Get Shorty Project
There is an event going on right now that restores hope for a lot of people. People who dislike each other are putting their differences behind them to hunt a thief. People like Kirk the Archmage are not well liked. Today all PK's are friends while a slimy thief is tracked.
Shorty Portman/Sofi Sacred has been pulling the close trade window thief trick for a long time. She had success with stealing a mattie robe a while back. Bad timing on her part this week. The server has been very upset at the lame thieves of late.
Shorty has been trying this trick for a week or so and finally got a victim. The trick is to ask set up a trade or just ask to see an item in the trade window. As some people have learned grief tricks here I'm not going to explain the last step. There is a counter to this trick. Myself, I will never put a single item in the trade window that I'm not trading. I also have a trick to keep from being stolen from.
So Shorty Portman was able to steal an ill-replaceable item, the second one she has stolen. She is also still trying to steal using Sofi Sacred and any other player she has.
The problem for her is she is PK. It started with her getting a flood of tells. She squelched tells for a while but like most, needs to have tells at times. As soon as she does she get a flood of "Return the Mattie" tells. Trying to get us to stop she has sent, "All you people spamming me makes me want to keep it." as if she was thinking of returning it if we would only leave her alone.
The whites are tracking here wherever she goes. The Reds are camping the places she can go white in. Prof X has gotten two kills and a hand full of items. We are sure she passed off the stolen Robe to someone so all we have is revenge.
We have no expectations of ever getting the Robe back. This is a cold-hearted thief who knows what she is doing. Like the Brandon Lee alliance she is a pro. All we can do is prevent her from ever gaining any more fun from AC. No more stealing as everyone is warned. No more PK fun, unless being tracked by everyone in AC and looted is her idea of fun. Never be able to have tells un-squelched, ever again. This is our goal.
From VN board by Sardic
Just maximize your text box before placing items into the trade window. That way if will return to your inventory rather than dropping to the ground.
Drain pain
There is nothing more frustrating than fighting a drainer. A fighter does little damage per hit. It takes time to kill the big hit point monsters. Because of the no heal point of damage and the threat of a big hit war spell a fighter cannot let their health get very low. Fist de Yuma has 224 hit points in battle. (Endurance VI) I cannot let myself get below 100 for long. This means healing fast and often. This also means a drainer will have a nice reserve of point available.
I had several examples in one battle. I was coming off the hill at AB to go hunt Hollows. I see a Umbris off to my left. I stop and take out my fire Atlan. In hindsight I should have just put VI's on my fire or slashing weapon and used that.
When I attacked I saw I needed to draw it off from a Pan, Shadow, LT and another Umbris, typical Shadow family. They all chased but I was able to get the Pan alone and killed it fairly quickly. Then I tried again at the Umbris.
This time I got both Umbris', the Shadow and the LT. Shadow fell fast and I started on the LT. This is when things got frustrating.
I got the LT to a sliver and it drained me to full health. I healed and took a bunch of war from the Umbris's. That got me down to below healing so I had to take healing elixir. Healed up and was blasted again by several war to bring me below healing. Repeat elixir and heal.
Started back in on the LT. Their Melee cannot touch me so I only have to worry about spells. I have full level VI protection so I can take a few war spells. Shadows don't Vuln or I would not face this many. So my big problem is drain.
Again got it to a sliver and it healed itself to full. Again I'm at below healing and now a Drudge has joined in on my backside. Decided to regroup.
Got a way, easy to do with my speed, and healed up. Got the LT and only one Umbris. I got the LT to fall this time and started on in the Umbris. I keep hitting it and it keeps draining me. Every time I got it to half health it drains me back to full. I have to heal after two drains or be in danger. I finally let myself fall below 100 hit points in hopes it would stop getting back to full health.
Another problem came into play, I was running out of stamina. You would think with over 300 at the start of the battle I would be able to finish it without drinking stamina potions. I needed two of them.
At last it ran out of mana and I was able to kill it. To be effective I had to change to a slashing weapon that had better damage. Someone come of the hill and took out the rest while I was fighting.
Now compare this battle to my mage fighting one. To begin with my mage can draw with a de-buff. Fire vuln VI, drain twice, fireball and it is dead. I really don't need the drains but do it for out of habit. Takes all of five to seven seconds. He could clear the same spawn in 20 seconds while it would take close to five minutes for Fist to it.
