Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Phoenix - An Analysis

As an all-rounder, I work on everything. That includes things like getting my phoenix shapeshifting leveled up... despite that I wasn't sure what I could use it for, or even if I'd ever use it. This is a look at what I've experienced experimenting with the phoenix as I've passed level 9 (of 14) for it.


The Phoenix has been in the game for quite a while. It was introduced to much debate, and many questions over "what is it good for" and "who would actually use it".

(I use references to my stats in this article. They are valid as of May 6, 2014.)


First, let's look at what the phoenix consists of at this point.


Phoenix




Phoenix


Phoenix Facts


1- +(phoenix_level) attack

I'm attack 139, so with a level 9 phoenix I have attack 148.

2- +(phoenix_level)% chance to dodge hits, added to the 5% default chance

So at level 9 I have a 14% chance to dodge.

3- +(phoenix_level) fire protection

So 9 fire protection thus far.

4- +(5 * phoenix_level) chance to be resurrected. Increased to 77% at max level.

A 45% resurrection chance if killed at level 9. (Level 14 should be 70%, but auto-increases to 77% at that max phoenix level)

5- On casting Magic Immunity before shapeshifting into Phoenix, you retain the magic immunity until you revert back to natural form.

6- On level 5 phoenix or higher, the same holds true for True Sight (magic, not potion).

7- A (currently unknown) chance to not get cooldown on using an item (such as food or potions), based on Phoenix level.

I've been unable to determine a percentage on this, but at level 9 I do see regularly no cooldown.


These go along with the basic shapeshifting facts that also apply to mules... No mixing, no trading, no experience, no speed hax, no harvesting, no magic, and no equipped items.



Experience With the Phoenix


For the most part, I've just been leveling it. Many times going afk to allow it to slowly level on its own, usually parked at a populated area just to remind people that yes, the phoenix does still exist in the game.

I return from afk and look back to see lots of local chat about it, several PMs with questions... the phoenix has simply been allowed to die in the game to the point that even experienced players are clueless about it.

It's sad, if just for the fact that it's probably one of the most beautifully designed creatures in the game, graphic-wise.


As for actually using it, I do make attempts with that, to see what I can and can't do.

In my normal form as of this post, I am able to train on frost trolls, possibly yeti on good astro. Geared up I can fight the big chickens and ACWs in limited amounts, and take on the occasion single nasparliu.

Not wanting to go straight to those in phoenix form, I took on some creatures at lower levels and slowly worked up to see what I could handle.

When you're used to being able to handle up to nasps solo and an MCW or frost troll can kick your ass, it doesn't leave me with a very good impression.

There's just way too many negatives that outweigh any positives provided.



Issues With the Phoenix


During the course of leveling and testing the phoenix, I collected all the issues I found with it, trying to determine exactly where the phoenix could possibly be useful, where it lacked, and could it even be used at all in any positive manner.

As for that latter part, I'm afraid I came up empty-handed. I found absolutely no situation where I'd think, "Yes, I could definitely use the phoenix here".

The reasons were many, but I think these are the primary ones.

1- Too easy to die

Yes, there's the resurrection possibility. But players hate relying on random, and I always found myself dissing just before death, leaving resurrection not to be an issue at all. Nobody wants to die.

Why is it too easy to die? You're going from using gear that gives you armor and defense and so on, and a weapon that provides power against a creature, to being bare-naked (no defense, no armor) and only a minimal bonus in attack level. There's a dodge percentage, but it doesn't make up for the amount of damage you can take without being able to armor yourself.



Other factors weigh in as well, such as...

2- Healing is a crapshoot

Again, with the random factor. You have no magic, so you're fully reliant on the use of BRs and GHPs to heal yourself.

In battle, even the GHP can end up not being enough to heal fast enough, especially when you're so used to fully restoring with a single click with magic. With no equipment, you also don't have the additional health a RDHOLAM or CoL or even a MoL provide, just your bare naked health points.

The crapshoot comes in with the random chance of no cooldown. You're reliant on potions to heal that can have a cooldown that takes far too long in any real case to make them of any use, and you're dependant on a random factor to hope you don't get that cooldown.

In other words, whether you can keep yourself healed or not is solely luck.

3- Expenses - both the glyph and the food

The glyphs are just exhorbitantly expensive, solely because they're so rare. To this date, they still remain unmakeable. They generally cannot be found on market, bots offering to buy them for 3.5kgc which means if you did find one to buy, it would likely be higher than that.

Just for a single transformation, that's going to cost you massively in food.

