Risk/Reward?!

[Estralis Seborian]

This is the monster ranking:

Code: Select all

1: 101 - 110 -- mummies
2: 251 - 260 -- gnolls
2: 111 - 120 -- skeletons
3: 221 - 230 -- forest trolls
3: 241 - 250 -- ogres
3: various   -- sentient races
4: 231 - 240 -- ghost skeletons
4: 211 - 220 -- skulls
4: 301       -- stone golems
5: 281 - 290 -- female drows
5: 271 - 280 -- male drows
5: 151 - 160 -- spiders
6: 171 - 180 -- demon skeletons
6: 141 - 150 -- beholders
6: 181 - 190 -- rotworms
7: 191 - 200 -- lesser demons
8: 261 - 270 -- dragons
8: 201 - 210 -- demons

So, the observations on skeletons and gnolls refer to the 2nd lowest class of monsters. Note that animals like wolves and insects are not listed.

Also, I want to give you an idea how all that drop stuff works. Every monster drops up to 4 items (a stack of items is considered an item). One item is the perma-drop, an item that is dropped at 100%. Then, there are 3 categories, usually "weapons", "armor" and "stuff". Out of each category, one or none item is dropped. There is a primary drop (20% chance), a secondary drop (10%) and three rare drops (1%). Thus, one monster drops two items in average and sometimes more.

I am not satisfied with the whole situation. Yet the proposed solution, raising the value of drops of lower class monsters by adding more money is not what I'd second. The monsters that are most out of balance are the upper class monsters, for beating a demon is close to impossible and the reward does not consist of items from outer space. They just drop the best shit we have.

I think one of the more promising ways is to add "special places" where oen can get more reward, like the mentioned lairs. Also, modifying the traders can help, see my prior posts.

[Skaalib Drurr]

If a system is gonna be introduced over skill to time spent, why not have money to time spent in game aswell?

[Estralis Seborian]

April fools day is long gone.

[HolyKnight]

Alright I have completed a small round of evil NPC pwning here are my observations for the NPCs I faced to day in relation to Risk/Reward.

I started with the:

Gnolls : Since I last faced them in May, I noticed that some of the spawned Gnolls had very dangerous swing and as Mr. Cromwell said the reward is not worth the effort to travel to the northern woods (unless just for training) The main problem I saw with the gnolls was the amount of useless longswords they dropped. IMO longswords should be eliminated from the drops unless the quality is at least average or there is an NPC that would buy them. I do however like the food they drop very much, steaks are nice to bring back. Also I like the fact that they drop light loot making it easier to carry back to the merchants, like half leather legs and chain helmets but there worthless really to sell (5 copper for chain helmet, 10 or 15 for half leather legs). Your armor takes a good beating from the swords Gnolls use. But overall I see nothing too terribly off balance.... tis a long walk.

Bandits: Bandits really upset me.... I know they are weak and are for beginners but out of all the NPCs on the map these you would think logically would have gold. It can be said that no one goes by there to get robbed so they have no copper, but damn....they are truly a worthless NPC.... I killed three of them on my way to the goblins got nothing.... I know only three but I am faced them in tthe past and had more gold stole than looted I kill the damn bandit and I cant even get my own gold back..... I have no suggestions for this NPC other than delete its useless existence. (could have great potential and logic coin drops)

Goblins: I was very impressed with the risk/reward of goblins (didnt go to the peninsula only the abandoned ruins) they dropped decent copper for greedy little green bastards 9 coins give or take (candy as you call it) they also dropped ample arrows, leather boots, light hunting armor, and green robes: all which are sell able. They also dropped their short bows or slings which are useless really (think short bow can be sold in varshikar) and lamb legs (uncooked) can we at least cook them, I dont know many cooks that can cook lamb, but then again I just eat the steaks. The goblins also mounted a good attack on my character, fast little tykes. I dont believe the goblins are a bad choice for average fighters to loot but then again no fighter can really make a living off them....

