Couple of my thoughts.

[Skjotur]

Hey guys. I thought I'd give my thoughts on some things.

I don't think the game has to be all survival all the time to have survival elements. The survival aspects we have are my favorite things about CLOK. I like that, if I choose to or in my main's case am forced to due to character circumstances, I can enjoy a survival atmosphere. My main can't go into most towns. There is one area where I can go to trade for some basic goods. Other than that, I make just about everything for myself, from materials I can gather myself. Food, clothes, backpacks, armor, bows, arrows, stone tools, whatever I use I make completely on my own. Now that I can make fireboards and spindles I don't even have to buy firestones anymore, that was the one thing I couldn't do myself that I needed to complete my basic survival kit. So is CLOK a survival only game? No it isn't. My alt is the opposite of my main, he is civilized and cultured and prefers to stay in the comforts of towns. And that is the beauty of it. You can play whichever way you want and both are supported, interesting, and fun. Just because the survival aspects not fully realized and aren't the only point of the game doesn't mean they need to be cut out or lessened. If they were I'd have a lot less desire to play. The best thing about CLOK is the options. You can play so many different ways and have fun. It's not a survival game. It's not a combat game either. It's whatever you make of it, and Rias and the GMs have given us a LOT of options. I hope they continue to expand, not just in survial, but other aspects too.

Gad, I think your main problem is how you're stating your thoughts. You make some good points, but you are also accusing people, making negative assumptions about how others feel or react to what you're saying, coming across as feeling way over-entitled, and it seems like you're trying to be some kind of CLOK messiah who will save the game. I get that you want CLOK to succeed even if the way you're going about it is making many people mad. I can tell that there is passion and sincerity behind your actions. I want CLOK to succeed too. We all do. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. Nobody wants CLOK to fail. Rias and the GMs have made this game a labor of love, they do it because they love it, not because they feel obligated. I think that is a wonderful thing, much better than if they were just putting in hours because the needed the income. Think about what you are insinuating with your offer for a minute: You are saying you think the GMs don't care enough about CLOK succeeding unless you offer them money. I can see how that could be highy offensive to the people who have put years of voluntary unpaid labor into this game. I'm not saying don't make donations, because I think making donations is a good way to show that you care and appreciate the game. I'm just trying to help you see why your comments and actions may be making people upset.

I agree with Noctere's comments about quality over quantity. There's a intimacy to a smaller community that can be hard to find with larger ones. Like Noctere said I don't think larger numbers are bad at all, but I don't think they are necessary for CLOK to be considered a success and a great game. I have enjoyed it for all the years I've played it where I've played other MUDs with enormous populations and they just sucked. People were constantly just running past without noticing you, you were just another face in the crowd, everyone just wanted to get more powerful to be the best PvPer on the MUD. Maybe there are games out there with huge populations that are really good. I don't deny that. But I'm just saying that I've enjoyed CLOK with its small population more than any MUD I've played with 100+ numbers.

On a similar note one of the best things I find about CLOK is how often the GMs get involved with us players. Do I get a personal interaction or storyline a week? No. Not on my loner main or on my more social alt. But I've experienced more GM interaction in one way or another, and have been able to have an influence on the world, more than any other game I've played. I feel like my characters, if I want them to be, are important in the CLOK world, for good or ill. The way I've gotten the best results is to just run with an idea and sometimes I'll make an effort to let the GMs know about it. I don't always get any response, but I don't expect to get one every single time. Try to do things that you can pull off on your own and create your own RP. You might be surprised how often the GMs will see it and come in on their own to go along with it. It's really cool when it happens, but even when it doesn't, you still get the fun of your own RP. I think a big part of enjoying roleplaying is enjoying it even when you're alone and nobody is watching. If you only like it when it's validated by the GMs then you are going to be an unhappy player.

Now I will move on to my own critical feedback.

Hunger I think has been set too high at this point. I understand the idea of using food to regain energy but it seems too steep how it is right now. I like the survival game as I said before but I think things could be turned down a little bit from where they are now. I think hunger was enough before when it was mostly from traveling the wilderness, I wouldn't be sad to see the food for energy thing reverted, but I wouldn't mind if it stayed either as long as it's turned down a little.

I like the change to weight making it harder to travel and dodge and stuff. It makes me think about what to bring with me instead of just carrying 500 pieces of meat all the time and every tool or weapon or piece of equipment that I could ever think to use, and that means it's more complicated to travel and survive in the wilderness, and I appreciate that. However I think a lot of items could use some weight adjustment.

I don't worry much about quality of items but it would be nice of stone items could at least be well-crafted again, if for no other reason than so we get that nice feeling when we make something that's better than average.

I really want to be able to make fur tents. Let me make fur tents!!

[jilliana]

I like the change to weight making it harder to travel and dodge and stuff. It makes me think about what to bring with me instead of just carrying 500 pieces of meat all the time and every tool or weapon or piece of equipment that I could ever think to use, and that means it's more complicated to travel and survive in the wilderness, and I appreciate that. However I think a lot of items could use some weight adjustment.

That particular change is a lot of fun for players with characters that only require the essentials to get around. I have a character that goes around armorless and only caries a handful of rations and bandages and I dig it.
However, the problem comes in when there is a character like a mercenary or templar that wears plate and has to carry something like a sword along with the essentials like food and bandages. The absolute lightest I can get Jilliana is heavily encumbered. Automatically puts her in a place where she'll suck with dodging even though the numbers look decent on paper.
The item weight problem is one that we're all sort of contending with, especially with player-made clothing and armor made of leather.

