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How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Mapper

Sunday, 19 February 2023 by Epsilon

The MUSHClient mapper can be daunting for a new player, but it’s fairly simple in concept. It keeps track of every room you’ve ever visited, and stores that information in a database. With the information it gathers, it’s able to navigate you back to any room you’ve walked to.

The operative term here is “walked” – by default, mapper can’t deal with custom exits, teleports, or anything else that’s not movement. The purpose of this guide is to point out some of the major features of mapper.

The mapper is useful for campaigns, quests, and global quests. Ever wonder how someone can finish an entire GQ in three minutes while you’re trying to find your first mob? The answer is mapper.

Note that this is NOT intended to replace the “mapper help” command – only to point out some of the more basic tasks that aren’t explained well. With that said, this also isn’t an advanced guide – I won’t be diving too deeply into most of the commands. If something isn’t explained here, the clan or tech channels are your best resources.

mapper resume

After issuing a mapper goto command, you end up getting caught by an aggro or running right into a door. Gotta type the vnum again, right? Nope. Just use mapper resume and it’ll reissue the last mapper goto command you used.

mapper next #

When you do a mapper find or a mapper area search, you’ll sometimes get a list of rooms. You can do mapper next and just step through the rooms one-by-one, but you can also do mapper next 4 (for example) to go to the fourth room in the list.

mapper cexit

A lot of people are confused by cexits. They’re fairly simple in concept – the cexit is just the commands you’d execute to get to your next room. It’s interesting to note that mapper cexits work for anything – custom exits, static portals (i.e. something loaded into a room,) and even opening doors and going through them.

To create a cexit, use a command like the following:
mapper cexit open e;;e
mapper cexit say ready
mapper cexit enter jet
mapper cexit n;;wait(10)

Note that the semicolon is doubled – this “escapes” MUSHClient’s built-in stack character so only a single semicolon makes it into the command that mapper stores. Note that you’ll have to use whatever your stack character is set to and double that – this doesn’t apply to most people, though.

Note the last example with the wait command – this tells the mapper that you need to wait for some reason between commands. This shouldn’t need to be used too often, but it can be useful in limited cases.

mapper cexit_wait

This is a command you issue before you set up a cexit. It just tells the mapper to wait for the specified number of seconds before resolving the cexit. This is useful for certain areas such as Sho’aram or Kobaloi, where there’s a scripted delay before you get transferred to the next room.

mapper lockexit

Ganked by angry drunks with vorpal table legs? Stand outside and issue the mapper lockexit command, and it’ll keep you from pathing through that room. It’s a simple dialog box – it’ll ask you to specify a level where you’ll finally be able to path through the room again.

mapper portal

The mapper portal has a similar syntax to the mapper cexit command, but it’s worth noting that it’s used differently.

When issuing any of these commands, make sure you’ve already worn and entered your portal – the command will set whatever room you’re in as the portal destination.

Your basic portal command will be something to the effect of:
mapper portal wear portal;;enter

Most people have their portals in a bag though, so they’ll want to get it from the dedicated bag, use it, and then remove it and put it back into the bag:
mapper portal get portal bag;;wear portal;;enter;;remove portal;;put portal bag

Still others have the portal slot wish, and are always holding some kind of portal in their hand. You might have something like this if you’ve got an Amulet of Aardwolf you always wear:
mapper portal get portal bag;;wear portal;;enter;;wear amulet;;put portal bag

And yet others have good stat portals (e.g. Tiger of Kai) that they’ll wear at the appropriate level. In that case, you make a MUD-side alias (something like “alias wearportal wear tiger”) that you can change up as you level:
mapper portal get portal bag;;wear portal;;enter;;wearportal;;put portal bag

Even if you don’t have the dedicated portal slot, you might have dual wield and want to re-wear your weapon automatically:
alias weardual second weaponname
mapper portal get portal bag;;wear portal;;enter;;weardual;;put portal bag

mapper addnote

Mapper notes are valuable for remembering stuff. When you add a note to a room, it will show up every time you enter that room, and you can also issue the “mapper notes” command to see all of your notes. These notes could be anything: locations for heal potions in the manor area, directions to find a key for a particular room, or even just an amusing comment on a room’s description.

mapper addnote okay done with the guide i’m out hope it was useful

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So you want to be an enchanter?

Sunday, 11 December 2022 by Epsilon

What are enchants?

Typically, when someone talks about enchanting, they’re talking about the three enchants that require specific flags – resonate, illuminate, and solidify.

Resonate requires the object to NOT have the (Hum) or (H) flag, and maxes out at +3 luck and +2 in a random stat.

Illuminate requires the object to NOT have the (Glow) or (G) flag, and maxes out at +4 wisdom and +4 luck.

Solidify requires the object to HAVE the (Invis) or (I) flag, and maxes out at +6 damage roll OR +6 hit roll – not both.

Note that the other enchantment spells/skills (enchant weapon, enchant armor, sharpen, and reinforce) aren’t really worth it – they cause the object’s level to raise for very little overall benefit, and have a chance of ruining the equipment.

