>>This may be true, but at the same time players often play more than a single guild and compare information.

i agree i play barb and trader regularly but iv tinkered with all the classes.


_______________________________________
Naissura squints at the balance beam needle and says, "There's some stuff in here. All told, the backpack weighs about two thousand, one stones," and puts the backpack on the counter.

>Have you ever stopped to concider that perhaps we HAVE checked into it? Not only checked into it but did more thorough testing than you could possibly ever attempt?

Sadly, yes, I'm sure they have. But you do it wrong, and then you drop the issue because with the way you look at the numbers make them look okay. More on this below.

>Which is not at all relevant to this discussion as it completely misses the facts of the matter and instead simply looks at a minute portion of the overall picture purely for the sake of finding the results you personally want to see to make your point which you decided upon in advance.

Amusingly, I feel this statement applies to the numbers you posted far more.

>This completely ignores all aspects of who trains what skills for how long in comparison to what other skills.

Amusingly, this statement definitely applies to the numbers you posted far more.

>I'll bet you could in fact train a barbarian only ever in combat and have no troubles circling. You might need to leave for one or two skills perhaps.

Barbarians have the third highest survival reqs, behind Rangers and Thieves, so you'd have to get awfully creative, be stuck as light armor wearing heavy stealth training, but still end up having to leave for some skills. But if Barbs could do it, so could other guilds. And at least half of those could also train magic while doing it.

>You state a barbarian cannot keep 5 weapons locked at a time. Okay, but that is still JUST weapons you are talking about.

But that's the point, showing that having 24 (25?) primary skills does not help one gain mass TDPs, because you can barely train any of them at the same time.

>How many armor types do you normally wear in combat? Use a shield? Parry and evade? Appraise your target? Hide and stalk? Skin it? Does it use stealth and teach any perception?

Any guild can do this. Six other guilds can do this and train magics the whole time.

>Now how many skills are you training compared to that unnamed mage not in combat training his magics?

Apparently not enough, according to your numbers. Last I checked Moon Mages required no combat, yet one tops out the list for TDPs.

>Please see above about other skills trained in combat. Weapons are never learned in exclusion unless backtraining just for them and most folks doing that will also pick up another armor or something else to maximize that time.

What? Most weapons are always going to be learned in exclusion, because they're always going to have to be backtrained. You can't come remotely close to training all weapons at once. The best you can do is train a set at a time (and again, 5 would be pushing it for primary weapon level ranks), but you'd be lucky to even get through one set before your defenses are too high to be learning from that critter anymore.

>Now, onto my own testing on tdp's. What I did was pull up all folks between 80-90th circle in all guilds. I then ran their total skills through a circle calculator to pull the total number of tdp's gained from skills alone. I divided this by circle to get tdp's per circle. Not a perfect measure but with that small of a sample range it is enough for the purposes of this discussion.

>Barbarians 64-77 tdp's per circle.
>Thieves 45-92 tdp's per circle.
>Traders 26 tdp's per circle.
>Ranger 53-86 tdp's per circle
>Paladin 38-49 tdp's per circle.
>Empaths 43-65 tdp's per circle.
>Bards 48 tdp's per circle.
>Warrior mages 55-85 tdp's per circle.
>Moon Mages 91 tdp's per circle.

And tada! This proves my point, thank you. For anyone who doesn't understand why this proves my point, it's because the total ranks were left out. Do tell GMs, how many more hundreds, thousands of ranks did those Barbs, Rangers, and one Thief have compared to the magic prime guilds, hmm? How many hundreds, thousands of ranks do they have in skills not part of circle reqs?

You can't just look at someone's total number of TDPs gained from skill at a specific circle and say "oh he's doing fine, obviously no penality here." You have to look at how much he worked his ass off to get those TDPs. How many extra skills did he train, how long did he put off circling to get those skills, how many of them couldn't be trained in combat, how many of them had to be backtrained?

If you want to even start to prove me wrong, then this is how you do it: Similar to above, a larger sample range would be nice, but more time consuming. Post total ranks, total ranks per skill set (weapons, lore, armor, magic, etc), total TDPs gained from skill, total TDPs gained from skill per skill set. Do this, and you'll see things like who gains extra TDPs from training as many things as possible at the expense of time and circling, and who just gains mass TDPs from having a few high skills.

>I'd have done similiar but in all honesty I couldn't let this venom fester that long without a response.

