Shadowdancer tuning?

[moraq]

Yes the desc is still the same, with me atleast. *sniff*

[jared]

I would like to see something similar as the ranger guilds minor quest system implemented to shadowdancers.. Tho the targets would not be animals but people (not players naturaly). Since shadowdancers hardly need/want any reputation, there could be some other reward instead. Since i've seen quite a lot of crying about shadowdancers not being able to kill people outside graemor, something like this could give some exitement and theme to the gameplay. Please do give some constructive ideas/opinions about this. But no bashing/flaming, thanks

[artic]

Actually... such a system already exists within the shadowdancer guild- its called braging. See 'last shadowdancer' and im almost sure you'll see some high-level dancer bousting about what a cool kill he made. Sure, a coded version of that would also be nice: on the kill list id like to see persons like Dwydran, all the mayors of major cities and all the other do-gooders. Also i wouldn't mind if players with extremely high rep in vaerlon, would pop up on the list Copleteing such a quild-favor-kill should result in some award consisting of bad rep in the area the mob was from, some money and a bit of guild devotion.
Currently all the guild event are like all at once and then there is like two weeks of nothingness. Such a minor-quest system would help fill this nothingness.

[suron]

As we are talking about money on the militia tune thread, I should take time to contribute here as well...

It would be nice if all the Vaerlon NPC:s (goody-good ones atleast) would be logged into a shadowdancer pay-per-kill list and they (shadowdancer as solo or all-shadowdancers-party)would get some compensation when killing npc around Vaerlon, crippled men, dwarven children etc, more dangerous mobs giving them more money per kill, not much but something extra.
Later this could be extended to other cities as well.

So a solo shadowdancer of a party consisting entirely of shadowdancers would get this bonus, NOT a party where are other people than shadowdancers.

comments?

[solar]

GREAT! Then they could be killed as stated in 'help city defending'... (That's just the kind of thrill they might want!)

[artic]

GREAT! Then they could be killed as stated in 'help city defending'... (That's just the kind of thrill they might want!)

Yes. I suggested this already in an earlyer topic- A list of NPC that are _good_ kills. Like Mayors of the good cities, Dwydran (for sure) and other noted good persons. These kills would yeald more devotion, and maybe even some money for filling the contract.
However, if you got killing a mayor of a major city, the people (players as well) of that city have the right to stop you. As stated in the 'Helpo city defendo'.

Hmm, this seems similar to the prestige system. Only it not for goody-good-doers, but for assasins.

[tharuk]

Hello, i was checking this old post and i agree to the idea of shadowdancer guild needing "some" attention...

Anyway, Artic's idea of a "blacklist" is very nice. I think that there should be kind of a black list on the guild, there would be some players with very low rep in Graemor, as well as players with very high rep in vaerlon. those players on the blacklist should just... watch their backs well . It'd give a little RPing and much fun to the game

[draug]

The bounty system could be implemented to shadowdancers or something concerning the blacklist idea... though the guild has more important things to do such as fix bugs (which won't happen in a year or two) than to implement new things(which you can probably witness when you are 60 years old).

[kanje]

Maybe the guild can have a contract system, something like the bounty system. They are assassins after all.

This contract system is mainly used in pk.

Except, in this case, other than the shadowdancers, no one else can take up the contract, and no one other than the current guild master knows who the contractor is.

As to whether the shadowdancers are allowed to work together to close a contract, this can be further discussed. But they are not to disclose anything to others not of the guild.

I know secondary characters are allowed, so I have not devised a way to prevent people from using seconds to check the contracts. Maybe no seconds allowed as shadowdancers. I do remember there might be a rule that disallows knowledge from passing between first and second.

No sd is allowed to tell the person being contracted, he is contracted. And we know ooc means can't be stopped.

The special thing about contracts, they can be closed any where, and shadowdancers or their seconds are not allowed to contract anyone. Of course, this does not make them asking ooc friends to contract for them..............

Such a flawed idea. IF implenmented, it's going to need a lot of immortal supervision.

It's a way that depends a lot on player integrity, which I find lacking on most muds.

[quintosh]

OR just scrap the guild, and redo it like the old militia.. and change something, dunno what needs to be changed, but break the treax code, and redo it :p

[artic]

i dont like the idea of redoing the guild.