Crypt Mummies : honestly could care lowest level monster NPC and relatively useless my mage character can kill them.... so dont care what they drop as long as entrails remain one of them. Wish other creatures did too (eg wolves, gnolls, trolls, or anything else with entrails )

Crypt skeletons: Dont really care what you do with skeletons honestly as long as they are not the main source of income for fighters BORING! *chuckles* although I was highly unaware of the lonely skeleton in the lowest levels of the crypt, he dropped me some not so bad stuff: steel boots (Eliza's 25 copper), bluestone (Floro buys), a bastard sword (should be removed as a drop IMO too because useless weapon and unsellable), and finally 12 copper.

Ogres : At this point for an above average to good fighter going here with one other person will provide you with the best reward for your risk copper wise. Mages drop 20 copper roughly while the warriors drop some usable longswords. Sadly however I do think black coats, blue coats, or pipes are much use to a fighter or anyone rather. They dont drop anything of use really. I really think they need re-examining, like Oger said earlier some NPCs need to drop unique items that are needed by crafters that fighters can provide easier than they can procure. Easy example pure water for an ice blade or magical armor (smith) and for the carpenter for water wands ( I know these items are rare craft able goods). Or perhaps a Quest NPC that sends you on a wild adventure to find things only certain monsters have.

The last fiends I faced today pissed me off!!!

Red Demon Skeletons and the infamous Red Necromancer: this was the most disappointing Risk/Reward NPC that I faced. During May I could slay a demon skeleton alone using only one potion. (my skill may have decreased *shrugs*) Today was not the same two others and myself went to the graveyard to tackle the demon warriors and advance upon the Red Necromancer. There are two demon skeletons before you get to the necro to be clear. We started fighting the first one and after about 45 secs we killed the first one which dropped 20 coins and a corroded serinjah absolutely not worth killing those things for the amount of damage they do to your armor and weapons. Then we got to the second one after about 30 secs we killed him another 20 coppers and a good short sword ((clarify red demons use MAGICAL LONGSWORDS yet they drop short swords???)) absolutely not worth the risk to get a short sword when there are: serinjahs, longswords, poisoned blades, magical blades, broadswords, and anything better than a short sword. So then we all three tackle the red Necromancer: Who summons at least 4 mage skeletons, can use his own magic, teleport to chase you, and he is as strong or stronger than the warriors in the end the strongest fighter out of us three was ghosted for 40 coppers and a good shortsword.

[Estralis Seborian]

Thanks, this is a post I can really work with. Good work! So, you critize that the demon skeleton necromancer is way stronger than usual monsters, yet the drop isn't worth it. I agree with this point of view. The demon skeleton necromancer is a very special monster, this was not taken into account when assigning the drops.

Also, bandits suck, agreed. The stealing annoys me and they don't drop much. But still, the quality is rather high, compared to the risk.

I am not sure what you'd do about ogres, can you elaborate? What should they drop? Pure water?! I don't think so...

We once had a small "quest", the demon skeletons in the crypt used to drop keys to a treasure chest. Maybe something like this helps the situation, like when you hacked your way all through strong monsters, you can get a fitting reward without the monsters having to drop tons of items. Just keep in mind that a single monster poses not a big threat while a bunch of monsters does - this should be represented somehow.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Any comment about those gnolls? 61 Copper for ca. ~20 (crash put me back to square one, nearly and I got even worse loot on the second time) seems quite.. shit, really.

They aren't that easy. I didn't take time but it was more than an hour, I guess. Much more if I had walked there and back. Plus the selling of goods.

A newbie tailor makes that amount of money much quicker, I guess.

[Estralis Seborian]

What NPCs pay for the items and how long one has to walk to reach the monsters is not what I can make the drops rely on. You know, monsters can be spawned everywhere and NPCs might (and should) pay fitting prices one day. What matters is a) the quality of the items and b) the type of items. Where it is impossible to award a reasonable award by letting the monsters drop fitting items (floating skulls won't carry swords around), money should be applied.

