Fist de Yuma - January 7, 2003

Getting while the getting's good This column is not about adventure this week. It will be thoughts and a little bit about the boards. The reason is the current bugged armor. As I said last week stuff is dropping with very low value. This makes it perfect PK armor. Turbine said this will be adjusted with the new patch. So given the limited time we can get this I have been hunting where if falls a lot. This means I have spent more time in the Hollow Caves than any time before. Because Jr does not have lock pick I have used Fist for the hunting. Surprisingly it has been fun. The people there all seem to understand that there is enough for everyone. There is no need to make others miserable while getting the loot. I was hoping to also pick up a lot of Sings but for some reason that is not to be. The best I did was four Sings on one hour and I have been skunked a few times. Given that I have my armor mostly made what I'm getting is not for me. There are those who cannot spend time hunting the big armor this month. I figure I'll have it saved on a mule until they need it. Meanwhile I'm getting a lot of material for me. Material is a big problem for me right now. With so many weapons needing tinkering I need a lot of Iron. I need about 25 bags of Steel to get my armor done. Of course it will be more if the odds catch up with me and I break something. So while I'm having fun getting material and armor there is not much adventure to write about. Still I think you'll enjoy the column. Max skills There are a few players who have attained maximum skills. This is a combination of the max xp into stats and skill. It is around 4 billion points into the stats of the skill and the skill itself. Most have done this through macro's and chains. I know of one, Elder, who has max out a skill but do to lower stats it is not at the maximum possible. So just what is maximum skills? That question hit me late one night. I pulled up Rain Pea to see what it is. I cannot be sure that Rain Pea is right but I'll to with it until proven otherwise. Of course the first thing I wanted to look at was Jr's possible scores. What I found surprised me. Not so much for Jr but for Fist. The maximum UA possible is 429. This is strength and coordination starting at 100 and the 4 billion points put into each, added to the 4 billion into UA. Where I got the surprise was just how close Fist is to that score. He'll never make it of course, as his starting stats were 80/90. With a base 386 UA he is only 43 points below the maximum possible! I think he will be around 25 points when I stop raising it. That is not a whole lot in the overall scheme of things. Given the immense expense of the equivalent of making 126 three times you would expect it to be a lot higher. Jr, who had not even hit 100, has a base UA of 371. Admittedly I have raised it a lot more than I should have but the new weapons work better with greater skill. Still that is only 58 more. What is scary is even with a buffed UA in the 440 range the newer monsters evade a lot. This is added to a weapon with good a bonus and heartseeker VII. Perhaps Turbine is getting a bit carried away. Where I really worry is magic skills. The very max you can get with a magic skill is a base 381. There are new monsters with a reputed 450 magic defense. Even with good buffs and a few minors you're not much above the 50% range on them. A trained skill can forget it. I expect some monsters to be hard but I worry when they approach impossible. They just don't get it On two quests last week we had people who the word "impatient" is far to weak to describe. Many depend on the team to get them though but are unwilling to be a part of the team. I never used their names. Most players recognize this type of play and want nothing to do with it. I would rather someone get the opportunity to change before everyone knows who they are. Aaa but never underestimate the stupidly of kids. Two of them went to the boards complaining about how they looked in the column. One condemned me while at the same time confirming everything I wrote. It seems we were right to worry about the guy running ahead during the Gaerlan. His only intent in joining our quest was to steal the kill. He felt it was his right as after all, he is an archer, the kings of kings. He shows up at the essence without a party to back him in hopes of getting into a group what will work for his glory. He then complains that he was there first so he was not an uninvited guest. Lets try to get this so the people with little comprehension skills can understand. If you need a group to do a quest it is a group quest. If you don't want to be part of the group then don't go. Rules of Group quests Leaders of group quests have described the process as "herding cats." This is the reason small groups have succeeded on the major quests before the big ones have. Working together as a team makes everyone stronger. I'm