A suggestion for Phoenix Armor

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Is it just me, or is the boss at the end of wicard oven too easy for something as epic as PA? I personally do not think that such a good armor should be obtained from such a lackluster fight. Instead, I would like to see a 'Ruby Armor' drop in the artifact chest. It would be something like 50% defense, 35% defense vs fire. Then, you should have to go on a quest to turn the Ruby Armor into Phoenix Armor by obtaining the feathers of a phoenix and the blood of an efreeti, which is what the PA is supposedly made from.

Not only would this make PA harder to get for new players, it would also add another armor option for mid level players. On top of that, it would give us a really cool quest (something MSC is sorely lacking in) to do.

Furthermore, it gives me an excuse to ask for another epic mini boss like the thunder bird in aluhandra2 (or was it aleyesu? I don't remember). Who here doesn't want to fight a Phoenix in MSC? I sure as hell know I do. You could even make another boss based on the Efreetis in Demon Temple, but more powerful. I don't think that would even require a new monster model to do.

The ruby armor should be relatively easy to create as well. Just reskin the PA so that the Phoenix and texture things are gone so it's a solid red armor.

I think this would be a great way to expand the game for both high and mid level players and it would make for an epic quest that would be completely appropriate for something as powerful as the Phoenix Armor. It would be fun to complete, too, which is always important. All in favor, say I.

 

[Royz]

Great suggestion. I have to agree with the fact of the boss being too easy for that armor, and the quest sounds so much more fitting and epic.

In other words.

+SUPPORT

 

[RockNRollJesus]

I agree... for how easy wicardoven is it should have this... it will be good for a mid level armor set as he stated and will make msc more fun with a quest

+1 for this idea

 

[Hemeriodius]

I

 

[Thothie]

I think the word you are looking for is, "Aye".

Leaving aside the total rebellion from tw that would result from such an extreme "nerf" - what would Ruby armor do to make it worth facing off against Maldora-Light for?

Dunno if a 35% fire resist would cut it - although coupled with the helm you'd likely be hovering around 90.

 

[Echo717]

I agree, 100% support, it'd definetly be more interesting then farming the maldora fragment who knows how many times

 

[Thothie]

>_> - I think the idea is that you'd be doing that, and more.

 

[Hakariaki]

good idea, i also have thought of phenix armor being to strong to drop on that pretty easy map, pretty easy with just a pair of 300hp guys.

lol Echo. you will still need to farm the ruby armor and then do the other stuff that are suggested

make it happen

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I think... "Aye".

So you are all for this then?

Leaving aside the total rebellion from tw that would result from such an extreme "nerf" - what would Ruby armor do to make it worth facing off against Maldora-Light for?

Dunno if a 35% fire resist would cut it - although coupled with the helm you'd likely be hovering around 90.

What would make it worth facing maldora for? Well, it would open up the ability to obtain Phoenix Armor, for one. Secondly, it would give you an armor that is actually good. (I consider Gold Armor good) Just, not as good as PA. Anybody who had Dark Armor would obviously want to get it and it would provide an alternative for those with Gold Armor. It would give them a choice to sacrifice 5% defense for some extra fire resistance.

Armor is one thing that I really think should be expanded on in MSC. I don't think that anything should go beyond 55% or 60%, they should just be given unique and interesting buffs. This would serve to give the game more variety, it would keep people playing longer, and it would make characters look more interesting. If we had more alternatives to PA and AoB MSC would begin to look a whole lot more fantastical. One of this games biggest flaws, in my opinion, is that everyone looks the same. More variety would really spice things up. It could also promote more strategy and teamplay if the buffs/debuffs (yeah I said debuffs) were carefully considered and implemented.

That brings me to the one thing I forgot to mention in my initial post. PA should not only give you 80% vs fire, regen mana and give you a 'rebirth' when you die by fire (props on that awesome re-balance, by the way), but it should also make you weak against cold. I know alot of people would throw a fit over this, but to hell with them. If they don't like it they can put on a cold helm. Debuffing PA like this would certainly add a new dimension of teamplay to this game, especially if you included a few more armors with comparable buffs/debuffs. It forces players to play equip themselves with strategy. Do you want 100% fire resistance with the fire helm or do you want to curtail the weakness against cold with the cold resist helm? Doing this would not only make PA more interesting but it would make the resist helmets way more valuable and vital.

lol Echo. you will still need to farm the ruby armor and then do the other stuff that are suggested

You could always increase the spawn chances of ruby armor somewhat so that you don't have to farm that relatively boring map too much.
This post was way longer than I intended it to be.

 

[Royz]

One of this games biggest flaws, in my opinion, is that everyone looks the same. More variety would really spice things up.

(I've been thinking of trying to model a simple "wizard" robe since at times I grow tired of seeing armors.)

But back on topic, I think this would be good to help the variety of the armor in the game since there are so little "worth" wearing.

 

[Echo717]

well from what I saw all of the items required for PA would have a drop rate smaller, but the sum of their parts would be just like farming PA, cept you travel to 3 different areas and do 3 different tasks, to get it instead of one repetitive kill maldora, in this it's kill maldora, kill pheonix and kill efreeti, or kill(maldora + pheonix + efreeti)

 

[Thothie]

PA should not only give you 80% vs fire [...etc...] but it should also make you weak against cold.

Think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I dun much like the idea of doing that for a few reasons. First off, it forces folks to hall around multiple sets of armor to deal with different situations - and armor is heavy, in addition to adding to the potential for overflow. Secondly, a lot of mappers, for whatever reason, have a habit of "rainbowing" all their elements in a single section, which doesn't leave much room for strategic equipment usage. There's a *few* monsters that use multiple elements, but they, at least, usually let you know what they're doing, so you can decide what you're willing to get hit by.