Again, I don't see much of a problem with our lower end monsters like skeletons and gnolls. The problem arises with demons and other upper class monsters. When I tell you that is possible to defeat a demon and get nothing out of it than a single gold ingot (worst case), I assume you want to bite my head off. This is where reward and risk do not match, not that a (shitty) skeleton drops 3 or 7 copper coins. Suggestions, anyone?

[Alytys Lamar]

I agree with you Crommy...deeply.

Our Chars have fight together a lot of gnolls to say that. It was always dangerous and a pain in the arse ( alone or in pair ) .. and the loot is more then less, for the high risk.

[Estralis Seborian]

Well, after reviewing the stats, I found out that gnolls are stronger than skeletons and aren't "level 2" monsters. Sorry for that. But this would result in me changing the quality of the drops, not the type of items. What would you suggest about the type of items? Observations are fine, but what I am looking for is a way to fix the situation in a satisfying way.

By the way, I cannot understand why our devs have create only few lower class monsters. There seems to be pretty nothing between mummies and skeletons and nothing between skeletons and ogres/trolls. Also, I am not sure wether a monster with 80 constitution and three times the hitpoints of a normal monster (with also 80 constitution) can be killed at all.

[nmaguire]

IMHO, since the necromancer demon skeleton has been made much, much harder, you should bring back all his old drops, which were something like:

100-200ish copper
Silversteel
Magical serinjah & Magical Broadsword (rare)
Fireaxes (very rare)
Poison serinjahs
Poison broadswords
Diamond rings/diamonds
I can't remember the shields, but they were sort of silver/grey with a yellow border.
In this way say 4 fighters and a mage could go in there and get some decent stuff, and be able to at least get some new armor after the old one has broken after having to fight through half the graveyard to get there.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Great, you spoiled my angry rant. Go to hell, Estralis.

Number one priority: Make longswords sellable. It's one thing to have balanced purchase prices for the NPC's, and another to have things that are not being purchased at all.. efficiently rendering these items into worthless junk 95% of the time.

And they could drop some coins as well. Not much, but something to supplement the other drops.

Someone should also start balancing the purchase prices..

[Estralis Seborian]

This is exactly what the monster is supposed to drop. Only the amount of copper is 50-100. I doubt raising the copper amount alone will help the situation.

[nmaguire]

This is exactly what the monster is supposed to drop. Only the amount of copper is 50-100. I doubt raising the copper amount alone will help the situation.

If you are talking about the necromancer red skeleton, then yay!

[Llama]

Red skeleton drops nyce 'very good'/'good' swords...

Can you add a drop for those who don't use swords? Say a warhammer or something?

[Executor]

By the way, I cannot understand why our devs have create only few lower class monsters. There seems to be pretty nothing between mummies and skeletons and nothing between skeletons and ogres/trolls. Also, I am not sure wether a monster with 80 constitution and three times the hitpoints of a normal monster (with also 80 constitution) can be killed at all.

Signed, we need more low level monsters.

Changing the quality of the goods doesnt make a difference as long as they are worth just as much to the npcs. Unless they start droping somthing pcs will use.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Put a merchant into the Barbarian village who buys:
Horned helmets ?
Scimitars ?
Warhammers ?
Longswords ~10c
Fur things (maybe)?

Those at least, If that is possible. Thanks.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Yeah, but I figure that Scimitars are another thing that nobody buys right now. Or was it sabres..

You do have a point with that but, someone should buy those as well.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Would be good, but due to the miniscule amount of money the NPC's have, I don't think that it's wise to put all the "buying" on just two or three merchants, because they are more likely to be out of cash constantly then. (The amount of money can be adjusted, though).

[Llama]

Or put a merchant in Zzyathis *nudge nudge wink wink*

[Mr. Cromwell]

Again, I don't see much of a problem with our lower end monsters like skeletons and gnolls. The problem arises with demons and other upper class monsters. When I tell you that is possible to defeat a demon and get nothing out of it than a single gold ingot (worst case), I assume you want to bite my head off. This is where reward and risk do not match, not that a (shitty) skeleton drops 3 or 7 copper coins. Suggestions, anyone?

