The "new" Knights

[Rozzy]

Alright, as everyone knows Knights have been changed recently. Now, Illusionists and Monks have been completely omitted from what they'll accept and Legion will accept anything evil. Maybe it's just me, but it seems to me like that's really messing with the balance of the two. I understand the concept of why Monks and Ills can't be in there. Because monks are devoted to their meditation and what not and Ills are into deceiving people and stuff. But, I still don't think that's any reason to give em' the boot. What does everyone else think?

[Flying Hampster of Doom]

A while ago I had a temporary mental break down (perhaps permenant who knows!!!) and I had said some things I had come to regret afterwards but the damage was done. As such I have not touched on this subject for some time, but having played a few knights, I know just a bit, maybe even just a smidgen about knights. I have heard the reasons for the loss of Monks, Thieves, Illusionists and Ninjas. I think a few of those are a crock of hooey. I base this thought firstly on Monks; Monks are dedicated to Meditation. So should a knight be dedicated to Meditation, in all things of the light. Yet when I brought this up, I was told that it is a different meditation completely and they cant properly protect the cabal given their type of meditation is too 'deep'. Okay... I can accept that. Yet. If that is true than Legion should also not be allowed to have monks as their 'meditation' is too deep to protect their cabal.
Illusionists; This was based on their deceiving nature, which in and of itself I can understand... yet it creates, as was stated before, it destroys balance in anyway.
Thieves; Again, they hide and thieve. Hence their not allowed in to the knights, yet in the way of balance if legion gains a thief the knights are screwed. We haven't got detections in any early points of knighthood.
Ninjas; See Above.

So that leaves Knights with; Paladin, Healer, Warrior, Druid, Ranger, Berserker, Invoker, Psionicist. (am I missing any here)
Legion has; Dark Knight, Necromancer, Illusionist, Warrior, Druid, Ranger, Berserker, Thief, Ninja, Monk, Invoker, Psionicist.

That is a four class descrepancy. Again I have to say that my agreement or not is immaterial. But back in the days of my first knight things were even, (despite Resatimms bitching about stallions) and their were always ways of winning one way or the other, the knights and legion had their pendalum swing just like always, so at some points legion was in charge and at others the knights led the field. Yet it was even.

The one change I can say I am glad for is the losing of squireship, rather it was placed as the first rank in knights. It makes more sense to do so in my mind.

As for skills I know a few were lost and a few were gained and I will not go into detail about them as I have given enough away. But I find that the legion lead the knights in the *cooler* and some times more useful skills.

[Louis]

about cabals, skills and things are of course important to balance, but i think the balance is really controlled by the imms that lead the cabals. they choose who get in and who doesn't, and as long as they have enough willing players, they can make their cabals super buff, weak, or just right.

however about ills not being able to get into knights, that could potentially cause some serious disadvantages...

[Sebryn]

[Flying Hampster of Doom]

[quote] With the Knights not letting monks or illusionists in, they simply have to work harder to train the 'best of the best,' and be a bit more picky with their choices.

I would love to think that we could, but from everything I have heard and all the people I know whom are relatively skilled characters, it is a general concensus that Legion is overpowered or knights are underpowered.. one of the two.

[Sebryn]

(This isn't meant to put down anybody in Legion, it's just an opinion.)

I think it's "harder" to play a Knight than a Legion, simply for the fact that you've got 'rules' to stick to. Legionnaires have their own guidelines as well, but they're less confined to the "fair fight syndrome" that Knights have to kinda stick to.

It might be that reason, and not that one or the other is 'overpowered'. I don't know... just throwing something out there.

[Enskel]

[Davairus]

[Rozzy]

I don't see a problem with illusionists on stallions if invokers can. I understand why monks wouldn't be able to ride stallions, so how about monks just aren't able to ride the stallions. If I had a good (both in align and a good pk'er) monk I would apply to Knights even though I wouldn't be able to ride a stallion.

