The cooldowns decision

[Entropy]

ok, folks, before this gets out of hand, the devs have publically stated that they do NOT know what happened to the poll. therefore, this assumption that the poll was sabotaged is merely unsubstantiated conjecture.

 

without a full forensics investigation, allegations of sabotage are at this time, completely unfounded. for all we know this could have been a bug in the Invision Power Board software.

 

however, after some initial googling, i did discover that IPB versions 2.x are susceptible to sql injection attacks. therefore, the "possibility" of an act of sabotage can't necessarily be ruled out, but until the devs determine exactly what happened, everything at this time is speculation.

 

and now back to your regularly scheduled chatter.

 

We tend to update the forums whenever we get an IPB notification that there is a fix for a bad exploit.

So far, there are the following posibilities:

 

1. The deus ex CPU deleted it. (likely)

2. Someone discovered a method to do that via some unpublished yet exploit (not likely)

3. Some admin/mod deleted it by mistake (very unlikely)

4. Some mod/admin deleted it on purpose (not likely)

 

 

We did have some SQL errors before, so it is possible that the most logical explanation is #1, although for the time being I can't dissregard the other posibilities.

[The_Piper]

ok, folks, before this gets out of hand, the devs have publically stated that they do NOT know what happened to the poll. therefore, this assumption that the poll was sabotaged is merely unsubstantiated conjecture.

 

Anyways, the latest votes we can remember and got PMed by other players was that "Yes" was in the lead for 7-12 votes.

 

So, the decision to keep cooldown is not to bad

 

Piper

[Roja]

with summoning stones there will be one stone for each creature?? ie a summoning stone of polar bears?

Will they fail like everything else or will they always work. I think they should always work every time as long as you have the minimum level and required nexis but there is a chance of failing to make them and that is where the failing will ocur.

No there won't be a stone for every creature. Not all creatures will be summonable.And most likely the chance of failure would be in the summoning stone creation, not using the stone.

 

Perhaps the summoning stones should require srs to make.

No, they will be made exactly as you normally summon a creature now. However there can be special summons that do require something extra like this perhaps.

Edited January 3, 2006 by Roja

[KeiraOwl]

anyways I am glad that the devs and the community seem to be all happier again at last but still have concerns about bitching simple way is to make a bitching section which you guys (the devs) dont read

They voice and others bitch they have their vent and you guys dont get bugged by it as you dont read that section

Just an idea

Dragonstriker

 

In real life, I'm a member of the SCA (a mediaeval recreation group). One of the local lists spawned a second list for silly e-mails. Another group developed a list specifically for flame wars. Both have worked out well, taking pressure off the main mailing lists. I agree that a flame war or bitching session section in the forums could be a good idea - players can get stuff off their chests, so to speak, without making the developers feel that their hard work is unappreciated...

 

most of us do appreciate the work that you put in, it's just that those who do don't say it as much as we should.

Keep up the good work!

 

Keira/Sandi

[Entropy]

We had a Flames section, but we decided to close it because things were getting out of hand there. That is, people being extremely rude and so on.

[LochnessLobster]

I know how I feel about this and my dissapointment is difficult to express. I will either deal with it ingame or move on to something else.

[Roja]

Actually upon last count it was the yes that was winning. Something like 257-yes, 244-no

[Guest Enyo]

There is a way to see the actions of each admin who works in the forums. Besides, it doesn't really matter because the poll was coming to a close and it was split dead in the middle since the onset and Entropy had said that they had already decided to go forth with the cooldown. Let's move on.

 

Actually upon last count it was the yes that was winning. Something like 257-yes, 244-no

 

That's true. It would have just continued like that. It was a close race and there were probably more posts in favour of the cooldown than against, also.

 

Hey Roja, any chance of getting dresses for the female races? :-)

Edited January 3, 2006 by Enyo

[Samanex]

Roja, Entropy, and all devs involved; I salute you for going through this and dealing with RL at the same time. Makes me respect and enjoy EL more no matter what changes take place.

