Announcement

**Maevenniia** · 09-15-2006, 08:22 PM

OK, they couldn't get the Forage AA to work in the time they had left. AFAIK it isn't scrapped completely, but will get looked into when they get the chance:

Dev-Ngreth wrote:

It did not make it due to a code bug that did not get fixed in time.

There is no exact ETA on it coming in.

**Angelsyn** · 09-16-2006, 03:04 AM

What's the big deal about Drakkin being able to be both Clerics and Shamans?

Frogloks can be both Clerics and Shamans...

Halflings can be both Clerics and Druids...

Humans can be both Clerics and Druids...

All other races are limited to only being one of the three.

On a slightly different subject... I am kind of interested in what religions Drakkin can be. Are they going to be Veeshan-only maybe?

**Artemisia** · 09-16-2006, 05:41 AM

aye well pity of the forage AA *cheer* dont think foragers will be too sad about that :-)

What I did hear and found interesting is that most zones will be animal/plant mobs. YAY finally a mob we druids can use our beguile plant spell on.
I as druid am most pleased about it *G* and looking also forward to the JC AA

Edit: abot the above cheer, I sometimes feel that druids get a lot taken from them, so it nice we got something that does not go to all

**Minta Rose** · 09-16-2006, 07:10 AM

This means I gotta GET a copy of Defoliation plantnuke?! . . .

**Ngreth Thergn** · 09-16-2006, 09:11 AM

But yeah. The Forage AA was cut because of a bug they did not have time to fix.

It is still going to happen.

It is just a matter of when now. I think worst case 5 months... but **possibly** as a late addition either "free" or just a Serpentspine late edition. (I currently have no more information about how it will be released, just that it *IS* going to happen)

And there are NOT drakkin shaman.

There are **NPC** drakkin Alchemists... but that is it. (they are the ones that sell alchemy supplies and give out the alchemy quests in TSS...)

No PLAYER drakkin can actually do alchemy.

The Lead designer of the city could not live with too many no drakkin in the city (so a shop of 8 barbarians/vahshir/trolls/ogres/iksar) was out of the question)

They are Names "Alchemist X" to make it easier on newbies... rather than naming them something odd like "Apothecary"

**Itek** · 09-16-2006, 10:48 AM

*sigh*

Whew... the scuttlebutt I'd been reading (not just in General here, elsewhere as well) was alarming... and having it "confirmed" by Nolrog was enough to convince me...

Side note: Can I replace the dev who couldn't get it to work?

Solution: Patch all characters to have a "zero skill" in Forage. Implement the NTCM "skill max limit increase" code for the forage skill as the new "Forage Mastery AA." Put a 200pp a point line to train forage into every GM-Trainer.

Language "Vah Shir" was added, at zero skill, back when so we know that's possible.

NTCM clearly works, so that is known to be possible.

When "Vah Shir" was added as a language at least SOME of the GM-Trainers had a new line added, so that is possible.

A combination of three fairly straightforward (there might be an issue with adding zero skill forage to toons that have it already, but in the last 30 seconds I thought of two work-arounds I'd try if there was actually a problem) tangentially related pre-existing methods should not really be a challenge to implement.

Everyone has "Forage skill" ... but if you have 0 skill you always fail. And -sometimes- when you fail at zero skill you get a skillup point. Unless you are at your max skill of zero. (Read, people who -normally- get Forage can skill up from zero normally, while those without it can "Forage" to their hearts content, never getting better and never finding so much as a pod of water.)

Then when you buy the AA it improves your "max forage" skill by 50. Suddenly you might be able to improve on a failure at zero skill. And ... just in case that's broken.... if you want to jump start to a skill of 20 you can do so, for the bargain price of 4kpp. If and only if you want to spend 20 training points on it. (We got 25 new training points, but I figure I've got better places to spend them myself.)

My question is, why would my "never fails to forage" 200 skill druid friends every buy the skill to 250? Was there some improvement for them?

-- I'm going to totally stand away from a "druid's lose stuff" arguement. I love the druid class and I'm good friends with one or both of the top druids on my server. (i.e. the two druids listed Number One and Number Two for max hp/mana/AA-exp on the server) {seriously, I started writing at least three different sentences after that, and each is an arguement, proof once again I actually edit my posts before I post them}

Races which can be clerics AND something else in the priest category... that I will explain a little... This is a combination of OPINION and FACT in measures that will vary, so please read carefully and understand I don't intend to flame or negatively comment on ANYONE.