setting down a few rules for members to use as a guide. Remember this is from my perspective. If you disagree write me why and I'll put it in the column. If you just say, "Wrong again moron." Expect it to be laughed at. Never run ahead. People have different running speeds. It is very easy to break away from a group on an open run and lose people. I have seen some fast runners lead groups into dead ends because they had no idea where they were going. Because of their speed they felt they had to be in front. When a group is running it is hard to tell who is leading and who is just being stupid. Be respectful and stay back and let the leader lead. If you are not the quest leader you have no business in front. Stop ever so often and let the leader stay in front. You may think you know a short cut but don't be tempted to use it. Stay with the group. Remember, and I have been told I need to macro this statement on quests, "It is not a race!" When on a group quest stay with the group. If you are not the leader don't move to the front. When you are an invited guest on a quest act like it. This means be and asset to the group, not a distraction. There are many groups that resent people who jump into their quest. It will take some work for you to fit in. Acting like they are your personal escort service will not get you many friends. Adding to the groups fun will get you invited back. Lets get this straight right now. Showing up at the quest start without a group means nothing. You cannot do it alone so you are waiting for others to join. You are joining them, they are not joining you. If you want to lead a group then get a few people willing to follow you together. Don't try and steal one. Obey the quest leader. You may disagree with them completely but it is their quest. Do your best to add in advice but when the talking is over go into support mode and do your job. Greed Greed is a part of being human. Greed is good for us as well as bad. It drives is to do better so we can attain what we greed over. Too much greed is like too much of anything. Greed must be tempered with morality and structure. Controlling our greed is part of growing up. There are those who never grow up and are always in the "Mine" mode you see toddlers in. If they see it they want it. Most outgrow this at around age 15. I forgive this in children, I don't forgive this in adults. Two examples come to mind. The other day while doing some tinker work a guy asked me for some UA weapons. He was an 8th level. I told him that the minimum requirement of the ones I have are 300 UA. He said he had a 50+ UA that could use them. I said, "Ok, load him and have him ask me." I have mules full of stuff I have no use for. It is there only to support others. Overall it is useless "stuff" to me. Nevertheless I will not waste it. I give it to those who need it, not just want it. He would not load his UA and asked me to give him the weapons so he could port to his house to give the weapons to his UA. In other words his UA is not in Elder. The guy was such a pest I had to squelch him. This guy is using a mule to take advantage of the generosity of Elders. That is bad greed. It turned out he had a good reason not to load his UA. It was a notorious thief/griffer who deserves nothing but distain from others. I'm now working to get the mule removed from Elder as well. I met a guy in the hollow caves. He really had no business being there. He is a low level and even with VII buffs would not last long if alone. He counts on others being there to keep from dieing before he can get some loot. He can fight one or two at a time but without a lot of others you seldom are fighting less than three. He hopes to stay alive long enough to get a few kills and loot before dieing again. In other words he was working and dieing to get loot. Given that I watched a 126 die repeatedly there someone under 50 does not last long. His greed is pushing him to do things well beyond his ability. More power to him! The only question I have is how he will react in the future. If he lets his greed get the better of him he could be a determent to the game. If not he will be a great asset. I'll take a wait and see attitude on Melee Hound. To tell you the truth he died to fast for me to get to know him. Meanwhile he will be a very rich mid level player. Age I have said before that this game is more a reflection of the real person than real life. In real life there is to consequences actions. This restricts those who are fearful of the consequences. When in AC there are few consequences and it lets their true selves come forth. So griefers in the game would be griefers in real life as well, if not for their fear of the consequences. Yes there are those that can role-play. We did that a lot when playing AD&D. I was very good at switching back and forth between evil and good. Nevertheless when it came down to our overall actions it was very hard to do evil acts