 

I've adjusted to cooldown fairly well after 2 or 3 days of WTFness, and it's become a normal feature for me now. Although FP's don't taste very good (do you have chocolate?) I eat them while I manu and alc, and the vials pile up for making pots. It's working!

 

Not to be PollyAnna-ish, but after years of working outdoors in icy wet winters, I've always told people when they ask why I'm not miserable, that I dress properly and pretend it's summer, ain't this A/C great? The opposite in summertime. What I'm getting at is there are new players now that are 'growing up' with the cooldown. Other than seeing the complaints of experienced players, they would never know different! So, I pretend that I just started out with EL last week. Oh, and I ignore the whiners....

 

It's a new year! Happy EL!!

[burnout]

Following the accident or sabotage that destroyed the poll, we decided to take a decision now regarding the cooldowns.

 

Although I have been against the cooldown since day one, I send my regards to the dev team for the loss of the poll. Whatever happened to it, I was looking forward to the outcome. And as always I love the game and will just move on as i always have, putting in suggestions when I can.

 

1. There will be some special summoning areeas where the mana cost will be half the normal cost, cummulative with the conjurer cloak. In that area the summons will be bersek, meaning they will attack eachother, even if they are summoned by the same player.

 

Ok being a former summoner that gave up on the trade cause I got tired of being pushed out of places, I must ask. About these summoning area's, will it actually help in training summoning (ie. a place to summon the 34756 wolves that it takes to level the skill) or is it just gonna be an arena for summons to fight each other??

 

I also look forward to all the new updates and whatever tweaks and changes will be made to the game and the cooldown in hopes for the best for the players and the dev team

 

Burnout

[duran]

im looking forward to this.

 

trow in the ability for mages to scribe scrolls and we are realy cooking as then everyone have something that the can sell to bring in money without having to train skills totaly unrelated to what they want to be doing

 

that hot stone and the weapon and armors that affect cooldown will make things way more interesting for the pk community im guessing that a weapon or armor with a special effect will have a cooldown so that after every trigger of its effect one have to wait for the cooldown before it can trigger again or something like that.

 

im glad you stayed with cooldown, entropy.

 

1. There will be some special summoning areeas where the mana cost will be half the normal cost, cummulative with the conjurer cloak. In that area the summons will be bersek, meaning they will attack eachother, even if they are summoned by the same player.

 

Ok being a former summoner that gave up on the trade cause I got tired of being pushed out of places, I must ask. About these summoning area's, will it actually help in training summoning (ie. a place to summon the 34756 wolves that it takes to level the skill) or is it just gonna be an arena for summons to fight each other??

 

what part of "reduced mana/etheral cost" isnt helpfull when summoning?

and at the same time the monsters summoned will be fighting each other, meaning that one dont have to wonder how one is to get rid of the 34756 wolfs one just summoned

[burnout]

what part of "reduced mana/etheral cost" isnt helpfull when summoning?

and at the same time the monsters summoned will be fighting each other, meaning that one dont have to wonder how one is to get rid of the 34756 wolfs one just summoned

 

 

True but being a summoner that has been kicked out of numerous places for summoning by people bitching about this or that, I can see it happening already. Two soummoners going at it with chims and fluffies start yelling cause another person summoning many creatures just for level are lagging them or getting thier summons involved in thier fight or what have you.

[chaoogie]

Thank you for who ever asked about the failing if it was stone or mix, and ty for your response roja, and also keep up the great work

[Hanover Fist]

I love the new ideas

 

And no fair the *no* section in the poll was winning! why do we need cool-down!?!?!?! :angry2: :angry2: <_< <_<

Dude, chill I didn't like cooldown either, because I thought it was a kludge to fix something that I didn't see as a huge problem (i.e. overproduction). (And, yes, Roja, I know what Entropy told you, but I got two forum posts that say otherwise ) Turns out that's not what cooldown's about at all. My bad.