[Bryce]

Shadgard wheatcakes should be called griddlecakes or flapjacks. If this doesn't change, I quit!

[xavier]

I'm going to say it like I said it once before in a conversation with someone.
If you rely on platemail you shouldn't be relying on dodge. 75 extra pounds of plate metal is not helpful when trying to move in very fast ways. If you wear plate expect to take hits, those hits can either be on the plate itself, the shield you really should be holding, or the length of your weapon when you parry. As an experience SCA player in the past I've seen people fighting in plate, it is essentially a fight between juggernaut, and nightcrawler.
For those who don't get the reference I'm sory.

[Elystole]

If you rely on platemail you shouldn't be relying on dodge. 75 extra pounds of plate metal is not helpful when trying to move in very fast ways. If you wear plate expect to take hits, those hits can either be on the plate itself, the shield you really should be holding, or the length of your weapon when you parry. As an experience SCA player in the past I've seen people fighting in plate, it is essentially a fight between juggernaut, and nightcrawler.

The SCA is not a valid source when discussing medieval combat or arms and armor. It's one of the big reasons there is so much misinformation out there, along with movies and stage-fighting, and the historical European martial arts community as well as medieval historians have been fighting for decades to correct that.

An entire suit of field armor (that is, armor for battle) usually weighs between 45 and 55 lbs. (20 to 25 kg), with the helmet weighing between 4 and 8 lbs. (2 to 4 kg)—less than the full equipment of a fireman with oxygen gear, or what most modern soldiers have carried into battle since the nineteenth century. Moreover, while most modern equipment is chiefly suspended from the shoulders or waist, the weight of a well-fitted armor is distributed all over the body.

More to the point, this is a game and combat is an abstraction. If we wanted to be historically accurate, melee combat would be resolved in less than three rounds by whoever was the most skilled at controlling their and their opponent's weapons once they bind. Anyone going into melee combat with less than a full warsword or polearm would be hosed because when you try to parry my warsword with your dagger my longer blade will simply pivot around yours and strike you anyways. BroFist wouldn't be a thing. You'd all be screwed once Elystole decided to pick up his revolver.

The change that encumbrance decreases your dodge, with most of your encumbrance coming from armor, in addition to the armor use penalty is just bad for balance. It forces heavy armor wearers to use a shield because that is their only defense against ranged weapons and some magical or special abilities. There's plenty of abilities that only check dodge. It additionally penalizes people who have decided to train unwieldy weapons like hafted weapons instead of parrying weapons like swords. It's a heavy, heavy nerf for anyone who has trained dodge just to have their ranks rendered useless overnight which is made all the more irksome because we've been told in the past to train dodge as most people neglect it.

It's made worse because the game pushed me into wearing heavy armor in the first place. I envisioned Elystole as a sort of scout, but light armor stopped teaching him armor use while still heavily penalizing him so I picked up heavier and heavier armor for training. Then I had to continue wearing it when I train because otherwise I am wounded too severely too often for training to be practical or efficient. Now I'm penalized for wearing the heavy armor that the game makes me wear when I was already being penalized by lower maximum rolls because of the armor. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't, and I don't play games to be frustrated at every turn.

[Skah]

Don't want to get too involved, but none of my characters have worn any armor at all. Some very high stats fighters wear light armor, such as one whose name rhymes with manger. It's quite doable. If you're trying to completely min/max all aspects of your grinding it's probably not optimal, but Elystole could wear light armor and train just fine.

[Alexander]

I will speak as a character who has worn a set of full plate for years and has never trained the dodge skill. Using heavy armor and eschewing dodge is perfectly viable. Parrying is an excellent defense, and requires virtually no training, as the number goes up with your weapon skill, which you already train for offense. In the case of ranged attacks, consider using a shield. I often use my sword twohanded against melee opponents to great and enjoyable effect. When I am against something that attacks at range, I use a shield. Since the implemented changes to shields some time ago, I now choose situationally between the lighter round shield and the heavier kite shield, depending on how dangerous the ranged attacks might be. Going up against spectres and the like with their powerful nether attacks, I certainly opt for the kite shield.

I should also state that despite carrying a full set of plate armor, longsword, shield, and dagger with me at all times, I am only either somewhat burdened or plain burdened, depending on how much riln, food, and extra supplies I am carrying and whether I am also carring my javelin or pilum. I find that wearing a belt pouch instead of a backpack helps prevent me from carrying too much extra weight and helps me control my encumbrance. In the possible case that Armor Mastery helps with armor weight (which I do not believe it does, but I may be wrong), please note that I have chosen to omit those abilities in hopes of spending points on something more interesting, so that is not factoring into the equation.

If the heaviness of armor is causing you penalties to such a degree that you find it unacceptable, I would recommend shedding the plate in areas that are not vital. When I was newer and plate armor still sent my combat rolls into the pits and interrupted my channeling, I found scale, chain, brigandine, and even lamellar to be perfectly acceptable, even if they were not the peak of damage resistance available. I recommend wearing your heaviest armor piece on your torso, light armor such as lamellar on your hands, feet, arms, and legs, and something in-between for your head and neck, such as heavy leather or chain. This affords a wonderful balance between damage mitigation and lack of encumbrance penalties.