I dun quite see the logic behind Echo717's approval, but I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and there are no objections.

There'll have to be an NPC to put the items together and give you Phoenix armor though (tis the only practical way to do this sort of thing). Question is: Do we want to be kind and set it up so one of the Gatecity, Helena, or Edana smiths can do the job - or be sadistically cruel, and make you work your way to Sorc Ville for a suite of PA? (Which means storming Shad Palace - and that one of the stormers has a Blood Drinker from Runegahr.)

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

or be sadistically cruel, and make you work your way to Sorc Ville for a suite of PA? (Which means storming Shad Palace - and that one of the stormers has a Blood Drinker from Runegahr.)

I certainly like this idea. If memory serves both phoenixes and efreeti monsters come from Persian or at least Middle Eastern mythology. If that is actually true it would make sense to place the armor and the quest monsters in or around the Aluhandra region. I've always thought those were the best maps in the game anyway, so perhaps this could give them a greater purpose?

 

[Tentadrilus]

I kind of like the whole idea of using a lesser version of PA as a method of gaining PA. If the lightning, frost and poison versions of PA are added, they could follow this loose structure too, with Topaz, Sapphire and Emerald armour respectively.

 

[RaphaelSolo]

PA is a somewhat rare drop out of Wicard, so if you replace it with something weaker with the same drop rate I'm not sure how well that would be recieved because then you are still farming the hell out of a weaker versian of Maldora for far less. Other than that I think the concept is sound. Game needs more quests and this sounds like a pretty good one. There is a fire Efreet in Aleyesu already. Not sure where you would throw the Pheonix though. Aluhandra already has the thunderbird that seems to be in an infinite spawn loop alternating with a Dread Scorpian. In many lores pheonix's are considered to be benevolent creatures as well, so instead of fighting one for a feather possibly doing a side quest for it.

Course there might be something to that spawn loop in Aluhandra. Instead of it going forever possibley kill both 5 times to spawn a Pheonix. Say maybe 25% resistant to physical dmg, Fire Heals it, 50% cold dmg.

 

[Royz]

PA is a somewhat rare drop out of Wicard

I went through 12 runs until I got my PA today.

 

[Echo717]

Since Ruby armour is weaker than PA it should naturally have a higher drop rate

 

[Rickler]

PA is a somewhat rare drop out of Wicard

I went through 12 runs until I got my PA today.

Clearly the answer is to make people play the map 100 times before PA drops

 

[Thothie]

Before I got here, many of the best items in the game were 1 in 200, no matter how many players you had. :/

PA is 3% chance per player, ATM. (So 15% with 5) Certainly one of your stingier drops, by Thothie-era standards, although it's also a fairly short run.

The drop rate for any "Ruby Armor" would have to reflect its value, of course. The requirements for Ruby Armor would likely be a bit lower as well though.

 

[RaphaelSolo]

Before I got here, many of the best items in the game were 1 in 200, no matter how many players you had. :/

Even the cragbeast blood for my Berserker epic in EQ wasn't that bad, and I consider SOE to be the pinnacle of stupid when it comes to game design.

Three Cheers for Thothie for bringing us reasonable drop rates!

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Before I got here, many of the best items in the game were 1 in 200, no matter how many players you had. :/

PA is 3% chance per player, ATM. (So 15% with 5) Certainly one of your stingier drops, by Thothie-era standards, although it's also a fairly short run.

Holy hell. I like the idea of rare drops but that is insane!

What is it exactly that determines the chances of an item dropping? Is it only the number of players in a server or does the HP count in the server factor/sometimes factor like people say it does? Also, is it true that all players must get one hit on the boss? How exactly does item dropping work in this game?

Also, what do you think of making the efreeti blood a rare potion that would add fire elemental to your attack for a time (or do something else)?

 

[Thothie]

Normally it's just the number of players.

For artifact chests, it gives the person with the most damage points first dibs, then the next most the second, and so forth. (Ye can type listpoints in console or chat to see your current damage points - they are also sometimes used among players when they feel civil enough to divide loot themselves.) Damage points, however, do not affect spawn chances - rather each item in the chest as a certain % chance of spawning per player present.

If a high hp character and a very low hp character are on the map, in some instances, some items will not appear in a regular chest until the higher hp character looks into it (to prevent ninjas), after which the lower level characters can take what he leaves. This doesn't affect spawn chances, nor does this happen when there has not been a high hp character on the map, or all characters that have been on the map have been above the hp ("This map maybe too difficult for j00") warning level.

Most spawn chance checks are simply written along the lines of: "if $rand(1,12) < N_PLAYERS"

In short: Neither character hp nor hitting bosses have any affect on spawn chances, just the number of players.

 

[Hakariaki]

I dont think PA have that low spawnrate. i have seen it drop like 5 times and i have playd cleicert hundreds of more times and only seen lrod drop once. done the map with up to 9 people and most of the times around 5. (13 once but server crash)
And the wicardoven map isent so hard pretty easy map.

I support the idea of PA only giving 75% fire protection, since armor dosent really protect your head. to obtain the 100% you need the fire helm or use resist-potion. Fire helm is pretty useless now when you have the phenix armor.

or be sadistically cruel, and make you work your way to Sorc Ville for a suite of PA? (Which means storming Shad Palace - and that one of the stormers has a Blood Drinker from Runegahr.)

Yea put it in some village/town where you need to do some objective first, something similar to old_helena.

How high is the droprate of lrod? always have wonder about that

 

[Thothie]

(looks) 4%/player - just a smidgen better than the PA - longer run though.

Random is a cruel mistress.

 

[RaphaelSolo]

LRoD is an interesting thing. You can run hte map till you are blue in the face and never see it once.... and then a handful of guys will run it and have it drop 6 times in one day.