Why would I want to enchant my own gear?

Doing your own enchanting gives you control over the exact stat spread you want. If you want luck and wisdom, make sure all your gear is enchantable with illuminate. If you want damage roll, make sure it’s all able to be solidified. If you want a spread of stats, ensure it’s able to be resonated.

How do I enchant my gear?

Ideally, you want to be, y’know, an enchanter. This means primary class Mage, subclass Enchanter. You want your “enchanter stats” close to being maxed – it’s not 100% required, but you’ll have a bad time if they’re below about 550 with all your spellups active. Realistically, you want them to be as close to 600 as possible with all your spellups.

Your enchanter stats are luck, intelligence, and wisdom. You’ll want them as high as possible for the best chances of a good enchant.

You’ll also want to plan. Make sure you know where the gear is and how you’re going to get it. If it’s something you need to kill a mob for, make sure you get a stash of it to work with – unlike open clan gear, you can’t just sell it and then buy it back to “reset” it. Also make sure you have a sense of what’s “good enough” for enchanting mob gear – you’ll usually have to settle for something not-quite-maxed if you don’t want to have to kill a mob a hundred times for the gear they drop.

You’ll want to make sure you have containers to sort your gear sets into. Personally, I have the following containers:

[Recruit] Leather Backpack (Level 200 gear)
(Seekers) Urn of Awakening (Level 171-181 gear)
/|\Veil of Realms/|\ (Level 131-141 gear)
Malevolent {chaos} Luggage (Level 91-101 gear)
Mab’s Agony Box (Level 61-71 gear)
Guitar Case (Level 41 gear)
Satchel of Sanctity (Level 1 gear)

This just helps to keep things organized when you’re going through your gear sets. It’s certainly not required, but it’s nice to have.

You’ll want a LOT of gold. I spent somewhere around 50 or 75M gold on enchanting my gear, but that’s for 6 sets as per the above – you can get by with only a couple million if you’re doing a level 1 set, for example.

You’ll want to have a sense of just how good you want your gear to be. You can get through enchanting a lot more quickly if you’ll settle for something that’s not maxed out, and you might have to do so for sanity’s sake if your stats aren’t maxed. There’s a couple of options/schools of thought:

  • Max all the things! Make sure you get a maximum enchant for both types you can apply to the gear.
    • Pros: Highest stat boost from the enchanted gear.
    • Cons: oh god i have been enchanting for a week straight please kill me
  • One max enchant. Make sure that one of the enchants are maxed out, and then let the other one land where it may.
    • Pros: If you start by enchanting each piece with the one you want to max out, you know basically immediately if it’s worth keeping.
    • Cons: Lower stats, but still pretty good.
  • +x points worth of stats. Enchant, and make sure you’ve got at least a certain number of added stats.
    • Pros: Two chances to hit a good enchant, since you’ll need to cast both spells to see what you get.
    • Cons: Need to cast both spells before you know if something is worth keeping.

How do I plan my gear?

The easiest way, and the way I’m going for in this guide, is to use eqsearch. Look up each slot, pick something for each level, stick it all in a spreadsheet, and just mark things off the list as you enchant them. Note that you can “eqsearch <slot>” at SH and get a list of everything eqsearchable in that slot.

Here’s an example line from my own spreadsheet:

1
Satchel
41
Guitar Case
71
Mab’s Agony Box
101
Chaos Luggage
131
Veil of Realms
171
Urn of Awakening
eyes Clear Vision
1int
Amethyst Eye Lens
2dex 2int 4dr
Disciple’s Watchful Eye
6int 2dr 30hp
Eyes of Enlightenment
5str 5dex 2dr
Reporter’s Sharp Eye
13int 6dr 15mana
Reporter’s Sharp Eye
13int 6dr 15mana

At level 201, I simply typed “eqsearch eyes” and picked things with the highest score for the level ranges I wanted. Note that the gear you choose is going to largely depend on your primary class – the above is good for a mage, but wouldn’t be so good for a warrior or a thief primary class since the stats tend to be int-heavy.

It’s worth remembering that sometimes, your eqsearch items might not have something better at a higher level – in the example above, the Reporter’s Sharp Eye (from Gaardian) is actually better than anything else that exists at level 171, based on the stats I wanted when I was doing my enchanting.

Note that if you’re focusing on specific enchant types (e.g. trying to go heavy on the damroll,) you’ll have to go scout the equipment wherever it’s sold and find out if it has the appropriate flags – open clan gear will only be enchantable with TWO of the three available enchantments. If you want damroll, you’ll need to make sure that whatever gear you’re going for is invis, for example.

It’s beyond the scope of this guide, but you might also want to check out the “compare set” command – it’ll help you tweak the scores presented to you, and it’ll let you focus on the stat or stats you want.

Alright, I’ve planned – how do I enchant?

Find where whatever you want is sold, buy an item, cast the appropriate enchants on it, identify it to see if it’s what you want, and either put it away or sell it back. Repeat hundreds of times.

