5 replies to this topic

[BerserkedFrenzy]

The Spawning System.

That's what I call it and I think it really needs reconsideration when it comes to the main attractions of most areas. There's nothing unpleasant about normal mobs' spawns. These are fine, plenty of stuff to fight all about that sometimes you just don't need any more of them to respawn and want them to stay dead, dang it.

Imagine that you are a player that is just "getting there" and really getting the hang of this game. Awesome. Then as you approach the stage where you compete with others for high-end items, you do manage to get the keys however difficult they might be or tedious as they are. Alright! The keys and all and go all gung-ho with a dash of caution and-- What boss? Huh? Is this game broken or what? (five attempts later) Is this what "fun" is--not finding the boss present?

I don't think so and neither would you think so. Chasing ghosts discourages enjoying this game. If you were to ask me what my suggestion might be, it is this:

(1) Make keys drop randomly and the key droppers spawn in one of a number of locations and/or drop randomly.
(2) Make major bosses spawn instantly and force the player(s) to leave the area after it is defeated.
(3) Adjust drop rates accordingly as well as means of acquiring keys rather than /examine.

I ask that we reconsider the system, not that we should redo everything that is Nightmist. There are things that can be left alone as they do not need to be reconsidered. There are others that we should give attention to.

Example 1: The Barracks. Let's work with the Underground Barracks where the Demonic Army plots to take over the realm. Why just make Barracks Key an examine, respawning every ten minutes, as some kinda key glinting at some corner somewhere on the floor? Those Soldiers ought to be holding one and would drop them with a very low chance, very very low. The Demonic Captain could drop them with a low chance, as low as 5%, then the Sergeants with 2% and the soldiers themselves at 1%. This would make the players fight the Demonic Army with their parties especially the clerics (yay cleric training!) and paladins. Then, whenever a key drops they have a chance to get a Halberd, because it's not a guaranteed drop from the big man himself. The general would spawn after the player leaves the square either by logging to local or through a secret passage.

Example 2: The Goblin Settlements. These goblins within the very settlement or perhaps at the other camp should have a chance of dropping the key that gives you access to the elder. Now the interesting part: "What about the key the elder drops?" Indeed, and still it would take the party with that key to the secret loot but the secret loot would not be instant-spawn. A nice log-to-local square to conclude the slaughter, wouldn't you say? If one managed to get there, that is.

Example 3: Pyramid of the Mortal God. On the second floor there is only one and specific Scorpion that drops the key needed to continue to the next floor. Anyone can drag that Scorpion and another one like it will spawn. What's the fun in that? Let's stop giving that one Scorpion entitlement and give every Scorpion on this floor 5% chance to drop the same key. So no blazing through straight to the top. You actually have to fight these things, swath after swath of Scorpions and there it is! Get that key and let's see if it works on that door up there! Then the floor just before the final chamber would be a no-retreat floor. This means, the player is forced to face the adversaries to come til the end or to exit the area completely by means of death or escaping out atop the pyramid and sliding down onto the path outside-- where the entrance of the pyramid is.

Example 4: The Inquisitor's Tower and the Warrant Bosses. First off, Marshal of the Inquisition is a tough one even for Grandmasters. Its drop rate would be just right, and perhaps the other Inquisitors in the same camp with him could drop the key as well but more rarely so. 1$ rare. Then we guarantee that the big man up the tower will be there and that the warrants we use to attempt an arrest will not fizzle.

Example 5: The museum. Yes. The museum. Although the displays have their own keys to drop and their own null chances, it's far too easy to just wait for ten minutes or so depending to retry a display and just blaze through, the latter being the usual occurrence. When the player arrives at the basement they must swing through a seemingly winding corridor full of hostile enchanted suits to reach the enchanter. If these Suit of Armor and the Armored Horse had a 5% and 15% drop rate, respectively, to drop a key allowing access to the enchanter that would make more sense than merely blazing through what seems like hundreds of empty, animate suits of armor almost unscathed. Then the player has to leave the museum completely by way of an enchanted mirror.

Example 6: Rose Gardens. Although it's like this now, that the Gardener randomly drops one of the items: a key, a spade, or null-- this area is far too tiny and could use some expansion. The Gardener could spawn at random locations instead of just that one square. The Giant Cinder Beast could stay where it is or it could spawn at different locations as well. The Gardener might drop less often, the giant cinder beast null at times, but the monarch would always be there and the player is forced out of the garden by way of the monarch revealing a crack in the dense cloister of petals and thorns. The monarch's drop rate wouldn't guarantee an item.

Example 7: Tirantek. This is a tough one.
 Perhaps the journal is a drop from an Archmage on that floor (the Subterranean City) instead of an /examine. No more just going into that spot and out, leaving the whole city untouched for, literally, years.
 The Bodyguards might remain the same, but killing enough Archmages to get a journal only to be disappointed is not the way to do it. The player might face the bodyguards and be forced out by way of chasing after the escaping foreman up the roof and dropping down the square west, losing the foreman anyway. The bbodyguards then could be a guaranteed spawn.
 Credenza could instantly respawn but appear at one of the few random locations.
 Ku'Nal could remain the same or instantly respawn but once the player enters the square with Ku'Nal the player cannot retreat after defeating her. They would have to Vortex Gate out or log to local.
 The stone door at the end of Kiaransalee's Challenge would be replaced with a door that requires a key, such as a poleaxe or a symbol of the Lolth (or the Ilythiiri). We need a dagger and shield to get to Credenza, why not require a key to get into a room full of priestesses welcoming you to the altar of sacrifice with the one and only host: Ku'Nal herself! (Thunderous applause and lightning booms)

Nightmist doesn't need to be redone. It needs to have some reconsideration. Things would be made fair and interesting to all rather than those who already know where to go and what to get and blaze through the area have the upper-hand. Things that do not require keys to apprehend would mostly remain the same way. Things that require keys should be reconsidered. This would also encourage more "meeting of fates" and less of an "early bird gets the worm".

