Partying

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Introduction

While soloing enables players to be in full control of what they want to do and, allows them to receive the full rewards for what they achieve, playing alone can have some limitations, and sometimes brings feelings of loneliness. Thus, players can group together in a party (the team moving and fighting together) in order to be better prepared for, and have more of a chance to survive the challenges of Icesus. No matter if it's a group of seasoned adventurers setting out to fight a great evil or a group of new adventures just beginning their journey, party members will almost always find partying to be beneficial.

Benefits

Knowledge

In a party, one member will act as the 'party leader', leading the party around (allowing other members to auto-follow). The leader will be able to lead the party, sometimes into new areas that other members might not have explored. They could also enter into hidden areas, that other members of the party might not have been aware of. Thus, followers will gain knowledge of the many different areas scattered throughout Icesus. On the other hand, if a member feels that an area they know could be beneficial for the party, they can suggest it, allowing the party leader to go there. Party members also tend to be a good source of tips and other information.

Support

The key to party success, besides having a good leader, is a good party composition. The party formation is a three by three grid. Fighters, such as militias and melee rangers, should be positioned in the first row, not only will they fight mobs, but they will also protect members behind them from attacks, thus they are called "tanks". However, spells will be able to hit members behind tanks and some mobs have special attacks that can hit them as well, so be careful when fighting new mobs. Behind tanks will generally be mages, priests, and archers, priests are an almost essential element of any party, because their specialty is healing tanks, allowing them to survive for longer against stronger mobs. Without having to worry much about defense, due to the tank's protection, mages and archers will be able to concentrate on killing the mobs, making them much more efficient than they would be when soloing.

Experience

Even though the experience received from killing a mob is split among party members, depending upon their charisma and total amount of experience compared to other party members, there are many other benefits of being in a party. First, players will find killing mobs easier, hence they can kill more powerful mobs faster, and gain experience more quickly. They will also find that some mobs that they usually can't kill alone will fall with the aid of their party members, but of course, the mob has to be within the powers of the party, or else they will all die. Being able to kill mobs with higher experience awards efficiently will almost guarantee a good party experience rate, be warned however, that trying to kill harder mobs could hinder the party experience rate because even though the mob will yield more experience, more experience could be gained from killing many smaller mobs more quickly. Also, the party leader will receive extra experience for leading, and will occasionally get the rest of the party an experience bonus if he does an excellent job (Humans, being natural leaders, are excellent at this).

Partying also grants you an experience gain bonus while in the party.

Loot

However, trying to kill a powerful mob can be beneficial in another way. Some powerful mobs will carry valuable loot, or be a part of a quest, the loot could be useful piece of equipment for a member of the party or it can be sold for money. Money splitting has to be done manually, and it is up to the party leader (or whoever is in charge of gathering loot) whether the loot is split among the party members or not. The party leader can also determine who gets what by 'party dice', which will immediately show the rolled value of each member on a dice with values from 1-100. Another available option is 'party draw', which will cause each party member to take turns drawing sticks to determine one winner.

Hunting

Another reason to be in a party is for hunting. Although you can hunt alone, hunting together is generally safer, especially for lower level players, as well, the success rate for finding prey is higher, and weapons won't be lost in animals that are too big to hunt alone.

Joining and Creating a Party

Joining

Players will have the option to join a party or to create a party. To join a party, the first thing to do is to find a party to join. This can be done in many ways; Over the wanted channel, you can ask for a party to join, it will be a good idea to state what kind of character you are (i.e. tank, priest, archer, mage). New players can also use the newbie channel to find fellow newbies to team up with. Asking party leaders to let you join also works sometimes. Under 'who', players will have their name of their party name between "<" and ">" (if they are in a party of course). If a player is in a party, you can type 'p who <player name>' and you will be shown the party name, every member in the party along with their level, the party leader, and the idle time of each member. If it's an active party, consider if you're the right level to join up, and if they would need your character. The 'who guild <player name>' will show the main guild of any player that is currently online. If you are a tank, and you see that there's already a priest and three tanks, chances are they won't need you. Remember though, rangers can be archers, as well as tanks, making them more flexible. Of course, you can just ask straight out, if you have no fear of denial, but it's a good idea to be courteous and not pester people unnecessarily. Once you find a party to join, meet up, and the party leader will have to type 'party invite <player name>'. The invitee will have to type "p join" to confirm joining the party. On the other hand, instead of finding a party, it could find you, at times party leaders will ask people to join if they are in need of a tank, priest, and etc.