Originally there were NO froggies. So the only two races that could be both Druids and Clerics were hobbits and humans. Humans were given EVERY class, with the exception of Shaman. They were disallowed Shaman with the "vision" of Shamanistic magic being "primitive" while humans were "developed" or some such rationale. Hobbits could be ... warriors, rogues, druids and clerics. (No paladins and rangers originally.) This by the way is the MOST restrictive class list of any original race. You saw almost no hobbit warriors, and very few hobbit clerics. They also split the "gods" of the hobbits. Bristlebane = cleric, Karana = druid.

They added Vah Shir and Beastlords. The Beastlord was a cross between monk and shaman, so they gave Vah Shir shaman and said "shaman is a big-race only" thing.

Then they did the "froggies vs trolls" thing. So the froggie race had to have paladins. So they had to have clerics. ... But wait ... there ARE froggie SHAMAN... guess they get an exception to both the "developed/primitive" and "big race" clauses for shaman restriction.

About this time rangers/paladins were added to a bunch of races. Hobbits being the one I remembered most clearly.

Races with druids got rangers, races with clerics got paladins. I've never -met- a hobbit paladin of high level. And I'm not positive but I only clearly remember -one- high level hobbit ranger, and he didn't leave a great impression.

But I've met a TON of Froggie Shamans, Paladins and Wizards.

And Iksar Necros and Monks and Shaman.

And, with the possible exception of bezerkers, every "mud-flation" introduction of a new Race or Class has always been a little "cheesy" in favor of the new Race/Class. Both because the "new" developer wants to have done the "better" (or at least more powerful) class/race, and to get people with existing characters to try out the new race/class.

So it's fairly safe to say that Drakkin of a class will be better than any other race of the same class in some areas. (Iksar monks are slightly better at most things than Human monks. Ditto necros. Ditto Vah Shir. Ditto froggies.)

Shaman have Alchemy.

So I'll make no secret of my "hero worship" of Shaman. They do a ton of stuff and have a lot of abilities that clerics just don't have. There are many things Shaman can do (solo) that clerics cannot.

And TheWife and I realized all of this. So when the new race was announced we had the horrible thought...

"If Drakkin will be the most powerful race, presumtively, and Shaman are virtually the "best" class (especially when teamed with a cleric) and the only ones with Alchemy, and the Serpent expansion will allow fast and easy progression, would it be prudent to shelve the 64 Beastlord (who replaced the 58 druid) and remake the level 14 Vah Shir shaman as a new Drakkin Shaman and power-level the new shammy?"

I love TheWife's beastlord. I have NO desire to re-start a third main for TheWife. While having a Shaman in "the family" is certainly a goal... /shudder

So I'd heard "not a big race, no big classes" for months. Then I heard suddenly "oh yeah, drakkin can be clerics" so I presumed they couldn't be shaman and started to rest easy. We decided to pre-order Serpent so the Beastlord would have a clicky to use once a day.

Then someone here said "Drakking Shaman" and I nearly fainted in shock. So I'm glad to hear they can't be Shaman, or I'd have this vision of myself baby-sitting a new Drakking Shaman...

Please note: I love Shaman. While I think they are awesome in their abilities and occasionally say "over-powered" I neither want to re-roll as a Shaman, nor would see anything taken from them. They are very difficult to play well, and from what little I've seen they are actually difficult to equip properly. Plus the nightmare that raising Alchemy skill (weeks spent hunting greens in Sebilis) also makes me think they deserve every spell and skill they get.

Now if shaman got a 96% rez (or even 90%) ... then my opinion might change. (HUMOR, please don't take that as a suggestion, or pass it along as a rumor. Personally the 0% corpse call AA has saved me, my group, my raid, my friends so often I almost wish I could get that AA handed out to every class.)

**Bobaten** · 09-16-2006, 01:46 PM

Originally posted by Itek

My question is, why would my "never fails to forage" 200 skill druid friends every buy the skill to 250? Was there some improvement for them?

Apparently the way forage works is you roll a random number then add your skill to it. Low numbers get nothing. Medium numbers get something from the normal forage table. High numbers get something from the rare forage table (if the zone has one). Forage of 200 is high enough to guarantee that you never get the "forage nothing" table, but not high enough to guarantee that you always hit the rare forage table.
So the difficulty with this aa is not only does it need to raise some people from 0 to 50, it needs to raise others from 50 to 100, and still others from 200 to 250. Though personally, as a 200 skill forager, I am much more interested in the AA that gives increased forages.