This is a rough idea and would take time for the ideas to be finalized and put into effect. The plus side I see here is that it might encourage others to help obtain the keys or perhaps meet each other more often than not. Keys would get used up or actually have value. Things that almost never get slain, because of the rush-to-the-boss matter, get slain.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions, comments, jeers welcome.

[Tietsu]

I take it this is for Multi?

Edited by Tietsu, 10 November 2018 - 07:18 AM.

[Gaddy]

I disagree with pretty much all of the changes that require staff to dump time into Nightmist. Stig isn't available to do all of our whims, and JLH is not active in that capacity. We don't have staff to hop to random spawn and mechanic fixes we want.

 

Basically, I don't really see a way to make Nightmist widely appealing anymore through tweaks in the spawn, exp, or other very limited regards of a text-based game. Visual games are just easier to start and adapt to for gamers, and the grind on a game from the 90s or early 00s doesn't seem likely to attract people.

The GAME isn't that good. I love Nightmist; y'all know that. But Nightmist is old and hard to get into now. So, the only thing I could see working to get it active is a strong, welcoming community.

 

 

 

My solution has been to view Nightmist as comfort food. It is familiar to me, and I like the few people we have around. However, that means that I'm contributing to the game dying. I'm making it that much harder because we have a pretty exclusive club of "10+ year players" that generally only interact with each other (to my knowledge).

 

That said, I think we could do a lot more to welcome or encourage new players.

• Perhaps encouraging 1-Alt players to play Main and vice versa would help double both games' activity? On Main, I tend to run solo and be happy with that, and maybe that is causing too little community and lacking interactions. Logging into the other server to rally folks for either sides' bosses and grouping would probably help.
• Invite other people to bosses or fun runs, even if you don't need help (it's frustrating sometimes though...so, yea).
• Log on to contact people and see if they want to do stuff, rather than only to chase your bosses (biggest hypocrite here is me - I know)
• Also, stop preventing everyone from seeing when you're online. Main players know you still see player counts on /server and know people are online; it's only making the game look dead.
• Be kind instead of insulting or griping at the few people we still have...make it a community instead of a competition.

 

 

Anyway, these routes expecting very limited staff/admin support to "fix" Nightmist just don't seem realistic to me. I think it takes a real mindset shift and welcoming community effort. We always want Stig and JLH to do everything for us. Are we willing to put in any time and effort that is for the benefit of the game and community?

[Terron]

Games way past its time. not much can be done to help it.  

 

that being said it would be nice to see spawn changes and higher drop rates. daily bosses should be spawning 4x a day(or more for some of them). 

 

to touch on what gaddy said,  people need to stop hoarding all the bosses and invite teach each other how to do each boss.  communicate with a discord or something, get as many involved as possible for each trip.  might bring back some old vets if the game is fun again, might even get a few relatives/noobs to join for awhile.  there are muds older than nightmist that still regularly have 100+ people so its possible.

 

however, i dont believe its going to work without more opportunities to kill bosses.  large part of the reason alot of muds are boring and die off is the boredom and non ability to hit epic adventures.  

[Gnarkill]

I prefer playing NM these days with rarely any interaction.. I like to relax and have a nostalgic moment here and there when I have free time and my NM past is so littered with drama that I find it easier to just mind my business. I don't level/boss with others and rarely trade with anyone else.. I haven't pk'd anyone in years and people seem to leave me alone too which I appreciate. I will admit I wasn't the best person on here in the past to a lot of people and loved to play the asshat/villain and I was a part of the problem.. a lot of us were and we let the competition of NM get too serious which years later seems really stupid that stuff ever got that personal between players over a text based game. There is a big difference between healthy and unhealthy competition. 

 

Gaddy does make a good point and I sometimes forget that it was the community and not the game itself that made NM so great and it would be nice if we could somewhat get back to that without all of the drama, theft, cheating/abusing the system and personal attacks within the community but that would take a complete community effort on both servers from those of us that are left.. not just a couple people that are willing. 

 

I also agree that the one thing that I would ask for currently if it could be done is making bosses spawn a bit more often.. sure some of them would still be hunted by the same people over and over but increased spawns also means more chances to find a boss in and get chance at a piece of gear for those of us struggling to gear crits due to bosses never being in.

 

and even though I use it on everything except my pacifist I would support getting rid of the "/toggle who" option on multi if it helps bring people in or back.

Edited by Gnarkill, 21 November 2018 - 07:58 PM.

[Terron]

yeah i mean its not like the game has to keep any sort of balance at this time in its life.  people need to have fun to stay.