I will also reveal hints of a secret of mine to add weight to Skah's comments and say that I have an alternate character who wears, at the heaviest, brigandine on the torso, and only lamellar elsewhere, and I find it perfectly viable to train combat in dangerous areas. Please note he is well past the beginning areas where enemy attacks are laughably weak. He most often wields a twohanded weapon, does not use ranged weapons, does not hide, and as of yet has no special combat abilities, and so depends solely on parry, dodge, and light to mid armor for defense. One of the more pleasant aspects of the lighter armor is that it takes longer to get tired. The plate armor is wonderful at mitigating damage, but against multiple foes you will find yourself tiring quickly. Though I am not one to crunch numbers, I have found it to be an interesting balance between the two styles of combat with neither being the obviously superior, and both being enjoyable for their own reasons.

My primary advice to those suffering from heavy armor woes would be two points in particular. First, consider a shield when fighting foes who are capable of attacking at range. Second, travel as light as possible. Deposit your riln regularly, refrain from taking excessive amounts of food with you, and store any unnecessary equipment somewhere safe. If you are heavily burdened, you are carrying too much extra gear with you.

[Alexander]

If you're trying to completely min/max all aspects of your grinding it's probably not optimal

I suspect this is the crux of the issue. Never having been one for over-optimization, I have been quite blissful in my likely nonoptimal yet still fun and viable ignorance. I highly recommend it to my peers.

[Elystole]

I will speak as a character who has worn a set of full plate for years and has never trained the dodge skill. Using heavy armor and eschewing dodge is perfectly viable. Parrying is an excellent defense, and requires virtually no training, as the number goes up with your weapon skill, which you already train for offense. In the case of ranged attacks, consider using a shield. I often use my sword twohanded against melee opponents to great and enjoyable effect. When I am against something that attacks at range, I use a shield. Since the implemented changes to shields some time ago, I now choose situationally between the lighter round shield and the heavier kite shield, depending on how dangerous the ranged attacks might be. Going up against spectres and the like with their powerful nether attacks, I certainly opt for the kite shield.

It's great that you've never bothered with training dodge, but for the characters that have suddenly having all of that time, effort, and riln flushed down the drain is seriously frustrating. Elystole can - and eventually will - go back to wearing light armor, but the heavy armor fighters (mercs, templar, Wyrvardn) who took the GMs' suggestion to train dodge to heart don't have that option. They're just screwed. Especially when you consider that there are attacks that dodge is the only defense against.

Armor already penalizes dodge, parry, shield, and offense by lowering maximum rolls. There really didn't need to be a second encumbrance penalty on top of that.

I should also state that despite carrying a full set of plate armor, longsword, shield, and dagger with me at all times, I am only either somewhat burdened or plain burdened, depending on how much riln, food, and extra supplies I am carrying and whether I am also carring my javelin or pilum. I find that wearing a belt pouch instead of a backpack helps prevent me from carrying too much extra weight and helps me control my encumbrance.

Interesting. I'm right there with you until I add my ammunition, bandages, and light source - and I don't think carrying those is unreasonable. I try to carry a full combat load with me at all times because you never know when there will be an invasion or something and I don't want to say "Hold on while I go home and switch out my gear" while people are dying. And heaven forbid I actually try to loot or skin my kills. That's a problem for everybody.

If you're trying to completely min/max all aspects of your grinding it's probably not optimal

I suspect this is the crux of the issue. Never having been one for over-optimization, I have been quite blissful in my likely nonoptimal yet still fun and viable ignorance. I highly recommend it to my peers.

Negative. I haven't been able to train optimally for months now. For me that would be lightly armored and mounted. This is about things piling up and piling up, whittling away at my enjoyment of the game, until it felt like too much work in order to not play my character. Most of these things are things I've posted or emailed about in the past, well before reaching the point that I felt like I needed to take a break, and even now I'm only talking about them because Rias asked.

I can't go unarmored because I get moderately wounded with a single good blow and have no efficient way of treating said wounds despite over 1000 ranks of first aid. And if you're in combat you're going to get hit.
I can't go lightly or moderately armored because I don't learn any Armor Use wearing anything less than mail despite still receiving a significant armor penalty.
Now I can't go heavily armored because my dodge tanks if I carry a combat load or dare loot my kills.
Fix any one of those and I'd at least have an option, even if it isn't my preferred option or what I would call optimal. It's the combined effect of all three that screws me.

[clayton]

Rias Wrote:
Guild point penalties on removal of tasks: First off, the penalty amount has been tweaked down significantly. Secondly, I agree that as far as Artisans
go, it's pretty crippling, so I'll be disabling the penalty for them until their tasks have been re-worked. In that vein, I'd appreciate feedback on tasks
- which ones seem too hard (and are consistently turned down), which ones might be considered for removal or revisement, etc.


Having an artisan character, I can tell some of the ones I turned down loads of times before I had my skills ground up high enough to be able to do them.

