Mount with more skill than War horse..

[lvangundy]

I've been playing for about 4 months with one character, and I'm not about to waste my 60 gems on a mount thats less powerful than my war horse. I know a common theme around here is to suggest that a player sould "go find out for himself" but I'm hoping someone could be a little more diplomatic about my question.

Can anyone give me a hint about what order the mount skills are in? Or maybe the benefits of the other exotic mounts?

Is the roc better than the war horse? Is the gryphon better than the war horse?

thanks for any input..

[Sneakabout]

Cost is a good indication of how powerful a mount is, a roc or a wyvern would be more powerful than a war horse, aye.

[Acemaster]

A while ago, I switched from a war horse to a wyvern, and was at first very disappointed with it. After I used it in battle, though, it proved to me that the wyvern is vastly superior to the war horse in most ways. Each mount has its unique advantages and disadvantages, but generally the more you pay the better you get. I have heard someone say that they think the valkyrie is better than the wyvern, but I highly doubt that.

[Nightwind]

it all depends on what you think of the nightmare.

and that's all I am going to spoil.

[SaucyWench]

It also depends on YOU

Most of the top half of the mounts are affected by your stats. This includes gold on hand, gold in bank, attack, defense, hitpoints, level, dragon kills, favour with Ramius, resurrections, etc etc etc.

So as mentioned the Wyvern is very disappointing if you buy it the SECOND it becomes available for your number of dragon kills. The gryphon is intentionally not available to people it will hurt. There are several mounts that will KILL you if you buy them too early. But, you need to try them. The game would be a veritable bore if you never died.

[lvangundy]

As much as I love this game there are so many features and undocumented (in-game) playing rules that I would think might detract from making the player want to play longer to develop the character.

I get the feeling that there's much more work being put into the background coding than there is into player friendlyness. This game could make itself more mainstream but the average person who plays this game has NO clue about the reasons why things happen in the game. Most RPG's give you some sort of hints or clues to help you decide your actions a long the way.

Saucy you just gave the perfect example to my statement above - where in the game are these criteria ever discussed? I bet more than half of the people who play this have no idea that the mounts and their bonuses are affected by so many rules.

I know LOTG is still in beta, I understand that there's much more on the way. These comments aren't meant to be critical - I do appreciate the game. Heck, I've even donated some money!

[JCP]

Saucy you just gave the perfect example to my statement above - where in the game are these criteria ever discussed? I bet more than half of the people who play this have no idea that the mounts and their bonuses are affected by so many rules.

Actually, the game does a fairly good job about making most of the information available - however we do require you to pay attention and actively avoid spelling things out for you.

For example, the Gryphon that you "should not get as soon as it becomes available":

A powerful mix of giant eagle and lion, only experienced warriors will be able to use a gryphon to its full potential.

That should indicate that its advantages are linked to a warrior's "experience" in the game without going into specifics.

Similarly, the Nightmare makes it a bit obvious:

An infernal steed from the dimension of dreams that gets more powerful as you gain favor with Ramius.

And the Mi'raj has a specific warning:

A large yellow hare with a single black horn that is a bloodthirsty killer.

Merick warns you, "I wouldnae buy that'un m'self - it makes ye stronger the more wounded ye are, an' it helps the process along tae boot! That wee bunny's killed many a'owner. Only a darn fool would want'un, an' only the strongest adventurers can own one fer long."

Let's look at the Leprechaun, and see if you can figure out what its power is linked to:

Leprechaun Stands before you with a lengthy 500 page contract to sign for his service. The word Gold appears several times on each page.

Do we list how everything exactly affects your stats? No.

We do try to give you the information to make a decision, and force you to pay attention to what is going on as you play. If you just blindly hit keys you will miss out on a lot of the clues that we've left on the screen for you to figure things out.

[Nightwind]

even the new pet...


Creature: Lightning Lizard
Description: A powerful and surprisingly agile beast that does not tire easily and is a fantastic asset to a younger warrior needing endurance. It is wise, however, and will ignore an experienced warrior.

tells a novie where to put his gems

[lvangundy]

Thanks for posting that information. I'm sure someone like myself has just learned something new about the game.

Maybe what I'm thinking is that in "most" RPG's specific attributes are given to the things you can buy or use in the game. The points are displayed before you spend your money on them.

A good example of what's not detailed would be the alcoholic drinks that can be purchased at the various Ale vendors. None of these give you any idea of the attributes before you purchase them. Only after you spend the money will they show up in your character stats window. I admit, there aren't many ale choices so it wouldn't take long to go through them to find out.

What about being drunk? I haven't noticed any specific effects this has on playability.

I don't have the time at the moment to go through all of the things I'd like to point out, but I know there are many unexplained actions/reactions in LOTG that should be slightly more obvious to the player so they can make good playing decisions.

[Sneakabout]

That's just one of the things about this style of game - we're not going to tell you what everything you buy does, or how good it is. We're not going to tell you what everything in the Forest does, We're not even going to tell you some things about yourself.

Just one of the things about the game - it isn't like most ones where min/maxing is just maths.

