Architectural Work with Rufus

New Feature: Visited

Legend can now track which rooms you've visted and show you a percentage of those rooms that are available to visit. The command? VISITED

So, you get zero credit for being here for 20 years. We weren't tracking this up until now. Everyone starts at 0. If you look on 'exits', every room you have not yet been to will show as unexplored.

A couple of notes:

This doesn't apply to OOC rooms or housing.
These will never show an 'unexplored' indicator in exits.
If there are serious bugs with the system, we'll simply delete these files that track this information and start again.

For now this information is only available via the VISITED command. We may eventually add this to prompt and score. Also, until the builders are able to change map rooms and other rooms that can't normally be accessed, achieving 100% is currently impossible (99.999 probably is).

And...

You gain exp for every room you've not been to. Though this levels off in terms of how much you get by level 30 (a level 50 gains the same xp per room as a level 30 would), you can theoretically gain about 7 to 10 levels worth of XP exploring the mud. The old explore systems and explore rooms remain. This is system on top of that one.

New Feature: Petition

The requests (or petition) system is a new system to enable asynchronous communication between players and immortals. We see great promise for a system like this, but its first roll-out will be limited to smaller, simpler string requests using up to 3 coupons. The main command is the PETITION command.

Syntax & Use

PETITION STRING [your object you want to string]
- You must have the object in order for this to work.
- This will start the process of putting in a string request for the specified object.
- It should give you the steps necessary to complete the petition.
- Be aware that the petition, up until the time you apply it (see below), is simply a collection of information.
  - The objects remain in your possession and you may go on with life as normal.
  - If and when your petition is approved, you must have the coupons and item to string in your inventory.
- You will get a Petition ID that you can reference to modify, add changes, or cancel the petition request.

PETITION (without arguments)
- Will show your current petitions.
- You may have more than one petition & there are currently no limits to how many you can have.
  - The system will 'fill up' after a while and no petitions will be created server-wide... so, don't be a jerk.

PETITION [Petition ID]
- Will allow you to view the details of the specified petition.

PETITION [Petition ID] SHORT [requested short description]
- Adds a "short description" to the string

PETITION [Petition ID] LONG [requested long description]
- Adds a "long description" to the string

PETITION [Petition ID] SLOT [requested slot description]
- Adds a "slot description" to the string

PETITION [Petition ID] COUPON [coupon keyword]
- Adds the specified coupons to the petition as an offered string payment
- You may offer three coupons maximum at this time (PETITION [Petition ID] COUPON [1.kw] [2.kw] [3.kw])
- If you make a mistake and need to replace one or more coupons, you must clear all the coupons and re-add them all
  - This is done via: PETITION [Petition ID] CLEARCOUPON

PETITION [Petition ID] CANCEL
- Used to cancel a specified petition at any time

PETITION [Petition ID] SUBMIT
- Once you have completed your petition, this syntax is used to submit the request to the immortal staff.
- If you make any changes after submitting a petition, you will have to resubmit the petition.

When a petition is rejected, there will be a message from the immortal who rejected it. You can then make changes to the petition to correct any issues and resubmit. An immortal can provide notes with an approval as well.

A petition goes through the following steps:

STARTED (when you start a petition)

SUBMITTED (in the immortal's queue)

IN PROGRESS (an immortal has started reviewing the petition)

APPROVED (an immortal has approved it, it is ready to be applied)

DENIED (an immortal has rejected it and provided a reason)

When you are ready to apply an APPROVED petition request, use the following command:

PETITION [petition ID] APPLY
- This will verify that the necessary items are on your person.
  - Technically it'll grab the coupons from anywhere on you, but for now let's just have everything in your inventory.
- This will consume the coupons and perform the string operation and end the petition.

NOTE: Petitions do not currently save over crashes/reboots. That's on the docket for the future.

New Feature: Skill Timers

Definition: Ability to optionally use a re-use timer rather than suffer full skill lag; Imposes a 1-round skill lag after skill (4.5 seconds); Initial 1-round lag is followed by a 2-round recycle timer (9 seconds)
Era Abilities: Abilities that halve wait times of a skill will still work on skill timer enabled skills; Should the Era Ability be applied, it applies half the full skill lag and does not apply a timer; Example: First aid would simply have the 1-round skill lag
Skills Available: Only First Aid & Field Surgery are capable of using the feature at time of launch
Command: Can be changed for individual skills via SKILLTIMERS command; Syntax: SKILLTIMERS SET <skill name>/ALL; Syntax: SKILLTIMERS UNSET <skill name>/ALL

New Feature: Soulbound & Player-Unique Items

Soulbound Items: Immortals are now able to flag items as SOULBOUND; Stay with the PC, even after death and/or even if they're in a container; At least two (both weapons) are live at Feature Release
Player-Unique Items: May only possess one at a time; Multiples can be kept in houses; Report anything fishy. Seriously.

