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Sorry to write a post so similar to Baeus. Note that I agree with absolutely everything that Baeus said.

These are just my thoughts, take them or leave them, but please don't be offended!

My favorite D&D builds are the dextrous fighter-esque builds. This led me to create a halfling fighter as my first and only character on FK. Here have been some of my challenges.

Ability scores. I don't like my characters to have debilitating defects, so I generally try not to go below 10 on any stats. That said, I like to play purposed characters that aren't particularly well-rounded. In my mind, this allows for character growth in the weaker areas. I was pretty happy with the scores I chose in character creation, and they didn't seem like min-maxing (though as it turns out, she had max dex). In my character's search for dexterity and feat trainers, she gained a lot of knowledge (especially on religions), so I reflected that in my point placement. She's now a fairly intelligent fighter (enough to use the Expertise feat, which I feel fits with my original vision well.) My difficulty with finding 18+ trainers was stated in the other thread, and was addressed by Raona (Thank you!) I find myself being forced to meta-game though to get to "minimum stat requirements" for certain features that I feel mesh with my character. It's distressing, because this information is not public and difficult to figure out except by potentially debilitating trial and error.

Non-canonical surprises. I don't know what to say about this, other than "gotchas are everywhere and oftentimes completely unexpected". I realize this game is not intended to be 100% canonical Forgotten Realms D&D 3.5. I wanted to have a dual-wielding fighter, but was amazed that this skill isn't obtained until level 30-something, and the two-weapon feats require even more. To exacerbate this, I had no idea what skills are available at what levels until my character joined a guild, which is a permanent choice. I imagine this was done to make things mysterious and murky to new players. What muds these days need to realize is that it's elitist and not newbie-friendly to be purposefully opaque with new character concept creation and design. It disenfranchises new players to make what seem like reasonable decisions, only to find out that they're seemingly arbitrarily not the right ones. Ability score requirements that are completely hidden from the player (e.g. the Gilded Lance advanced Fighter training) seem like they're going to be a sticking point in the future. This makes me sad.

Quests. I like the idea of travelling to a new town and finding quests. However, the quest log is very difficult to read and inconsistent with coloring and placement. Also, some quests are very descriptive about reminding you where you are in the quest. Others are downright perplexing, and when something goes wrong you're essentially hosed. I'm not a completionist by any means, but it's annoying to work for hours on a quest and have it dud out because of some issue that's difficult to troubleshoot. Another complication with quests is that sometimes it's hard to gauge the difficulty level, i.e. there is not enough transparency about whether or not you can actually reasonably do the quest. The areas command is a spamfest that only helps every so often, though it is nice that it's broken down into low-, mid-, and high-level dungeons.

Trainers. This is something original about FK, and I really love the idea that you have to learn feats from NPCs instead of gaining them out of thin air as many DMs do in tabletop. That said, I feel like the placement of trainers is utterly and frustratingly arbitrary and ad hoc. It's one thing to use/wrack your brain and figure out where a trainer might be, employing lore and critical thinking. It's wholly another to have to wander aimlessly hoping to get lucky or to have to beg established players for this knowledge. This is mostly in regards to feat trainers, but also to skill trainers and to a lesser extent 18+ stat trainers (since these are intended to be impossible for new characters to access.) As an example, there is a certain NPC that is clearly supposed to be a dextrous fighter guru and trains improved initiative and lightning reflexes, but not weapon finesse or expertise. Many NPCs don't train anything, when it would make large amounts of sense for them to train something specific (fine, not everybody wants to train you, but this method of design is a conscious choice that is clearly not the motivating factor in many areas.) I seem to recall a "trainer" NPC that doesn't train level. Why...?

Gear size. Out of everything, this has been the most upsetting. Almost all gear from stores is medium sized. This would not be a problem if magical gear could be resized. Fine, you've been playing FK for 10 years and have a ton of glory used and/or your character is high level and doesn't care about spending it with the application process. That's not a typical newbie experience. A typical newbie experience is "Oooh, I finally gathered 90 platinum to by a cool new sword. Ok, let's resize this thing like I have with all my other equipment.... What? I can't? #$@!" For mundane characters, you have no way to definitively tell before purchase whether something is masterwork or magical (also listed as masterwork), i.e. whether it can be resized or not. There are ways to get around this problem (masterwork items are valued less than magical items from the same vendor, magic-users can see enchantments, etc.), but this all seems like a fix for something that shouldn't even be broken.

Gear layers. It seems like a lot of "clothes" items that should either go over armor or under armor are set to regular armor, making them useless for most adventurers.