[Gygh]

I was about to say you forgot about bards, but they arn't supposed to pk. Heres a good cabal question, why can't monks join warlords? They have no spells at all, they may be a little 'cheap' (8 or so attacks a round ranging from 'devestates' to 'DISEMBOWLS' is a little cheap), Maybe thier meditation is too 'deep'. Warlords fight with honor and with NO MAGIC, monks have no spells; if you say chii or sense movement is a spell, you are wrong; wariors, rangers, and berserkers get warcry and berserk (rangers don't, but they get barkskin) which is a spell effect.

[Davairus]

[Davairus]

[Flying Hampster of Doom]

As much as I agree with you on the idea that in some situations illusionists on stallions can be overpowered, I fail to see how monks can be overpowered in these situations. No defense in the world can save you from a axe of mace wielding zerker or warrior, besides which they bash you off of your stallion. As a monk, (Keistenmen and Eires) I never used the bloody things, reason being you cant trip off of the back of the beast (obviously) and as such it made the game play fair. I think the only time I ever used a stallion was A) trips through winter B) In Shadar c) Or just to show off that I had a stallion

[Clifton]

Simple... if it's a monk in defensive drunken stance, you got, 1st parry, 2nd parry, dodge (arguably the best skill in the game), evade, dodge (#2), and now another dodge-esque skill. 6 defenses... thats more than necros get pets... Add in a few decent items.. consistant and even boosted damage/attacks per round (w/ horse). Sure you lose trip... but cripes, 6 defenses, more damage and attacks, all you really need is to be able to track.

[Davairus]

consider this:

begin with a monks basic damage
add damage with anatomy
add tiger stance
add a beast damroll (caballed monks get very powerful eq)
add whatever spiritual mantra gives on top for added power
now you've got your base damage, unless i left out something, do some hits
hit 3 times a round (ever tried a monk? they do this on average)
about 1/3 of those hits, like the tiger uppercut, come out extra hard
total = sick damage
add dirt to screw over the defences of almost everyone
add the air thrash/trip combination so there's nobody in the game that can't be lagged

This can easily end up a three round kill on a mage, which is bad enough. Want to fight that with a mage? Probably not. A warrior on the other hand can block most of the monks stuff allowing him to outdamage the tiger stanced monk if he uses a good parrying foreign weapon type. Throw a stallion underneath the monk, and that is utterly nullified, making monk knights tear shit out of everything in tiger stance.

[Flying Hampster of Doom]

I have stated before that the system worked before. What is seen as "equal" may not exactly be so, even if the crunched numbers are as they seem. Ever had a fire giant 'sneak' in on you and bash you to death? Yeah... There are counters and balances in many many ways, and even though the numbers look slightly askew. Things worked. Right now, things are not working.

[Davairus]

Legion is cruising for a bruising, not least from having beef cabal skills like that one (which shouldnt be on the forum). Don't compare Knights to something broken.. in fact compare it to uncaballed players because that is what the majority of evils at 50 are.

[roosaelevant]

Paladins with a stallion are more powerful than monks or illusionists with stallions.

[Hamp]

First of sneaking isn't that bad at all and I won't go into the other skills/spells I don't even use. But anywho, you ever fought an elf paladin that rides atop a stallion that 50% of the time you can't bash off? Now that is over powered. The problem knights have is that there isn't enough skilled players that are joining. Yes there is skill in there but not enough to make a difference. Losing illusionists and monks was a big blow to Knights though but an Illusionist that you can't get off a stallion is a bit much, there is no way to kill the stallion for he'll have you dead before you can do that. Also, what did you mean by cruising for a bruising Dav? Or can't you say?