New Feature: Auto-Help

Two auto-help components have been added to Legend. One is a Newbie auto-help which gives messages the first time something happens (Think: First time you kill a mob, first time you level, etc). You'll see these messages once and it'll track them going away (you can reset them if you like and get them again). Think things you wouldn't want to see every time you did something.

The Second is an Always-On auto-help (there's a config to turn it off) where it provides an auto-help in response to another command. For example: You examine an object. After what normally appears you get an auto-help message that says 'You can get more information regarding this object with the INSPECT command.' And another on inspect where it says 'More information about the properties of this object can be reveled by an identify object spell.'

Most of y'all would just turn these off, but y'all also know what might be helpful. So Rufus is asking that you send him ideas regarding auto-help via direct message.

Updated Feature: Journal

Journal has been updated to act as a new way the game can track quests. This is an addition-to, not replacement for, WHOIS.

Commands:

JOURNAL

Lists Unfinished (incomplete) journal entries & note how many there are complete

JOURNAL INCOMPLETE

Gives the same information as 'JOURNAL'

JOURNAL COMPLETE

Lists completed journal entries

JOURNAL AREA [keyword]

Lists quests from specified area

JOURNAL [Name or Partial Name of Entry]

Lists description & stages

New Regeneration System

The design doc is implemented... if you haven't seen it, it's floating around on the Discord forum.

In Summary

Overall, regeneration, especially hit point regeneration, has been bumped up, especially for lower levels
Regeneration is no longer nearly as stat-based.
- For extremely high stats, you get a small bump in how fast you can regenerate
You can regenerate hit points during normal regen even if you are starving, parched, bleeding, poisoned, etc.
- HOWEVER, these conditions pose a cumulative penalty to how fast you regenerate.
Move regeneration in certain situations is slower than it was
Sitting around, even if you have standing regen, can have a couple of benefits still, especially regarding movement
Standing Regen 1 and Standing Regen 2 can benefit both casters and non-casters
Root is probably stronger now than it ever has been and really drives home 'the longer you root, the faster you regen'
Iron will (courage/valor) healing has been completely reworked from the ground up
This doesn't affect +Mana Regen, +HP Regen +Move Regen equipment
THE CODE IS WAY EASIER TO READ AND ADJUST (the big reason, fwiw)

Addressing Items

Keywords

- Able to address things using multiple keywords

- This is done by joining the keywords with '+'

Example: get sword+short box

- The above example works with numbers as well (get 2.sword+short box)

Location

- Can specify an item by its location

- Includes specifying 'equipment', 'inventory', and 'ground' (or abbreviations)

Example: shake ground.box

Example: shake inv.sword

Extent of Capabilities

- Location & keyword specifications can ALL be combined

Example: get 2.sword+short gr.3.box+lost+found

- The above example would get the 2nd sword with both 'sword' & 'short' kws from the 3rd box on the ground that has all 3 kws of 'box', 'lost', & 'found'

Config

- New Config called 'Config IndexKeywords'

- This configuration is OFF by default

- Allows PCs to address items with #.<KW> & have the item found anywhere in a room

- Searches Inventory first, then Ground

Command

- INDEXKEYWORD [kw] details how objects can be addressed

- The command can be shortened to INDEX

- This will show the object's number/location

New Commands

Queue

- Shows what commands you have queued up

- Can now queue commands that would normally be a fast command

- This is done by typing 'Queue <command> [arguments]'

Group Chant

- Allows certain spells to be cast on the caster's whole group at once

- Available GroupChant spells can be viewed by typing GROUPCHANT without arguments

- Casting syntax remains the same: GROUPCHANT [word] [word] [word] EX [target]

- Costs 4x the mana of the normal spell

- Incurs 3x spell lag as the normal spell

- These spells will never fail

Triage

- Heals multiple grouped PCs at once

- The person with the highest percentage of hitpoints missing gets priority & higher healing

- The person with the second highest percentage of hitpoints missing gets second priority, less healing than 1st priority but more than 3rd priority, etc.