 

From what I understand now, cooldown is the first of a set of features that (among other things) will help make fighting more strategic, and less of a "twitch game." I am not now, nor have I ever been, a PKer, so take the following with a grain of salt; but the old way of fighting was to engage your enemy, then rapid-click between the Restore spell and BRs until you won or had to click a dis ring (or died). With cooldown, you can't rely on the twitch anymore - you gotta pick your battles with more care, and it's less likely that any one single player will be able to dominate the field. Already more strategic, and more options are in the works.

 

Summoners currently take a hit, and fighters may feel slighted, but the devs have already said that they're working on both activities. Meanwhile, producers have already found ways to deal with cooldown, and many are reporting faster production rates. I've buried my hatchet, and my faith in the devs has been restored - maybe cooldown's not as big an issue as you thought it was

[Guest Coco]

It is still early for me to vote but I tend to agree with changes made with the cooldown . I have been playing this game for a few years now and have seen many changes most for the better of improving this game . Congratz to the EL team for coming up with this interesting idea and the new items they plan on .

 

I'm sure some tweeking is going to be neccesary .

 

Some of my concerns are :

 

#1) possibly uping food level to 50 points max to improve useage of feasting pots .

 

#2) possibly making a way for people to buy back their bad perks that were taken based on older rules (should take a lose at this eg. rebuy back power hungry for 4 pick points)

 

#3 possibly looking into the cost to make essence under new cooldown . When you take into account the usage of feasting potions / failures / time to gather items needed it's becoming more likely to just buy from magic shop the essence .

 

I vote YES and support the EL team

 

Coco

[dain]

I voted no, but I support the dev team in their decision. I am not a fighter, and spend most of my time manufacturing and making pots and essences. I am happy for the fighters, that they will be getting new toys and stuff. However, I hope some thought will also be given to the manufactures and the economy, as well. To level in manufacturing, we have to make ungodly numbers of items for which there is no market, and we wind up selling them back to the NPCs for less than the costs of the materials. The cooldown increased our costs, and our losses. Raising the manufacturing costs will not fix the EL ecomony. I have some ideas on how to improve the ecomony, but this is not the right thread to discuss them. However, I hope that some thought and effort can be made in the economic area, as well.

[Entropy]

There will be some new items for manufacturing and crafting, which will give you a lot of actually useful things to do.

[LadyWolf]

 

#1) possibly uping food level to 50 points max to improve useage of feasting pots .

Please

#2) possibly making a way for people to buy back their bad perks that were taken based on older rules (should take a lose at this eg. rebuy back power hungry for 4 pick points)

Pretty pretty pretty please..I just reset 2months ago and im almost at overall lvl 78..i took power hungry, not forseeing the cooldown..I know i would glady give up 4 pickpoints from anything just to be rid of it without having to reset. Would be like when you guys discussed doing away with the mm perk, you said you'd compensate for the pickpoints they had spent, you can take back 4 pp's of your choice from those with power hungry.

#3 possibly looking into the cost to make essence under new cooldown . When you take into account the usage of feasting potions / failures / time to gather items needed it's becoming more likely to just buy from magic shop the essence .

I'm in total agreement.

Edited January 3, 2006 by LadyWolf

[Guest Enyo]

yeah i know how you feel ladywolf cause i just reset myself 2 days ago or 3 maybe..

Edited January 3, 2006 by Enyo

[Ice]

 

#2) possibly making a way for people to buy back their bad perks that were taken based on older rules (should take a lose at this eg. rebuy back power hungry for 4 pick points)

 

 

I don't think pick point should be lost! I understand pay back 3 for the 3 you got from the perk, but not extras.... what about ppl that chose antisocial perk before this whole cooldown thing? If your going to make ppl pay for changing perks around make it a gold coin amount per pick point (get gold out of the game), a type of quest like god quest where you complet the quest to change it, or an out right donate money to EL development. All of these options would require you to have pickpints available to get rid of negative perks. I would also like to see a way to get rid of positive perks, sorry but artificier perk was a waste.

[Vanyel]

For perk reset just jump in to suggestions forums and type "book" "reset" "pickpoing" (last time I've checked about 20 scores).