if you're fundamentally good. This sometimes makes it very hard to gage age when playing AC. When I meet someone who acts like they're 12 it is hard not to think that is their age. I have met teenagers who are mature and ready for life. I have met some in their 30's who you would think just graduated from grade school. So when I state I think someone is young that is why. If I say you acted young take that as a hint go grow up. It is not a "Gotya! I'm really 19" it is a warning that you're acting like and immature kid. And for god sake, if I complain about your actions don't take it to the boards with your true name! You only confirm my observation and show everyone who you are. Yes the peanut galley will love you but the rest will put you down as a nut. Lets face it, the peanut gallery on the boards don't mean much in the game. There is a reason I don't attach names to these people. I'm giving them a chance to reflect on their actions. If you disagree PM me or write me. I have been wrong before and fully able to put my mistakes in the column. I'll even print your rebuttal here. The funniest part of that thread was 100% of the people who came to his support all started with "I don't read his column." Laughing at the nuts There are people who love to hate. They will take anything that is said, twisted it through and forth until it comes out as a personal insult to them. Once insulted they will take every opportunity to get back at the person who insulted them. I respond to a lot of posts on the boards. It is guaranteed that several of the haters will jump in with; He is a right wing (insult favorite curse words here) radical. I use to read his column until he started putting his political slant into every paragraph. (This is paraphrasing as most are not this articulate.) Of course anything non-AC is always left to at the bottom of the column and is clearly labeled. It is a risk in that a last second turnoff will have them missing my begging for money. (grin) Given that I need the money a lot more than I'm willing to say this hurts me in real life. For some reason they have to bring it up their dislike of me in every post I make. Now who is fixated? Mostly I laugh at them. The more they try to drive away my readers the more likely they will have someone come over to see what the shouting is about. Deadly Quests Even powerful groups of players can be defeated. When I logged on Sunday I found that a group of Elders had failed on the Queen quest the night before. Attempts at recovery also met with failure. Balash was able to recover two valued items in one attempt. I will not name names here but the average of this group was over 110. The apparent reason for the failure was using a killer who was to weak the kill. The Queen started drifting towards them until she got into radar range and then attacked. This is not a put down to the group because this can happened to anyone. A little bad luck, a touch of lag and suddenly it is a recovery quest. On the last Gaerlan we had a fast pile of bodies. There have been many groups wiped out by him. My point? I'm not sure. Maybe plan on such failures happening from time to time. No one is immune. New Armor I was taking Fist's Armorer to the Slave dungeon. I quickly got to a place where Tuskers came at me from all directions. Despite being well buffed I was taking a lot of damage. For every Slave I killed another took its place. It did not take me long to get into trouble. One time I vuln'd a Tusker when I should have been healing and it was all over. I hurried back to get the body. I got there easy but lasted even less time than before. Now I had two of them to recover. I lucked out and my third trip had some Archer clearing it before I got there. It was clear that I needed to upgrade my armor if my low level BM was going to fight there. I had been saving up Steel. An hour in the Hollow Cave would net me half a bag or so. Checking the mules I found I had several bags I could use and two bags of 7.0+ Steel that I will save for the last tinkers. The coat I wanted to work on was al 205 and wms 2. Using the bags I had I got it to 345. I found some leggings that matched the coat and had al 240 with wms 4. I got it to 340 with the rest of the steel. I dumped my minor life and war items so I could have good armor on the hands, head and feet. I have not tinkered them yet but that is the plan. The next trip to the Slave Dungeon was a lot better. The new armor kept the hits to about half what they were. I had no trouble keeping up with the damage. With less need to heal I could kill faster. Overall I was very pleased. I guess the Pre-GSA goes on Jr now as Fist has a odd set of minors I would rather keep. This worked so well that I'm using the same armor on Fist de Mage. With the War wand from Gaerlan I can mule the minor items off him as well. A few days of hunting got me the Steel to finish the coat. The coat is now 405 base. I still need two