By the way, I deleted one part of the rant that I shouldn't have. You shouldn't overlook the 'normal' monsters to focus on the special ones entirely. For you it might not seem much, but in some sitiuation the difference of 4 coppers in average loot might be the difference between making profit, breaking even or even losing money while fighting monsters. I'm guessing (you are the statistician ) that up to 75% of the NPC kills in illarion are of the 'low end' monsters, which are considerably harder to balance than the big ones. Everyone understands that 1 gold ignot is ridiculously low for a demon, so that doesn't really need to be discussed. You can fix that yourself by merely looking at the list. What is more difficult to determine is wether or not the 'shitty' monsters give enough loot to justify the wear on your equipment and leave even some coins extra so it 'pays' to do the 'job'.

The monsters can indeed be spawned to anywhere, but as we so well know, that's not the case. They are most of the time spawned to 'behind god's back', so to speak. Why shouldn't the location of the monster play any part in the amount of loot he gives? If the target is difficult to reach, then why shouldn't the yield be bigger as well? Why was the goldmine guarded by the most badass monsters back in the day? Do you think the monsters are going to be 'popular' if you barely break even and have to walk 10mins to get there? If they aren't being used by the players, then what is the justification for their existence? Shouldn't they serve some purpose in the game? If the low end and mid level monsters (say gnolls) don't drop enough to pay for the trouble, how much demonkillers you think you will have in the game?

Not much, as people will switch to farming..
(Or just keep on killing those monsters which are profitable to slay, but then they won't possibly earn any skill for their troubles and won't 'advance' in their profession.. )

[Korm Kormsen]

Not much, as people will switch to farming...

no, they won't.
apart from the very low prices for food, farming does not train fighting skills.

-------

i don't really know, if it belongs here, but monsters are boring.

one walks undisturbed till one reaches the monster spawn, then one knows the number of possible monsters, then hacks away till overladen, then creeps home on known, monsterfree ways.
it would be some work, but some low level monsters, wandering about, or some low level monster spawns, in variating points of the map, wuold take tho boredom out of travelling.

[Juliana D'cheyne]

I am not sure this will be helpful or not..but will also throw out some observations from travels,

IMO the goblins are a descent compromise between mummy and skeleton (The wolf also though not discussed with the monsters). As far as the bad bows they drop, I never pick up and think they should be eliminated...but the occasional rare average bow is nice. I have never seen a use for the occasional bad sling they drop either.

As far as bandits, if stay long enough, usually come out fairly even between copper loss and gain but ONLY if you go there with no copper at all. I like the potions they drop..the occasional dagger, if still dropped could be better quality and last longer then 45 min ig. This wouldn't be bad to fight if it weren't for the lack of a depot to store and not carry any copper for them to steal.

Question... would it help for more RP situations if there was a quicker way to get back and forth between some of these NPC's? Either by selling a portal that would go near there or a teleporter?


The trolls dropping sibinac and bad spears can also be eliminated IMO.

The necromancer seems to me pretty unreasonable. In the USA evenings you may not even see 4-5 fighters ig enough to be able to team to fight. The ones that tried it yesterday were not weak chars (mine was the one ghosted), also since most fighters are not good at all with mage NPC's... and there is a very real shortage of mage chars ig in order to help fight, the necromancer is pretty much out of reach along with the dragon IMO. I don't know the drop on the dragon, or even if killable, but it would also be a good place for the stronger fighters to team.

As far as dropping pure water etc., it seems to me this may help the crafters and others for one of the rare drops, however the elementals occasionally dropping pure fire when they are fairly easy to kill may need to be looked at (they would also be a good source for mid-fighters if not so hard to get to....possibly putting them in another area more easily accessable for mid-fighter range?)

Spiders seem to be like mummies constantly dropping poison however they appear to have gotten stronger (or maybe just ran across one more poisonous then the other?). There is a trade-off to this poison to the craft-person in order to make poison weapons. But it would be nice if the spider also occasionally dropped something else. If they do, I am not aware of it. My char had to take two antidotes (which didn't seem to do anything at all-do they work?) and a health potion after fighting two of them with help on one from another char. So basically lost coin on the fight.