Tasks which involve you going into a mine and digging for iron or steel.
You get a task to mine 80 pounds of iron/steel and sell it to a market.
That's more easily accomplished when your mining skill is high enough for you to see the iron. Unless you're just lucky enough to be in a room that has iron vein deposits, you're not going to see iron in the survey minerals list for quite a while as a miner just starting out.
I would turn down these tasks every time they came up. Every task has a work-around, but the work-around aren't cost effective for a beginner artisan, so it's best just to refuse the task till you're more confident in your mining abilities.

tasks which require you to log a certain tree.
Even if you knew where the tree you're asked for is growing, if it's a rae tree, you'll want to turn down the task, or incur the wrath of all the udemi, and possibily the forest that tree is located in.
Let me just tell you guys, it's not fun going up against three bears and two wolves, even with a hiresword. Clayton was tasked to log two trees (I think they were birch trees, or maybe it was cedar trees). Anyway, he was choping them down, when he heards this loud roar somewhere out in the forest. He was on guard, and he had a hiresword at the time. Well, threebrown bears and two large timber wolves just materialize in the area he was logging and commenced the attack. At the end of the fight, Clayton's hiresword has at least one badly wounded bodypart, clayton's horse had been killed, and all five creatures were slain. Clayton then hears the forest tell him to go log somewhere else, and that he was not wanted in that forest.
Never mind that cedar trees don't grow in too many places, and asking where they did grow was probably not going to be rewarded with an answer.
So yeah, the rare tree tasks will get turned down a lot, and coupled with the fact that, rare or not, all logging tasks seem to be given a flat 50 guild point reward for completing them. Rarer tree tasks should give twice the amount of points the other tree tasks do.

Pelt tasks may similarly be turned down. Clayton a few times, got wolf pelt tasks, and even a cougar task once or twice. Artisans gernally aren't going to go after those animals on their own. Depending on the help you can get to help you accomplish the task, you probably won't get a profit after paying your guard, or pelt retriever for aiding you.

Commodity tasks. Noe of the commodity tasks are skilled to the artisan's skills. You'll be asked for 12 gears just as easily as you will for 16 nails, or 16 hinges. I think it's only 40 guild points for those tasks anyway.

Weapon tasks. The weapon tasks are all doable, if you have the riln and container capable of purchasing all the weapons yourself, until your skills are good enough to forge them yourself. Might I suggest to you Rias, that if the weapons are crafted, and are well-crafted or higher, that more riln be paid to the artisan for the increased quality and effert in making them by hand, instead of just buying them from another town. Currently, it's like 1 riln per quality over the standard 200 riln you get for completing the task. I'm trying to remember how much you got for weapon tasks as far as points. Forty points I think? Not a whole lot, especially if you took the time to actually make them and not buy them from another town.

I made a suggestion on a thread quite a while back, as to additional tasks that could be added to encourage the artisan to advance their skills in different areas.
For example... the gemstone tasks only ask you to round up a ceratin number of a certain gem... like 10 jade. now you could polish those and sell them for more money, but you do't actually get tasks that say 'round up 10 polished jade and take them to this market, and rewarded double the guild points you currently get for just the raw gemstones.

In short, perhaps the artisan tasks can be re-coded to scale to their professional skills, the same as the combat guilds scale their tasks to the member's combat skills.
Harder tasks deserve higher rewards, both monitary and guild points.
Once the gild point earnings are higher, the penalties for refusing tasks can be re-applied.
We still need a system for earning guild points for finished products sellable on markets.
Also, use of recognition points would be awesome. we could use our earned guild points for purchase professio-based tools, and have our own shop in Haiban and mistral to purchase them.

[Rias]

First, some good news for armor wearers:

- Several armor types have had various piece weights lowered slightly. This most significantly affects scale metal, brigandine, rigid leather, and scale leather.
- Armor skill caps have been increased dramatically. Lighter armor types still cap out at lower thresholds.
- Heavier armor types have had some of the weight from the torso pieces redistributed to the arms and legs pieces, allowing for more effective mixing and matching without needing to necessarily ditch the torso-piece where the vast majority of an armor set's weight was previously focused.

As always, expect tweaking. Weights may well be tweaked back up a little, and skill caps back down, if we decide things went a little too far.

Now, while I realize armor was made to be worn and people could historically still maneuver in it, I still believe there would (in the real world) and should (in CLOK) be a significant difference in maneuverability between those wearing heavy armor and those wearing light (or none). In CLOK, the act of wearing full plate in itself does not reduce you to a lumbering pile of molasses - you just need to manage what all else you're carrying with you so the combined weight doesn't throw you too far over the threshold. But yes, there is an intended flat minimum penalty to wearing heavy armor. If we let people dance and pirhouette about in heavy armor as if they were wearing nothing, then nobody's not going to wear the stuff (except channelers). I take "this is a game and combat is an abstraction" to be in my favor here. We need to make armor be useful, but have significant downsides and trade-offs to compensate for the incredible damage reduction it offers. That's why armor has some flat, untrainable penalties, primarily being the effect it has on channeling and stealth, and its simple heavy weight.

My favorite RPG character archetypes have always been the Paladin and the Rogue, so I certainly don't want to screw either side over - I just want there to be balances and differences between the light-armored people and the heavy-armored people. A lot of people seem to think that with enough armor training, they'll be able to do everything in plate as if they were wearing a shirt and shorts. "See how high my armor skill is? That means I should be so good that I treat this set of full plate like a pair of comfortable undies!" That's not going to happen - it would be a royal screw-over to the people who opt to eschew heavier armor. They of course have their own problems already, primarily being significantly less damage reduction (though they typically have more options to outride avoid damage, primarily being dodge and stealth. I'm not saying there aren't problems worth addressing with the non-armored crowd).

For sake of clarity: Armor doesn't contribute to weight encumbrance penalties at all simply by virtue of being armor. It heavily factors into these penalties solely because of how heavy it is. I suggest following Alexander's advice and seeing if you have any extra gear you can dump if you're heavily burdened. If you're on a skinning/butchering trip, or collecting a bunch of loot boxes, you should probably find a nearby base camp or something where you can temporarily dump the significant weight of skins, meat, and loot chests. I see people use wagons quite frequently for this purpose (I suggest leaving the wagon outside the hunting area, though). If you're thinking you should be able to happily hunt while keeping a large, growing supply of boxes/pelts/other loot on your person, I consider that an unrealistic expectation.

