Alright, I'm going to complain here, seeing as how the time I allocated after putting my daughter down for a nap and before I drop her off at the nursery on my way to work, I thought I would get in a little hunt, try to get some experience during my gift. Instead, I'm just watching the screen scroll from a pointless unavoidable death.

Lets keep in mind I had no encumberance, mobiles were up, had wizard plus ranger strength, and my hunt just started, I was carrying nothing. Let's watch what happened.

You remove a single villswood arrow from a bundle of villswood arrows.
H>fire
You nock a hunter green villswood arrow in your recurved sylvan bow.
You fire a hunter green villswood arrow at an Illoke mystic!
AS: +400 vs DS: +143 with AvD: +30 + d100 roll: +84 = +371
... and hit for 111 points of damage!
Shot destroys eye and the brain behind it!
The Illoke mystic rumbles in agony as he teeters for a moment, then falls directly at you!
Your hiding spot is ruined as you try to dodge the Illoke mystic.
In a vain attempt, you leap to dodge the massive falling creature! The mystic strikes you squarely, crushing you beneath him and the ground!

... 35 points of damage!
Vertebrae in your neck disintegrate from impact!
Neck sinks into shoulders.
You notice your blood flow go back to normal.
The brilliant luminescence fades from around you.
You feel your ambush opportunity slip away.
You return to normal color.
The deep blue glow leaves you.
You become solid again.
Your SIGN OF STRIKING is no longer effective.
A faint silvery glow fades from around you.
The white light leaves you.
The very powerful look leaves you.
You lose your extra internal fortitude.
The powerful look leaves you.
Your SIGN OF DEFENDING is no longer effective.
Your SIGN OF SHIELDS is no longer effective.
You feel the aura of confidence leave you.
The bright luminescence fades from around you.
Your SIGN OF SMITING is no longer effective.
The silvery luminescence fades from around you.
The light blue glow leaves you.
Your SIGN OF SWORDS is no longer effective.
Your SIGN OF WARDING is no longer effective.
The air about you stops shimmering.
The glowing specks of energy surrounding you suddenly shoot off in all directions, then quickly fade away.
You seem to lose the thorny barrier that surrounds you.
You are no longer moving silently.
You feel your extra strength departing.
You no longer feel so dextrous.
You no longer hear voices in your mind.
You feel less nimble.
You feel the inner strength leave you.
You feel the gathering of nature's power leave you.

It seems you have died, my friend. Although you cannot do anything, you are keenly aware of what is going on around you...

You mentally give a sigh of relief as you remember that the Goddess Lorminstra owes you a favor.

...departing in 10 mins...
Roundtime: 30 sec.
The Illoke mystic shudders one last time before lying still.
An Illoke mystic glances around, looking a bit less confident.
The brilliant luminescence fades from around an Illoke mystic.
The silvery luminescence fades from around an Illoke mystic.
The air about an Illoke mystic stops shimmering.
The bright luminescence fades from around an Illoke mystic.
The villswood arrow sticks in an Illoke mystic's left eye!
Roundtime: 5 sec.

First and foremost, gemstone is already very difficult. We all know that. That makes it fun. You have to know what you are doing to survive. What is the point of an instadeath maneuver like this that is a result of me killing the critter? What about all the spells I took the time to get ready to avoid this very thing? It seems to me this bs move must have bypassed all of that! What about the fact that I'm the same level of this critter? I already die a lot as it is, seeing as how I'm not the best gamer and I am still learning a lot about gemstone.

My main question, how is this fun?!?!?! It sucks is what. I'd rather be doing something constructive than sitting on deaths sting. I have way better things to do with the LITTLE amount of time I have. (writing rambling angry posts is not one of them) I have already had reservations if starting GS4 would be a really good use of my time. These things seem to confirm that opening my account would have been a bad idea. Argh! I'm so aggravated right now that I want to close my account because this is so stupid snd I feel that is the only way to make a point. Problem is, I do enjoy gemstone and I do appreciate everything that has gone into making it. But still...

And the excuse will be, "there is always a chance for failure" A giant stone thing falling on my NECK? How does that even happen? Gee, next time I hope I don't fumble on my avoid attempt. I'll be sure to roll extra careful next time. (rolls eyes) For the amount of money and time we pay, I think we deserve a friggin CHANCE!

~PISSED

Just to add, I've had this kill me before. Once in an instadeath move, but I was weighed down, so I said I should have been more careful. A few times from the resulting stun letting me get hit by other critters. But I was stunned, theres a small chance to get out of that. I took those in stride, I knew there were things I could have done to avoid that. What could I have done here, NOT PLAY?! That seems to be the only way. This strikes me as a bug, a coding error, whatever you want to call it, something broken.