If you feel it is anything other than a valid concern worded strongly to catch people's eyes and make them actually think about the issue, then please just hide my original post.

>Barbarians aren't even remotely penalized in excess of any other guild and are in fact quite comperable. It all comes down to how you train and how much you train both in terms of number of skills and effort put into skills not needed to circle directly. The guild itself does not show as having a bias against itself in terms of capability.

It does though doesn't it. It comes right down to how much you train both in terms of number of skills and effort put into skills not needed to circle directly. That sums up the problem perfectly.

In the end I want people to realize two things. First is that magic skills (especially when primary skill set) are a huge source of easy TDPs. The second is that weapons primary has become something of a red herring, and is not a huge source of easy TDPs, only a huge source of easy ranks divided among a large number of skills. It's silly that I need to even explain this.

Dragoonseal

I tend to think that if you keep 4 weapon skills learning well you are going to be dragging along armors, parry, shield, evasion, multi; and that should even out TDP's even if you only can manage it 3/4ths(or something) the time the moon mage is only working magic. The disparity probably comes from dropping off loot, healing, Rping, etc. that keeps you out of combat while the moonie is still sitting there training. There is also the issue of mind state which can become hindered when your defences become locked. Hey, that would be a good meditation, something that allows you to keep a clearer mind when in combat.

Dragoonseal,


>>And tada! This proves my point, thank you. For anyone who doesn't understand why this proves my point, it's because the total ranks were left out. Do tell GMs, how many more hundreds, thousands of ranks did those Barbs, Rangers, and one Thief have compared to the magic prime guilds, hmm? How many hundreds, thousands of ranks do they have in skills not part of circle reqs?<<

Your contention is something like: all the non-magic-primes sampled trained extra skills and all the magic-primes sampled trained only skills needed to circle. That seems highly unlikely given the ranges Oolan reported - they reflect a broad range of play styles and priorities.



- Mazrian

The Flying Company
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d194/huldahspal/flyingcompany.png

I appreciate reading all your thoughts and comments from GMs and players.

<<Second, the disparity between 150 and 60th level BMR that you're brought up is one of my major frustrations with the current setup. If we can devise a way for the godlike immunity to go away at the top, but the fact that you actually have BMR be more obvious (while making sense and falling withing new adjusted levels), then I think we will have done it right.>>

In the past, it was mentioned that BMR would grow with you as you level - mainly because your stats are growing, so passive BMR grows with the Barbarian. I personally don't want immunity to anything and I feel although it is still a contest, it seems to be weighted more towards Barbarians at extremely high levels such as 150th circle (game capped). There are two issues with BMR that have been brought up by Dartenian and Aurdun. The aspect of BMR at 150th seeming like immunity and the aspect of passive MR being too strong as a character gets around 150th. I want to see what we can come up with to address them.

It sounds like what you are looking for is a ceiling of how much BMR can offer at its highest point. To be fair, are we sure there is a cap on how effective spells of varying difficulty can offer? I don't think there should be immunity for anything. Right now, the more you increase ANY stat, you increase your passive MR. This goes for any guild, which is why you see some spells fail when a high level WM or MM is around, as an example. Why not just get rid of passive MR for every guild (as they use magic, they are losing their passive MR) except Barbarians and have a cap for how effective passive BMR can be? See how that turns out. Test things out from that point. Right now, the aspect of dancing dragon or berserking something high like kuniyo or trothfang creates the most MR boost for your buck (that's not to say wolverine, panther or berserk grave isn't effective at boosting MR, but I'm just referring to the higher level MR boosters that are offered). I don't think you can do that for a long period of time now that the concentration changes have been placed - that is something that really needs to be taken into consideration. If necessary, cap the MR boost that boosts a Barbarian's passive MR to something that is reasonable. Test that out; make adjustments as necessary. Does that sound reasonable to everyone?

Fix the fact that Mage's Lament and Magic's Bane are not working as soon as the magic system is re-written. Let players and GMs alike perform evalute and make adjustments as necessary.

Let's take it from there.

- Simon

>>DGUTHRIE's post

I am just wondering if you were able to keep all those skills with your war mage learning so well why was there not room with your barbarian to add in a few more weapons in the similar situation?