Of course Fist has advantages over mage so there is balance. For one thing I seldom take damage from melee. The key against a drainer is to kill it fast, so fast it does not have time to drain. Mages are much better at that due to the big damage they can do. Fighters hate drainers to no end.
Was on the island Saturday evening with Mage. I saw a fighter taking on a Bandy. I had just killed one that attacked me off the hill. The fighter said, "I hate drainers". As I had used two drains on the bandy I was confused as to what he meant. Seems his Bandy was draining him a bunch. I fired imperil VI on it and it fell in a single blow.
He used a spell to get another one and two attacked him. I Lighting Vuln VI one, drained it twice and fired off Lighting bolt VII. Then imperiled the one he was fighting. He was amazed. He was glad for my help but he had never seen one die so quick.
A mage can take a Bandy in 5 to 10 seconds, fighting 5 at once is hard but very doable. A fighter can take several minutes to kill one if it drains. Several Life skilled monsters are almost imposable for a Fighter to take. I'm not calling for a nerf to draining, heaven forbid, only pointing out the problems a fighter has fighting a big hit point monster with Life skills.
Fighter/Mage
Of course a fighter and mage teaming would do as well or better. Imperil VI will up damage a fighter does by an unbelievable amount. The key for a mage is to get a fighter that can work with a mage. Not all fighters have that mindset. There is a knack to it.
The key is trust in most cases and a good feel for each other's ability. I fell down with a new fighter I teamed with the other day. He was taking a lot of damage for a while so I was a bit worried about him. I put some buffs to increase his abilities.
We got into a situation. We hit a spot between spawns that was not quite as far from the spawns as we needed. All the spawns attacked us. We were literately surrounded by Bandies, Drudges and Shuths.
I was doing ok and had killed a few but was worried about him. My level VII combat bar does not have heal other on it, need to fix that. I switched to him and hit what I thought was my III bar, but hit IV instead. I saw he was doing fine, my buffs had worked. I tossed a heal just to be sure.
By that time let I had a lot of damage on me. I switched to a Bandie to get a drain. After that I would he fine. Only problem was on my IV bar my 1 stamina to mana. That is a buffing bar and I use my 1 and 2 keys to get mana back.
I'm trying to figure out why I'm not getting any health back. I had hit 1 about three times before I figured out the problem. By the time I got to my III bar I was dead.
The key for me when I get killed on the island is get back or clear vit before my VII buffs drop, especially my item ones. No way I can buff with VII if I have vit. Mostly I will hit BSD and kill a few Tuskers to clear the vit before going back. I knew that where the body was I needed help and did not want to keep the fighter waiting.
Before I got to far the fighter sent me a message that he had to leave. I did not show how mad I was but I was very pissed. I hope he had a very good reason for leaving but I don't think I will be teaming with him again.
I did learn one thing, killing the three Diamond golem at the fortress will clear my vit.
The body was in an even worst spot that I thought. I tried one direction but could not make any headway. I was killing Bandies and Drudges left and right but they would re-spawn before I could even find the body.
I headed back to the sea and rebuffed. I then tried the other side. A few big battles got the body between me and the sea, or where I thought the body was. Again I was fighting a never-ending stream of bandies. That was not working as spawns on my left side kept joining in.
Headed back to the sea and tried the side I failed at the first time. This time the re-spawns stopped coming so fast. There were also some other fighters/Mage passing through that took out a few. Finally got the body.
Good thing was I found a better helm and got a lot of xp from it. Took three buffing cycles. I get 16 minutes of hunting per cycle. I have not timed the buffing but it takes a while to toss all the spells I use. Overall I would say it took close to an hour of constant battle to recovery it.
Surprise
My brother came over to my house this week. While there he asked me to look at his player, Jeff Sailor Bane. I logged on to his account and hit his player. Jeff said, "I logged in OHN"
I don't know where he logged but it was not in a nice place. At least it was a cubbyhole. I'm attacked by four or five and see orange dots filling up the screen from every direction. I did find out what it was like to fight with a bandit sword. I figured it was double damage, not two separate hits.
I had killed six or seven when I started to run out of stamina. Jeff has stamina elixirs hot keyed so that was saved. I took a bunch of damage doing that as drinking will lower your melee d. Got some heals in and started back to killing. I was hearing stuff run out of mana and taking a lot of damage. I decided porting out was the best choice.