I'm happy cooldown stays, since it is great way to improve game. Shame is only that the poll (last results I saw 258-247) haven't finished. I agree with Enyo's post - the community was divided straight in the middle.

I love all new ideas, however I would prefer to see the summoners stones for everybody to use. It's like magic scroll in all games - only illiterates can't use it properly (read: fighters ). Would be great, if everybody would be allowed to use it (not basing maybe on summoning level, but rather animal nexus).

[Krwawy_Baron]

I am glad to hear that the cooldown stays. Not only for the new items, but they are fantastic and will make game more interesting. The main reason is the game improvement. Little step for human, but great step for El world EL always was the best game i ever saw and nothing changed in my opinion now. Regard for Entropy.

[elixir]

I voted no and regret that the poll did not go through.

However I will live by this northern korean democracy and thus with cooldown.

 

I would suggest to take advantage of this cooldown to review the cost of some items, especially low level items.

 

Indeed with the need to use feasting pots to make potions or essences, there are three categories of items :

- those for which it is possible to make a profit when buying the ingredients

- those for which it is possible to make a profit only when harvesting every ingredient

- those for which it is impossible to make a profit

 

If I take the example of potion of vitality, which is 1 cactus, 1 puma, 1 vial, the economics go like this :

- puma fur is usually 10gc in market

- vial is either 3gc + 5 quartz at harvey, or say 5gc in market

- cactus is easily harvestable

 

So if I buying everything except cactus, the ingredients cost is 15.

If harvesting quartz, the ingredient cost is 13.

I'll forget the case when you kill your own pumas as I'm focusing on players who might not be that high level in a/d.

 

Now, add the feasting pot effect. Assume simply that you can make 5 pots per feasting, taking into account a 20% failure, which is likely if you are at recommended level i.e. 16. That adds 2gc on the cost.

 

Bottomline, mira buys from 12.5gc while you produce at 15-17 gc.

As most potions (especially low level) don't find buyers on the market, one automatically at a loss. Although this is not a problem for high level players who will in the end make money differently (rare books, etc...) it sure is for lower level players.

 

The solution would be to make sure the price paid by mira includes the 2gc premium for feasting, or even slightly more.

 

The reasoning could be applied to all essences and pots to assess which ones need to be repriced or not.

In my view it should be limited to lower level potions and essences, to make it easier to lower level players.

 

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Kedan]

I like the new ideas, but i agree with what someone else said about letting anyone be able to use the summoning stones (but have a highesh cooldown timer on them) that way summoners will be able to make chim summoning stones and then sell them on for other non summoners to use so they might even be able to make a profit from them, and if the cooldown on chim's was like 30-60 seconds people couldn't abuse them, and summoners would e able to summon chim's in less time and still have an advantage over none summoners.

 

Also i think you shouldn't have to use mana to make the stones, but to use the stones would take mana. That way summoners could train like they use to but without having to wait for the cooldown on the sr's and instead get stones (which for evr animal but fluffy and chim) would be worthless because noone would buy them, so maybe you could have a npc that buy's the stones for a very small price. That way mass summoning training would be just as easy as it used to be before cooldown and it also wouldn't cause a masive amount of useless stones

[Cormaher]

The whole idea on summoning stones as I see it, is that one could produce a lot of stones in a safe enviroment, with all the cooldown issues applied. Then he/she could use the stones in battle WITHOUT having the cooldown / delay issue.

 

Stones should offcourse be tradeable, but one should have a decent amount of applying nexusses / sum-lvl to use them. When a long cooldown is used on the stone, the advantage is completely lost.

 

As for making essences: it is not profitable the way it is now, at least not for me (lvl 18 alch). FE is still a good way for income, but LE (which I just started making, because Selain wants 250 of them) are just going to break-even. When the pots of feasting go somewhat lower in price (which I heard rummoring) and are stackable (which will happen) the odds are that one could again make a decent profit from LE / HE by just trading with NPC's.

 

AFAIK, these were all ideas earlier proposed by Ent / Roja. All will go well then, with alch, sum and PK. I look forward to the new changes!