Idea: Pig Noses are not healthy for the game.

Faeie

And hear me out. Yes, I speak from the salt that comes from being part of several group combat situations as an overall combat noob and getting killed over and over again for not having a pig nose but here's the thing.

I would've died in those cases anyway. Absolutely. But it would've been my own fault (which partly it was in these cases too of course!)

Here's my point though: Are artifacts that are required for high level combat a good thing? I'd say prooobably not but if it's ONE artifact then that's OK. I don't mind.

However.

Should you have to buy an artifact to be able to perform the basic task of Seeing Where Your Enemies Are? Maybe the answer is yes cuz the whole point is they should be allowed to be sneaky and that's fine.

Should you have to buy an artifact to be able to perform the basic task of Seeing Where Your Allies Are? Absolutely not. Why is this a thing. Why do I have to pay credits for SIGHT. Sure it's slightly better than normal sight but this is not a problem in other IRE games.

And most importantly? Should we have to PRETEND we're not wearing RIDICULOUS PIG NOSES 24/7??? Why is this is a thing!!! It's so jarring!!!! Welcome to Lusternia, newbie, the land of animal-nosed people. Everyone has one.

This is not exactly healthy to your setting, Lusty.

I'd like to propose a solution but I'm very tired so I'll think of something tomorrow maybe there isn't one maybe this is fine and I'm just being nit-picky either way I wanted to throw this out there.

Rolsand

That's a problem you can't fix.

Ayisdra

Faeie said:

Should you have to buy an artifact to be able to perform the basic task of Seeing Where Your Allies Are? Absolutely not. Why is this a thing. Why do I have to pay credits for SIGHT. Sure it's slightly better than normal sight but this is not a problem in other IRE games.

And most importantly? Should we have to PRETEND we're not wearing RIDICULOUS PIG NOSES 24/7??? Why is this is a thing!!! It's so jarring!!!! Welcome to Lusternia, newbie, the land of animal-nosed people. Everyone has one.

Totem users get scent for free via the Wolf totem. More so, the wolf totem doesn't have a 3p line like the nose artifact.

And more or less you are suppose to ignore what people are wearing, sadly. You can change the nose a bit via one of the goop noses, but personally even those are ugly to me. While you can change how the nose looks via customization which does help a lot, you can't currently change the 3p scent line so you end up with a pretty nose-thing and an ugly line.

This wearing problem is present in a lot of artifacts. Most people are wearing so many boots, so many brooches/rings (because we need enchantments), and other random crap. The rather expensive glamrock artifact can change what people see, but it doesn't change what you see on your INV.

There would be so many things I would love to see changed about the clothing/wearing based artifacts (Most artifacts being runes that go on clothing, being allow to change the various 3p lines of artifacts like the nose, etc).

Lavinya

It's also one of the cheapest artifacts in the game, especially now that dingbats are on par with credits. 

There are also the goop noses now which are much nicer looking, and people like me who care about appearances have them customised. 

If a 30 dingbat item has you this bothered, you might not want to keep looking at other pk artifacts.

Tremula

Well, theoretically anyone can see where your allies are with the use of WHO and Thirdsight. However, with gems of cloaking barring people from being viewed, combat does demand that to view (most) all of the people in the area you use a different sense, like smell! 

I know it's not satisfying to hear, but the goop reskins for the pig nose are rather nice, and range from wolf-snouts to snobby snoots. This is mine, for example.

Pert and slightly upturned, this tiny nose takes a delicate whiff of its surroundings. Smooth and like satin to the touch, its overall shape is diminutive and inoffensive to any face it might rest upon. It slopes in a gentle curve, rounded neatly at the edges.

It weighs 5 ounce(s).

It does not retain any heat whatsoever.

It bears the distinctive mark of Gaslight Tremula, on Wings Of Flame.

It has the following aliases: nose.


EDIT: There are a large amount of things wrong with pretending that we don't see the pig noses, but if we focus on that then we ALSO see every single piece of improbable clothing, hats, rings, crowns, brooches, other jewellery, and any artefact that the person happens to be wearing: unless they have invested in a significant amount of credits to hide them all. The way that I get around this is to have an alias (when I remember to use it) to take off all my non-essential clothes/jewellery/arties so that I can interact with people normally.

Shedrin

I actually agree. Scent has become such a fundamental part of Lusternia combat on all levels. Without it you're pretty handicapped, and it costs 150db or equivalent in goop, which is quite an ask for a newer player.

edit: I don't care about how they look.

Deichtine

Hmm just thinking of solutions well you can get your allies to call the room number they are in?

That'll help you find them, like make a little alias doing Cltnumber Where should I group? 

And they can respond Clt2 regroup at room name room number.

Then boom you can go there instantly. You dont need an artifact to do that.