Example: Lamia is missing 20% of her HP (80hp/100hp) & Huma is missing 15% of his HP (255hp/300hp)

Lamia would get 1st priority, Huma 2nd priority

- If a free bandage is in the surgeon's inventory & a PC being triaged is bleeding/healed, they will also be auto-bandaged

- Yes, the bandage is consumed after this.

- Base healing amount is [the PC's level - 10]

- Each subsequent person being healed will be healed by [MAX - 8]

- Triage heals during combat are healed at 80% efficiency (same as Field Surgery)

- Additional Healing:

- Every 10 points Mind is over 50 earns +1 (+5 at 100 mind)

- Every 10 points Spirit or Perception is over 50 earns +1 (+5 at 100 Spirit or Perception)

- +4 for every level of the Improved Healing Era Ability

- This allows for a maximum of +62 at 100 Mind/100[Spirit or Perception] with all Improved Healing tiers

Pause

- Manually enter an amount of time to Wait

- You can Pause up to 18 seconds total

- Waits imposed by Pause can never be halved by Era Abilities

- You can (now) use PAUSE while in any position

(Like a safeword? Lamia asks, getting banned from connecting for 5 minutes.)
Syntax: - PAUSE # (places a wait of # seconds); - PAUSE # SECONDS (see above); - PAUSE # ROUNDS (pauses a number of fight rounds - 4.5 second increments); - PAUSE # PULSES (pauses a number of pulses - .25 second increments)

Resurrection Updates

Standard Resurrection Spell: - Still the same as it has always been, down to the component and requirements that need to be met
Corpses: - Resurrection can now be cast on a PC's corpse; - For success, the corpse's owner must have a Death Shroud; - Once spell is cast, the corpse's owner has 1 minute to respond to the echoed message; - RESACCEPT will transport the PC to their corpse; - Two resurrections can be cast upon a corpse; - If the corpse's owner declines RESACCEPT the counter still increases; - Upon accepting a resurrection, the shroud vanishes; - Death Shroud Resurrection will still inflict Resurrection sickness
Resurrection Notes: - Resurrection can only be cast on a corpse within 1 hour of death; - This includes Crystal and Death Shroud resurrections
Death Shrouds: - Negligible in size & weight and cost 1 Rent; - Available at Douban for 9250 gold each; - Soulbound items, so they remain with you after you die; - Can only possess one Death Shroud at a time (in inv/bag/etc)

Chant Updates

Spell Failure: - Formula to determine spell failure has changed drastically; - 25% chance to fail when spell is first learned/cast; - Every level gained decreases failure chance by 5% to a minimum of 5%; - Every cast level gained decreases failure chance by 5% to a minimum of 5%; - Level 50 mages will likely fail a spell more often than previously
Failure Recast: - Immediately recasting after a failure reduces failure chance by 5%; - This is applied after the standard Spell Failure rate/cap
Concentration: - Plus or Minus affects are applied after the standard Spell Failure cap/rate
Rage: - Increases Spell Failure chance

Spell Damage Update

Meteor (and all spells really)

- Weren't supposed to be able to do more than half of something's maximum hit points.

- This bug has been fixed, but it means a pretty significant change as to what mobs you can just walk in and eliminate with a single spell.

Additional Spell Changes

- If you higher level than the mob, you can do as much damage as the spell will do.

- The mob must have at least a certain number of hit points for the half-max-hit-points attenuator kicks in.

- Below this the mob will take full damage.

This is to accommodate the mobs we've intentionally designed to be trivial regardless of their level.

Vivification Update

Healing Chances

- No longer percentage-based

- Cooldown timers have been reduced & are based on tier

Tier 1: Heal 400 - 120 minute Cooldown

Tier 2: Heal 500 - 90 minute Cooldown

Tier 3: Heal 600 - 60 minute Cooldown

Costs: - Now costs 50 mana & 50 move; - Lack of required Mana/Move won't prevent an attempt, just set PC to 0
Targets: - No longer needs to be sleeping; - Must be in the operating PC's group (no change); - Can vivificate PCs who are fighting at reduced efficiency (80% heal); - No longer stuns the patient; - Places a 1 combat round Disorient check on the patient
General Use: - Skill lag reduced to 3 rounds; - No longer has a chance to fail if Surgeon is disoriented or having spasms

Backstab Update

Stat Checks

- More "Perception based" now

- Still requires a Dex weapon

- No longer tries fancy stuff with the hit table

- More accurate due to Perception check

Bonuses & Penalties

- Bonus for Hiding, Sneaking, Invisibility, Vanish to the chance to hit

- Penalty if you backstab something that's already in combat (no change)

