Desert Elf Endurance Changes - Discussion

[mansa]

As per https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58287.0.html

...
The change will bring Desert Elves in line with documentation.  This means that Desert Elves will have a a lower minimum Endurance, equal to humans, and a lower maximum Endurance, slightly lower than that of humans.

To keep their running ability roughly the same, we will be increasing the stamina bonus Desert Elves get slightly.

Does this mean:
a) lower hitpoints
b) lower stun
c) lower movement points
?

[najdorf]

Will this effect current characters too, or only the new ones?

[mansa]

Brokkr — Today at 2:30 PM
I shoud note that existing characters will not be impacted, except through how their aging will work once this is live.



Question:
What if your current endurance was "25", and then the new code enters, and the new max endurance is "20".   And your character "ages" and the game decides it should go down, does it go to 19 or to 24?  (aka Do I lose 5 hit points because of aging, or do I lose 25?)

[Nao]

As I understand it, lower hitpoints and lower stun, not lower mv.

This sucks balls, though. Lower than human endurance will mean a lot of PCs with 80-90 hp. That's one unlucky hit, and delves don't have the option to stay in the city for a while until they get buff.

I feel like many of the recent changes are targeting characters than are already fairly weak in PVP (poisons becoming harder, cure nerf, now reducing delf hp) while the heavy-combat high-str ridiculousness remains untouched. These are the PCs that are actually dominating PVP.

[Fawcett]

As I understand it, lower hitpoints and lower stun, not lower mv.

This sucks balls, though. Lower than human endurance will mean a lot of PCs with 80-90 hp. That's one unlucky hit, and delves don't have the option to stay in the city for a while until they get buff.

I feel like many of the recent changes are targeting characters than are already fairly weak in PVP (poisons becoming harder, cure nerf, now reducing delf hp) while the heavy-combat high-str ridiculousness remains untouched. These are the PCs that are actually dominating PVP.

I think the run+hide was a bug being fixed, but this seems just a total nerf, yeah. Personally I wouldn't touch delf stats. They don't have INSANE endurance, just a decent endurance that they rely on.. being entirely wasteland living tribals.

[betweenford]

Feels like a bit of a weird thing to change save for balance reasons. AI delf endurance isnt really insane or anything, why not just change the incorrect helpfile?

[LindseyBalboa]

Will this keep movement points the same, or lower them? Considering mounted travel has been significantly boosted, it's a huge nerf if there is the possibility of losing movement points.

Beyond that, I don't know what problem this is actually solving. D-elves by their nature are squishy things already in actual play, and the wilderness is (thankfully) always getting more and more dangerous. I like that, the wilderness getting more dangerous.

Why nerf an entire karma-locked race to solve a problem that doesn't seem to exist in actual play?

[Nao]

Elves are both taller and heavier than humans, I don't see why they have to be super fragile to begin with.

They also don't have much weight capacity left to wear armor because their str is so low, which makes them take even more damage.

[Veselka]

If I might make a suggestion, that they have a maximum slightly higher than humans, and a minimum slightly lower than humans.

This would mean during character creation, you can decide to have a very fit elf by prioritizing endurance, but otherwise may have a lower-than-current endurance score.

I agree that 'lower than human' minimum can mean 80-90 hp desert elves which seems a bit incongruous with their survival of the fittest in the wastelands.

If anything as suggested above, i'd change the help file over the code change to desert elves, unless something seems inherently broken about them. I've always figured Desert Elves are the commandos of the wastes, and should therefore be a bit beefier than city folk, and even wastelanders that are human. Humans can choose to live a life outside -- Desert Elves have for generations only survived in the wastes, and rarely go into the cities. Plenty of human tribes have just absorbed into the cities, with some exceptions (Tan Muark, Arabet, Al'Seik come to mind) -- Some of these Desert Elf tribes have been wiped out rather than be absorbed.

Desert Elves should be forces to be reckoned with out in the wastes, and that is reflected in it being a 1 Karma role. I always figured they were a bit beefy because of the restrictions/limitations of the role in general. They tend to be antagonists, and unless they have other tribe members active at the time they are, it can also be very ISO.

I don't play D-elves often, but I figure they should have a 'gimme' in their stats, racial hide, etc.

[Brokkr]

As I understand it, lower hitpoints and lower stun, not lower mv.

