Welcome to the TownCrier's Daily Discord Digest.

In this space, we at the TownCrier will attempt to provide a daily digest of select conversations at the Official GemStone IV Discord server covering a 24-hour period from 10 pm EST the night previous to 10 pm EST of the night listed in the title. Not all conversations will be (nor can be) reported and we will endeavor to utilize a neutral tone (although our unique senses of humor may show through).

Links may go to the Official Discord post itself, to the GemStone IV Wiki, or other useful and relevant places. In the case of Discord links, those links will send you to the Discord web interface. If you are not signed in, you will need to be signed in to see them.

The digest was created by and is edited by the player of Qafziel Nalfein/Darcena Wolf-Valslayer - Jen. Have an error to report on this digest or some information to pass along? Contact Jen on Discord at ArmyJen#0001 or e-mail her. Please reference which digest day to which you are referring.

What You Missed

My gratitude to the following individuals for assisting in the compilation of this Discord Digest: Luxelle (#scripting) and Laralana (#general, #prime, #help, #roleplay-in-elanthia).

We are still looking for a volunteer to take on #roleplay-in-elanthia on a permanent basis!

General GemStone IV

#prime

Nordred said, “this board needs to be kept away from me, at all times or silliness abounds.” Check out his hilarious advert for the Rooks posted on the bulliten board outside the Moot Hall in Wehnimer’s Landing!

#premium

GM Quilic posted a forum link entitled Nahor Chronicles – Preparations and Dark Deeds.

GM Quilic announced, “Speaking of: There have been some discussions about “hiatus-time”, and a pretty strong case has been made for giving you guys a ‘break’ from the constant strife, and possibly just do some pure “fun” stuff before the next storyline, as a way to get people comfortable with the idea of Mist Harbor being a place worth fighting for/protecting.” He continued, “My concern has always been people losing interest, though. I don’t want to lose any momentum that’s been gained as people drift away and take on other things, then don’t drift back for the next story. So I’m noodling it, and no decisions will be made today, by any means, but I thought I’d see what you all thought.”

GM Quilic later posted, “I mean… I’m still “me”. There’s only so much rainbow and unicorn that’s EVER going to happen so long as I’m telling the story. But I’ve thought about doing Penre’s story. Or Ilsola’s. Or Greth’s. Just small things, enjoyable, to flesh out those characters a bit and hopefully build some appreciation for the town’s personalities (and personality)”

And, “Agreed, Amalara. I think a palate-cleansing break is probably a good idea, unless someone has a strong argument against it. Next storyline will come when it comes, and hopefully people are willing to jump back into it, but I’ll lose MORE folks if I just keep you all on the treadmill.”

GM Quilic said, “I re-upped the number of fishies allowed through Xerria […] The two new tiers are going to be limited, so giving people the best chance at them is a good thing. T5 is going to be ~30, T6 probably closer to 10. And I swear, no more tiers, ever. I’m on to the next thing.”

#mechanics

Leafiara commented, “Especially since I got no answer to my recent question about whether ranger base ranks past level continue to strengthen 616. We’d know the answer immediately if it was SMRv2!” ASGM Estild answered, “Yes, ranger spell ranks past level help with 616.”

ASGM Estild explained, “I am more forthcoming with information that directly affects how you would train your characters. A spell/ability having a crit cap does not fall into that category. Knowing if spell ranks past a certain point help does.”

ASGM Estild said, “No stat helps defend against warcries, Midgar.”

Ragz asked, “how do y’all feel about implementing the opposite of combat brief? I know combat verbose handles this currently, somewhat, but clearly there is much much more going on than what that displays. Would it be possible to get even more detailed messaging than what currently exists?”

Naamit asked, “any chance we could have alts on our accounts be automatic partners in our player shops?” And added, “Erek, this could be solved by “allowing” them to be partners rather than making them automatic. You wouldn’t need to change the number allowed in total, the player would basically have to withdraw one of her characters before adding others once the max is hit.”