And last, but not least: Remember that there are more armor types than light leather and metal plate. Mix and match! Find a comfortable balance! You're not going to be able to have the best of all worlds and the penalties of none. Required compromises is by design intent.

[Elystole]

First, some good news for armor wearers:

- Several armor types have had various piece weights lowered slightly. This most significantly affects scale metal, brigandine, rigid leather, and scale leather.
- Armor skill caps have been increased dramatically. Lighter armor types still cap out at lower thresholds.
- Heavier armor types have had some of the weight from the torso pieces redistributed to the arms and legs pieces, allowing for more effective mixing and matching without needing to necessarily ditch the torso-piece where the vast majority of an armor set's weight was previously focused.

As always, expect tweaking. Weights may well be tweaked back up a little, and skill caps back down, if we decide things went a little too far.

That is good news. I especially like the first and second points, as my eventual goal is a nice suit of scale leather, and what made me ditch light or moderate armor in the first place was the skill cap. I'm going to have to crank out a suit of rigid leather and put it through its paces before I can say more, but I'm encouraged.

Now, while I realize armor was made to be worn and people could historically still maneuver in it, I still believe there would (in the real world) and should (in CLOK) be a significant difference in maneuverability between those wearing heavy armor and those wearing light (or none). In CLOK, the act of wearing full plate in itself does not reduce you to a lumbering pile of molasses - you just need to manage what all else you're carrying with you so the combined weight doesn't throw you too far over the threshold. But yes, there is an intended flat minimum penalty to wearing heavy armor. If we let people dance and pirhouette about in heavy armor as if they were wearing nothing, then nobody's not going to wear the stuff (except channelers). I take "this is a game and combat is an abstraction" to be in my favor here. We need to make armor be useful, but have significant downsides and trade-offs to compensate for the incredible damage reduction it offers. That's why armor has some flat, untrainable penalties, primarily being the effect it has on channeling and stealth, and its simple heavy weight.

I was under the impression that no matter how high your armor use skill you will always have a penalty to offense and defense while wearing armor. My goal with a higher armor use skill has not been to eliminate that penalty but to minimize it. For example, if a 10% penalty is the minimum penalty possible, I want to keep my penalty at a steady 10% and not see all these wild rolls where I suddenly have a 40% penalty. The issue I ran into with the cap is I was seeing far too many 40% penalties without acquiring any more armor skill to mitigate it. I'm going to have to try it again now that you've raised the cap.

And I think the channeling, stealth, perception, and energy (both in combat and while traveling) penalties are good minimum penalties for wearing heavy armor in addition to the percentile skill reduction.

My favorite RPG character archetypes have always been the Paladin and the Rogue, so I certainly don't want to screw either side over - I just want there to be balances and differences between the light-armored people and the heavy-armored people. A lot of people seem to think that with enough armor training, they'll be able to do everything in plate as if they were wearing a shirt and shorts. "See how high my armor skill is? That means I should be so good that I treat this set of full plate like a pair of comfortable undies!" That's not going to happen - it would be a royal screw-over to the people who opt to eschew heavier armor. They of course have their own problems already, primarily being significantly less damage reduction (though they typically have more options to outride avoid damage, primarily being dodge and stealth. I'm not saying there aren't problems worth addressing with the non-armored crowd).

I'm in full agreement here. Including on the point that thinking that you can train your heavy armor down to skivvies is both unrealistic and bad for game balance.

For sake of clarity: Armor doesn't contribute to weight encumbrance penalties at all simply by virtue of being armor. It heavily factors into these penalties solely because of how heavy it is. I suggest following Alexander's advice and seeing if you have any extra gear you can dump if you're heavily burdened. If you're on a skinning/butchering trip, or collecting a bunch of loot boxes, you should probably find a nearby base camp or something where you can temporarily dump the significant weight of skins, meat, and loot chests. I see people use wagons quite frequently for this purpose (I suggest leaving the wagon outside the hunting area, though). If you're thinking you should be able to happily hunt while keeping a large, growing supply of boxes/pelts/other loot on your person, I consider that an unrealistic expectation.

Fair enough. I ran into a rather annoying bug with leading wagons the last time I tried this, but I'll give it another shot. Also, most of the hunting grounds that I've seen have a relatively safe spot either just inside or just outside where you can leave a wagon without your horse being munched on, but there are a few lacking them. It'd be nice if that was remedied if you want this to be standard practice.

And last, but not least: Remember that there are more armor types than light leather and metal plate. Mix and match! Find a comfortable balance! You're not going to be able to have the best of all worlds and the penalties of none. Required compromises is by design intent.

I agree that variety and compromise are good things. I've tried soft leather, rigid leather, brigandine, mail, and plate, and I've tried putting the heavier stuff just on my vitals looking for that balance. I'm going to go try it again with these changes.

I've said it before to a few people, but it bears repeating: My favorite thing about CLOK is the staff, and I really appreciate that you didn't just dismiss the problem but looked at the numbers and made some changes. Yes, I'm sure there'll be ongoing tweaking, but just having you engage the problem in good faith means a lot.

[Kent]

First, some good news for armor wearers:

- Several armor types have had various piece weights lowered slightly. This most significantly affects scale metal, brigandine, rigid leather, and scale leather.

Two questions, first, will this update for our existing armor, or do we scrap that and buy new, and secondly, does it affect player crafted armors?