In terms of looks you can get a rune of hiding for 25dbs to get rid of the artifact from your look totally or you can like lav said get a goop one that looks more fitting with what you are.

I mean I have like 10+ runes of hiding


this is my look at me wearing stuff lines

She is wearing a circlet of black 

thorns, black rose-patterned stockings, 5 dark rose brooches, 10 onyx rings of black roses, form-

fitting ebony plate armour of the huntress, a skittering spider costume, a Brooch of the Tempest, a 

wyrden silk scarf tasselled with tiny ravenwood leaves, an intricate charm bracelet of the wyrden 

woods, a metal-adorned corset trimmed in coppery lace, a round escutcheon brooch, the Fingerblade of 

dha'Wyrden-cree.

I've got a lot of odd useful little arties but I tidy them away.

Anaklusmos

In Imperian players have developed a knack for announcing room #s to go to, while in Achaea you can WALK TO <CITYMATE>. These all help in getting allies together in a group. It may not be a direct answer the OP's valid concern, but since you can PATH FIND ROOM# here, maybe you and your allies can develop the habit of calling out rooms to go to

Fyler

Faeie said:

Should you have to buy an artifact to be able to perform the basic task of Seeing Where Your Allies Are? Absolutely not. Why is this a thing. Why do I have to pay credits for SIGHT. Sure it's slightly better than normal sight but this is not a problem in other IRE games.

And most importantly? Should we have to PRETEND we're not wearing RIDICULOUS PIG NOSES 24/7??? Why is this is a thing!!! It's so jarring!!!! Welcome to Lusternia, newbie, the land of animal-nosed people. Everyone has one.

1) Because it's not a thing. Purchase a scry enchantment. RUB SCRY FAEIE. Most PK happens outdoors so you can SCAN. It's only necessary for active PKers who chase a lot. I got by without one for years. 

2) It's whimsical and silly sure, but welcome to Lusternia. We have squirrel people and pogo sticks. 

Lynnie

For situations like these it is really nice for the leader of your group to call out gathering location.  If you ever decide to be the leader consider using something like this in an alias called "gather" or something

send("clan anon tell My map says I'm at "..gmcp.Room.Info.name.." ("..gmcp.Room.Info.num.."). Please gather at me.")

You can also make triggers that make people's room numbers clickable, though that might not be helpful in spam. It may just be best to type goto 1234 while looking at the clan tell in a chat capture.

Edit: I'm all for removing the 3P line from all noses. Let's make this a thing please, totems don't have a 3P line.

Faeie

I hear ya on it not being THAT expensive I don't think it's the WORST THING IN THE WORLD but seriously the fact everyone wears a weird animal nose is SO weird. If it was jewelry or something it'd be a bit more subtle but come on guys it's a fraction of a fursuit and EVERYONE has that it's KINDA weird.

And I did not know runes of hiding were a thing! That's cool. Though I really think it's kinda silly you have to pay MORE credits to not look ridiculous.

I am planning on getting bunny nose + bunny ears which admittedly are a bit cuter but... I can't help but wonder whyyy does everyone have to wear silly animal faces it's so weird.

Anyway yes calling out rooms would be the easiest solution I suppose. And again, it's not that "being good in combat requires money" that bothers me it's that this ONE item EVERYONE needs. If every class had a different item (or even a small group of them) that made sense flavour-wise I'd be fine but it just irks me because of its complete ridiculousness in a serious context it irks me.

Lynnie

Well you don't necessarily -need- it, you can buy a scry enchantment and make the mudlet mapper autowalk you when you scry your ally. Nose is just nice to have for people watching on minimaps and etc. 

Breandryn

Anaklusmos said:

In Imperian players have developed a knack for announcing room #s to go to, while in Achaea you can WALK TO <CITYMATE>. These all help in getting allies together in a group. It may not be a direct answer the OP's valid concern, but since you can PATH FIND ROOM# here, maybe you and your allies can develop the habit of calling out rooms to go to

Lusternia's path finding has a much smaller range and combat often takes place on different planes which you can't autowalk to. I'd love for there to be more groupup options, though, because it's rather hard here to stay with your team if you aren't a big fighter. It feels a lot harder than in other games. Like, in Achaea, I can literally PATH WALK STEINGRIM if he has me allied to walk to him. No coding or maps needed. Here, I need to declare (because of arti), suffer knockback from starleaper, finally manage to use my snowglobe and then finally realize it's out of range for the game's pather.

