Hello,
I couldn't stop myself from moaning again about it, lemme state my point of view.

The old encumbrance system was buggy ? ok now it is fixed and works the way it should have been working before, i fully understand that.

The gear size as made by builders was following the old code, so, what i do not see is why it wasn't balanced again (like running a full script or asking builders to review their items).

People were abusing bags of holdings ..ok i see, so stopping them from popping only helped the abusers and not the users, i mean i would have understood that bags of holding should be worn, should be held, should not exceed 1 in your inv, but keeping the old people with them making newbies (or pseudo-newbies) begging around is'nt really a solution.

To build up a charater from scratch, you need a fighting set, a con set, a regen set, if you do not have one of these sets, people around will reject you (no fighting set you cannot level, no con set you can level but you'll be so weak by the end people will avoid you and in all cases you are doomed because you'll die very often and you will disappear, no regen set, people will be fed up healing you, and you are left alone).

Having these three sets has shown me around 50% of encumbrance, add to that what you come across and that you will need in 2 or 3 levels you endup with about 60% encumbrance (with 25 dex) and you'll miss so much you'll be funny fighting.

Add now to that FOOD, since you cannot slice what you kill, nor dig holes in the ground to pull that water, you need to have a waterskin (giving you're not a giant that needs a few barrels heh), and a few pheasant breasts , jump encumbrance jump !

Now the most annoying thing, the most frustrating thing, is that you know you need one of them highly in demand bags of holdings, and holes , and you cannot do a thing because :
- begging people around is bad, and will lead to them ignoring you, and splattered with that beggar cloak.
- posting in boards any item offer is not allowed
- asking your friends err wait you don't have friends , you are a newbie or you ain't.

In word, the "new" encumbrance system doesn't make the game "hard", it just makes it more frustrating, specially to the "new" people.

Best reagards,
Akrond.

I agree with most of the points you bring up. The sparsity of magical containers makes it many times more difficult for inexperienced players to have fun than it does to deter those who hoard.

I'm not sure I would take it quite so far with how you put it for the necessity of each eq set, but for the most part one does need an assortment of boosting items for different situations in order to be effective as possible. It is reasonably possible for veteran player who knows what she or he needs ahead of time to carry just what is necessary, but that's impractical to expect of all players. I actually have a little bit of fun starting a character and keeping close watch on what I carry. For those who don't know the stats on many items though it's mostly just bothersome.

Preventing new players from acquiring a magical container while bigger players remain largely unaffected in their ability to store items (houses, houses stacked with bags) does not seem like an effective balance. What can be done about this? I think this is a very old question.

Some suggestions might be to limit magical container nesting. A bag of holding or portable hole may not be stored in another one of its kind, but a bag may fit into a hole or vice versa. Through careful managing of other normal nested containers, I carry just one bag and one hole on my main character and find it to be more than sufficient. Another idea could be to limit the number bags/holes in a single room. The details of this could be messy though. Any other suggestions would be useful.

-Levune

Hrm, I guess you are refering to the change that took place about 2 years ago, when we made bags of holding limited (because we didn't realize they were unlimited). They will eventually load again, these things take time (this is the only item that is "overmax" in the game, although it is far closer to its maximum than it used to be). The vast majority of characters can carry around a wide array of equipment, far more than a normal person could carry. I view equipment management as part of the challenge of the game.

Is it really that far off? You've got to have 3 sets of equipment??

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Hi,

I was talking actually about the two changes, the one that affected the encumbrance calculations (like 1 year ago) added to it limitation to magical containers, added to that gold to encumbrance change.

Now regarding the 3 sets, let's see what happens if you miss just 1 of them :
-No armor set : you die too often, con goes 0 poof.
-No regen set : it takes you just toooo long to regen, you aint helpful
-No con set : when big, you gonna have bad hp, pp, mana (when i say con set, i mean these stats boosters, i hope you get the idea).

And you really have to add to all this :
- stuff you get , and that you cannot use yet (like be useable in 5 levels) , but that are a must for your class.
- stuff you loot and that can give you money whith wich you still have a hope to buy a bag or a hole (jewelry).
- stuff you loot and that can fix up your align (yes align is a big issue to many classes).
- your own food , dont think about walking out without that.
- your gold (unless you wish to walk to the bank, loose all your moves in the process, and since you do not have regen gear because of the encumbrance, you just feel stuck).

The funniest thing is if it happens to you to crush your precious dex setter (unless you have triggers that beeps you and scream WARNING, or after each fight check every line again for any crushing evidence, or hrm ... walk again to the nice fixers... naah too far).

Is this challenging ? eventhough i highly respect your thinkings, i honestly do not share them, as this only challenges you to BEG people all the time by all means and forms.

I cannot be against players interactions, but when it comes to a beggars life, i prefer not.

Challenging in my humble opinion shall be far from frustration, i play a lot of newbies (i guess you know that), a lot of classes (i'm always complaining about the max_char to 10, always proposed about 14 which is the number of classes), ad each time i reach the level 10, the problems with encumbrance start (specially for the melee ones but not limited to), i would have seen them hard to come by (for everyone equally , like being a quest item or so, from a "doable quest" )

Once you reach level 99, you are rp approved, you can get rid of the con set (yay !), but then, since you have to wait, and play at same time, and rp, you will come across to a lot of gear that will kick in 1 level, pick up one and your life is ruined.

Sorry for the ranting, i just got a lot of frustration (i shall stop writing this word), and it just escaped from me.