The food is definitely outrageous. The cost continues to rise on it (up to 84-85gc each at last check) and the phoenix takes 2 food per 30 seconds. That's about 340gc for a single minute.

So you pay an exhorbitant amount for a single glyph, only to pay on top of that 170gc per 30 seconds, just to shapeshift into a creature that in the end leaves you much worse off than you're generally used to fighting. And that even at the maximum phoenix level.

And getting to that maximum phoenix level? Besides the glyphs, it's been calculated (according to el-wiki) to take 36,300 creature food to get to that maximum level of 14.

36,300 * 85gc = 3,085,500gc

3 million gc, and you still are worse off than not shifting at all.


4- It's Not a Tank

There was some talk that it was to be used more as a "tanking" option rather than fighting.

Sorry, but I'm not seeing that.

Tanks are generally used for way overpowered "boss" creatures that can do heavy damage.

In its current state, the phoenix simply cannot handle that. A normal player tank will be ready to constantly heal, geared up to defend against the damage, normally wearing a HOLAM for more mana and health.

A phoenix has absolutely none of this. Besides the (very low even at max level) chance to dodge a hit, it is essentially helpless. There's no way to rely on random no-cooldowns on potions to stay alive, nor is the restoration option reliable.

There's just way too much randomness involved, on top of no armor or the defense it provides.


5- An invisible rat hunter? Limited.

The bonus of constant true sight is really not enough to warrant using the phoenix to hunt invisible rats.

As such a rat hunter, I find simply using true sight along with *running* to be a much more viable means hunting those. With that you stand a much better chance of finding a normal-speed moving rat.

In a recent rat hunt, for example, I went ahead and used the phoenix to do it. For close to 4 hours. I did this mainly because I had been planning to level my phoenix up some anyway, and it gave me something to do instead of just go afk.

It didn't go so well. I was used to always hunting invisi rats running, and I ended up finding the final rat that had eluded everyone 24 hours later, using speed hax instead. And it was on a small map that I had checked twice over as a phoenix.



6- Speed Haxed?



Perhaps the option to allow speed hax to hold up if taken before shifting. Or just be haxed by default on shifting. This should not take normal food though. Emu is going to be bad enough carrying around creature food without constant running to storage.

Nobody's going to be 24/7 phoenixing, ever, so this should not be an issue.

It would be a huge boost in making it a hunter.






What Needs to Change?


Honestly, it depends on what the original purpose of the phoenix was. I have many ideas, but the ideas are only relevant solely depending on what the purpose of the phoenix is.

1- Phoenix Glyphs Need to be Makeable, with a massive price drop

You're paying a lot for something that doesn't come close to justifying the cost. This alone would both allow for more shifting by getting any glyphs onto the market at all to be used, and cause less concern with actually using one because of the price.

There's no reason these should cost any more than a mule glyph.


2- Creature Food Should Not Drop (when Shapeshifted)


Regardless of purpose. Because of the incredible expense of the glyphs with the little value provided, when that inevitable death happens we shouldn't lose that expensive shift solely because we dropped our CF.

I could consider this option moot if the glyphs were makeable and at a cost level similar to mule glyphs. But noone's gonna die, lose their food and shift, and go back and use another glyph at their current cost and rarity.

At 2 per 30 seconds, it requires carrying way too much of this just to do anything potentially useful. (And there are zero valid reasons to carry a brick shapeshifted.)


3- There Needs to be More Stability in Phoenix Usage

Even at the maximum level, there's way too much dependency on randomness and luck, no matter what you're doing. When fighting normally, you only have the randomness in getting hit to contend with, and you normally have enough health and restore capability to handle it.

There's nothing of that nature as a phoenix, you're left with complete randomness on if you'll be able to restore, especially with only your bare-naked health level, randomness on "if" you die...


4- (Much) Better Defense if it is to Tank

If this is supposed to be a tank, it needs much more defense. That tiny bit of dodge really doesn't help much when the non-dodges are done on you bare-naked (armorless). A phoenix at its best currently can barely survive a creature lower than normal training level. Even with multiple resurrections, it's still gonna end up dead long before just tanking non-shifted with gear.

Add to that creatures that normally are tanked tend to have mirror perk, and phoenix just can't hold up.


5- (Much) Better Attack if it is to Fight

As said, it can barely handle a creature lower than normal training level, with the bonus attack.

The bonus attack gives practically nothing when, due to no weapon, you still at max level do much worse than you could geared up. So if it's supposed to fight, this needs work.