I'm sure Jeff was worried watching me do all this but there was no time to let him take over. Different hot keys and spell bars will make playing someone else's player very hard. I grabbed the wand and Jeff was telling me which tab had the LS recall. Fast fingers got me out with a handful of hit points left.
Found out that his V helm was one of the items that ran out of mana. That had dropped his melee D a lot.
Big Alliance advantage
We were having a little meeting to work some stuff out in the hall. It was about over when I got a call from Ogmosis. He had a body on the island. From the description it was in a very bad spot, other side of the island near Bone Town.
I gave an open request for those that wanted to join me in the recovery. Got six or seven high level players. William the Bat was the first. William is one of our leaders. I can lead a quest in a pinch but prefer to be in support mode.
I logged Mage who was already on the island. He had some loot and was over weight. William volunteered to carry it for me. I learned my lesson from the quest, I would have had to drop it if William did not carry it for me.
There was also a non-Elder with two bodies there. I told Ogmosis that we would he glad to get her bodies as well. It was later that I saw the below post on the boards.
VN boards
From Naive
Topic: My husband isnt home and I need HELP!!! Anyone that could help me - PLEASE!!!
I took my husbands high level character to Aerlinthe Island to buy some tee shirts and got him killed 2xs - I have lost his Aerfelle Robe and Staff, If anyone could help me get at least his Robe and Staff back, I would be forever in your debt. We had one person trying to help but they died also.
PLEASE, PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME, IF MY HUSBAND FINDS OUT I LOST HIS ROBE AND STAFF HELL EITHER KILL ME OR DIVORCE ME
I'm guessing it was Ogmosis who died helping her. We started the run through the bay. At the first turn we lost Naive. (Board name, did not get the player name.)
We rebuff and headed back. Monsters did not stand a chance. Wasps, Drudges what ever attacked us quickly fell. Ogmosis got permission and recovered that body. Now on to the next ones.
Seems I took the wrong route the time I ran this, I charged passed the Plasma golems. This time we ran up the hill, over a bit and back down. I think I'll keep doing it my way as it was a long nasty run and I can dispel the de-buffs from the Plasma's.
We got to just short of Bone Town and rebuffed. Advancing on the town we encountered the Sliver Tuskers, Augmented Drudges, Cursed Bones, Diamond golems and all the rest. This was not an easy fight but no one was in danger.
We started up the hill and I started to lag. Then I was yellow link. Got green and I was alone in a sea of orange dots. I had two choices, go up the hill and hope I don't die before I found the group or retreat down the hill.
I retreated as I had no idea where they were. I knew we had the power to defeat about anything so all I needed to do was keep myself alive. Got down the hill with a lot chasing me. Kept going to see how much I would lose before stopping to fight.
At the turn I had four Bones and three sliver Tuskers on me. Took out the Bones first as they only take two spells. I'm guessing the problem I had with one the other day was a fluke because the three Tuskers fell nicely. It took a fire vuln, few drains and a fireball. Their about the same as a normal Tusker except they hit a lot harder. I'm sure their magic resistance is a lot higher as well but below my 336 War.
I headed back after telling the fellow what happened. Took out a bunch of stuff but never came close to clearing it enough to move up the hill. The group was advancing and recovered one body. They got another and could see the last one. William the Bat died.
He is a sword fighter at about 70lv. He does well on the island and has recall. He had to log off after recalling to the island because of the bug the Island recall and Sanctuary recall has. That lost the fellowship. I'm sure someone looted Williams body. Nothing more I could so I recalled out.
I met up with William and got the island loot back later in Lin.
Another advantage with teaming
Lately I have been having disconnection problems. I'm guessing that the IP is disconnecting me after a time because it is too consistent. Going to start disconnecting and reconnection before I hunt.
I got to the island very quickly. I did not stop to fight and there was a battle going on in the fortress. Someone paid for the portal so I jumped in. From walled portals to island was about four minutes.
Headed to my hunting spot and found Balash there. He was minus his BP so I figured he was recovering. I imperiled a few bandies for him as we headed over the hill. He charged towards his body as two Drudges came at me from the left.