This sucks balls, though. Lower than human endurance will mean a lot of PCs with 80-90 hp. That's one unlucky hit, and delves don't have the option to stay in the city for a while until they get buff.

I feel like many of the recent changes are targeting characters than are already fairly weak in PVP (poisons becoming harder, cure nerf, now reducing delf hp) while the heavy-combat high-str ridiculousness remains untouched. These are the PCs that are actually dominating PVP.

I think the run+hide was a bug being fixed, but this seems just a total nerf, yeah. Personally I wouldn't touch delf stats. They don't have INSANE endurance, just a decent endurance that they rely on.. being entirely wasteland living tribals.

Actually, Desert Elves have just 1 point of endurance less than dwarves, and their roll is MUCH better in terms of range than humans.  So yeah, INSANE.

[Brokkr]

If I might make a suggestion, that they have a maximum slightly higher than humans, and a minimum slightly lower than humans.

This would mean during character creation, you can decide to have a very fit elf by prioritizing endurance, but otherwise may have a lower-than-current endurance score.

I agree that 'lower than human' minimum can mean 80-90 hp desert elves which seems a bit incongruous with their survival of the fittest in the wastelands.

If anything as suggested above, i'd change the help file over the code change to desert elves, unless something seems inherently broken about them. I've always figured Desert Elves are the commandos of the wastes, and should therefore be a bit beefier than city folk, and even wastelanders that are human. Humans can choose to live a life outside -- Desert Elves have for generations only survived in the wastes, and rarely go into the cities. Plenty of human tribes have just absorbed into the cities, with some exceptions (Tan Muark, Arabet, Al'Seik come to mind) -- Some of these Desert Elf tribes have been wiped out rather than be absorbed.

Desert Elves should be forces to be reckoned with out in the wastes, and that is reflected in it being a 1 Karma role. I always figured they were a bit beefy because of the restrictions/limitations of the role in general. They tend to be antagonists, and unless they have other tribe members active at the time they are, it can also be very ISO.

I don't play D-elves often, but I figure they should have a 'gimme' in their stats, racial hide, etc.

1.  City elves and desert elves are the same race (we originally thought about just changing to city elf endurance...)
2.  Humans are stockier than elves.
3.  There may be an expectation, based on the old endurance, that elves are like the melee masters of the wastes, rather than the sneaky, underhanded bastards of the wastes...but why, other than just their endurance gave them hps?

[Veselka]

Personal experience over the course of 20 years playing the game? hehe

Honestly i've seen both, depending on the tribe. Long lived Desert Elves have always been a force to be reckoned with, but that's true of most long lived PCs in general.

I was always surprised at their strength and endurance, both as a player and as PCs that encountered them that weren't desert elves. But it made sense for the race, IMHO.

[Veselka]

Anecdotally though, I do remember a Sun Runner I played that had like 140hp and I felt it was a little weird.

[najdorf]

As I think more and more, it makes more sense, as long as the below is reasonable
"To keep their running ability roughly the same, we will be increasing the stamina bonus Desert Elves get slightly."

Because the confusion here is that endurance has two elements hp / movement which are contradicting to elven physical characteristics.
A dwarf with 1/4th of an elf's leg length having same movement points as elves are also insane, especially when docs are very clear that elves are strong and proud runners to the point that they find mounts having 4x their movement weak

Just to note that changes to certain gear in game (within the last years) has been an indirect nerf to d-elves

[Nao]

How does the 'stat pool'/average sum of all stats of delves compare to humans and dwarves now?

[Hauwke]

How does the 'stat pool'/average sum of all stats of delves compare to humans and dwarves now?

I'd assume similar, given that their agility is still nuts and their wisdom is higher still.

[LindseyBalboa]

Brokkr,

I thought about this and came back to my main issue. I do not think d-elves should be combat masters - maybe the odd one. They're pack animals, and they should attack in a pack, with stealth and guile, out of nowhere. That's all fine.

But it's the PVE, it's the wilderness travel, that low endurance will really make a difference at. This is a game, and it's meant to be fun. Not fair, just fun. Everyone is already putting in real life time to build up imaginary characters and play the same game with one another. Lowering d-elf endurance is like adding random death traps to the game, only for d-elves.

