>I have no interest in casting anything, other then a fishing pole on occasion. And more and more it seems that Barbarians are becoming mages without any real damaging spells. I truly dread the day 3.1 becomes live. It will be a sad sad day for us true Barbarians. I hope it is not going to be as bad as it seems.

You mean 'woe is us our abilities are now based on skills'?

>We as Barbarians are supposed to be masters of combat,to me that should mean all forms and means of combats that don't use magic.

No, barbarians are supposed to be masters of weapons, which they still are. And besides, barbarians don't use magic, they use Inner Fire.

>Meditate X, Meditate Y etc does not strike you like Research at all? Forms run exactly like Cyclics do. Forms grant exp bits PER pulse like Cyclics do. If Cyclics can be put on a Cap so can Forms.

MEDITATE RESEARCH is a means for providing XP without having to drop our skills. RESEARCH SYMBIOSIS is a means for changing spells such that are more difficult and more useful. So, no?

But to the latter part, yes, I said myself a few posts before you did that I felt FORM xp should follow the cyclic 3.1 model, because forms and cyclics are rather similar. I wasn't disagreeing with you repeating that suggestion, I was disagreeing that it had anything to do with MEDITATE RESEARCH or RESEARCH SYMBIOSIS.

This conversation was had when 3.0 was released; moving barbarian skills to a skill based system provided incredibly needed balance. Yes, a form that checks IF and Warding is probably fairly similar coding wise to a cyclic that checks primary magic and Warding, putting aside of course that one operates off IF and the other operates off whatever mana type the MU uses, but being upset NOW that Barbarians and Thieves are having their abilities converted to something that actually allows balance seems like... being upset that they chose Schwarzenegger over OJ Simpson for Terminator; it's over, it happened, recognize it for the better move that it is and get with the program.

>Balance to what? If I coose to train a lot of stuff slowly at circle X I will have way more stats than someone who "circle jerked" to get there. I will overpower them.

Balance in the form of eliminating innate BMR, dances that ran at virtually cost and buffed dozens of skills, berserks that inherently made you nigh on unkillable, etc. Did you play a barb pre-3.0? I only had one to like 35th circle, and it was hilariously broken at even that range.

Your stat balance point though is not what I'm referring to, although it was slightly rectified by the skill combine that also happened in 3.0. As it stands, my barbarian at ~70th has more skill ranks than any other character of a similar circle by a landslide.

>Balancing "guilds" the way it is being done is making everything look "same same" with different name tags on.

I'm not sure you actually play other guilds if you hold this to be true. Barbarians do not play remotely like MUs.

>I've said this bf and I'll say it again I do not care for PvP, really dont give two coppers about guilds being balanced for sake of PvP and really dont think that this game was ever intended to go that way. Unles a complete REwrite happens we are working of old systems which were never ment to do what they are being "boxed" into now.

I don't understand what you're getting at here; you don't care about PvP balance, but you don't want to see a complete rewrite of the systems... a rewrite, perhaps like the one we saw with 3.0 and Barbs, or 3.1 and thieves? Because you realize that while these rewrites will vastly improve PvP, they will ALSO vastly improve the PvE experience?

>I have played so many MUDs over the years and so many MMPO and all of them had same moto "balance". Pretty much all of them are dust. All of us are different and unique and look for something that speaks to ME not every other person but that is as unique and as individual as I want it to be.

So... huh? What do you want to see then? Remember, diversity != Uberguildofdoom, just like balance != homogenization.



>If there are other things we can do to help clear the thematic ground between "real" magic and Inner Magic, I'm happy to investigate them.

What about providing some messaging about IF after kills, similar to MANEUVER FLAME, perhaps based on crits or particularly heavy hits to remind us that when a barbarian kills something in combat it isn't the same as when any other guild does? We don't have a mana bar, and our 'ability fuel' is based largely on what we kill, so maybe we should have some enhanced sense of that?

>>I'm not sure you actually play other guilds if you hold this to be true. Barbarians do not play remotely like MUs.

The only guild I do not play is Necro. I've played this game on and off since 1999.

>>3.0 and Barbs, or 3.1 and thieves? Because you realize that while these rewrites will vastly improve PvP, they will ALSO vastly improve the PvE experience?

These are not rewrites. What they are is adding a "thing" to existing systems that are fighting with them. Every time something gets "rewritten" its done within the existing old system which fights it as it was not built that way and the core mechanics are not playing nice with the new stuff. This was stated repeatedly over the years by various GMs including the current crop as recently as yesterday. Money restraints do not allow the lxury of a new server or the "paid staff" to code it all from scratch.

The things that I find have improved PvE is the "risk" element returning. No more IMMUNE except for the occasional OPEN roll as 2.0 was.

Making huntables more dangerous,fixing how their abiliteis interact with players vs players abilities/weapons/armor etc that will make the game "balanced". Playing a game and paying to play it will only happen if the experience is enjoyable and something that I want to retrun to again and again.

The EXP gains and the speed of learning skills is a whole different issue from the stuff above. When the EXP system was taken off the old system and brought to the new "exp bits" system changed the game drastically. Took years to get from 1st to 50th. Now? I can hit that in under 6 months without even trying hard. Any guild. This has gone on for years. Lots of players with skills at 1750 rank caps. Do I like the new game playability vs the old one? Yes I do more dynamic more fast paced and more interesting. Blaanced? Which part? What is balance? How do you gauge balanced?

>>So, much of these balance changes are aimed at limiting the uberness of any given ability (Dragon Dance pre-3.0), and ensuring that a given ability is based on skills (See thieves in 3.1, or Empaths GS in 3.0).

Agreement with all of these changes. What I am not in agreement with is the diffuclty of training skills that have been aligned with guilds CORE abilities.

I also play a Thief and I have had similar complaints/issues with how Khri are in 3.1 and how learning them is a snail crawl.

Of couse in the end like it was stated just this morning weather you are at 2/34 or 34/34 you are learning at the same rate so I suppose its all semantics in the regard how long does it take to move skil X to 34/34. My compaint is the "jump trough" hops to train approach and the fact that "balancing" looks to me to be streamlining everything to the extent where its all "same same" it just has a different name to it. Mechanics wise I do not see a ton of difference. I liked the "uniqunes and individuality" of each of the guilds. But that is a side issue the key issue is the "your learning too fast so we are going to nuke that and introduce a whole new set of mechanics to help you move yoru EXP better which you will have to use in addition to what you used bf" that is the thing that I am not in agreement with.

This is a Autocracy not a Democracy so in the end it will make no difference which is why I stopped testing and posting in Thief folders as every time I have voiced an opinion contrary to the "popular" belief I get "trolled" HARD core. Most of the time I just want a discussion not an argument.