>>Primary skills take longer to get to higher mindstates and the absorption rates are greater than secondary and tertiary. You only have so much time in between pulses to get and keep X number of skills at high learning rates. The learning rates for the excess weapons will drop. His point was that as a WM he could train all the same skills and add magic skills on top of that.

Yes I understand this I have no problem keeping 4 weapons at or above perplexing, doesnt it take some time to learn those magic ranks as well or are you trying to say that they are learned passively like armor and defences?

>>>How many armor types do you normally wear in combat? Use a shield? Parry and evade? Appraise your target? Hide and stalk? Skin it? Does it use stealth and teach any perception?

>>Any guild can do this. Six other guilds can do this and train magics the whole time.

Yes, but the other guilds aren't learning the combats at the same rate as you are during that time. Warrior Mages and Clerics are exactly one step down from you in all combat skills. Your secondaries of survival and armor are tertiary for them while weapons are secondary for them. Yes they can keep the same number of skills locked in combat and add in magic but they aren't learning the combat skills as fast as you are. It isn't a direct comparison issue.

>>>Now how many skills are you training compared to that unnamed mage not in combat training his magics?

>>Apparently not enough, according to your numbers. Last I checked Moon Mages required no combat, yet one tops out the list for TDPs.

And have you concidered how he tops out the list? Per your logic he should have fewer total skills and but higher tdp's because he has super high magics and almost nothing else, right? It just so happens that among the notes I took I included (and surprisingly no doubt looked at) total skills gained and total tdp's gained. In the case of the moon mage it just so happens that there was an exactly equally circled barbarian so I can give you comparison numbers in this case. The moon mage had trained a total of 973 more ranks than the equally circled barb yet netted 366 tdp's from it. Kinda shoots your theory in the foot, no?

>>And tada! This proves my point, thank you. For anyone who doesn't understand why this proves my point, it's because the total ranks were left out. Do tell GMs, how many more hundreds, thousands of ranks did those Barbs, Rangers, and one Thief have compared to the magic prime guilds, hmm? How many hundreds, thousands of ranks do they have in skills not part of circle reqs?

The absence of a fact proves that you know what it actually is? Pray tell how that works please? Just because I didn't provide a statistic doesn't mean I don't have it (see above) nor that I didn't look at it. The details you specifically ask for are simply not included because of A) the length it would have made my post and B) I'm not going to give out details like that on random players I sample that don't have a say in the matter. To provide the level of detail you claim you need before you'll even concider listening to the point of the many GM's that have made this argument would basically come down to me needing to nearly give you a skill readout of comperable players and I'm honestly wonder if you wouldn't then try to rip those apart.

What it comes down to is that we aren't quite so blind as you want to make us out to be. We've looked at all the angles and simply found no merit in your arguments. I for one have no interest in providing the comprehensive details of my research, what I provided was the only anonymous details I could find that didn't require I tell you the circle and skill breakdowns of specific people. It wasn't a perfect detail that took into account all specifics but it was good enough to lay out the general range in which barbarians fit and quite frankly you fit in the main pack rather than lagging behind as you claim.

Besides, you keep claiming that a lack of access to magic is your problem yet you keep comparing yourself specifically to magic primes. Are you then asking that Barbarians be made magic prime? If not then you should instead be comparing yourself to the other magically active magic tertiary guilds, rangers and paladins instead of the magic prime guilds. Yet none of your arguments have even come close to doing that.

The bottom line for me is that we've looked into this argument multiple times over multiple years by many different people. Absolutely no one has found any merit to your complaint. You can rant and complain all you like about our blindness or deafness or stupidity or whatever you like but the facts remain as they are. We've looked and we disagree with your results. I've not seen any arguments put forth that change how I read the actual numbers I looked up and quite frankly I'm done with this line of argument. Call it a copout or what have you, but you'll have to do so in the equine cemetary. Further discussions specifically of BMR should be done in the proper folder, discussions of meditations are quite welcome here but I'm asking the Board Monitors to move all further complaints about tdp's to their proper folder.

GM Oolan Jeel

"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs." Robert Firth

Just to poke my nose in here, I'd love to see more announcements about surveys done in DR to get an idea of how the game is over-all. It's one of the reasons I love elanthians.com but I'd love to see what other facts are out there. And even though it came up to prove a particular point, it was really cool to see.

