learn 2 mage skills and that's it

Silly silly.

I'm not one for skills, but limiting to 4 is just dumb.

I'd say Nathan's idea is pretty much right except a much lower chance of fighter demon skeletons dropping magic swords should be in play. 20% is ridiculous for such a rare drop on such an easy monster. The red necromancer should drop them more often, and drop bad quality wands.

The dragon should drop all things fire (fire wands, magical long swords, fireaxe etc.) , all elementals, meridium ingots, ruby rings.

There should also be near Vanima, some kind of drow cave. I'd be very happy to make such a map. At the end would be some kind of ridiculously powerful necromancer drow, like the red skeleton but harder, which can drop Drow blades, Drow swords, Drow armour, nightplate, wind wands, Blackstone rings.

Uh... I think you are misinterrpreting ... "unless there is a skill cap allowed say just 4 high end skills to be learned, with more low end skills allowed" the four was a number thrown out arbitrarily and would only encompass being able to max in whatever number is decided. But this also would allow some lower end skills, but the char would not be the top, the best in those.

More coins? Why? A demon doesn't need to spend anything

Nor a skeleton, or about any NPC.

Everyone is discussing the drops, because that is what the chars would prefer to get, but if the higher end craft chars can make and sell some of those items, it would boost the system to my way of thinking. However, like I said, it was just a suggestion... and I am not proficient in economics.

Okay, leave the skills alone no one ever really masters a skill, except for smithers. I say let as many skills as someone wants to raise as high as they want if they want to spend 3 years doing it then by all means go for it. If someone sacrafices the time they should get it. Also, another thing that needs to be done for skills is this, fighting skills need to have an easier amount of exp necessary to get levels then crafting skills. I mean crafting you can get 700 of anything you need and just start making stuff repeatedly, where fighting is a lot more difficult. The system for crafters is fairly balanced and good for them now, maybe a slight increase in exp gained. Yet fighters can not gain levels after a certain point really. It is extremely difficult, they struggle for swirlies with no results to show for it once you get high enough. So I propose that fighting skills need less exp to go up, especially since the monsters are so difficult and a majority of people are getting jammed up in green to dark green skills with no where to go.

Maybe it should be possible to salvage some of the drops, not used by anyone right now. To salvage an item you would need a certain skill in a certain craft. Say, smiths know how to salvage a sword. A certain amount of whatever metal the sword was once smithed with could get regained. That would mean that fighter characters could sell them to crafters. But then again, it should not be as rewarding as mining the needed materials since drops should not be the main source of income for a fighter anyways.
What fighters really need is more role play. Maybe it would be wise to spawn every now and then a somewhat powerful creature somewhere, so a trader or traveller would be in need of a good warrior, just in case...
But somehow i do like the idea of some materials that are drop only. Should be rare, but might be a nice addition to the game. Some kind of dark elven steel (ingots or bars) or what about the famouse mithril, extra light but strong metal?