[Rias]

will this update for our existing armor, or do we scrap that and buy new, and secondly, does it affect player crafted armors?

All, any, every armor is checked/updated whenever it is examined. All a character's worn armor is checked/updated when that character logs into the game. There are a couple more events that make sure armor properties are up to date, including a timed repeating check that affects all PCs and NPCs game-wide, so you should be good.

If you want to be extra-super-duper-pooper-scooper sure, just examine any armor piece that you want to ensure is up-to-date.

[baerden]

Hello!

Thank you for reducing the penalty on removing tasks. It was killing the enjoyment of the game for me. I think it could still use some improvement, and i'll outline why and maybe we can get a discussion going on how to solve it or put it on a to-do list somewhere.

While guild tasks are something of a finite activity and perhaps not something I think we should really dwell or focus on at the moment, I find that forcing players to do certain tasks they don't enjoy by penalizing them to be counter productive.

I personally don't enjoy herb tasks. Its boring, tedious, and just not particularly adventure filled. I used to have to sit there turning them down for 10, 20 minutes at a time due to the task timer until I was finally tasked with a type of task that I found was fun (in my opinion) to do.

The problem with penalties and timers is that it removes choice, and creates burdens upon a player that encourage not playing. If you have a game that has some fun things, but you force them to do things that they dont find fun it creates a bit of frustration. (at least it does for me).
There is also the problem with new players. New players can become frustrated quickly if they are trying to do tasks that they cannot get help with and ultimately have to remove a task in order to try something else. The penalty and timer system creates an unnecessary burden and is an uneccessary frustration.

I was wondering what you thought about a compromise on the penalty system. Instead of a penalty for every removed task, how about a penalty for any tasks removed beyond 5 in a 10 minute time frame? That allows the new player to 'give up' without a penalty and try something else, or the experienced player to get a task assigned that isnt boring while still putting a soft cap on cherry picking.

Secondly, and I know this is more of an undertaking, but it would be quite nice if there were a way to ask for a task based on the type and difficulty. It would promote playing and remove some of the frustration and boredom in waiting for a task that suits a persons tastes.

For example:

ask gil for cull task hard

And it would develop a task and reward for you based on your skills, the type of task you request and the difficulty range you specify.

Wot say you guys?

[xavier]

I don't really have a problem with penalties for turning down a task, the tasks assigned by the taskmaster of each guild are usually within that guilds area of expertise in most cases so turning down a task would be the same as telling your boss at work, I'm not going to mop the floor even though it is in my job description. I will add however that it would be incredibly rough on new players and the only suggestion I have in regards to that is remove penalties below a certain guild rank that way new players will have options and be able to build up some stuff without the battle of gaining ranks.

In regards to asking for a specific task, I personally think this would be a freaking awesome idea. Using the existing guidelines on what tasks are assigned I think it would give a whole lot more enjoyment if you could ask for a specific task and have at least a moderate chance of getting it, though perhaps put a limit on how many times you can ask for the same task in a row.

[Jirato]

While I understand wanting to keep things "newbie friendly", since you related guilds to work, I'll do the same.

In the real world, if you're new at a job, you're going to have to work extra hard to make a good impression. They're much more likely to tell the new hire that just got brought on board "Yeah, you're not working out, seeya." when they shirk their duties, compared to a long-term employee who has already proved themselves but had an off day or two.

It's a harsh world out there, but it's true.

Back to the whole game side of things, ranks are actually fairly easy to grind out, so using it as an indicator of performance, contribution, or merit may not be the best idea.

Please continue sharing feedback about the task removal penalties though, it's a great topic and Rias and I are having some good discussion and sharing ideas.

[baerden]

Your work analogy is realistically accurate for real life.

But perhaps our philosophy in game design differs fundamentally in this regard.

I believe that realism should not be more important than gameplay, and when they collude or if there are unintended consequences (such as being counter productive to the participation of the playerbase with a game feature) , then I would argue sometimes realism should take a back seat at times.

Anyways, I'm thankful for your input and for all the GMs hard work.

I wish we players could see some of the ideas being shared between you two but I do understand that it could spoil things for us if you lifted that veil.

Edit: For clarity

[Karasi]

See below this quote for my response.

We would love to have more specific feedback. The hot topics I can think of are mostly Church related - the more involved/patience-requiring initiation consideration process, more specific thaumaturgic guidelines (they were always the expectation from the beginning; now they're just more clarified), adhering to behavioral guidelines in general - a lot of people don't like that they have to do this (I'm still not sure why they want to be in the guilds if that's the case, but I've never gotten an answer on that).

The non-Church-related things I can recall hearing a good deal of complaints about are horses getting tired (the general outcry was "make it less so", which we did, and I haven't heard anything on the subject since), and the recent nutrition expended on energy regeneration, which I also haven't heard any further feedback on after the initial burst and tweaking, so I'm assuming we've found a happy place there.

So, what are the big-ticket issues? I hear a lot about long-time players getting grumpy or wanting to leave, or people saying CLOK is in a big decline. I hope some of the people feeling this way will give us some specific details as to why they think that is. I've had a couple people make some general allusions, but for the most part it seems they're content to be upset about it but not make it clear to staff.

Here's your chance to be bold. Voice your opinions, tell us why you're upset with CLOK, and give us a chance to actually do something about it. Complain to your friends about it to vent, sure - but it would be really useful if you took the major points of your vent and then informed us on staff so that we can realize the concerns are there and address the specific points. Help us know and address the problems in CLOK. If we never hear about it, we can't take care of it.