Nikpack

Climbing List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Climbing_skill
Swimming List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Swimming_skill

And while I am evil, I try to avoid being just plain mean.
-Z

>I am just wondering if you were able to keep all those skills with your war mage learning so well why was there not room with your barbarian to add in a few more weapons in the similar situation?

2 factors.

I. Critter gen.

There are very few critters that gen fast enough to keep our skills constantly moving at a high rate of learning.

(Though this has changed recently so this almost makes the 1st point moot)

* One thing I did want to note that when attempting to backtrain - based purely on primary magic vs primary weapons critters do not run from mages. Though if said mage trained his weapons to a similar level he would experiance the same difficulty in backtraining as many of us barbs ... this proves expecially frustrating if you've trained brawling to great lengths.

II. Learning scale of primary weapons vs Primary magic.

Mages can train magic at an astonishing rate (primary) in comparison to weapons (primary rate). The fact that they learn these skills at a breakneck pace lets them earn more TDP's which can then be used to bolster thier stats which in turn results in easier learning (see easier to hit, dodge, stamina etc)

<<One difference between magic and inner fire related skills is with magic you learn something, with berserk, roar and dances, you do not.

True but ...

<<Casting a magic buff teaches you magic. Using CJ to improve your offenses and defences teaches magic. Using runes teaches magic.
All of these teach so insignificantly, it doesn't support your point very well.

Now TM learning, that's another story altogether. While it has the potential to teach 4 skills at once, it's offset by the same restrictions as training a new weapon, dependence upon creature gen.

So in the end this difference balances out one another.

Nikpack

Climbing List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Climbing_skill
Swimming List:http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Swimming_skill

And while I am evil, I try to avoid being just plain mean.
-Z

"I. Critter gen.

There are very few critters that gen fast enough to keep our skills constantly moving at a high rate of learning."

You do realize that this is an issue for most mages too? In order to learn TM- and to really be effective PM/Harness in combat we need a high gen of creatures. Couple with that War Mages and Clerics also need to train weapons to circle, so they must have enough gen for both TM and weapons.

"Mages can train magic at an astonishing rate (primary) in comparison to weapons (primary rate).

Given enough generation you can probably ML a single weapon faster than I can ML PM and Harness- and that is inside combat. I know you could lock Parry faster. Outside combat my locking of PM/Harness is certainly slower, but my advantage comes in that I can indeed work PM and Harness outside of combat.

What about the other magic skills? Magic Devices requires roundtime just like swinging a weapon- actually longer than most weapon swing times. The advantage we have is we can work it outside of combat- but for years frankly working Magic Devices was painfully slow compared to any combat skills. Power Perception? Again up until very recently everyone but Moon Mages got to walk from room to room with a roundtime as long or longer than swinging a weapon. Until the changes, I could only rarely effectively train PP in combat, but I still train PP slower than you can train Parry or a single weapon in fast generating room. Targetted? I always like how everyone chooses to point out the Magic Primary guild that bolsters their argument rather than looking at the whole. A war Mage with Chain Lightning can indeed lock TM very, very fast. I guess maybe a Moon Mage with TKS can but don't know. I do know that as a cleric I can lock TM but it certainly isn't necessarily faster than I would using my Throwing Hammer, but I do have to worry about running out of mana which at lower levels reduces rates of learning and at higher levels means there are some hunting areas that just aren't conducive for long term TM training.

What you choose to ignore is what you are learning at 'astonishing rates" in comparison to Magic Primaries. You are learning Parry and Multiple Ops at a primary rate, compared to secondary or tertiary rates. You are learning Evasion, Hiding, Stalking, Perception and a host of other valuable TDP farms at a secondary rate versus a War Mage or Clerics tertiary rate. You are learning Shield and up to what 7(?) armors at a seondary rate versus Mages tertiary rate. And those are all useful skills in combat.

"The fact that they learn these skills at a breakneck pace lets them earn more TDP's which can then be used to bolster thier stats which in turn results in easier learning (see easier to hit, dodge, stamina etc)"

Except that the GM's have already shown this isn't the case. I know that there are some of you that want to continue to feel disadvantaged, but the GM's posted clear evidence that this isn't the case.

Even if it were true that TDP's generated by Magic Primes were unduely advantageous, the evidence shown by the GM's is that Paladins, not Barbarians are the ones with a serious tdp imbalance. So at the worse case you could argue "3 of the 11(?) of the guilds have an innate advantage in tdp's over Barbarians" but then be prepared for Traders and Empaths to argue that it is unfair for Barbarians to be able to learn so many skills at primary and secondary levels in combat because they are Lore Primary.