For all those who do not share my opinions ( i rarely see who shares my opinions , but anyway ), make a noob, level him, do not beg around, and lets see what ya feel, playing with your main with a bronzy, a holy and a baggy and all your setters isn't really challenging (i'm not talking about them level 5 with 8 nested bags of holdings, a SOR and cracklers eventhough they cannot use em yet).


I have as well talked about wearable items, when the encumbrance system calculation changed, these items didn't follow (i had to sell 2 bracers of the sun, when a few years ago they were the best, the purple shoulders , and even the containers, human skin sack is kindda funny).

With my best regards,
Akrond.

I have leveled bojie which is my main without
begging others (much). Sure, his stats did
suffer majorly. I could have done much better
if I knew what I was doing back then. But to me,
he's worth more than all my other alts together
cause of it. But back in the day encumbrance
wasn't as big of a problem as it is today.
That's why now you should have few high level
friends that can hold onto items that you will
be able to use in not so distant future.

I fear this gonna lead out of topic and to non-constructive arguing, anyway, IF you ever gonna use a highbie friend to hold into your items you will :
1- cover very partially the problem since these items can only be the ones for which you are not ready for, your friend will not hold your food or your regen set , perhaps your con set but then gonna be a hassle getting him online whenever you gonna level.

2- can lead to some multiplaying issues giving that that friend will need your highbie to store his newbie eq and so on (this is what i think , and i'm the only person entitled to what I think , not accusing anyone of anything, it is just the way my mind is setup).

3- tell a newbie struggling with his garbage bags: "hey lemme hold into your shiny gold boots till they kick for you" , his answer will be something along "beep beep ! beep beep beep beep gold boots"

Just start a noob, and see where it leads

I think enc can be helped a ton by bringing back bags of holding into the game. Anyone starting out now is probably never going to see a decent container. Heck, I traded mine for a bronze tube, heavy as heck, I can't carry all of my regen/fighting gear and have to run to the house often to trade things out. It's annoying as heck because if I have to rp on a whim, I'm most likely not prepared for anything. My rp's for a hole, and non rp attempts and killing Vignir for a hole have not been sucessful...

Again, bring back some bags of holding or something. That'd help a ton with weight. It would really help the newbies who pick up everything in sight, not knowing what is good or not. There was a time when people came to me looking for a bag of holding because they knew people gave them to me all the time to hand out to newbies etc.

OK,
I'm going to have to risk annoying some people here, and apologies if I do, but I think Inventory management is (and should be) one of the challenges of the game. I understand and empathise with the issues of encumbrance, especially early on, but how much of a challenge would it be if magical containers were just handed out like candy? I can almost guarantee you that if every single Level 1 character was handed 5 bags of holding on character creation, having finally achieved managing your Inv would be meaningless and things would generally shift around to the issue of hoarding again. As far as having a guild and house which you need to keep returning to, thats also part of it. If people have 400 items all stashed in their bags/holes etc. how are thieves going to help circulate eq? Or get cool RP hunts going for raided houses etc? In fact, what would the point of having a Guild or Private House even be?
I do agree that there does need to be more sort of middle of the road containers that are not perhaps as massive as holes or bags, but still useful enough to have a significant effect on encumbrance.
Those sorts of things would be a good item to build and include in a new zone or even as a reward for a task don't you think?
I'll be bearing it in mind - all those other task and zone builders out there have a think about somehow including something like this in what they're currently working on and I'd wager that this problem will be resolved to everyones satisfaction

Thats my rambling 2 cents then.

Peace out,

Bannik.

Maybe not hand out bags to newbies, but those characters who get to level 100. Maybe people go all through the levels and never get a bag and as an additional "thank you for sticking around dl so long" give them a bag. That might work out.

I have to completely agree with Bannik on this.

Managing your encumbrance/inventory is part of the game. It also teaches you to know what equipment is most important and what you can live without. I don't believe it should be easy to carry around 400 pieces of equipment in your inventory, bagged or not. It's ridiculous.

Personally, my con set while leveling was 2 pieces of equipment. I didn't even have a regen set and don't feel it necessary. Go to your temple, sleep, and walk away from your computer for 5 minutes. Voila.

Some people put entirely too much emphasis on equipment. And yeah, I won't go into a rant about those that hoard it.

Imho, the ones who deserves "challenges" are the big avatars and not the poor little newbies.

Nowhere in what i wrote i mentioned 400 items, all i said is that you need 3 sets of items .

I have now a proposal, why not :

- remove totally the "magical" flag from all containers : that would be a real challenge.

- modify the "magical" flag behaviour, so like, ONLY if you hold your bag it becomes active (or wear it).


Eq hoarding is actually based on houses , what it would be nice to see then is something like :

> cast 'sanc' Gydin
> You begin muttering beneath your breath
> Your mind got drifted away thinking about what you left in your house.

and you get that depending on the number of items you have in your house / guild.



best regards,
Akrond

I see my post has been removed and no reason why given. Excellent!

The wording of the post was not formated in a tolerant tone that we feel would be conducive to a lively and spirited debate of the issue. If you have further questions please feel free to email Nezmar.

Clearly it was not a constructive post. Sorry I didn't post that I removed it, I have better things to do...

--Nezmar

Oh, I like that. Maybe, c 'sanc' self... 'you cast sanc upon yourself but remember that there are a few items sitting in your house that you haven't given out free of trade/charge as you always do yet and you should get back to handing out more items before they collect even a bit of dust.'

Mwahaha, would that work?