Because they climb. Everywhere. All the time. It's what elves do. It's their supposed advantage over mounted folk, their ability to just go up. But now it's even more dangerous, for no real reason that reflects game reality other than elves are supposed to be weaker against people in combat.

Your elf will fall. A lot. I've had master climb AI elves that randomly fall for no reason. It feels like there's a coded chance to fail climb, falling happens so much on characters that have long since 'ceased to fall.' And having less than 100 hp and climbing consistently is a death trap that I don't think is meant to be implemented by this change.

Solution: hard low cap of 101 hp. I don't personally care how much more the d-elf has than that. They could have a range of 101-111 and that's fine. But being able to mostly survive the falls you will have as part of your character (and then again ONLY if you're in good health and luck is on your side) is part of playing a d-elf. And surviving a fall doesn't even ensure survival - you'll likely be unconscious, waiting to wake up. So there's still a huge amount of danger present.

[Halaster]

How does the 'stat pool'/average sum of all stats of delves compare to humans and dwarves now?

It will exactly match the helpfile on elves when compared to humans.  "As compared to humans, elves have a higher agility (on average), and
a somewhat higher wisdom. Due to their light build, though, they are generally less strong and sturdy than humans."  Which has always been the intent of the race of elves.  They are wiser and more agil, but weaker and less sturdy, than humans.

[Brokkr]

re: climbing

Sorry, but master climb + high desert elf agi = no fail climb

And you have to remember, the point isn't "Desert elves always live."

[Nao]

re: climbing

Sorry, but master climb + high desert elf agi = no fail climb

And you have to remember, the point isn't "Desert elves always live."

An unintended side effect of this will be to have them dying like flies.

[LindseyBalboa]

re: climbing

Sorry, but master climb + high desert elf agi = no fail climb

And you have to remember, the point isn't "Desert elves always live."

I have fallen when I should not have, then, down a 4 story fall, but I'll concede that the room is desc'd as slippery. Maybe there was a penalty.

The point I made never said 'Desert elves always live.' It said 'they might have a chance at living if they haven't been injured recently and luck is in their corner.' And that's with 100+ hp. And that's unconscious, waiting for someone to kill you.

Why not make it more realistic for people riding mounts? Mounts should be able to trample you to death and kill you when they throw you. Horses do that, and the mounts on Arm a lot bigger. I assume that isn't the case because that's not that fun for a game to have. That is the territory this is going down.

[Halaster]

Why not make it more realistic for people riding mounts? Mounts should be able to trample you to death and kill you when they throw you. Horses do that, and the mounts on Arm a lot bigger. I assume that isn't the case because that's not that fun for a game to have. That is the territory this is going down.

This isn't a zero-sum issue.  We're not looking to change one group "to keep it even" because another group got changed.  We identified what we believed to be something "out of whack", and have corrected it (rather, will be, the change isn't live).   That doesn't mean some other race/group has to have an update to balance out the equation.

Now, if an idea is good, we'll consider implementing it on its own merits.

[Veselka]

Climb is reasonably easy to train up and your Pc would be silly to practice in potentially fatal climbs to start, and as Brokkr points out, add in desert elf agility and you should be fine.

If HP is the problem, I'd almost prefer keeping stamina and stun the same and add in a medium sized HP negative. But there are other factors with endurance that likely make sense to reduce the overall amount as well.

Overall I'm fine with it. Also fuck elves.

[roughneck]

This change needed to happen. Great move. It didn't make sense for delves to have more hp than most muls whike they weigh 7 stone at 7 ft tall.

A delf played to their strengths (stealth, mobility, ranged combat) will continue to dominate the wilderness more than any other race.

The only awkward piece is dangerous critters. It makes sense for a delf to use a bow to deal with dangerous game like desert spiders or even raptors. As-is, using a bow is silly unless you're relatively certain your PC can put down the critter 1-1 after rushes you. Bows should not be a means of initiating melee combat, they should he a means of avoiding it. Maybe have more critters flee instead of rush upon an arrow strike?

[Dar]

one thing to keep in mind. 

Desert elves bonus isn't only that they have higher stamina and less desert penalty, but also that they Regen the stamina faster. That, I theorize, was done via higher endurance?

in reality, whether you can move 10 rooms, or 20. If your stamina regens at the same rate as humans, it's all gonna be a major slog.