Vendors. Aside from the masterwork ambiguity mentioned above, the shop listing code could use some serious improvements. For example, buying from multiple merchants in the same room, making examine include the name of the item, having a * or some other identifier in the list command for if the item is masterwork, an "identify" service only for items being sold in the shop, etc.

Thanks!

I think you've hit quite a few Game Suggestion nails right on the head. Your experience with small gear, transparency of skills and stuff, and vendor interaction are spot on. I think your experience with stat checks is similar to other peoples', but that's part of DND at large imo--you might open some doors by being the best warrior, but you close others by not having the best wit or charm. I do think there should be alternatives for physically oriented characters but finding a balance between the two is the problem--if you introduce something new for pretty/witty people, everyone wants to be that instead of strong/lithe and vice versa.

All that being said, FK is a learning game--it took me multiple iterations of a character idea to settle on one I finally thought was the end for me, and I think that actually does add to the atmosphere and culture of the game once you've been around a while. I hope that you can find some joy in growing here--making mistakes, conquering them, feeling the place out--and stick around for a while yourself.

First, welcome to the game and I hope that you’re having a blast with what they did excellently even if there are some annoying bits attached.

I’m right there with you in regard to dex based fighters. It gives you that satisfying feeling of being an underdog that succeeds with cunning and skill as opposed to brute force to achieve the same ends. Unfortunately with the stat cap being 20 this build doesn’t really come to full fruition until you’re at a decently high level with outstanding gear to bolster the dex stat. Then again… this cap makes for a more well-rounded character because you’ll spread the points elsewhere.

Don’t feel guilty about doing ooc research for your character. This is no different than reading the Players Handbook before playing a tabletop campaign. Half the fun is developing a plan for a new character and then building it up as you level. I’ve been playing D&D for years so I had an excellent idea about the direction I needed to go. What I didn’t know prior was how FK was handling the stat, skill and feat allotments. I have since all but abandoned that first character I made and now have two more that I’m very happy with. Although I’m respectful of the staff, other players and follow the rules the primary reason that I’m here is for MY enjoyment. I have absolutely no guilt in going to trainers uncovered while I was playing the initial character and I usually take detailed notes on shop and trainer contents.

Fighters get an impressive amount of extra feats so one or two mistakes isn’t necessarily going to be a crushing blow. However, if choices have been made that you think are bad enough to affect your long term viability you can always make another before you invest too much time.

The gear size issue would be a deal breaker for me and one reason why I wouldn’t opt to make a Halfling. That being said, I know of some absolutely lethal hin that are doing just fine regardless of enchanted gear. At higher levels however that could be a problem as the content being faced may require a higher AC gained from magic armor… then again, this can be offset with wards from magic using group members you will more than likely have to be with anyway.

The way it was presented to me: identify and the way trainers are spread out over the server are a control mechanism that simultaneously inhibits the growth of potential disruptive players and puts a measure of power into the hands of the more experienced and proven members of the player base. In regard to identify, it provides impetus to roll into town and positively interact with a mage. A great role play opportunity, albeit a bit forced. It fosters dependency and acts as a community building tool just as many other things do here. In regard to trainers, again dialogue is fostered between you and the more seasoned adventurers who will be gaging you to see what type of player you are before enabling you too much with knowledge. Is this a failsafe method in making sure you don’t turn into a disruptive bully in the future after successfully fooling everyone? No, I don’t think so. Character deletion seems like a more effective deterrent. However, limiting the rise of a potential problem requires less maintenance and constant attention from the staff to keep up with large numbers of offenders, like it may have been in the past. I’m guessing here as I haven’t been around long but there must be a reason that the staff adopted such draconian measures of governance. I’ve never seen the like before and have played many RP enforced games, to include other muds.

Vendors – I hear you on the multiple vendor issue. Using 1.merchantname didn’t work for me as I expected it to. In shops I got used to the rolling listing and having to type in, exa ‘a couple of keywords here’ shopownername. It gets the job done. What I really wish I could do is examine gear visible on other players or use a, “show command” to send the long description of a worn or held item to a target.

Baeus wrote:What I really wish I could do is examine gear visible on other players...

I remember this being possible somehow, but I recall it as being a stealth thing for rogues. The last time I tried to play a rogue in FK was a very long time ago, because this is what happens when I try to play an FK rogue:

Peek skill; has to be in their inventory. lol

Thanks for the feedback. I tried to address some points and asked a few questions.

Treiste wrote:

Ability scores...I find myself being forced to meta-game though to get to "minimum stat requirements" for certain features that I feel mesh with my character. It's distressing, because this information is not public and difficult to figure out except by potentially debilitating trial and error.