- Hide/Sneak/Invis/etc bonuses apply even in the aforementioned penalty situation

- Bonuses apply against mobs that are fighting, even if they wouldn't apply normally

Example: NPC can see Sneaking and DET HIDDEN, it will still be hyper-aware when not in combat

But if the NPC is fighting, you can counteract the In-Combat penalty by now being able to sneak/hide and attack

Deadly Precision: - Backstab now takes the skill into account in all cases
Skill Knowledge: - Knowing Backstab improves Landing & Paralyze chance at 105 Perception

Nightvision Update

Toggling: - The skill now has an active component; - Typing 'Nightvision' will toggle it on and off; - Toggling the skill should NOT break Hide
Additions: - Allows PC to see completely in the dark, even in Indoor rooms; - Ability extends to 'Scan' as well
Skill Cost: - 30 move to start; - Continues to cost 30 move every 9 seconds; - Will continue when move reaches 0 but move will remain at 0

Fist Fighting Update

Availability

- Now available to all hometowns starting at level 2

Attack Information

- Adds bare-handed attacks (not wielding a weapon)

- Allows 4 special attacks: Jab, Cross, Hook, Upercut

Special Attacks are reduced for any TWO_HANDED items you're holding & SHIELD items

Special Attacks can be used while wielding a weapon but are less effective

Stat Requirements: - This is a STR & DEX skill with CON & PERC requirements; - HITROLL & DAMROLL are very important to the build
Skill Damage & Lag: - Damage scales with the level of the PC; - Each Special Attack incurs 1-round of lag; - Uses the highest of STR or CON; - It then compares that to the stat of the Special Attack (Con, Str, Dex, or Perc); - Some Specials do more damage while others are more likely to trigger combos
Combos: - When triggered, the PC makes additional swings; - Also has the ability to DAZE an opponent
Additional Notes: - Secondaries work with barehanded fighting; - Special Attacks can be used even if entranced; - Arcane Mages must have AUTOATTACK 'off' to have the benefits of Arcane Mastery; - This skill is 'under construction' and isn't meant to be an entire character archetype by itself

General Skill & Spell Updates

Dual Wield - Weapon Spells

- A weapon in a dual wield slot has a slightly lower chance of its spell(s) going off.

Dual wield

- Primary weapon can be up to 15 max damage

- Secondary is capped at 10 max damage

Be aware that we'll be monitoring this one pretty closely to see how it balances out over the long run.

Case

- Removed from the prereqs for Mark Target

- It's supposed to be prereq, but it went very long without being a prereq so we'll just remove it for now.

Scan & Mark Target

- If you know SCAN you can MARK TARGET NPCs in adjacent rooms

Syntax: SPOT [NPC] [direction]

- SCAN should no longer break Hide but will continue to break Aim

Evasion

- No longer required for Mark Target

Flashing Blade

- Will now count towards weapons whose fighting stat differs from the fighting stat of the weapon's primary damage type

Backstab

- Damroll is properly applied for Backstab

- Now has fewer swings in the range of damage & scales better with levels

- Damage done from low-maxdam weapons & high-maxdam weapons is the same if the weapon quality is the same

Example: Q5 6MaxDam = Q5 9MaxDam

- This is due to it being less about the weapon and more about where the weapon is put

Hint: In the spine

Anatomy

- Available to all hometowns

- No longer has a Spirit requirement

- Mind requirement lowered by 5 points

- Improves chance to land a backstab & to paralyze with a backstab

Merge & Roll Bandage

- Drastically reduced skill lag (to like 0.5 seconds)

First Aid & Surgery

- Skill Timers (see section above) allow for more flexibility with multi-tasking

- This is done via alternating OPERATE and FIRST AID using SKILLTIMERS

Arcane Mastery

- Now 25% more likely to sneak a spell past Magic Sink

- Maximum chance of a cast against Magic Sink is 90% instead of 75%

- Arcane Mage Magic Sink is more effective against weapon/object-cast spells for the caster only

- NPCs are no longer Arcane Masters innately

Protection from Fire Spell

- Now costs 40 mana instead of 20 mana

- No longer need to cast twice to get the full effect

- Spell can now be renewed & removed via REMOVEAFF

Self-Refreshing Spell

- Refresh Spell on weapons has been toned down a bit

- Will still go off as often

- Effects are more in-line with self-healing spells on other weapons

Locate Person

- Only works on PCs under 2 conditions

Condition: You are grouped with the PC

Condition: You are able to engage in PK with that PC

- Spell can still be used on NPCs without issue

Meditate

- Mind requirement reduced to 52

Post-Citizenship Quest Spellbook

- If you learn a different school of magic than you knew before the "old" spells won't appear in your spellbook.