Being Lore primary must be the single tdp disadvantage in the game. Being Lore tertiary is a huge advantage in this game. Being Magic Tertiary when you don't need to train magic, while War Mages and Clerics need to train their tertiary skills and are hindered by them in combat is a big advantage to Barbarians.



"militantly enforcing the overly rigid standards of you and your small collection of friends"

Did I read that paladins are tdp imbalanced?

Hey guys,

I understand this is a very dear subject to a lot of you n but this is getting to the point where we're just going in circles.

Unless there's something new, fresh and barbarian-like to add to the discussion this one should be put to bed.

-Svafa
___
Any questions or comments, please contact me at Mod-Svafa@play.net, Senior Board Monitor Annwyl at DR-Annwyl@play.net or Message Board Supervisor Cecco at DR-Cecco@play.net.

If guilds were to use a skillset to power their supernatural abilities, it would end up being magic. This would include Barbarians and Thieves.

This is the price you would pay for having the skillsets where stuff is actually 'done' as primary/secondary.

Currently, instead of using magic skills, Barbarian and Thief abilities are supposed to be regulated by being harder to use in other manners such as less versatility, inability to refresh in the middle, and other such downsides. (You will note that Paladin and Ranger glyphs/communes are in the same boat)

-Z

>Does this mean the idea of roars being tied to vocals is dead?

No. I would say "tied to" would be the incorrect phrasing, though. Roars will not be based on vocals.


~GM Aurdun
Barbarians' Guild Advocate
Gor'Tog Co-Champion
History Guru

"Don't use logic on scientists. That's just mean." ~ GM Zeyurn

>>I would say "tied to" would be the incorrect phrasing, though. Roars will not be based on vocals.

Glad to hear that. I briefly thought I'd missed a memo somewhere along the line and was slightly concerned.

---

Denstimar Dustyfoot
Idon Raider - www.idonraiders.com
"Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?" - Walt Whitman

BMR affects others in the group? That makes little sense to me, unless the group is composed of only barbarians, in which case it is majorly awesome and generally all around extremely kick arse.

I think we should dump the barbarian meditations and go for the previously talked about combat maneuvers route. I can't see them releasing any meditation that is going to make me want to stop using dragon in favor of it. I personally rather learn how to kill things in new and exciting ways.

< A boost to intelligence and wisdom to encompass the Barbarian's mind.>

I might be missing something but I was under the impression that boosts/penalties to intelligence and wisdom have no effect on learning rates, so what would be the point to this? The only effect I could see is on spell contests. You might as well just make it a BMR boost.

-Ceriben(Plat)

<<I think we should dump the barbarian meditations and go for the previously talked about combat maneuvers route. I can't see them releasing any meditation that is going to make me want to stop using dragon in favor of it. I personally rather learn how to kill things in new and exciting ways.>>

Definitely up to the entire Team Barbarian. Personally, I love both ideas. I understand your point of view, but perhaps extending to things that Barbarians don't have that would make sense to them being a more efficient warrior.

<<I might be missing something but I was under the impression that boosts/penalties to intelligence and wisdom have no effect on learning rates, so what would be the point to this? The only effect I could see is on spell contests. You might as well just make it a BMR boost.>>

I believe you are right regarding not having any effect on learning rates, Ceriben. The point is that besides spell contests which creatures and characters can use, it also affects other contests - such as perception. To my knowledge, adding more stats would indirectly improve your BMR, so it is in a way a BMR boost also.

<<Honestly have no idea yet, Simon.>>

No problem, thanks. I know meditations are going to be a while out, but I still want to throw out some suggestions with a bit of guidance as to the direction of them.

Various different meditations offering: reductions in blood loss, slowing the rate of poison, reductions in damage done from plague, reducing the opportunity to be attacked from the mind, reducing the opportunity to be put into slumber/unconsciousness, sharpening the mind to heightened senses from attacks within shadows, heightening the senses to attack quicker than usual.

The mind would come first and than the body would respond. It's like a synergy of mind and body. In determining the impact of abilities: With berserks, the synergy is of the body taking over the mind (strength, stamina). With dances, it is a split between the two (concentration). With meditations, the mind would come first and than the body would follow suit (intelligence, wisdom).