6- Seriously, give a/d Experience

You're fighting. This shifter specifically is intended to do just that. Yet you get nothing out of it.

I'm not sure why exactly there is no experience given while fighting shifted, but considering the incredible ton of gc that has to get sunk into any shapeshifter, cutting off any experience is just an additional reason for people *not* to use it.





In Summary


The Phoenix is supposed to be used for attacking. As a tank, or as a fighter, I'm unsure, but attacking is involved in its use.

When you go out of your way to pay such extreme amounts of gc just to use it, much less the 3 million+ it will take to get it fully leveled, you expect to get something that's in some way better than what you could do in just your normal gear.

It doesn't provide this. On the contrary, it's worse both as a tank and as a fighter. The randomness factors only add to the negative aspects.

It's simply too expensive when what you get has no real benefit to normal fighter play.

The mule shows an obvious benefit, and as well takes much less creature food and has affordable glyphs available in abundance.

The phoenix needs those things. An obvious benefit. Makeable glyphs at the same level as mule glyphs. And unless a truly extreme benefit appears, two CFs per 30 seconds is far too much, not to mention takes up way too much emu should you need to do something for a long period away from storage.




...






Personal Aside: As for me, I have five more levels to go. And like... oh... tailoring... despite the little use I can find, I'll continue leveling it until it's done. Partly because of the "jack of all trades" in me, but mostly because I hope the cause of finding a good use for the phoenix gets taken up, and eventually it will become truly useful.

I am aware of the tweaks that were made to it since introduced. All have been positive, but they just unfortunately didn't resolve the issue that the phoenix doesn't have that one truly good use.

I would love to see that. It would be nice to see someone flying around occasionally besides myself, heh.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Overall 170! About Pears. Invasions. And Several Levels.

A few topics before the levels...

LION Has Been Explored

Finally got around to putting together my next guild map exploration. This time, it's LION that I've invaded.

Exploring Guild Maps XII: LION

12 maps down...

So Where Are the Whiny Pear Hunters?


You know the routine. Someone's just too lazy or plain incompetent at something, so they whine and bitch about those who can do that something.

I held a contest once, just to get people to pear hunt.


Pear Contest

It got found faster than hoped for.

Lately my pear stock's been pretty high, so I decided to just stop hunting for a while and focus on other stuff.

For over two weeks now, I haven't hunted it. So... those people who incessantly whined about how I always always finding them, so there was no point in them trying (which is not true), no longer had that excuse.

These two weeks have proven just how much shit they're full of. How many pears found since I quit hunting, at least 56 game days ago?

Three.

Now that this period has proven that they're full of shit, and just jealous that I'm not as lazy as them, they'll have no excuse when I eventually start hunting again.


Random Invasions


Since there's a been a bit more on the lines of "not just bethel or SKF" invasions, I've started showing up at a few of them.




Invasion



Invasion

Then there was the time there was a single invisible rat left, could be on any map on either continent, over 24 hours passed with noone finding it. Naturally, I had to go out and do the dirty work, er, the hunt, and track it down. ;-)

Invasion

But that's Hunter Life...



And Oh Yes, The Levels



Your overall level is 170!


Overall 170


Hitting 170 is one those happy-go-"Doh!" moments. On the one hand, you realize the number of OA levels you have left is now down to the single digits.

On the other hand, 170 is only about 64.5% of the total experience needed to get to the top level 179. Still about 1/3 of the way to go.


Engineering continues to be "whenever have TF ings to poof in the school" as I have zero focus on it otherwise. I still try to stock to do at least some of those on Eng Day though, as the experience is massive. Even without the Eng God I still clock 42k experience per minute.


You advanced to level 116 of engineering!


Engineering 116

Summoning being a god skill, it finally got a nice boost with this update, with three more levels.

You advanced to level 74-76 of summoning!


Summoning 76

Crafting has been slow-going despite being another god skill, as I've been busy focusing on other things. But it's still going. I plan to hit it hard later. Even have a school day stone gathering dust in storage for it.

You advanced to level 89 of crafting!


Crafting 89

Magic... happens.

You advanced to level 88 of magic!


Magic 88

As does a/d.

You advanced to level 139 of attack!


Attack 139


And back to the leveling. Though the next few days will mostly be harv stocking and essie mixing.



Exploring Guild Maps XII - LION

Notice: This is just a look at some of the guild maps that have been made for Eternal Lands. This blog provides no secrets.
The entrances to these maps and any secrets to get around them will never be posted, nor will I provide them so don't ask.