Spell Critical Caps

GM Meraki asked Ragz what he meant, “What do you mean when you say “critical cap” ? Gemstone uses “critical tables” which are fairly well documented on the wiki: https://gswiki.play.net/Critical_table” GM Meraki added more, “Hmmm, I’m new to this but I don’t think “cap” is entirely the best way to describe it. Spells are complex things and there are many factors that can impact what portion of a critical table you land on (upwards OR downwards). I mean most spells do follow the general ‘less mana = less powerful’ but they aren’t necessarily all written in such a way as to be ‘capped’ – even if their formulas do essentially accomplish that in one way or another. Please don’t flay me, but it might be something better learned through player testing and mapping of results.”

Ragz responded, “My perspective on this is somewhat limited as a player, so perhaps this isn’t the correct terminology, but I was under the impression that spells like 917 and 1030 have a crit cap > 9, while lower cost spells like 309 have a crit cap < 9. The actual crit rank is capped at 9, but the power ceiling is affected in a way that limits or offsets the effects of a critical hit”

GM Meraki replied, “The end result you see is after the attack (in this case, a spell) AND the defense has acted (and anything else that might effect it). The defender might be vulnerable to the attack type (um, I think a valid example is bard song armor takes more damage from impact crits), the defender might be protected against the attack (yay for padding or elemental resists or what have you), which will alter the end result. So I think even if a ‘spell’ is naturally ‘capped’ at a certain threshold, your actual end results may vary due to circumstances. So it would even be possibly misleading to say a certain spell is capped at a certain crit rank.”

Ragz added, “Before you get to that phase, I mean. The spell itself has a cap baked into it regardless of the circumstances – no?”

GM Meraki summarized, “Spells are complex. ” Then added, “(I’m just trying to point out that the information you’re asking for isn’t an easily universal thing across all spells such that it would be super simple to pull and present that information accurately. Combat in Gemstone is really complex. Alternatively, information could be inferred via player testing to generally map out the power of spells.)”

ASGM Estild capped the conversation with, “We don’t usually release such specific details for spells/combat/etc. If players want to research it, they certainly can though, but such information isn’t really needed at that level for most players.” He added, “1030 is the only uncapped crit ability that I can think of off the top of my head. Everything else is easy enough to test for.”

Ragz then asked, “Okay wait.. how about if I ask very specifically – are there any elemental bolts with a crit cap > 9?”

ASGM Estild answered, “Actually, the log probably isn’t enough to get what you’re after. They can go higher than 9, which is useful for offsetting padding/defensive traits. But after that, it can still randomize below that point. That’s true for all AS resolutions.” He added, “Not something I’m going to look up for every spell, but feel free to ask any GM who releases new spells/abilities for such information.”

#help

Midgar asked, “if something is both rechargeable and empowerable, how does that work? It means it can just be recharged the specified amount of times?” FarFigNewGut replied “empowerable is basically rechargable, with the difference of they have a total amount of charges it can have in its lifetime before it cannot be recharged anymore.” He went on to say that “the exchange for that drawback is empowerables have a less restrictive spell list they can generate with.”

Deso said, “Incoming reNoob 740 question – am I crazy or is it possible to group transport from Teras to Landing, for example?” Rolfard answered “nope local rifts can be opened, and those grouped can pass through the rift.” He continued, “in other words, you can open a rift from Icemule to the Landing”

#scripting

Folks continued to help Symm get his Lich installed on Win 7. 

Guarrin was frustrated with the odd scrolling problems in Avalon and asks about the differences between Profanity and Avalon. Folks chimed in with answers.

Jahadeem improved his new jbackup script with new support for invdb and it now allows you to addreove and list the Lich files you are backing up. It’ll be on the repository! 

World of Elanthia

#festivals-and-events

Leafiara announced, “Join the mentors at Silverwood Manor tonight at 9 PM EST as we host this month’s Post Cap Conversations, taking your mechanics questions about cap and beyond! Questions about pre-cap are also accepted as ever. “

SimuCoin Events and Quests