Creating A Party

There's also the option of creating a party and finding members to join. To create a party, simply type 'p create <party name>' You can find members by either asking over the wanted/newbie channel, or by asking them directly. Be sure to state what character class you want and also level range you need. You can also find specific players to ask to join. Using 'who' you can see everyone online and their levels or 'who min <level> max <level>' to list players within a level range. Either option can be left out to set only a minimum or maximum. Another way is to find players by their guild by using 'who <guild>' ('who guild ' for a complete list of possible guilds). Once you find people to join up with, invite them by 'p invite <player name>'. Once they are in the party, you (assuming you haven't transfered leadership) can rearrange members by typing 'p place <member> <row>,<column>. For example, 'p place Titan 1,2' to place him in the first row (thus tanking) and in the middle, and then 'p place Merlin 2,2' to put Merlin, a mage, behind Titan.

Party Commands

There are many different and useful commands available while being in a party. Typing 'party' in the game will list them all, but here is an explanation of them, including the ones used to create/join parties.

Note: for each command a simple 'p' can take the place of typing 'party'

Command Description
party create <party name> Creates a party.
party who <player name> If the specified player is in a party, show the party name, members w/levels, leader, and idle time.
party follow Enable auto-follow. When auto-follow is on, the party will follow it's leader.
party unfollow Disable auto-follow. Moving away from the leader will disable auto-following also.
party leave Leave the party.
party say Broadcast a message to other party members only.
party join Join a party.
party status Shows various information of the party, including players and their vitals and party experience rate.
party status-row Shows 3x3 grid with party members in their position and vitals.
party shares Shows the percentage shares each member gets of every kill.
party place [[member] row,column] Position yourself within the party, or other members if you are the leader.
party kills Shows a list of kills the party has made, with the mob's experience value.
party kill Shows the most recent mob killed and its experience value.
party damages show party's relative damages
party missing shows members not in the same room as you

Party Leader Only Commands

Command Description
party invite <player> Invite a player to the party.
party kick <member> Kicks a member out of the party.
party leader <member> Transfer leadership to another player. This command is available allways to the party leader, and to party members when their leader has been idle for more than fife minutes.
party vice-leader <member> assign a vice_leader, army thing.
party forcefollow <member/all> Forces the said member or everyone in the party to follow their leader.
party forceunfollow <member/all> Forces the said member everyone in the party to stop following the leader. 'party shake' is an alias for 'party unfollow' command.
party dice Immediately shows the values everyone rolls on a dice with values 1-100.
party draw Prompt everyone to draw a stick to determine a winner.
party reset Resets the total kills made and the experience rate of the party.
party save save current formation of the party (also known as "party places", who is in what row and column).
party restore restore saved formation.
party forcemonitor all/none/member force party monitoring settings.
party rename <name> Rename the party.

Another important command to use while partying is 'mon party' to turn an automatic party report of your vitals on/off. It will also report the status of any spell you cast. This is useful in assisting priests to know who to heal and party leaders to know when to flee. The other important command is 'report' which will report your vitals (health, endurance, mana) as a 'say'. This is very useful to draw the leader's attention of you need your hit points or spell points are low. Even though you can flee by yourself, when the leader flees, everyone will flee along, while fleeing by yourself will cause you to be seperated from the party, which could be dangerous if you were to flee in the wrong direction.