~still pissed

Thanks for the pointer Throgg, I'm ending my account though, sorry,

~Ayamei

My vote is not to be so hasty to close your account, cause 1) we just kidnapped you back, and 2) that entire hunting area is wrought with cheap deaths.

Gain a few levels hunting troll kings and harbingers, visit the Elven Nations and hunt the muscular kobolds and emaciated roltons of Wyneb Temple, chillax with your new Housemates, and then skip the Stronghold entirely and jump straight into the Krags (oh yeah, the minotaur area got a heavy level boost and a downtweak in their instagib maneuvers while you were away, I think). Or, y'know, bring out Liskey for some fresh cigar-filled air.

The L behind the Laphrael

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a shoe.
http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Laphrael

Grrr, sometimes I'm a cry baby, sorry.

~Ayamei

I'd suggest just set a ring to the bottom of the stairs, and totally bypass that silly pit thing.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"

"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

>I knew there were things I could have done to avoid that. What could I have done here, NOT PLAY?!


I hunted my ranger through there the whole time. It's very simple, untrain whatever cmans you have now and learn 5 ranks of sweep. Throw down a vine (make sure you have 625 up) and sweep them. One of the two will put them down. That said illoke is one of the toughest areas like level in game.



Olivier/Chivalrous-Proud inventor of the causality destroying Droit ballista

(OOC) You whisper to Oweodry, "What do you think about that ACT she just did?"
>
(OOC) Oweodry's player whispers, "I think it's called the ACT verb not the IMPLICATE verb."

It all depends on what you want from a hunting area. If you want a cake walk, go east and hunt Wyneb. If you want a challenge hunt illoke or minotaurs. Illoke are harder, but the minotaurs are higher level and will get a random CMAN off on you over time...much like an illoke fist or something similar.

Frankly, when I went to Wyneb after hunting illoke I thought I was gonna fall asleep. It really is pretty simple.

The best advice was already given. SWEEP is the best tool against illoke and to counter them falling on you. I've seen 505 bolts do much the same. Certainly 1005 and 110 work, too. As a bard I swept them constantly. Make sure you are singled in physical fitness for the stamina. Radeek did the same thing...constant use of SWEEP. He was an archer, though. Not sure what you hunt with. He was pretty amazing against illoke. Darkstone was about the same as Wyneb, after a while. There's not much danger, if you get spells and know how to hunt, you will not run into much there except the random harbinger that whacks you.

As for falling in the pit. I spent 25 levels hunting in Stronghold and the Bowels. I fell in the pit less than half a dozen times. It's amazingly random and the best avoidance is a gold ring, but it's not really necessary. You just happened to have a terrible day of bad luck in which two of the more random methods of dying both hit you.

~Galenok

But that makes it challenging, and challenging is fun! How about an added check to all attempts at going up steps, stairs and ladders in the game, and if you fail the (randomized, no-skills-considered) check, you fall and get an injury, including the possibility of breaking your neck and dying?

Sarcasm in fun, but still, if there really is no way to train or otherwise prepare for and reduce the chances of these deaths (other than "avoid the situation completely"), that's just silly.

---

Farn & Co.
AIM: LastMinutePrayer
E-mail: Play.net address

>How about an added check to all attempts at going up steps, stairs and ladders in the game, and if you fail the (randomized, no-skills-considered) check, you fall and get an injury, including the possibility of breaking your neck and dying?

http://regretfulmorning.com/2010/05/hard-to-see-curb-claims-several-victims/

~Becca

Becca, that link was hilarious. Thank you so much for sharing that. Now every time someone mentions dying to a cheap death to me I'm going to refer to that! hehehe


-Adam

---

"You guys took all the pretty places." ~Anonymous

I would like to retract my previous post. The most successful of GS players apparently have children.

I hope no one remembers me for this post. I never did leave, I was just so frustrated with everything in life at this time. Very embarrassing.

As for plat, If I could transfer Ayamei there, I think I would, but I just don't have the time and motivation to start a new character from scratch.

~Ayamei

Or if you just have character ADD and think "Hey...wouldn't this be a neat character..." all the time.
-c

I've found I can limit myself by doing up the spreadsheet for the character idea in question. Mocking up a backstory and then telling myself over and over again it'll never get over level 10. I still have a lot of "great idea" characters below level 10.


Keith/Brinret