tinkers on the legging and need to start on the gants/sollets/helm. Speaking of the helm I found a 303al helm with minor Creature on it. With a buffed 408 Life and 396 War I don't need Creature very much. I figure when I do need to use Yield I better have all the Creature I can get. With 303al I'm not losing any armor so I might as well make it my main helm. Overall my mages are becoming much stronger with this armor. The melee hits have been the biggest problem with my mage's. The real test came in the slot this week. After a battle with some Virindi and their Tusker guards I noted I had Imperil and Bludgeoning Vuln VI on me. Normally having those two means a hard time with Tuskers. I have even had three Guards beat me to death before I realized I was in danger once. This time I did not even note a problem. I cleared the Virindi before even thinking about the Tuskers. The higher armor made all the difference. Short Story This is a story I wrote after thinking I need to change Fist from UA to Sword. I'm not totally sure I'll do that but it is a thought. This is the background story about that change. For those who have donated to me this is a repeat of what I sent a month ago. Carefully I danced around my opponent. The Drudge seemed confused with the quick strikes and jabs. The Drudge stabbed out with his electrical blade but I shifted my weight to the left and easily avoided it. My hands drew lines of fire as I snapped blows after blows at the helpless Drudge. The smell of his scorched skin filled the air. Sort of like chicken I joked to myself. His two friends were tossing blades at me the waters edge but I had little trouble with them. For years now my training and speed had kept missile weapons at bay. Seeing it was hopeless to hurt me with melee they dropped their weapons and tried spells. I smiled as the spells stung slightly but did little damage. I had spent months at the mage school learning protections from such. After years of being badly hurt by the lowest of spell casters I finally had the highest protections available. The study time was too intense to keep up with several of my skills and they had fallen useless but times like this proved the wisdom of my choice. Most of the spells I was even able to slip completely because of my study of magic defense. I hated that my vaulted speed was of little help against spells. My study time had proven its worth in Magic Defense for many monsters. Still no matter how hard I worked I was well behind others in this regard. I was told that even specialized training would be of little help to me with the powerful mage monsters such as Virindi. Still it kept weak mage monster such as these at bay. The first Drudge fell with a shriek. I rushed to the second but saw that Balash has beaten me. He had killed his and was rushing to the next one. He sword had carved up the Drudge far faster than I could even think of doing. What he could do with his new swords was almost obscene. The battle was over and we searched them for loot. "Only a few odds and ends Fist, might be able to sell them in town for a bit." I just grunted. Maybe I was in a little sulk about the nice swords that had appeared of late. Admittedly I had little to complain about. At the same time Unarmed weapons had appeared that were undreamed of a short while ago. Still in head to head battles almost any fighter was more effective them me. Balash began cleaning his weapon. I did not have that worry, the flames did a good job of self cleaning. "You know" Balash said, "You're not to old to change weapon styles." I had not expected my thoughts to be showing that well. "I had already lost a lot of skills getting Life magic, I'm not sure I can make that change." Balash was not one to skip around the bush. "Think about it, sword is the way to go. Hear, I'll draw you a map to my old teacher. He is Sho so you'll understand some of his ways. I had a harder time with it." The old man was one of those who looked like they were born old. Cords of muscle shifted along his arms. How bow was a think of beauty. When he walked it was almost a dance, so smooth and graceful. He looked me up and down. He asked to me jog up the hall and back. He then felt along my arms and neck. "We can do it but there will be a cost.", he said. I sighed, there was always a cost. "You'll lose most of your unarmed abilities as we will develop mussel groups that will counter the ones you use now. Sword has a lot less defensive bonus as well. I'm sure you understand that other skills that will deteriorate as well." I nodded my head. I had thought long and hard about this. I understood that this retraining would take time and effort but I was willing to pay the cost. "When can we begin", I said. "Rest tonight, we will start in the morning." Looking at my sweat stained armor he said, "A bath will be provided for you, use it please. You smell like and old student of mine." He turned away and walked up the hall.