The New No-Party Update

[SanTelmo]

Yes, while I find this as a good way to deal with some OOC issues that some players may abuse, this causes a lot of OOC problems for the players.

From now on, you cannot target your party members through party icon, which leaves the option that you need click their characters. There are situations when this is not possible, for instance when you face multiple foes and they gather in front of the character you target or perhaps you simply missclick because of a common human mouse controlling error. You know what I'm talking about because I'm pretty sure many have missclicked their attack or accidentally healed an enemy or given them a magical weapon. While one could say that "Hey, people make mistakes. Take it IC that your character failed and healed the monster or gave him flame weapon", it's not really the case. We're using magical items, we're playing wizards and clerics who direct their powers to a person of their choosing. Your character should be either extremely stupid or fail very very badly to make this happen and when this is all about the OOC fail of the player behind the computer, I think it's not fair.

From now on, you must tab constantly (and by this I mean you need to press it all the time to make it update) to follow the health of your allies. Very annoying and pretty much will cause spoilers in seeing the enemy that comes from out of your sight-range. I'm not sure but I believe that the bug that causes sometimes enemies to disappear from your screen and make only their names to be seen on the screen is caused by excessive use of tabulator.

It might be a bit too early to bring these problems as the system isn't working yet but I liked to get a discussion started about this. It's not a complaint, merely a notification of the problems it will bring and how it effects the way this game is mechanically played. Any other things you wish to discuss about the new system is welcome here as well.

So, I wanna hear your opinions about it.

Oh, edit here:

 I'd like the party system to stay and instead remove pin locations of characters on the map as well as the location arrows under the party icons. Of course, if it's possible.

[Blake the Boar]

This new system is great, and I don't see any of what was pointed out as issues. Just gotta adapt to the new system, and be quicker with the mouse. And I look forward for it to be implemented properly, really awesome! Gotta love Mort!

[BoomdaddyBP]

I agree with San Telmo.

[IxTheSpeedy]

I agree with SanTelmo as well.  If the game engine was perfect, then this would be great, but it isn't.  Having a party helps to work with the limitations of the gaming engine.  

Also, really, we're here to have fun, I think removing the party option will just make it harder to play in general.

If the issue is people abusing party chat, which I can totally understand, then let's deal with that issue, not remove the entire mechanism.  How about DM's hand out 50 xp at a pop penalties for abusing the party chat?

[Verybigliar]

I don't see how penalties help any more. People simply feel rejected and hated with time.

I can favor the new system because I see it to be no problem. I've only checked peoples places to find them in same area to randomly walk on to them, that's small issue.

If I've been far of them, I've usually left party unless I've wanted to talk something in tells. That's only a small issue as well. Targetin I have always handled by the target, so it's not issue to me either.

I do understand the opinions when someone liked to use all these things above for their advantage, sure it's fun. This makes it more in for the RP and excitement, but also a bit more serious. I believe the server is somewhat tough for many already with hard death penalty and such, but I am also quite sure that all people who can deal with current situation, could also deal with this new system.

It's left to the DM's and the players in the end to express their opinion of it.

[Anonymous Bosch]

It's not just party chat.
It stops players meta-knowing vital stats of party members, which everybody is more or less forced to do with the party system.
 
Healing allies does sound like it's taking a hell of a hit, though.
Since I don't actually know, I'm going to assume that the DMs have considered that and have a work-around.
 
If that doesn't work out, and if it's possible, haks to remove party member's rolls and hps from the screen would be nice.

[SkillFocuspwn]

It removes massive amount of metagaming the position of other players, and of metagaming their current status and health, but tbh the latter one isn't harmful. Okay, metagaming things like position and battle are pretty awful, and I myself have been victim to a blatant attack of this nature where I picked on a Goblin and his level 8 buddy ran across 2 maps to save him!

However, I believe seeing the status of players standing next to you is pretty vital! Without the helpfulness of seeing a quick bar to represent their health and something to click on, a lot of mistakes are going to be made in the chaos of battle, and a lot more people are going to die simply because we couldn't see the massive CRITICAL HIT appearing above someone's head.

It is an awesome feature, but it seems to me that all it's doing is removing one exploit, and making the game massively harder for the purpose of "realism", which looks to me to make EfU quite awkward to play. I'm not saying it will definately be bad, I wait to see, but from the sound of it, taking away a hardcoded system and adding something as complicated as this doesn't sound like it will run smoothly!

[Verybigliar]

It has homever been said, that haks will not be implemented.

Override could be ofc put in... But it's just an override. (if there is any such even). It never forces people to use it.

[Daemonic Daz]

Some of the issues raised are things that need to answered, I felt the announcement didn't quite cover questions that would crop up.

How will traps work now that you cant "party up", will the trap setter be the only person be the one that can see and not set off traps they've set or will the ally command allow you to do this as well?

[FleetingHeart]

I think it more has to do with people abusing the minimap. Especially in PvP.

Of course, the worst is going to be a group of stealthy characters trying to navigate through dangerous areas to avoid killing things... Especially stealthy characters who cannot afford to invest in spot or listen.

Sure, you can all stealth and try to remain in line of sight of each other... but what happens when you cross a transition, don't know where to go, and there are three giant mist ogres staring you in the face? You can't unstealth and restealth to let your party know where you are. Even with a decent spot or listen check, you may not detect your party before you are detected by the mobs.

Also, I brought this up on IRC. What about quest taking? I understand that it will require the minimum number of players to be present at the quest giver now. What if a bunch of exiles wanted to do a quest where the quest giver is in the city? Say, it is a three person quest and they are trying to go with only the three people required for a challenge, but two are exiles. Or even one? The character acting as a public face can't take the quest without inviting along yet another character, which defeats the purpose taking a small group for the challenge.

[Mort]

I really dont buy the wanna-be apocalyptic arguments that removing healing through portrait will cause everyone to die horribly.

If you use taunt, Call shot, knockdown, spells, i.e. everything else-- You have the aptitude that it takes to target someone. As a player, I've never really used healing through portrait and I dont remember people referring to my characters as clumsy.

[FleetingHeart]

Ah, yes. Traps are another good question, Daz. Since flagging them is a Party function if I recall correctly.

[Anonymous Bosch]

It's not just healing, it's the ability to keep tabs on the condition of team-mates.
 
I think the whole update sounds awesome, but it's still a worry that healers are going to struggle to work well.
I'm almost certain there will be a period of adjustment that will result in DOOM to an extent.
 
Wait and see, I say.
Pros abound, and a few cons that may or may not turn out to be murderous.

[SanTelmo]

I use both the icons and the characters to target heal or target cast or anything else. It's not only about that. Many things work through the party system. I see much trouble, some expressed here already by others. I hope this thing works as it cuts some unwanted OOC crap. We'll see.

[Disco]

At first I was excited about this, but I must admit that I see the problems San Telmo and Fleetingheart. I guess we will just have to try it out and see how it goes, Im sure Mort intend to improve it as we go along.