- You do, however, retain the casting level.

Weapon Poisoning

- Now leaves the original spell on the weapon intact

- Poison now wears off after a number of uses based on the poisoner's level

Note: this ONLY applies to weapons, not ammo/other poisonable items

Bash: - Can now TUMBLE out of a failed Bash
Kick: - Is now quite a bit more accurate; - Now has 1-round skill lag; - Guaranteed to do at least 5 points of damage
Bastion: - Preventing turns should work ~85% of the time; - If the NPC is coded to turn via acts, it will still succeed in turning; - Turn prevention DOES work when you aren't awake (stunned, etc)
Blindfighting: - You can now feint while blind if you have this skill; - Messages for being unable to feint have been tweaked
Shooting: - You can now shoot in under water rooms
Reload: - 'Reload' without arguments will attempt to reload HELD bow/gun; - Must have the appropriate ammo worn on AUX slots or in inventory; - It will NOT work for bows/guns in inventory
Block: - Ability to block a swing has returned

General Code Updates

AC/Hit Table

- Minor adjustment to how AC works

- In many cases AC wasn't being applied correctly

- NPCs and PCs should be hit less frequently, now

Death Penalty Changes

- No longer gain a ton of xp from fleeing when no-pre-50-death xp loss is on

- In fact, before 50, you shouldn't lose xp when you flee), or in some instances, lose massive, massive amounts of xp

- When you're under a death penalty, it won't lie to you about how much exp you gain

Fight Safety

- Attempting to kill something more than 4 lvls above you will stop the PC and give a warning

- This can be turned off with CONFIG FIGHTSAFETY

Novice Channel

- Removed from the game

- New characters are subscribed to Chat and Info

Rent Calculations

- Internal code has been changed to eliminate global variables

- Report anything wonky with rent if you see it (saving, cataloging, etc)

Housing

- Exits leading into Player Housing appear in { }

Example: [ n, {e}, s, w]

Weapon Damage

- Global damage maximum for weapons striking armor has been reduced

Bound Items

- Can no longer be put in Donation boxes

Timers

- Now sort by time-remaining, shortest to longest

- Removed from 'Attributes' display

- Can be viewed via 'Timers' command, 'Status' command, & added to Prompts

Prompt Code: @#0 - Timer Expiring the Soonest

Prompt Code: @#1 - Timer Expiring the Next Soonest

Prompt Code: @#2 - Timer Expiring the Third Soonest

- Prompt Codes will appear as empty strings if there isn't an active timer

Character Levels

- Now show in WHO and WHOSHORT for anyone

Saving Characters

- Even if attached to an account, characters must exist in game for 30 minutes or be level 2 before they will save

Attribute Update

- You can see your stats at level 1 in the menu and in-game

- Stats can now go negative.

- All skills now have a minimum stat requirement of 1 in every stat (at least)

- Some Notes:

- If you have a stat that is exactly 0, it will show as -1.

This is to prevent crashes until we can root out all the instances where we might divide by 0

- Consequently, we've reduced some stat requirements for some skills (things like a 5 spirit req are now a 1 spirit req).

- There are no longer hitroll and damroll penalties for low spirit

SHIELD slot: - This is not the ARM slot, but SHIELD slot; - Wearing a SHIELD slot item while bashing grants a 75% chance you'll remain standing on a fail

Bug Fixes

XP Transfer

- Should no longer take your xp if you fail to give it a proper destination

Deadly Precision

- Will no longer break hide

True Form Spell

- Fixes how one could get infinite mana by casting it on an object that wasn't there

Tailor

- Skill use for some material types (leather, fur) fixed

Mark Target

- Skill use will decrease AC rather than increase it

Etheric Archers

- Should be better about owners being flagged for quests/etc

- They might still steal XP, though

Negative Hitroll

- If you have negative hitroll & are sitting you no longer get better at hitting things

Weapons & Hitroll

- If stat type is specified, the weapon will now use that stat to determine hitroll

Dancing Sword

- Will no longer have an insane amount of HP

- If you thought this was intentional, try harder at life

Secondary Weapons

- Damroll is fully applied to secondaries

Strength & Hands

- Strength calculation completely removed from 'number of hands' formula