Subraces in Despair

Abby made a post in the Favorite - Least favorite ting post that could (and hopefully will) spawn a good discussion about subraces. I have copied and pasted the post and Czeckys counterpost here so that thread can stay on topic. With no further Ado, I give you the posts!

First.. Abby

It seems that the only real survivable toon is gonna be a Vamp. Unless anybody knows of another toon that
can get all the saves and damage resistance that a vamp gets. Thought we were supposed the be saving despair
from undead not joining the masses. Still love the server just wish there weren't so many vamps

Czeckys response


There is an allure towards the playing of undead subraces. One could say the same of the playing of a monk. I would also like to point out that werewolves are similar to the vampires in the ab/ac bonuses. Another undead, I know... Which brings me to the main point of this post: How do we compensate? What do we need to do to fix or aid others in their quest to save HOPE?

I will show some of the things that I have done to make it tougher for em, and keep Despair fun at the same time.

1. I have added extra divine and fire and blind damages and made their saves harder.

2. I have had the monsters in Despair improvise and adapt to their surroundings (all the undead) and do extra divine damage.

3. I have added the IoVH - although in their infancy, they are becoming more organized as we speak. I even allow players to join the IoVH clan, where they get special weapons and access to the vampire coven.

I cannot stop the server from becoming populated with vampire monks. I can, however, continue to beat them in PVP and continue to kill my bosses with my builds that are NOT vampires. With a properly built toon that is right for specific an area one can survive and prosper.

If anyone has any info, ideas or suggestions for a subrace or solution to this occurance, please feel free to post on it. I will consider all posts. I would not be above thinking of a new set or two that are not useable by vampires, or a weapon that cannot be equipped by vampires, that gives other subraces an advantage over them.

So in closing, if you feel strongly on this, join BlackJack and Czecky and Rick in IoVH. Oh, that reminds me, a friendly reminder: We at the IoVH kill vampires at any level - there is no such penalty for EFFIE killing when it comes to removing undead.

Czecky

Discuss

AoA

I do agree that vamps can make beating bosses a bit easier.... They are crit immune, fear immune... well pretty much immune to everything... hehehehe... and the +ab helps hitting those high ac bosses. With that being said, I have beaten all of the non-Legendary dragons and bosses with races that are not vampire.

There are now items out there to help with most all the xtra immunes that vamps have.. fear immune rings, immune to mind and paralysis, freedom, etc... There is also set gear to help with the ab difference.

ß|ªçkJªçk

Just my 2 cents...

Remove the death on hits from all the bosses. Reduce the chance of them scoring a crit.

Basically, make all the unpleasant stuff like death magic and dev crits a lot rarer than it is. To me it looks like inflation has meant that everything tougher than a goblin does something nasty to anything that's not a vamp or pm.

But there are ways to get around that, or to even make it happen to you less. There are items in the game that help with saves and immunities and other aspects save dev crit. You can also seek to improve your saves, or play a heartier class/subrace for some boss killing. I have toons that are not good against bosses, and some that are pathetically only good for pvp. I will consider what you have mentioned though.

Thanks for commenting.

But there are ways to get around that, or to even make it happen to you less. There are items in the game that help with saves and immunities and other aspects save dev crit.

Yes there are. However it remains the case that people find it considerably more beneficial to play vamps than any of the other subraces even though there are ways to make it happen to you less and other subraces have other useful bonuses.

Also, I think you should fix the set gear so that it doesn't stack with vamp/werewolf bonuses. I don't have any set gear yet, but I'm told that it works after the first night or something.

Another fix would be to make the subrace ability bonuses hard rather than soft. ie. they actually go on your start up ability scores so consequently don't contribute to your +12 max, but leave the vamp bonuses soft. If that makes sense, or is remotely feasible given the subrace engine.

Hmmm, I was hoping for a response to my last post...

The more I think about it the more it makes sense for the subraces bonuses to be hard rather than soft.

