Truly fixing backstab

[The Crazy Animal]

in the current status of the game though, Thieves dont do alot of damage ok but have no xp chart but adding a little more to the chart and a special attack makes a little sense.

Ranger/Ninja - if I'm a Ranger or Ninja and I have a 2 hander and QND with I don't want to do a special surprise attack because honestly is the special surprise attack going to do more damage than 5 crits for 250-whatever? if thats the case then just call the surprise attack the surprise round a motherfucker attack :)

Bard/Gypsy/Missionary - surprise spell sounds nice at lower levels but think of a gypsy qnd with Laen, I now have a chance to do over 1k damage in a round if im well geared, id rather do a surprise round here too instead of a surprise spell.

Thieves need a lot of work done to them to really bring them back into the game as a fully play-able class. I?m not saying we can make warriors out of them or should but they should be a still be a useful and fun class to play in a competitive pvp realm. I mean really other than for the chart why play as a thief when you can play as a gypsy or a bard with all the same skills plus some magic to boot.

Let?s face it even if you can crit for ?250 ? whatever? not every class can you?re not going to get 5x of that every round so that?s a rather extreme measuring point 3-4 is much more realistic.  The big issue is that this needs to be a fix that will be fair and balanced across all the classes. So it needs to take into account that you?re dealing with combat  1 to combat 5 at any variation in ability to crit.

Now provided that we can set the damage modifier, difficulty and energy consumption per swing chance per weapon to pull the attack off there is no reason to keep the generalized content rule of restricting backstabbing from two handed weapons. That would help close the damage gap lost to the previous need of switch over to a 1hander to bs and provide a suitable reason for 2 weapon classes to try to utilize the special attack.

With the surprise cast idea in the current mmud content set the problem comes down to a lack of new higher level more powerful spells. That?s not a huge problem to fix to make it a viable special ability.

The important thing to remember is that all of these revolve around the surprise functionality of the attack. We?re not talking about two warriors walking up to each other and saying let?s fight. Its damage done hopefully prior to the other person realizing they are being attacked.

[y2duhh]

I like where you are going with this.

[SluTFisHy]

Backstab is not restricted from 2 handed weapons. there are a huge array of 2 handed weapons you can backstab with.
Lifestealer
sai,
twin shortswords
ANY BOW weapon.
blackwood war-spear
elven war-spear
adamantite spear.
daikatana
obsidian trident
an array of 5th quest weapons.
etc...
Thieves have their advantages, They are not the greatest combat type, but they are a thief. They have the advantage of a LOW exp table (80%) and are also the only class in the game that can break into a vault.
If your guys's intention is to fix backstab purely to balance out a thief then just give him a bakstab bonus tacked on to the class.
But if you think backstab should be better, I am confused. There is an array of backstab bonus items in the game. I know of a thief in the pvp realm right now backstabbing for over 460+ dmg.
He wastes me in two rounds, and hes a pain n the ass to kill in arena even with the pvp dodge all messed up.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the dodge bein messed he would probably pwn me all the time.. Fun Part? He's lower level then me by almost 10 levels. and kicks my ass. he just doesnt get great exp scripting... thats the life of a leather wearer.. his exp table is much lower then me.

If you are trying to alter backstab to be better implimented as a more usable attack VIA scripting, then its pointless to talk about, this game is intended for "at keys play" gearing the game towards megamud is not the route to go.

If you guys are looking to give stealth classes more of an advantage with backstab as compared to non-stealth (warrior paladin etc) then just impliment more items with backstab bonuses that are gypsy,thief,ninja,missionary, bard only...

****
But if you truly just want to "spice up" backstab..

then impliment an ability list that stealth classes can get. ( Or QUEST for )

It will work like a spell list. Except you dont nececarilly "cast" it..
You just "activate" it
It should look like a spell in all reason, but no timed duration.
(I think they should work similar to mystic forms. Only one can be activated at a time but no timed duration)
(Also the technicalities of this can be figured out and diced up later)

*Example*
[HP=777]: abil
Ability List
------------------
crip   - Cripple
sevr   - Sever artery
Patk   - Parylizing attack
pbla   - Poison blast
fbla   - flashing blade

-----------

Just an example of some abilities possible. (not exact, just esimates or generalizations)
-Cripple = -75 speed -100 quickness
-sever artery = bleeding, 5-15 for 25 rounds. Endcast: 5% chance to Cripple
-Paralyzing attack = (self explanitory) hold person for 1-3 rounds?
-Poison blast = (poison cloud erupts of your opponents attack!) poison 20-40 for 45 rounds
-flashing blade - (A blast of flashing light erupts from where you where struck!) blind person for ..4-10 rounds?