[Davairus]

No it didnt work before flyinghampsterofdoom, there was complaining and whining week in, week out about Knights illustrating that very well. The biggest problem with overpowered things in the game.. its not that they can't somehow balance each other by each side having a nuke (i.e. a monk and an illusionist each), its what it does to this community... I would like to be able to think to myself that AR is pretty fricking nicely balanced, then log on myself and join the rat race and play beside some great players. That is my goal for AR. To get it to a challenging state for all of its players. Right now, I can login, well maybe 6 or 7 different classes, without the amplification of the problem by inserting them into certain cabals, and rack up cheese kills by abusing what I feel are problems.. That puts me off playing. Am I mentally ill, because I want to feel I earned my kills myself, rather than because I pulled off 900 hp of damage on another player in three-to-four rounds, without getting hit, due purely to a fixeable gameplay problem? Or maybe there are more people like me that thought the same thing, and decided to move on.

I didn't get around to fixing Legion up, and I don't know if I will for a while, but if I do, all I can say is there's only one direction that cabal has to go in, and its not going to be popular among them. To be honest though, the biggest problem with legion is that they have "close friends" that aren't Legions, they're too chummy with other folk, and thats an issue that might end up taking a change in its leadership to fix. Whereas Knights right now, we've mostly just got a problem with stallions, while I won't try to explain out the extent of that (obviously if something can make elf invokers kick ass its got an extent), and since this is not a mere skill but mounted combat we are dealing with its rather a time-consuming problem to fix. This one isn't as simple as change a divisor like some skills. The only options I saw with that is to either disable the skill for a while or leave it for a while and just restrict the most problematic classes from using it. I want the cabal to be worthy of respect.. that is the goal of its new design.. not just to be "on equal footing with Legions".. that itself is very much a numbers game, which I can't do much about. Right now, my attention is actually not focused at all much on what Legion is doing or the extent of the injury needed done to them, I haven't compared Knight with "Legion" at all.. because I don't need to do that.

As an aside, If I was going to write a Legion cabal myself now.. I'd probably make an organisation emphasizing "purity of evil" and allow in just the evil-only races/classes. Then set them in charge of exterminating weakness, beginning with the easiest targets they can find. i.e. basically a cabal in charge of forcing everyone at 35 and up to know how to flee and hide. Themselves included as potential candidates, with promotions and demotions based on them killing each other exclusively. I don't know how well that'd work, I just made it up. But its probably better than whatever they're doing right now, which looks pretty much to me like plain old mortals with superpowers that are often shirking the responsibilities they agreed to for those powers, and pretty much playing whatever tune they feel like instead of having some direction.

With respect to illusionists, thats obviously another gameplay issue, it doesn't require extrasensory abilities to spot that illusionists are just a bit TOO influential of the outcome of battle (haste the other groupmates with their 50 damrolls and bring 3 bashing dupes), not to mention their solo career easily rivalling that which takes a necromancer about an hour of game time to prepare for, only with escape as easy as, c gate eddie, c slow self, c shadowform. Or whatever they like to gate to.

Monks may be a part of Valour sometime in the future, but that will not be before some changes are completed... its just too much power at the moment.

Paladins on stallions are not more powerful than illusionist with stallions, there is nothing on the MUD that can outperform the lag output of an illusionist, or the ease of which he obtains that, and his damage is rather heinous as well. Damage and lag are the main killers on the game. Now monks, vs paladins, I would guess its probably a bit more equal, but keep in mind this - the paladins big damage output comes from lagging himself with wrath on top of its melee, whereas monk just has a huge melee with dirt kick, and lags his opponent with thrash/trips. We haven't gotten around to tackling paladins properly yet, so I don't have enough information to see exactly how far off base they are, whereas I have a damage calculator I wrote for monks sitting on my desktop showing me how they are. My point being, I'm not in a position to say with confidence that paladins > monks, they'd have to be pretty damn good though, that I will say. Another thing to consider is that monks are more versatile whereas paladin is kinda niche for anti-evil fighting, and loses some of its bite vs neutrals, so its ok for them to be a little stronger than everyone else vs evils.