Minerios
Dalayan Adventurer
Hello all,
I debated to post here on in the War thread, but figured the S&R forum was better.
On the forums, there have been some suggestions as to how to get lower level players to participate in the defense or liberation of a zone, but nothing came of it. In game, high level players are becoming blasé with the war, but new, lower level players always show a good deal of enthusiasm, until they learn they can't really do anything worthwhile for the War effort.
So, being so brilliant and stuff, I figured I might as well suggest that something be done.
Here's how I'd work in something for the lower level players to do. It's not much, but better than nothing. Note: all numbers in what follows are ball park figures.
The Cauldron is attacked. A group of artificers (Gnomes, probably) spawn in the next zone to be attacked (Goblinskull), close to the Cauldron zone line. (Should Goblinskull be attacked, the artificers would then despawn from there and respawn in Greater Fay, and so on and so forth.) These artificers urge players over level 50 to get ready for the fight, but they have something else in store for players level 20-50. When hailed by a player of that level, they hand him a LORE, NO DROP, NO RENT "toolbox" with 10 charges. The lower level player can sneak on the battlefield (hopefully, the high level players are keeping the Kaezulians busy) and right-click the toolbox. The effect has a casting time of 30 seconds (basically, to make it harder to do a relatively risk free hit and run) and will spawn a "booby trap" next to the caster. The recast time on this effect is another 30 seconds, to avoid spamming. This booby trap can be attacked only by the caster. The caster must hit it several times to set it off (to prevent people with death fatigue from using them); if the caster does not destroy it within about 2 minutes, the booby trap despawns. That would allow people to have about two booby traps each waiting to be destroyed at any given time.
Now, booby traps could have various effects (I'd suggest either making them random but the same for a given toolbox, or have the toolbox be tradeable to the artificers until you get the one you want). They could be AoE damage, AoE buff, AoE stun, AoE healing... Anything AoE, really. I figured 500ish damage or 500ish healing would be a good amount. Nothing that would turn the tide of the battle, but if 10 or so lowbies start setting off traps around the battlefield, it could be very useful. Obviously, things would have to be tinkered with so that lowbies wouldn't be guaranteed to die upon the first explosion they trigger. Perhaps a pretty good (but not perfect) chance of not being added to the mob's hate list would do it?
Personnally, I think it would be a whole lot of fun for the low levels among us. It would not be as efficient as a high level joining in, and it shouldn't be; and it'd be quite dangerous, and it should be; but still, that would be fun and at least marginally useful.
Now, some drawbacks I've considered:
-I have no clue how hard it'd be to code, or if it can be coded at all.
-There could be a risk of exploit if people were to go to the artificers but use the toolbox in other zones. A 500 damage AoE against level 20 mobs would hurt. Perhaps it'd be possible to make the item work only in zones tagged "at war", if such a tag exists?
-People could also cycle through their alts should their main bite the dust. But given how hard it is to get people to mount a defense when a city is not immediately at stake, I figure it wouldn't be so bad.
-It could be a nightmare to balance.
Soooo... What are you thinking? Feasible? Desirable?
I debated to post here on in the War thread, but figured the S&R forum was better.
On the forums, there have been some suggestions as to how to get lower level players to participate in the defense or liberation of a zone, but nothing came of it. In game, high level players are becoming blasé with the war, but new, lower level players always show a good deal of enthusiasm, until they learn they can't really do anything worthwhile for the War effort.
So, being so brilliant and stuff, I figured I might as well suggest that something be done.
Here's how I'd work in something for the lower level players to do. It's not much, but better than nothing. Note: all numbers in what follows are ball park figures.
The Cauldron is attacked. A group of artificers (Gnomes, probably) spawn in the next zone to be attacked (Goblinskull), close to the Cauldron zone line. (Should Goblinskull be attacked, the artificers would then despawn from there and respawn in Greater Fay, and so on and so forth.) These artificers urge players over level 50 to get ready for the fight, but they have something else in store for players level 20-50. When hailed by a player of that level, they hand him a LORE, NO DROP, NO RENT "toolbox" with 10 charges. The lower level player can sneak on the battlefield (hopefully, the high level players are keeping the Kaezulians busy) and right-click the toolbox. The effect has a casting time of 30 seconds (basically, to make it harder to do a relatively risk free hit and run) and will spawn a "booby trap" next to the caster. The recast time on this effect is another 30 seconds, to avoid spamming. This booby trap can be attacked only by the caster. The caster must hit it several times to set it off (to prevent people with death fatigue from using them); if the caster does not destroy it within about 2 minutes, the booby trap despawns. That would allow people to have about two booby traps each waiting to be destroyed at any given time.
Now, booby traps could have various effects (I'd suggest either making them random but the same for a given toolbox, or have the toolbox be tradeable to the artificers until you get the one you want). They could be AoE damage, AoE buff, AoE stun, AoE healing... Anything AoE, really. I figured 500ish damage or 500ish healing would be a good amount. Nothing that would turn the tide of the battle, but if 10 or so lowbies start setting off traps around the battlefield, it could be very useful. Obviously, things would have to be tinkered with so that lowbies wouldn't be guaranteed to die upon the first explosion they trigger. Perhaps a pretty good (but not perfect) chance of not being added to the mob's hate list would do it?
Personnally, I think it would be a whole lot of fun for the low levels among us. It would not be as efficient as a high level joining in, and it shouldn't be; and it'd be quite dangerous, and it should be; but still, that would be fun and at least marginally useful.
Now, some drawbacks I've considered:
-I have no clue how hard it'd be to code, or if it can be coded at all.
-There could be a risk of exploit if people were to go to the artificers but use the toolbox in other zones. A 500 damage AoE against level 20 mobs would hurt. Perhaps it'd be possible to make the item work only in zones tagged "at war", if such a tag exists?
-People could also cycle through their alts should their main bite the dust. But given how hard it is to get people to mount a defense when a city is not immediately at stake, I figure it wouldn't be so bad.
-It could be a nightmare to balance.
Soooo... What are you thinking? Feasible? Desirable?