View all Guild Map exploration via the Guildmaps tag.
LION, while once a very active guild, still exists but only with a handful of active or semi-active players.

Guard Bot: No.

PK: No. Entrance areas, several well-marked arenas, and a few rooms that aren't marked.


The LION map is fairly decent-sized, and while odd (as in you wonder what the mapmaker was thinking) in places, generally well-done.

There are some broken areas, but unlike broken spots on other guild maps I've seen, they won't "trap" you. Won't let you in at all, in fact. More on those in the final screenshots below.

If you find your way here, most everything is pretty obvious. There are some secret paths and such, but most everything with a few exceptions can be accessed without finding those.

One word of warning: Be very careful when it comes to water. Some is fine to walk through (you'll see), some is very, very dangerous. Swim carefully. ;-)

Okay, let's get the ball rolling with the usual starting place... where you enter the map once you found the entrance.



LION



Yeah, for some reason you start off in a PK ship area. For a previous bot? No, pretty sure there used to be a PK bot on the next area instead. Also PK, of course.

As  you step onto the LION bones, the words "Fear the wrath of NeverMind!" appear. I would guess the guard bot NeverMind once sat in the chair next to the ship. (NeverMind still exists, but it's now a trade bot in Crystal Caves.)


LION


After that comes the main map. Right, this pier is PK, but once you step further in onto the grass, the rest of the main map area is non-pk with the exception of obvious arenas.


LION



A view of the main map, standing not far from the ship above.


LION



Not that the map is really big enough to warrant it, but there's a telepad room that leads to multiple areas around the map.


LION



One of the places you may end up is this special PK arena. Where I stand is pk, but the rooms surrounding it are not. I don't normally write on the screenshots, but in this case each room belongs to a (former) member of the guild. You see their name as you walk in. I have put their names on the image.


LION



But back on the main map... guess what? This chess board seems awfully like a PK area. ;-)


LION


And well, roar? Another PK arena.


LION


Our first building... Dre's Coffee Shop and Ale House. This would be one of those PK buildings I mentioned at the start that's not marked as PK.


LION




Kornholio once ran his hydro from here.


LION




Back outside, there's a garden here...


LION




And of course, another PK arena... do you get the feeling your on the LION guild map? Me, too.


LION




This is... you guessed it... not a PK arena, just where the members went to feed their shroom addiction.


LION




Dilly's Rose Arena is, wow, another PK arena.


LION




Kinda sorta inside again, or at least not on the main map area. Here we have one extremely huge PK arena. I seriously doubt LION or any guild had enough people to warrant such a huge arena, but here it is anyway.


LION




On one side of the arena is a group of rooms, homes of various members. Once again I added the names of the members who owned each room.


LION




And a couple more on the other side. (Forgot to close my inventory on this shot, so I blacked it out to prevent showing required items to enter the map.)


LION




In this area you'll also find "the home of C&D", though not sure who those are.


LION




You may also find this "secret" arena. The biggest secret about it is that it's not PK. Weirdness.


LION




Back to the main map. Time to get our feet wet.


LION




Would you believe me if I told you there's yet another PK arena?


LION




And yet another?


LION




And yet... wait. No. This isn't PK. Enjoy a swim.


LION




Rick is apparently castle-worthy, though it's not so much a castle as it is a fort.


LION




Thought this might be PK considering the rest of the map. But, nope.


LION




In this area we find Rick's quarters.


LION




Which include a separate bedroom.


LION




Okay, let's head back to the main map. We skipped a few houses. Here we have Butts and Buttswife's house.


LION




Bahador lived here.


LION




Steak break.


LION




Another home, this shared by Halo and Pinky.


LION




Who knew Ozmondius could even read... here is his library.


LION




Which includes his bedroom. (PK)


LION




Every guild map is allowed a harvestable fruit or veggie. If you're hungry, you can stop by this tree, near the ROAR PK arena, and grab some fruit off of it.


LION




It will take you a bit of searching to figure out the way, but it's possible to find this PK island. You can step also into the non-pk water around it.


LION




Not just step in the water near it, but go for a full swim.


LION




THE PROBLEMS: I mentioned at the start the map had some bugs. Those bugs come in the form of unenterable houses, which only tell you you're "too far" when you try to click on them.

I did, however, manage to get into three of them, just by tele-to-range into them from rooms near them on the map. Here's one of them.


LION



And the second one.


LION



And a third one.


LION


There were actually a couple more, however they simply could not be accessed.

Anyway, that's it for this guild map trip. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures! Or, okay, more pictures of more maps still to come.

That's all folks!