...you can make more and control which classes get which abilites this easily controlling backstab power and ability.

hell you can even make one specifically for thieves called something like

-forsaken encore - Attempts a 2nd backstab in same round at a 50% current health loss on a successful hit.
------------------ (second attack is at a -25bs accuracy, min bs damage and max bs damage)

put in a fun quest to obtain it to boot.

well those are my ideas and opinions. hope that opened some doors.

[SluTFisHy]

BTW i didn't mention, thought i should be obvious, just in case somone didnt understand me, that the abilities are for BACKSTABS only not basic combat. Im pretty sure you guys got that but just wanted to clarify:)

[The Crazy Animal]

Ummm I did say generalized content rule for resticting 2-handers from backtabbing didn't I? Yes theres some that can.

And no this is not geared to just theives. Even though I think they need a good deal of work done to them. And thats not just counting pvp but also pve too.

I'll apollogize now since I'm a little drunk, if this turns out broken and short sounding. hehe... I can't help it.

Yes there are backstab bonus items in the game but thats not the point. People don't like that the only swings they get in the round are a hit or miss. So by replacing a single swing chance with up to 5 swing chances all with a  bonus damage modifier in place it solves that problem. Giving you across the board a more accurate but potentially slightly weaker attack if you land only 1 swing in that round. Which at higher levels shouldn't happen much unless your using an extremely difficult weapon to bs with.

At the moment I was exploring a generalized fix for bs. I would agree though that each class could have a unigue take on bs and have specialties and special effects in it. However I would rather see stuff like that as bonus quests than the actaul general fix. If you undrstand what I mean.

BS attacks as I've written about them have been geared mainly towards pvp even though they still need to function in pve.

I haven't seen your friend
s theif and you fight slutfishy feel free to post some caps I'd be interested to see them.

When I sober up I'll come back and hopfully can think this out better but this is what you get for now. The bar life isn't aways easy on me :)....

[SluTFisHy]

you must be drunk ;)
for one, the surpirse "round" your referring too just sounds like more accruate surprise "bashing".

and two, I never said it was a generalized fix, i did imply a few times that it would be a "quest" thing.

You got to remember, the accuracy in greatermud is messed up.

any Bs'ing char i seen and played usually bs's at 99% at higher levels. so theres no need to make it "more accuracte"

[The Crazy Animal]

you must be drunk ;)
for one, the surpirse "round" your referring too just sounds like more accruate surprise "bashing".

and two, I never said it was a generalized fix, i did imply a few times that it would be a "quest" thing.

You got to remember, the accuracy in greatermud is messed up.

any Bs'ing char i seen and played usually bs's at 99% at higher levels. so theres no need to make it "more accuracte"

I'm not as drunk tonight I said it needs to be a generalized fix not you to clear that up. Though I'm trying hard to get there... As far as being drunk that is...

And Yes a surprise round would be more accurate but no it would not be like a bash as bash is a single damage modified swing. This would be a number of damage modified swings. Just imagine getting an entire round with some bonus damage tallied up and shown as a total.

As far as accuarcy goes I meant from level 1 not from level 50+ a fix like this needs to be fair across the entire level scope with potential for growth not just be suited for a single portion of the game.

[SluTFisHy]

And Yes a surprise round would be more accurate but no it would not be like a bash as bash is a single damage modified swing. This would be a number of damage modified swings.

ok your vague and makes not much sense.
I think you are confusing BASH with SMASH.
BASH is a FULL ROUND of swings. SMASH is a single modified attack. How long have you been playing mudd?

[The Crazy Animal]

ok your vague and makes not much sense.
I think you are confusing BASH with SMASH.
BASH is a FULL ROUND of swings. SMASH is a single modified attack. How long have you been playing mudd?

Umm ya I said I was drinking so deal with it. ;p Did you want an answer or did you want to wait till sunday or maybe monday when I sober up for the normal portion of the work week. I was trying to be polite and give you a speedy reply.

