Happy Tuesday, everyone!

I chose the project this week, and Zadraes provided guidance on implementation.

1) The base armor hindrance rankings have been expanded to 15 visible values, up from 8. The stats on your items did NOT change; this was only a cosmetic change to how they message so you have greater granularity in comparing items.

2) We have added 2 new TOGGLEs to help digest the multiple scales used in APPRAISE messaging as well as mana levels via PERCEIVE. You can check TOGGLE LIST for the details. These number rankings are OOC and should NOT be used in gweth or other forms of IC communication. They are simply a tool to help you, as players, quickly digest information without needing to memorize multiple sets of ranked messaging that sometimes can change depending on your guild or skill level.

For more details on each, read on!

BASE ARMOR HINDRANCE

Base armor hindrance previously only had eight possible values. This made it difficult to appraise differences between very small and large pieces of armor, which always tended to look insignificant or insane.

Live in all instances, base armor hindrance has been expanded to 15 visible values. The scale uses the same adjectives in the same order as shield hindrance (but doesn't have the same cutoffs). See my follow-up post in Lore \ Appraisal Skill for the new scale: https://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Lore/Appraisal%20Skill/view/1085

We did not change the actual stats on any armor or how hindrance functions in combat. We only changed how an armor's base hindrance looks when you appraise it.

An unfortunate side effect of this change is that you cannot easily compare hindrance on armor appraised before this change to armor appraised after this change. Even though the adjectives that were used in the old scale are still used in the new scale, the cutoffs are not the same. (That is, "moderate" in today's base hindrance scale does not cover the same range as "moderate" in the previous scale.)

We recognize that this is an inconvenience that will affect Elanthipedia and other documentation that players worked hard to create, but we think that the benefit of increased granularity outweighs the inconvenience.

Elanthipedia's armor template will need to be updated before adding any new appraisals.

NUMERICAL TOGGLES

If you type TOGGLE LIST, you will see two new options: Appraisal and Mana. Both options are off by default. Enabling these options displays a numerical ranking along with the standard text descriptions. This is similar to what users of Genie or Lich may be familiar with. For example, turning on the appraisal option makes weapon appraisals look like this:

A flame-bladed zweihander with a blade of firestained agonite is a two-handed edged pole-ranged weapon.
A flame-bladed zweihander with a blade of firestained agonite trains the two-handed edged skill.

You are certain that it could do:
somewhat fair (4/28) puncture damage
very devastating (22/28) slice damage
mighty (17/28) impact damage
no (0/28) fire damage
no (0/28) cold damage
no (0/28) electric damage

The flame-bladed zweihander is well (9/17) designed for improving the force of your attacks.

You are certain that the zweihander is well (9/17) balanced and is soundly (8/17) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

You are certain that the flame-bladed zweihander is practically invulnerable to damage (18/18) and is in pristine condition (100%).

The flame-bladed zweihander is made with metal.
You are certain that the flame-bladed zweihander weighs exactly 125 stones.
You are certain that the flame-bladed zweihander is worth exactly 20000000 Kronars.

Again, none of the actual stats have changed, and with the exception of base hindrance for armor (see above), the scales have not changed either. This just adds native support for making it easier to understand stat rankings.

---

GM Cordulia

This is great, many thanks to all involved!

This is a fantastic release! Thank you!

Would this be a hard thing to extend to crafting tool analysis?

> analyze shovel
You analyze every minute detail of the glaes-edged shovel and smile knowingly to yourself.
This appears to be a crafting tool and it is in pristine condition.
This tool is used to shovel fuel in a forge, and mine stone, ore and gems.
The workmanship is masterfully-crafted.
Assessing the shovel's durability, you determine it is somewhat unsound against damage.
This tool appears to be exceptionally effective at increasing crafting speed.
Roundtime: 10 sec.

What a great idea Cordulia! I can't imaging how much effort this took to organize; great job.

Nikpack

That is indeed a nice update, thanks!

Thanks,
-Biomancer Karthor

>> Elanthipedia's armor template will need to be updated before adding any new appraisals.

The appropriate templates and forms have been updated. Existing items need to be individually checked and updated, but they'll be flagged as potentially outdated when you look at the page for them.

>> Please do more! Combat hits, analyze, decimal dimensions, etc

Yes please.

- I

This is an incredible update, thank you!

As long as you're poking around appraisal stuff, can we have the check for appraising armor durability get removed from armor skill? It's so weird that I get certains on everything under the sun these days except the durability of plate armor because I only have a handful of ranks in plate armor. I think this is unique to armor, as compared to weapons, since I can get certain durabilities on weapons that I have terrible skill in.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>requests for other scales to get the numerical toggle treatment

Many of these are on our radar. I can't make any promises, especially with regard to combat (which is significantly more complex than appraisal), but the team will consider them.


>>SAUVA: decimal dimensions

DragonRealms uses integer math, so item dimensions are actually whole numbers. However, the unit of measurement you see (span) is less granular than the unit that the system uses. I can't make any promises, but I will relay the request for more granular units of measurement.


>>TK-421: The appropriate templates and forms have been updated. Existing items need to be individually checked and updated, but they'll be flagged as potentially outdated when you look at the page for them.

Thanks!

---

GM Cordulia

>GM Cordulia

Just want to say thanks for the responses. Sometimes these boards can feel like a black hole for suggestions. Responses really help!

~Hunter Hanryu
>I would like to avoid the collection of broken dreams and sorrow that is the Ranger guild.~Agalea

>>TEVESHSZAT: is there a difference between the skill needed to get expanded values for small shields vs large shields? I was surprised to see I don't get large shield values. I could have sworn I did but it's not like I appraise them that often.

The larger and more protecting a shield is, the more shield/appraisal skill is required to see the expanded scale. (It's possible to have enough skill to see the expanded scale on small shields but not large shields.)


>>TEVESHSZAT: I can't tell why I get different "certain" values with the toggle on and off.

That shouldn't be happening; we are looking into it.

---

GM Cordulia

> Additionally, while we were in there, we tweaked the shield appraisal messaging so that it will list the full name of the shield being appraised, which makes it easier for you to tell which shield you are appraising in the event that there are multiple shields with the same adjective and noun.

<3

---

TG, TG, GL, et al.

"Disagreement with the fundamental plan at this point is akin to supporting Richard III vs the Tudors." -Raesh

A bug that was occasionally causing a discrepancy between shield protection with the numerical appraisal toggle on and shield protection with the toggle off has been squashed in all instances.

(This only affected the verbal description shown during appraisals; the underlying stats have not changed on any items.)

---

GM Cordulia