The large skulls would balance with their drops if raw stones were worth keeping and could be sold for anything worth the weight of carrying them.

Suggestion for drops on the whole.....why not drop at least occasionally the average weapons/armor/shields to give a fighter the chance to decide whether to sell it of keep it? Most all crafters I know will not sell an average very long......... theirs will be good and above so this still leaves the field open to sell their products to the fighter. I would rather see nothing dropped occasionally rather then have to constantly "throw away" things from my bag that are unusable and unsellable.

What is more difficult to determine is wether or not the 'shitty' monsters give enough loot to justify the wear on your equipment and leave even some coins extra so it 'pays' to do the 'job'.

There will always be a difference between those that PG constantly and those that don't as far as coins collected. But since my fighter char was created until now, with fighting and RPing, she has roughly 80 silver total. This amount hasn't increased in the past 4 months but there has been a slight decrease.

The lower end areas can also be very condusive to group RP simply because they are easier to fight in then the high end areas (so can do more emotes). Keeping the loot too low to split though won't help IMO.

it would be some work, but some low level monsters, wandering about, or some low level monster spawns, in variating points of the map, wuold take tho boredom out of travelling

This would be great!

[Estralis Seborian]

@E.C.: You are right, small differences can move the break even point alot. It is hard to balance this out, I am willingly to do this. But I need concrete proposals, whoever wants to help can get the necessary details.

Hmm, I would rather reward the distance one has to cross in order to get to a monster by other means than drops. Like, the mentioned treasure chests or other special "rewards", like access to a gold mine We didn't go there for hunting spiders, did we?

[nmaguire]

Isn't gold like uber heavy? And you can only carry about 6 with an 18 str char?

[Mr. Cromwell]

There will always be a difference between those that PG constantly and those that don't as far as coins collected. But since my fighter char was created until now, with fighting and RPing, she has roughly 80 silver total. This amount hasn't increased in the past 4 months but there has been a slight decrease.

Isn't/Hasn't your character been a part of the guards? (Meaning she has been paid wages as well?) In that case you would definately be 'averagely' wealthy, considering that dying a couple of times could almost get you broke..

@E.C.: You are right, small differences can move the break even point alot. It is hard to balance this out, I am willingly to do this. But I need concrete proposals, whoever wants to help can get the necessary details.

Hmm, I would rather reward the distance one has to cross in order to get to a monster by other means than drops. Like, the mentioned treasure chests or other special "rewards", like access to a gold mine We didn't go there for hunting spiders, did we?

E.C 1 - Staff 0
I'm going to run around and kill monsters in the following days, and will gladly supply you with the lists of loot that my character has received and my opinions about them. I might look around for some other stuff too in case you need help.

That would be nice, but for some monsters that's quite hard to implement I guess. And no, we didn't for sure.
Is the merchant a possibility, by the way?

Isn't gold like uber heavy? And you can only carry about 6 with an 18 str char?

Isn't it semi-valuable too? Anyways, what we mentioned was about the good old old times way back, when the Dwarves of Silverbrand banded together and raided the goldmine of the island (guarded by some badass monsters) and dug out as much gold as they could. Good times. A lot of gold.

[Korm Kormsen]

Is the merchant a possibility, by the way?

the founders/players of the nordmark would not oppose a merchant (any merchant) in the village.
but we did not even get a cow-corral, so i think, the staff might not be in favor to put a merchant there.

[HolyKnight]

Alright here we go again. Correct me if I am wrong but it would be more stressful on the server to have the monster NPCs wandering around the map wherever they please compared to an isolated area with restraints. Although I love that idea very much I think that would bring a whole new risk factor for fighters and their willingness to just go pwning NPCs by themselves.

Alright just to through some viable ideas out for "drops" (wares not coins) the only fiend I see at this point who needs a much larger coin drop is the demon skeleton warriors.