The things I am sad about, tired of:
1. things happening in-game to people with no IC explanations.
2. no attempt in-game by leaders of certain guilds to keep the people from leaving. No attempt to reconcile. Encouragement to leave.
3. Weeks of posts back and forth, grumpy words, pleading words, fiery words.
4. GM's unwilling to change things, even when the majority have made it plain how they feel about certain issues.
5. The fact that people have left, and will continue to do so, on account of most, if not all, of the above.
6. People taking in-character out of character and vise versa. People using OOC knowledge to treat characters differently. People using IC info to do the same.

You wanted examples. I have given them. If I am hated or blacklisted for this, that is simply too bad. My heart hurts writing these things, because I have seen this pattern on so many other games, you could not even imagine. Then again, likely some of you could.

Please, I ask of you Rias, I beg of you, reconsider. Not the guidelines, but the way in which you are handling the church of so-called light. Its halls will be empty, no players will want to be a part, if this continues. I know you don't like to hear these things. I know this is something that is of value to you. I know that being an admin is a thankless job with griping all day long and very little appreciation for 99% of what you do. For that, I am sorry, and I am most sympathetic.
However, at the same time, there are these things I have listed, there are the things it really does not take a rocket scientist to put together to know that things are falling apart.
I don't want to see this happen, I really don't.

We need:
1. more NPC interaction that is reconciliatory. Is that not what the church is about?
2. not losing one's light over petty and stupid things.
3. listening to your playerbase. Not kowtowing, but hearing them and taking into account that maybe you don't like what they want for it to be fun, and understand that within reason, the players shape the game. In fact, the players are the backbone of the game. Without them, there would be nothing except empty rooms and a game with no one connected to it.

I have wanted to deal with my many thoughts on this situation in a much quieter, less public way. But I have continued to see writings on this forum I cannot ignore.

Please, those of you who feel similarly, let your voices be heard. Not so any one of us can bully another around, but because this needs to be fixed.
It's supposed to be a game, a place to get away from thigns for a while. And we have stress here. Hardly condusive to providing that sort of environment.
Please reconsider. It's not what is done, it's how it is being done. It is both, and I am appalled at the things that have happened in the last couple months.

I am strongly considering, after only a few days of being back, of leaving again indefinitely. I do not want to pour my time and energy into something that could fade if not stopped. And it could be stopped. And I sincerely hope admins will hear what we have written, and provide a reasonable way to reconcile a guild that is supposed to be, by its very nature, inclusive. It has become exclusive. That is not what a church is supposed to be. Ever.

[Karasi]

I absolutely agree with this. Thank you, Baerden!!!

Hello!

Thank you for reducing the penalty on removing tasks. It was killing the enjoyment of the game for me. I think it could still use some improvement, and i'll outline why and maybe we can get a discussion going on how to solve it or put it on a to-do list somewhere.

While guild tasks are something of a finite activity and perhaps not something I think we should really dwell or focus on at the moment, I find that forcing players to do certain tasks they don't enjoy by penalizing them to be counter productive.

I personally don't enjoy herb tasks. Its boring, tedious, and just not particularly adventure filled. I used to have to sit there turning them down for 10, 20 minutes at a time due to the task timer until I was finally tasked with a type of task that I found was fun (in my opinion) to do.

The problem with penalties and timers is that it removes choice, and creates burdens upon a player that encourage not playing. If you have a game that has some fun things, but you force them to do things that they dont find fun it creates a bit of frustration. (at least it does for me).
There is also the problem with new players. New players can become frustrated quickly if they are trying to do tasks that they cannot get help with and ultimately have to remove a task in order to try something else. The penalty and timer system creates an unnecessary burden and is an uneccessary frustration.

I was wondering what you thought about a compromise on the penalty system. Instead of a penalty for every removed task, how about a penalty for any tasks removed beyond 5 in a 10 minute time frame? That allows the new player to 'give up' without a penalty and try something else, or the experienced player to get a task assigned that isnt boring while still putting a soft cap on cherry picking.

Secondly, and I know this is more of an undertaking, but it would be quite nice if there were a way to ask for a task based on the type and difficulty. It would promote playing and remove some of the frustration and boredom in waiting for a task that suits a persons tastes.

For example:

ask gil for cull task hard

And it would develop a task and reward for you based on your skills, the type of task you request and the difficulty range you specify.

Wot say you guys?

[Jaster]

I feel that you're being mighty presumptuous saying that the GMs are not listening to players or taking our thoughts into account, and also that they are unwilling to change things. I would argue the opposite. I've not played a game where the GMs care more about the players and their feelings about the game, nor where they have been as willing to change the game. I would go so far as to say that your comments are just as painful for them to read as they were for you to write, because I think that they are those kind of GMs (good ones).

[Zoiya]

This is not me being snarky, I feel like I have to say that before I ask the next question but,

Have you not read all the gripes that were addressed here and all the things changed because of it?

People have issue with the Church is one thing but there were some very big issues that were addressed and changed because people brought forth good arguments, and our NPC interaction has been at an all time high thanks to our newest JGM.

I just don't understand your post Karasi, I'm sorry.

[Acarin]

I feel that you're being mighty presumptuous saying that the GMs are not listening to players or taking our thoughts into account, and also that they are unwilling to change things. I would argue the opposite. I've not played a game where the GMs care more about the players and their feelings about the game, nor where they have been as willing to change the game. I would go so far as to say that your comments are just as painful for them to read as they were for you to write, because I think that they are those kind of GMs (good ones).