As for a full round of swings I meant that as not a reduced round of swings based on normal combat. I.e. Smash and Bash and the current bs method while being special attacks still reduce your round of swing chances from up to five down to one. Is that really that hard for you to figure out? I wasn't trying to be vague. I guess I was just overestimated your intelligence. I'm not trying to be mean (ok maybe I am and I'm taking my hangover out on you... so sorry) but The rest of my postings have been fairly clear on the system. So I really don't get where you think it even compairs to a surprise bashing which would be only a single swing chance with modified damage which is closer to the current method of BS.

As far as how long I've been playing mmud I was 13yo it was pre-mod one, pre-ninja and my first character was stupidly a halfling warlock. It was a competative strictly hand played pvp realm on a local area bbs and I got my ass kicked a lot. Really this stupid gypsy named DVS Mind kept stealing my glowing broadsword which at the time was still sold out of the mage spell shop in silvermere. I swear he must have rerolled me a good 10 times before I figured out what I was really doing. I use use to log-in via a 1200 baud modem connected to an amiga 2000 with a full 16mb of ram whens the last time you saw a system like that. I've been op-ing and editing since I was 20yo. You can now go look at my profile and do the math if your really that interested in the actual how long I've been playing.  And yes I know thats too much information but I felt like ranting so again deal with it. ;p

[SluTFisHy]

lol crazy animal your a trip man ;)

well first..

As for a full round of swings I meant that as not a reduced round of swings based on normal combat. I.e. Smash and Bash and the current bs method while being special attacks still reduce your round of swing chances from up to five down to one.

Bash does not reduce tyour swings down to 1. It reduces your swings down by about Half speed. You can still bash 5x a round.

and second...

I use use to log-in via a 1200 baud modem connected to an amiga 2000 with a full 16mb of ram whens the last time you saw a system like that

You basically just named my first system i played mmud with ;) I have been playing since i was 11-12 yr old and im turning 26 this month so i guess around 15 years or so..

Yes,I remember playing by hand, when there was not really a "world wide web" yet and aol was the shit. 1200 baud modem i remmeber getting my 2400 baud for christmas and being excited to play in mmud on a faster connection.. i was a total nerd..so i feel ya homie ;)

[The Crazy Animal]

lol crazy animal your a trip man ;)

well first..Bash does not reduce tyour swings down to 1. It reduces your swings down by about Half speed. You can still bash 5x a round.

and second...
You basically just named my first system i played mmud with ;) I have been playing since i was 11-12 yr old and im turning 26 this month so i guess around 15 years or so..

Yes,I remember playing by hand, when there was not really a "world wide web" yet and aol was the shit. 1200 baud modem i remmeber getting my 2400 baud for christmas and being excited to play in mmud on a faster connection.. i was a total nerd..so i feel ya homie ;)

Crap maybe Its been a while since I bashed on a monster in a legit mmud at higher levels its inaccuracy alone never made me want to do it much. If its slower its slower I'm never one to say I can't be wrong. At any rate I'm hoping that you got what I was trying to say out of all that anyway. Rather then latching on to just the bash. I.e. hit chance per round. Other then the few places I test for diffrences on I haven't been playing much at all in the last year or so.

If you think 1200 was slow I still have a laptop in the closet with a 300 baud internal modem in it running the HP PAM OS it was a touch screen too. Windows hadn't even past version 2.11 yet. And Yep no WWW there was prodogy, AOL, and ooo I forget the third one that was really big.

Well happy b-day month I'll be 31 next month. Feel like trading I'll let ya pick up 5 years really cheap haha...

[Excarkun]

I'm older then both of you and the other one was CompuServe..

[Thergin]

No need for so much complexity, Thief's just need combat 3 to be more balanced. Warriors need a higher exp table, or better would be reducing the rest. Melee combat is out of hand and has too much burst damage, but people like that so just give everyone more hps, and increase backstab damage.

[The Crazy Animal]

No need for so much complexity, Thief's just need combat 3 to be more balanced. Warriors need a higher exp table, or better would be reducing the rest. Melee combat is out of hand and has too much burst damage, but people like that so just give everyone more hps, and increase backstab damage.

You make it a little over simplified increasing HP across the board will throw all the PVE content out of balance.

[Thergin]

What balance? "Lets hope I dont get rounded"