Non-canonical surprises...Ability score requirements that are completely hidden from the player (e.g. the Gilded Lance advanced Fighter training) seem like they're going to be a sticking point in the future. This makes me sad.

This is intentional to some degree. This forces choices and some variety among PCs. Admittedly, some classes (or styles of one class) are better supported or more capable, but that is inescapable. I will only say that I started this game without much idea about the Forgotten Realms and very little savvy in coded abilities (I came from free-form RP) and did okay. You won't find yourself the hapless prey of marauding veteran players because of the happenstance of a dice roll or a stat point spent. (Besides, the Gilded Lance is run by Loviatians; it's weird and you're not missing much.)

Treiste wrote:Quests...However, the quest log is very difficult to read and inconsistent with coloring and placement. Also, some quests are very descriptive about reminding you where you are in the quest. Others are downright perplexing, and when something goes wrong you're essentially hosed...

There should be four colors you see: blue (in progress), green (complete), red (failed), or white (used for non-progressive things like knowledge, administrative things like renting a room, etc. Basically miscellaneous). Have you seen some which have other colors? Some builders like really descriptive QLOGs (like me), some builders don't use them (like the venerable Dalvyn), and I guess there's not much to say more than that we leave it up to the builder's discretion.

Treiste wrote:Gear layers. It seems like a lot of "clothes" items that should either go over armor or under armor are set to regular armor, making them useless for most adventurers.

This was implemented to prevent people from layering armor (e.g. mail beneath plate which is beneath a leather cloak). Any ideas on a better solution?

Harroghty wrote:

Treiste wrote:Quests...However, the quest log is very difficult to read and inconsistent with coloring and placement. Also, some quests are very descriptive about reminding you where you are in the quest. Others are downright perplexing, and when something goes wrong you're essentially hosed...

There should be four colors you see: blue (in progress), green (complete), red (failed), or white (used for non-progressive things like knowledge, administrative things like renting a room, etc. Basically miscellaneous). Have you seen some which have other colors? Some builders like really descriptive QLOGs (like me), some builders don't use them (like the venerable Dalvyn), and I guess there's not much to say more than that we leave it up to the builder's discretion.

Cyan's guidelines are followed perfectly (a quest is cyan if and only if it is in progress). Light green generically means completed, but the problem is that there are also white and dark-green that overlap with light green, and that's where the inconsistency is.

Maybe it should be this way?:

Dark green:
This color is sometimes used for knowledge completed quests (history, religion, geography, etc.) This is reasonable since there are a lot of these. (Currently, about half of them are light green and half are dark-green.)

White:
If "misc" is the guideline that seems like asking for trouble. Maybe have bright white be completed quests with continuing effects that you want to see easily on the qlog, e.g. entry into your guild. (Being a student of the Gilded Lance is light green currently, and I assume some other "schools" are as well.)

P.S. I like the way you used red in your Marsh area.

Harroghty wrote:

Treiste wrote:Gear layers. It seems like a lot of "clothes" items that should either go over armor or under armor are set to regular armor, making them useless for most adventurers.

This was implemented to prevent people from layering armor (e.g. mail beneath plate which is beneath a leather cloak). Any ideas on a better solution?

I was specifically referring to non-armor clothes items, like a white tunic. For some reason, a lot of these that I've found are not set to be layered under armor, so you can't have

white tunic (under)
armor (middle)
cloak (over)

As it is now, you have to choose

white tunic (middle)
cloak (over)

or

armor (middle)
cloak (over)

The "obvious" fix is to make most shirts under instead of armor. There are situations where some clothes should be in the armor slot to prevent armor from being worn over them, e.g. a wedding gown.

Please correct me if this is not currently how layering works!

I've noticed that some of the more recent items are being coded to be movable. IE changeable whether they are layer over, under, or middle. Most often, this seems to be on belt items. I've also noticed that some items, like coats are being coded to be worn on the arms or body. I actually fully support this, and I think that if we continue these types of items as we advance the mud, it won't be too long before all of the reasonable options you're looking for will be present. I'm not sure an overhaul would be necessary, so long as we were mindful of the option as we continue to move forward.

~Jeff.

Harroghty wrote:This was implemented to prevent people from layering armor (e.g. mail beneath plate which is beneath a leather cloak). Any ideas on a better solution?

Probably a hardcode deal, but what about a NO_LAYER flag of some sort? I.e... if you're already wearing armor in a particular location you would only be able to equip non-armor layers to that area. Kind of like the magical item limit or something.