Why can't they work more like the RDD bonuses? I know the RDD bonuses cause problems with the leveller but that only ocurs because you can lose levels and then re-level. If the subraces worked like the RDD bonuses but only for the first level, this problem wouldn't occur.

Obviously I don't know how the subrace engine works, but I would be interested to hear back on this suggestion.

On the hard or soft stats of the sub races (man this sounds like a porn post or something) it is a different type of sub race system and having 2 types in one mod is most likely impossible. I always liked the hard stats myself, but you see alot more problems with those... Abilitiy bonuses doubling up, bugged toons, etc...

Also to change the sub races now to a version that has the hard stats would require Czecky to have to redo all encounters to reflect the changes. All the bosses and encounters are set up bassed on us having soft stat bonuses.

Over all it would be alot of extra work and more potential problems.


I do like the thought of lowering some of the death magic, dev crits, and 'on hits' that dont effect undead. It would make other subs more fun to play.


ß|ªçkJªçk

I realise the engine would be difficult to implement, however I don't think it would necessarily require rebalancing in terms of encounters.

What are we talking, +3 AB?, perhaps +5? That's less than the vamp bonus, which is what we are trying to balance anyway.

People would still play vamps because of the night bonuses and crit immunity, and they might still be better for some bosses.

I am thinking more on this, but it's hard for me to spend time to redo something instead of adding / finishing more areas with the low turn out that we have. It appears that we have lost a few to other gaming platforms, and I'm fine with that. I do, however, have issues with others playing else where. It's not for the hard/soft subrace bonuses, or at least I don't think so. I have never had Despair so close to being finished, and with so many choices for low, 40, and legendary toons to go. I am adding more every week, and more detailed, harder quests that offer potential for higher rewards. There is still a random factor involved, but that keeps it fair, challenging, and offers a bit of Despair!

Hell, I have played on servers before where I never had the level of participation, control, and response as we do here on Despair. I'm almost always around, in one way or the other.

If I do this, switch to hard bonuses, I am requiring players to download the CEP 2.2 updater (which takes you to 2.2 from 2.1). No other way around it. And I wish to say again, I will consider this path of growth for our world if and only if I get more of a feeling that we have a world, instead of a player's vacation and bad weather hideout.

Czecky

Hey man, don't beat up on yourself.

Yeah I would love the hard bonuses on subraces to be implemented, and it would re-vamp toon development massively, but I wouldn't want you to do it because you think there is something wrong with Despair or that your efforts aren't appreciated.

I have agreed to disagree. For now, I'll keep the bonuses applied as soft, as the game intended, at least until Despair gets closer to completion. This would allow me to focus my energies on finishing some projects before starting a new one.

This is all.

Czecky out!

Czecky has been in the process of removing dev crit from bosses and creatures. This will help with non vamps surviving the big battles. From what I have been noticing, the "on hits" that bosses have now, effect undead and the living alike... probably alignment based "on hits". If you do come across bosses that has Dev Crit.. Let Czecky or myself know about it.


For those of you who would like to see less vamps running around... PLEASE join with IoVH... the more of us running around slaying vampires on sight may make people less likely to run them all the time. Vampires have a rough time vs. clerics and mages... They dont like healing spells and also have poor Spell Resistance.

I was just tossing around the idea of making a cleric.
How do I join IoVH?

Myself and BJ can help you with that. I think that the most important part of it is your hatred of Undead! I'll try to catch you in the game and give you the tag for your character's name. You will also get a member port item, one free key for The Coven of the Damned, and one bottle of IoVH Bottled Sunlight. I'm working on the IoVH Guild house and making a store and some helpful NPCs.

Thanks for your interest.

Czecky

I have a bonus subrace at this time, with at least another one planned that HARD CODES bonuses to abilities, as part of earning your second level 60 toon. It's well worth it. I am also doing that for Demigod and God characters.

But all others stand as they are, soft coded (stackable up to 12s for each).

Czecky