I was kicked from the earth-priests like this and now i can not play them any more. I woudnt like it if such a thing would happen to the last guild i like. Dont want to loose the masteries and not the only fortune i have been able to amass in this game (upgraded guild dagger).

And besides, almost everything in the guild works now. Only the poison system is totally F'ed up (didnt fing any other way of describing it).

To get new features like trophy room or hated NPC/Player list, is not reason enough to kill the entire guild.

[breg]

In my opinion shadowdancer's melee fighting capabilities need uptuning, because they really suck compared to other guilds.. Increasing damage dealt with daggers might not be the best solution, but they could get some mastery/skill/devotion(!) dependant special hits instead (there is shadow merging, but it's a joke). I'm talking about something like critical hits to vital bodyparts or similar. I really like the guild, but it still needs recoding.. Maybe it's just me and my low devotion, or do any of you, especially dancers, have same kind of thoughts?

[artic]

Shadowdancer Tuning?

Ok heres what people will say about shadowdancers:

* The backstab skill is so IMBA that it makes more damage than a mage with delayed fireballs, so the sucky melee (and yes its rather sucky) is just to balance these uber-good stabs. My answer to this would be that mages can blast as many fireballs as they ever want, a backstab however can not be made more often than a pre-determined interval. i try not to share any information, but this interval is rather long and thus balances the backstabs very nicely and a sucky melee is not really needed for this.

I think i make more damage in melee with a warrior who has half the melee skill and half of any of the other common skills (like offensive, stike, dodge etc) just because the warrior has a bigger weapon (even if its nowhere near the quality or material of my daggers).

But nevermind me, the melee isnt s bad to ruin the guild alltogether. Its still the best guild in game for me.

[breg]

Well, I didn't want to talk about the backstab in the first place, but mages can easily deal as mush or even more damage with their balls.. at least i haven't seen anyone stabbing a monster worth of 50k or more to death with a single stab (low level mage). But again, maybe it's just me. Another thing is that my stab deals usually 2/3 of the best stabs (summary) even with low skills, stats and devotion compared to highbie dancers, so the damage will rise only a little with time/devotion. I'm just wondering how bigger players can manage with the melee that is, as you said, very sucky mostly because of the weapon size, or do they just stab and wait for another stab to kill monsters that same level players in other guilds can easily kill without waiting? Don't get me wrong, I like the guild and the devotion system is teh best, but maybe the devotion should affect more things to be more rewarding. Especially for players who have been very dedicated and now have a shitload of devotion.

[yoz]

it is pretty much possible to get shadowdancers melee to near indoor-ranger level, which is semidecent. (right!1!). To be honest, that sucks, bad .


I would love to see shadowdancers to have some sub which allows them to use slashing weapons with current piercers. (shadowblades or so.)

That atleast would add some variety and basic melee damage to their combat, as the selection for mid end/low end slashing weapons is far higher than with piercing weapons.

The whole guild itself needs recoding to get it scaled to current "offguilds" in game. The shadowdancer guild is far from viable option for high exp player, if he ever wants to do anything in non-shadowdancer parties.

Here are the biggest flaws:
Daggers and so, are supposed to do low damage but hit damn fast, and currently i'd say that they just do not hit fast enough either to compete with any slashing weapons. I do not see them hitting much faster. And their hits just totally suck.

That is why a shadowdancer should rely on a shortsword OR rapier (which are the only other ingame piercer options).
However, in the game there are none viable shortsword choices.

Titanium shortsword, and leprechaun shortswords are propably the only ones, and titanium shortsword just blows, and lepre shortsword is just... well lepre shortsword.

Rapiers ingame:
Spider rapier from rat infested warehouse - sucks
ratling rapier - sucks
citadel rapier - decent
both Yirica rapiers - pretty nice

If however no one supports the idea of having slashing weapons too, why not let shadowdancer decide which hand he uses for stabbing (as guildweapon or stabber does most damage in backstab anyways).

For example, if you wanna do melee hits with rapier in your main hand, and stab with your guild dagger in your left hand, why couldnt you?
It is kind of frustrating that you cant really do much melee damage after stab unless you flee from combat, switch to rapiers and go back.

These are just few suggestions to improve the current state.
I still sincerely wish that the whole guild is recoded.

~Yoz