**Elyssanda** · 09-16-2006, 06:22 PM

They did away with that a long time ago Boba.. Any skill can get anything from common to uber rare... I'm a WE bard.. WE cap of 50, bard cap 55... I forage anything and everything... but it takes me a LOT longer.. I sat down with a max druid one day just to see what we could forage in 1 hour... they had significantly MORE forages (no double forage aa) but for the rare stuff, we had about the same. I failed foraging alot, they almost never failed.

**Bonesmasher** · 09-16-2006, 06:59 PM

Iksars are different. I've been foraging rare items for years......

This is why.............

Forage: Iksar get Forage at fixed skill of 50. They are also able to forage the -special- items that druids and rangers can only forage at skills over 100. This is required for some Iksar quests. Human monks do not get forage.

http://www.monkly-business.com/artic...ArticleNum=115

**Bobaten** · 09-17-2006, 01:50 AM

Apparently they really didn't do away with it. I was just repeating the reasons given in beta why 250 skill would benefit people. Getting to the higher table doesn't necesarily mean that you get different items, just that you have more chances at getting the rare items. So maybe on the low forage table it's 20% water, 20% roots, 10% berries, 10% fruit, 10% veggies, 10% rabbit meat, 10% zone rare 1, 10% zone rare 2. But on the high forage table it's 20% water, 20% roots, 5% berries, 5%, fruit, 5% veggies, 5% rabbit meat, 20% zone rare 1, 20% zone rare 2.
It was also said that not all zones implement the higher table(and no idea which do and don't) so for those zones, forage over 200 really is useless. So faced with a hard to classify benefit, that may or may not work for the particular forage you want... the double forage aa is the only forage aa I had even the least interest in.

**Ngreth Thergn** · 09-17-2006, 08:58 AM

250 just makes it more likely to hit the rare table.

there are 3 tables... low medium rare... at 200 you are guaranteed a hit, but not which table... 250 will make the higher table more likely.

And the issue is it is a button skill.

people were able to get the AA, and their cap raised just fine...

the CODE (not design) issue... was... there was no button for the player with 0 skill

(language worked because it is not a "button" skill)

As for why it did not make it in the schedule I do not know.

**Itek** · 09-17-2006, 12:58 PM

*sigh*

Oh no, I sure didn't mean to dredge up the old "who can forage/forages more rares" debate.

(I was hopeful that it would be either "possibly getting two (four for those with nature's bounty AA) items" or "better rare/hour rate" for those with higher numbers.)

Ngreth -

Didn't mean to sound like I was busting someone's chops over it. (I consider the -possibility- of getting a very low Forage skill a gift from Bristlebane.) It just sounded like it would be trivial to implement.

(Read: Add it to the non-combat skills list for everyone as well. Everyone can make a Bind Wounds button at zero skill. *shrug*)

(Depending on how the construction of player objects is handled when requested a check for "forage skill" where if there isn't one a "forage:0:0" line and a "do-ability-list:add_line(forage-button)" run once would seem to handle the problem.)

Don't worry. First, I'd be shot for suggesting a move to San Diego. Second, I doubt I could swing sufficient salary to pay for housing on a fresh BSCS degree. Third, my wife's job isn't transferable to San Diego. Fourth, I'd actually rather compete with SOE than work for them. (Which is why I frequently DO NOT post ideas/feedback/improvements.) And fifth, I generally don't "miss" forage enough to actually make an issue out of it.

Don't sweat it Ngreth. I'd much rather they spend time making sure going from Zone-A to Zone-B is just as safe as going from Zone-B to Zone-A. (I remember back in Velious era. Going from EW to GD was perfectly safe, but you occasionally fell for 20k zoning from GD back to EW. That got sorted out pretty fast. But was still odd.)

**Ngreth Thergn** · 09-18-2006, 08:57 AM

but you see. the bind wounds button is already there for everyone.

Like I said. I am not sure WHY they did not fit it in, just that they did not, and it was because of the massive time crunch we were in at the end.

**Doremi** · 09-18-2006, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by Ngreth Thergn

250 just makes it more likely to hit the rare table.

there are 3 tables... low medium rare... at 200 you are guaranteed a hit, but not which table... 250 will make the higher table more likely....

Off-topic a bit, but wouldn't it make more sense if fishing worked this way as well? I've seen people complain that they can't catch common stuff once they have a high fishing skill...

Announcement

AA in TSS - /boggle

AA in TSS - /boggle

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