As much as I complain sometimes, I really have to agree with Jaster on this. We have some amazing GMs here.

Even though the GMs and myself have had some rather drastic differences in opinion in the past, I've never felt that they don't listen to players overall.

[Elystole]

You wanted examples. I have given them. If I am hated or blacklisted for this, that is simply too bad. My heart hurts writing these things, because I have seen this pattern on so many other games, you could not even imagine. Then again, likely some of you could.

What is it with people assuming the worst and accusing the staff of being terrible people while posting? Quit being so overly dramatic. This is a MUD. You aren't martyring yourself for some grand cause by posting a complaint, so you just look childish and emotionally unstable.

Please, I ask of you Rias, I beg of you, reconsider. Not the guidelines, but the way in which you are handling the church of so-called light.

And then there's this. "I don't like what you're doing, so let me insult your project while simultaneously telling you to change it." That's virtually guaranteed to work! I don't know anyone who reads this sort of thing and digs in their heels to say, "No. Screw you."

Oh, wait.

Regarding feedback: First, thanks to Kiyaani for the demeanor and attitude of her post. It was calm, level-headed, and informative about what she thought. I would suggest others follow the example. My attention was directed to some outrage over chat (that GMs infrequently listen/pay attention to, I'll remind everyone) where comments were little more than expressions of outrage, anger, and claims that this mechanic was ridiculous, as well as other profanity-laced expressions of disapproval.

I want to share a little psychological self-analysis in this regard.

When I hear things like ...
- "This is stupid."
- "Wow, this is just wrong."
- "What the [expletive] is this?!"
- "Absolutely ridiculous."
- "This needs to be changed right now."
... when I hear comments like that regarding something I've done, being the wretched and prideful man that I am, my first thought reaction is often "Oh yeah? Well screw you, too!" I'm then tempted to angrily ignore the issue and move on to something else. I know this is wrong. I know this is petty. I wish I could change that and grow a thicker skin and be this stoic thinker who looks beyond petty offense and delves into the core meaning of comments like this and just deduces, "This is displeasing people, and I should consider looking into the issue." Unfortuately, my brain launches immediately into defensive mode due to coming under such critical and hostile attack and says, "Screw those guys, they're just being jerks." I don't really think that way about you people, I sincerely don't - but that's what my brain seems to instinctually say, and it dramatically lowers the chances that I'll seriously reconsider the issue anytime soon, mostly out of childish arrogance and pride. Even if I'm obviously in the wrong! Maybe for some reason I was up too late one night, and I changed all bladed weapons to do rake damage only. If people start lobbing profanity and inferred accusations of stupidity at me, my brain's natural reaction is going to be to say, "Hah! Well I'm sticking to the change anyway, just to prove to these grouches that I can't be bullied into changing things just because they're feeling grumpy."

Now on the flip side, when I hear things like ...
- "This might need some reconsideration, because reason(s) X (Y, Z) ..."
- "I disagree with this new change/implementation because [reason(s)] ..."
- "I'm not sure this is the best way to achieve what you're going for. Maybe as an alternative you could [suggestion(s)] ..."
... when I hear things like that, I'm not going to lie - my childish and arrogant pride still says, "Hey, these punks are disagreeing with what I did and they're just being grouchy!" but then my rational side says, "Well hang on a second, pride, there are a lot of complaints and they gave plenty of reasons why they're unhappy, so let's go over those reasons and try to undertsand why, and we'll see if we can tweak (or possibly even remove) things in an attempt to maintain balance between what we're trying to achieve here, and what makes the players enjoy the game."

TL;DR: Expressions of outrage, accusations of ridiculosity or stupidity, and profanity in general will significantly lower my likelihood to sympathize with that person's case. Complaints/criticisms that are informative, and contain suggestions of alternatives when possible, tend to make me immediately begin reconsidering the matter.

Just to be clear: I'm not faulting Rias for this. Anyone who has spoken with me for long enough has heard me say that I actually wish the staff was stricter with players and would drop the hammer on the griefers and whiners who are never happy and like to toe the line. I've also had a few people say to me, "Well, you just seem to know how to get the GMs to listen to you. They never listen to me." Read the above quote a few more times. That's the entire reason why.

I feel that you're being mighty presumptuous saying that the GMs are not listening to players or taking our thoughts into account, and also that they are unwilling to change things. I would argue the opposite. I've not played a game where the GMs care more about the players and their feelings about the game, nor where they have been as willing to change the game. I would go so far as to say that your comments are just as painful for them to read as they were for you to write, because I think that they are those kind of GMs (good ones).

As much as I complain sometimes, I really have to agree with Jaster on this. We have some amazing GMs here.

Even though the GMs and myself have had some rather drastic differences in opinion in the past, I've never felt that they don't listen to players overall.

And accusations that the GMs don't listen to complaints are especially silly in a thread where the GMs listened to complaints and made changes. In this thread alone they readjusted armor penalties, skill gains, guilld points, and probably a few other things I'm not recalling off the top of my head. They've adjusted horse fatigue and slowed hunger back down. The GMs do listen, they do care, and they do make changes, but there's also only two coders and they both have jobs, families, and real life commitments that aren't CLOK. This is supposed to be a fun hobby.

[Lavi]

I really don't agree with a lot of the things you've posted. I think if anything the GMs have been overly tolerant and open. I've played a lot of games where you don't see GMs like this. it's a rarity. don't see how people are flocking away.