They tossed some de-buffs on me, which had me switching to my de-buffed spell bar. This meant three spells instead of two to kill one. After the de-buffs they started chain casting. I was down to 70 or so hit points and had to drain. After killing one I was low on mana. I did stam to mana and started in on the last one.
With a little bad luck on top of the de-buffs I was taking a lot of mana to toss spells. Fire Vuln and Fireball VI had it as a sliver. A resist to my next fireball had me at 11 mana. I hit fireball anyway hoping mana conversion would kick in. It did and the Drudge dropped at my feet.
With little stamina, hit points or mana, I did a quick retreat to the beach. I recovered all that had rejoined Balash. We were way over the hill between three spawns. While there we were killing a bunch.
My timer went off so I knew I needed to rebuff. Was about to tell Balash I needed to find a safe spot when my modem clicked off. I was at less than half health, buffs dropping, in the middle of a hell spot.
I was sure I was dead. I quickly cleared AC so I could re-log as my modem finished dialing. Sysgate was redialing as soon as the modem dropped. It will do that about half the time. As soon as the connection was made I started loading AC. I expected it would take a while but it seemed I had logged out quicker than normal.
A lot of times I AC will think I'm ok and keep me logged on for a few minutes. I cannot get back in until AC figures out I'm not there and logs me. I have seen people run a long way after being disconnected. Got on and logged mage.
I was tempted to log Fist first and ask Balash if I had died or not. Hated to live and then log into a mess with no buffs. I felt Balash would guard the spot if I lived so I needed to get back fast.
It took a while to get on and I kept expecting to see the bright star in the corner of the screen. No star. I logged on and to my surprise I was at full health. Balash was fighting a Bandie and I quickly tossed an Imperil on it.
I did a short buff of life spells only as my other spells are all long lasting VII. We headed to the beach. So glad be fighting at the side of a smart fighter. He not only defended me when I disconnected, he found time to healed me.
Balance; Rebuttal to Small/Large alliances
This does not change my thoughts at all but I said I would allow a rebuttal. As I don't want to drag this out any more I will refrain from commenting.
There are a handful of good, large allegiances. There are also a handful of bad large allegiances. Size is not a factor in an allegiance being good or bad because if it were there could not be a big and large allegiance. This assumes there is such a thing as a bad allegiance anyways. There isnt. An allegiance can be good or bad for a specific player but the allegiance as a whole is not determined by an outsiders view. The primary determining factor in the goodliness of a monarchy is time. Bad ones dissolve.
For all it matters we could all be in the same monarchy on one server. A monarch cant control another player. Cant do anything outside of kick them out. No real punishment is available even on Darktide. A monarch is very limited. Took us years to get to leave a message for everyone (MoTD) and a quick line to everyone online, but no more than 3 times a day.
People pick allegiances for reasons that they alone value. If they want to pick a large allegiance they do so. If they want a small allegiance they join one of those. Its impossible to force someone to stay where they dont want to in this game. Dont even have to log in to dissolve ties anymore.
We dont have any concrete numbers but I would wager a mote that there are more real people in small allegiances than large allegiances as a whole. Real people defined as 1 person behind 1 or more characters that actively play on that account. Mule tree swaps and multiple accounts held by one person are not counted. Small allegiances defined as sub 500 and large as 2000 plus for the sake of discussion.
Small allegiances give that connected feeling. I know my followers and they know me. And we are not just talking characters. We are talking people. Its the social aspect of the game I seek. There will come a time when the servers are unplugged and not by accident to never return again. At that point in time everything done in game is essentially voided. Except the friendship you make.
Some allegiances are picky about who they recruit. For some this might be hard to understand. But what it comes down to is trust. When forging a new friendship the first thing I do not do is ask them if they want to move in with me and wear my name. Its not something I encourage either. Its far more important to me that the other player is a good fit for my group than any amount of experience they can generate. I dont buy a round in the local bar for everyone so they will like me either. Its not my style. In or out of game.
Has this philosophy cost me anything but in game experience? I doubt it. But anything I have lost is paid for in spades by the friends I have made. As I said before there will come a time when all accounts are deleted and nothing in game will matter. They will unplug an account of 5 level 126 ubers at the same time as the level 20 gimps.
This is not to mean that a large allegiance is a bad thing. Its just a bad thing for me. And that is all that really matters.
John J. Case
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