@ nmaguire: the Red Necro also dropped cloud shields (amazing shield I must say)

Now I will take this one NPC at a time starting with the Gnolls. My simplest plan is this, gnolls are basically Werewolves with weapons that do not take human form. I believe that Gnolls should drop fur and that the NPC at the lighthouse should buy them. (increase his cash flow a little bit so this can work) Also I think an NPC should be placed at the Arena who buys weaponry and armor (e.g. Longswords, scimitars, Sabers, maces, warhammers, broadswords, the new blue plates, night plates, etc.) RP wise this could be quite beneficial perhaps each dwarven month the NPC could host a Gladiator competition. With any luck the Arena could become a meeting place for warriors and fighting parties could be formed.

Now another direction for the gnolls, in many books, video games, and movies gnolls would be considered a magical creature with essential alchemy ingredients (e.g. werewolf blood, fangs, maybe a magical stone in there stomach, whatever) Now if druids still had a class in the game this could be an AMAZING opportunity for trade however since this is not the case, perhaps a Quest potions maker NPC can be introduced. Take for instance the NPC is looking to make a potion that will rid his worts (terrible example) but he needs these certain ingredients: x (amount) of skins of a gnoll (fur), "x" horn of Ogre, "x" herbs of a Troll Shaman (sibanac), x ash from a skeleton, x bones of a fallen warrior (demon skeleton). Or anything like this and the payout could be substantial but limited. Say the NPC will only take take so many potions from you in a dwarven month. For darker characters there could be a Necromancer NPC that requires something sinister to produce what he wants.

[Richard Cypher]

Well, after reviewing the stats, I found out that gnolls are stronger than skeletons and aren't "level 2" monsters. Sorry for that. But this would result in me changing the quality of the drops, not the type of items. What would you suggest about the type of items? Observations are fine, but what I am looking for is a way to fix the situation in a satisfying way.

By the way, I cannot understand why our devs have create only few lower class monsters. There seems to be pretty nothing between mummies and skeletons and nothing between skeletons and ogres/trolls. Also, I am not sure wether a monster with 80 constitution and three times the hitpoints of a normal monster (with also 80 constitution) can be killed at all.

This is the monster ranking:

Code: Select all

1: 101 - 110 -- mummies
2: 251 - 260 -- gnolls
2: 111 - 120 -- skeletons
3: 221 - 230 -- forest trolls
3: 241 - 250 -- ogres
3: various   -- sentient races
4: 231 - 240 -- ghost skeletons
4: 211 - 220 -- skulls
4: 301       -- stone golems
5: 281 - 290 -- female drows
5: 271 - 280 -- male drows
5: 151 - 160 -- spiders
6: 171 - 180 -- demon skeletons
6: 141 - 150 -- beholders
6: 181 - 190 -- rotworms
7: 191 - 200 -- lesser demons
8: 261 - 270 -- dragons
8: 201 - 210 -- demons

Based on these stats Estralis, what needs to be done is have a place to spawn in between monsters that is not easily accessible but easier for lower level fighters or mages to get to. We need more beholders, and giant spiders. Once you can beat skeletons fairly easily, then you can train on beholders, which will be like the equivalent of a mummy at that point, and giant spiders would be like skeletons for a new fighter. You see what I am getting at? Something needs to be done though...and are skulls really stronger than demon skeletons? That does not seem right.

Edit: One thing I forgot to add, is that there are also those invisible creatures that cast fire a lot and can teleport. I can not for the life of me remember what they are called, but they are in between monsters, better than skeletons but not tooo tough. The only thing is that they drop nothing at all. Whats up with that?

[Llama]

Alright here we go again. Correct me if I am wrong but it would be more stressful on the server to have the monster NPCs wandering around the.

Actually yesterday while walking to the graveyard I came across TWO skeletons (one of which was a mage)... It was one of the most fun moments I had...

I'm not sure it'll be THAT stressfull, don't wolves already work like that? I sincerly like the idea.

[HolyKnight]

@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.