[Elessa]

after finding myself in a few predicaments and thinking 'how the blazes did that happen. as well as, what the heck!', i discovered that reading the text in this text based game actually has some merit.

the drinks require experimentation, but each one has some very specific outcomes attendant with their imbibing. a look at thy vital statistics will definitely indicate what the drink has done to aid ye. being drunk is of course a natural outcome, as is drinking too much and the bartender being responsible enough to refuse to serve ye any more.

as ye point out, there aren't that many drinks. it is easy enough to taste test each one over a period of a day or two to determine which provide the kick ye desire for that day's endeavors.

i have played rpg, both paper and live-action, for over twenty years. i much prefer the gamemasters who require initiative by the players to explore and discover, then ones who 'hint' at every nuance encountered in the game.

[JCP]

In a good pen and paper RPG, stats should be invisible to the players.

Most computer RPGs are not like this, true, but we aspire to be more.

All we ask is that you open to your mind to the possibilities of not knowing the specifics of things. We're not totally stat-invisible, but in some areas we feel it adds to the game.

Many people have complained that Charm is not displayed, and some sites have modified the game to display this attribute.

Is charm a real number tracked by the code? Yes.

Should the player know this absolute value? We don't think so.

One appraoch is to have the player see that they have a charm of 100*, meaning that they can finally marry Seth/Violet.

The other approach is to have the player unsure of how much they will be able to get away with in the next flirt attempt, making an educated guess based on past reactions.

Life does not come with stat labels.

You should play the game to explore and have fun, not to micro-manage every number associated with your character.

Yes, there are places that you can lose turns or experience, or you may not be happy with your purchase of a potion or mount.

But mounts are animals that you can't really be sure of until you try them out, not automobiles where you can pour over specs and interior fabric treatments.

Sure, playing without numbers assigned to everything may not be what you are used to. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.

(Oh, and I'm not trying to single you out. I'm just taking the opportunity your questions have provided to explain some of the guiding philosphies behind how we create and manage this game.)

*Not the real number.

[Acemaster]

I do like hidden stats a lot more, simply because, well, if you know all of your stats, then everything will just be a number. Your goals will be to get to certain numbers instead of "making your character better." As JCP said, life does not come with numbers and values. God made it a lot trickier for us than the characters we create in RPGs.

[lvangundy]

I understand the angles a bit better now. I have no experience in paper based RPGs and apparently those are much less detailed in number stats.

I was raised on computer based RPGs which as I mentioned give the player a lot more leeway in decision making. I guess that's what I'm used to, however I do understand this is how LOTG works. I'd be embarassed if I said I didn't understand the basic concepts of this game. I played LORD back in 1996 and yes I'm aware there are people who have been doing the same thing for 20 years and don't know everything.

Tynan's gym seems like a good example of an instance with enough information to figure out what you want to do with his training. It's cheap(and temporary) enough to find out what each thing does. On the other hand some instances like Stonehenge or purchasing a mount are the most expensive (lost gold and exp) and risky to test. Stonehenge's benefits usually always outweigh the risk, but there doesnt seem to be any reason for the outcomes.

I had a co-worker who I introduced the game to and he swore there was something maybe not wrong (per say) with the random number generator (RNG) but that it seemed too random to make the game enjoyable or at least definable in playing technique. I agree with that, not having any sort of stat to know if you'll survive any of the instances in town or in the forest can be frustating. Now I tend to avoid any instance except giving a gem to a fairy and Stonehenge (as frustrating as Stonehenge can be). Id' really love to outline a lot of this game. I enjoy it that much.

Maybe what my original post was aimed was trying to make the game more player friendly who has little or no text based RPG experience but some with computer RPGs (like myself).

[antares]

AS somebody as spoken about being drunk, I wonder why a simple glass of cider should make you *hips* in the gardens???

[JCP]

AS somebody as spoken about being drunk, I wonder why a simple glass of cider should make you *hips* in the gardens???

This has been brought up a few times.

Apparently in some countries there is "cider" which is kid-friendly and non-alcoholic, and then "hard cider" which is an adult alcoholic beverage.

In other countries "cider" refers to the alcoholic drink only.

Ours functions as the latter in deference to our international players.

[ChattyTrog]

Going back to the mount subject, anybody care to elaborate on what a 'hybrid ettile' actually is? I don't want stats or anything. Merely information (or speculation) as to what a hybrid ettile is. I recently let him frolic in a certain field, but maybe ettiles do not frolic.

[antares]

Hope it has nothing to do with Ethylic alcohol... :lol:

[Booger]

you'd have to ask saucy since she invented it. I believe the specifics are vague on purpose though ;)

[Elessa]

Going back to the mount subject, anybody care to elaborate on what a 'hybrid ettile' actually is? I don't want stats or anything. Merely information (or speculation) as to what a hybrid ettile is. I recently let him frolic in a certain field, but maybe ettiles do not frolic.

:tilts her head to the side as she gazes at the strange creature

whate'er it is, it appears to be an elitte hybrid of animal