Deichtine

Breandryn said:

Anaklusmos said:

In Imperian players have developed a knack for announcing room #s to go to, while in Achaea you can WALK TO <CITYMATE>. These all help in getting allies together in a group. It may not be a direct answer the OP's valid concern, but since you can PATH FIND ROOM# here, maybe you and your allies can develop the habit of calling out rooms to go to

Lusternia's path finding has a much smaller range and combat often takes place on different planes which you can't autowalk to. I'd love for there to be more groupup options, though, because it's rather hard here to stay with your team if you aren't a big fighter. It feels a lot harder than in other games. Like, in Achaea, I can literally PATH WALK STEINGRIM if he has me allied to walk to him. No coding or maps needed. Here, I need to declare (because of arti), suffer knockback from starleaper, finally manage to use my snowglobe and then finally realize it's out of range for the game's pather.

Most folks in IRE games tend to use an third party mapper because its just better and quicker than anything the game has built.

Like the mudlet mapper is pretty good(if weird and seemingly made of vodoo) and I know theres a few zmud maps still knocking around somewhere, maybe out of date though.

Breandryn

Thing is, that argument is often brought up here on forums in response to things. Most players use x system or y mapper - but new players don't and it's a mind-boggling design decision to ask new players to a niche game in a VERY niche genre to also download a new client that uses a coding language to create settings in, just to handle basic things like navigation. The gaming world has turned away from this sort of mindset - look at WoW for example. A decade ago add-ons were the rage, but nowadays the biggest things you needed them for are all baked into basic gameplay, because gaming atmospheres have changed and needing extra mods for basic gameplay is seen as outdated design.

This very thread was made by a new player and one of the concerns expressed is how they can't easily find their group. The game should be helping with these options, not a 3rd party game client, especially when other games out there by the same company offer these options in-game. Why would a new MUD player pick Lusternia over the other IREs? 

Deichtine

The in game map is ok, it covers basic needs but the third party ones are just better/have more functions. Like wow the third party raid add ons are just like needed/so much better for most stuff.

I suppose its one of these things, I mean sure it'd be great to have all this built into the game itself but well thats a big project and its sort of not too needed as first off all anyone can get these things easily and secondly well these things are not technically needed unless you want to do the more advanced stuff.

Breandryn

I'd argue that they are needed, if new player retention is a priority. If the priorities are focused on existing players, then no, it's not. Obviously, that's Lusternia's admin's choice to make and we can only speculate on what their goals and largest profit sources are.

That said, I've watched the transition happen in Aetolia, with lots of QoL changes added for newbies and for noncomms and general activity did go up and lots more people got involved in PK, so there are definitely ripple effects of drawing in and retaining new players and making combat more accessible.

Crek

Delete pig noses. #BringTotemSkillsBacktoTotems

Am I doing it right, @Shaddus @Karlach?

Danquik

Fyler said:

Faeie said:

Should you have to buy an artifact to be able to perform the basic task of Seeing Where Your Allies Are? Absolutely not. Why is this a thing. Why do I have to pay credits for SIGHT. Sure it's slightly better than normal sight but this is not a problem in other IRE games.

And most importantly? Should we have to PRETEND we're not wearing RIDICULOUS PIG NOSES 24/7??? Why is this is a thing!!! It's so jarring!!!! Welcome to Lusternia, newbie, the land of animal-nosed people. Everyone has one.

1) Because it's not a thing. Purchase a scry enchantment. RUB SCRY FAEIE. Most PK happens outdoors so you can SCAN. It's only necessary for active PKers who chase a lot. I got by without one for years. 

2) It's whimsical and silly sure, but welcome to Lusternia. We have squirrel people and pogo sticks. 

My TREX on a Pogo stick is the best thing to happen to Gaudiguch! Don't you be shaming Pogo Sticks!

Drakius

This is nitpicking but...

"Pig noses are not healthy for the game" is not an idea.

Clickbait thread!

Yarith

I, for one, am not wearing a ridiculous nose. My bunny nose perfectly suits Yarith. There's also the goop petite nose and you can, of course, customise yours as you see fit for the 50 credit fee. 

That said, calling noses required for combat is pretty whatever. Lusternian combat essentially boils down to 'group up before going in. Follow the leader. If you get pushed out of the room you're either about to die because you've been set up or you just have to walk in the opposite direction to where you were flung.'

Noses are certainly beneficial to have and do a lot to streamline your getting back but with the smallest amount of code you could scry them and parse the room name against whatever mapper you use, then a* or manhattan walk or whatever other algorithim your client uses to move you there. 

I mean, it's really not hard to make a marco-polo style 'where are you?' 'I am at <roomname> <vnum>' trigger system provided you do it cleanly. 

Karlach

Crek said:

Delete pig noses. #BringTotemSkillsBacktoTotems

Am I doing it right, @Shaddus @Karlach?

#TotemskillsforTotemusers

Anaklusmos

Veyils said:

The in game map is ok, it covers basic needs but the third party ones are just better/have more functions. Like wow the third party raid add ons are just like needed/so much better for most stuff.

I suppose its one of these things, I mean sure it'd be great to have all this built into the game itself but well thats a big project and its sort of not too needed as first off all anyone can get these things easily and secondly well these things are not technically needed unless you want to do the more advanced stuff.

No project that adds awesome mechanics like WALK TO ALLY etc. can be deemed too big!

Scry enchantment is a valid fix, but sometimes that 2 second something can mean the difference between you getting to your group or the other group catching up to you.

edits:

That said, it (walk to ally) may never happen because it will remove half the reason to buy the Scent artifact (the other half is knowing where your enemy is). 

Ciaran

I think walk to ally would only have the tiniest impact on the scent artifact.  It's way more useful for chasing enemies than allies.  You can just set up a trigger to ask your ally what room they're in if you really wanted to.

Aeldra

Well, the "basic" task you're talking about can be performed in a myriad of ways other then scent for example:

- who ( for people without cloaking gems )
- scry ( as mentioned by a lot of people )
- farscout ( which works for both allies and enemies and is, iirc available to you as a celestine )
- window ( which is available to you as a celestine even without an enchantment )
- observe/glance/etc which are skills that can be learned from the general trees ( I think they're all in environment, would have to log in to check ). Sure they are not going to cover your whole area, but they still give you a decent awareness about your immediate surroundings.

Sure, scent is nice to have and it streamlines some things, but it also has it's drawbacks:
- scent can be countered ( by totem users / buying clarramora's worst )
- scent gives you only the name of the place, sometimes there's a lot of places with the same name ( hello inner sea )

So calling scent required for combat is probably a little far fetched. Useful? yes. Required? definitely not.

As a side note, combat has a learning curve. Logging your PK encounters and asking for specific advise on the forums will help ( there's a bunch of combat related threads around, including one where people post logs to ask for advise ). Aside of that, asking your city's prime combatants may yield you the one or other willing to help you sort problems.

Aramel

Honestly, I don't mind the rest of artifact noses, I just wish they'd get rid of the 3p line. It adds no information and is nothing but (unsightly) spam.

Steingrim

Well a few things that could help with this.

1). Make a credit nose.

2). Drop the price to 100cr/dings (making it a valid choice for leveling credits + sales/rewards).

3) Make it ugly so some people will still want the dingbat ones.

4) Give noses the ability to be set to hidden. Hide Runes would lose a faction of their customers, but there's a point where silly and whimsical crosses over to overly impactful.

5) Hidden noses should have their own scent message. Something non-whimsical.

Sondayga

Can third person lines be customized now for artifacts or would you be wearing one thing but still snort and snuffling a pig one etc?
Before goop skins I wanted to custom a magical map but they said the other lines couldn't be changed. 

Steingrim

Sondayga said:

Can third person lines be customized now for artifacts or would you be wearing one thing but still snort and snuffling a pig one etc?
Before goop skins I wanted to custom a magical map but they said the other lines couldn't be changed. 

Well, there's probably not a reason that if the admin wanted to they could make a more expensive version that could be customized, much like laurels are.

Faeie

Thanks for all the tips! What I'm getting here is:

1. Alright so there's obviously other options, the problem is that a lot of them use eq/bal and/or require me to type out names.

Try typing ABJURE FARSCOUT ALLIES while being attacked (which btw deals damage to me because of that thorn crown thing), or ABJURE WINDOW KAIMANAHI (which I also get bolted for cuz crown) and THEN type out or try to click those numbers that flashed on the screen for a literal second.

And yes I can alias the farscout, still takes balance and deals damage to me and requires another action for me to actually get there, and by the time I get there sometimes my allies moved already which makes me cry.

Observe should be nice, Alertness is better. Which animal ears give you (I've the same issues with this).

Callouts are the best option probably.

2. It's ok that it's mostly used as a tool to locate enemies. This is something people can pay credits for, it's fair.

3. It's still ridiculous that everyone in this beautiful world is wearing animal noses. I don't care if it's a bunny nose instead of a pig nose it's still ridiculous (albeit cuter) that EVERYONE wears them.

5. It's stiiiill kinda fucked that you fight with scent in every fight. Like yeah the whole SPRAYing the room and other such playarounds are engaging but it really doesn't make sense it's such an obscure skill for EVERYONE to have. And it does kinda make those that DO have the skill not useful any more. (I do think maybe not only totem users should have it but it would be nice to have one person in your team you rely on for scent rather than everyone being able to do it for no apparent reason). I mean I sure would like it if my farscout was useful but it's really not because everyone has scent already which is BETTER. Honestly artifacts that give skills like that are not supposed to be better than the real thing. Not by this much.

4. No one likes the 3p line and it'd probably be nice if it was customizable.

5. Master of clickbait confirmed, where's my money and invitation letter to buzzfeed.

Karlach

If your own team is zapping you with mindfield, ask them to ally you.