Keep the rules under “help enchantbot” in mind – it’s easy to run afoul of them if you’re not careful.

My own enchanting was just using the following command stack (legal, per the first bullet point in “help enchantbot”):

sell <equipment>;buy <equipment>;cast resonate <equipment>;lore <equipment>

This would sell the previous item (assuming I didn’t tuck it in a bag,) re-buy it, cast resonate, and then identify it. At that point, I could make a decision on whether it was worth keeping the item for the second enchant or not (if it was, I’d put it in a bag, and not go through the second enchants until I had 5 or 6 “perfect” first enchants.) I personally went for the “max all the things” option with my enchanting, so your own style/set of commands may differ.

If you have leavings from enchanting, get a container and stick ‘em in the room south of clan recall! Even a “bad” enchant might be really useful for someone just starting out who doesn’t have the stats to do enchanting for themselves!

What is enchanter’s focus? What about three moons? Isn’t disenchantment a thing?

Three moons is a scam.

… okay, fine, it’s not a scam, but as far as I can tell, it’s useless for an actual enchanter. Basically, don’t worry about the moons – you’re going to spend enough time enchanting a full gear set that you’ll never notice any difference in the first place.

Disenchantment to try again!

Someone with an enchanter subclass can “disenchant” a piece of gear for free, once per-enchant-per-item. If you identify an item, you can see if you can do a free disenchant at the bottom where the enchantments are listed:

+—————————————————————–+
| Keywords : ring eternal strength seekers1finger |
| Name : Ring of Eternal Strength |
| Id : 2682022109 |
| Worn : Left finger |
| Type : Treasure Level : 1 |
| Worth : 250 Weight : 1 |
| Wearable : finger |
| Score : 122 |
| Material : gold |
| Flags : unique, glow, hum, magic, held, burn-proof, |
| : nolocate, solidified, resonated, V3 |
| Clan Item : From The Seekers |
+—————————————————————–+
| Stat Mods : Strength : +1 Luck : +3 |
| Wisdom : +2 Damage roll : +6 |
+—————————————————————–+
| Enchants: |
| Solidify : Damage roll +6 (removable with TP only) |
| Resonate : Wisdom +2 (removable by enchanter) |
| : Luck +3 (removable by enchanter) |
+—————————————————————–+

Note the two different values – “removable by enchanter” and “removable with TP only”. “removable by enchanter” means that you can use the disenchant command on it for free. The “removable with TP only” means that when enchanting this, I got a bad roll once, disenchanted it, and tried again – if I got a bad roll again, I’d have had to pay 3TP to disenchant it and try again.

In my opinion, it’s not actually worth using disenchantment on your first attempt even as an enchanter – it’s quicker to just sell the gear back and buy it again. It’s definitely worth using your free disenchant on a bad second attempt, once you’ve got one good-or-perfect enchant on there.

It is NEVER worth spending TP to disenchant open clan gear – just buy it and try again. Even on level 171 stuff, you’re not going to spend 33M (i.e. the rough price of 3TP) trying to get a second good enchant.

Enchanter’s focus?

Enchanter’s focus just gives you a chance to avoid entirely failing an enchant, which adds (or removes) the flag without giving an actual enchantment. This means that you can’t disenchant it – it’s a bad thing. Enchanter’s focus also adds some stats, so it’s good to have it up and running when it’s available anyway. It’s certainly not required though, at least for first enchants – you’re just going to fail more gear and spend a bit more money. You definitely want it up when you’re doing the second enchants though – you don’t want to fail enchanting that nice +4/+4 illuminate you got with the second spell!

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Instinct Guide – What and Why?

Sunday, 04 December 2022 by Epsilon

Why would I get instinct?

Instinct gives a bonus on top of your existing percentage for certain skills and spells. This bonus isn’t linear – an extra 100 points may give 20% total bonus, while an extra 200 points may only give a 30% total bonus.

There’s a common set of “instinctable” skills/spells, and then unique ones based on your pclass:

Available to everyone:

  • Incomplete healing
  • Toxic Cloud
  • Restore Life
  • Renew
  • Fourth Attack
  • Heal
  • Sanctuary
  • Vitality
  • Third Attack
  • Fast Healing
  • Haste
  • Dual Wield
  • Second Attack
  • Protection Good
  • Protection Evil
  • Meditation
  • Enhanced Damage
  • Dodge

Class-specific:

Mage:

  • Miasma
  • Toxic Cloud
  • Immolate
  • Air Skewer (Elementalist only)
  • Earthen Hammer (Elementalist only)
  • Ice Daggers (Elementalist only)
  • Spear of Odin (Sorceror only)

Ranger:

  • Gaia’s Revenge
  • Eruption

Psionicist:

  • Desolation
  • Mindflay (Mentalist only)
  • Necrocide (Necromancer only)

Cleric:

  • Regeneration
  • Voice of God

Warrior:

  • Hammering blow
  • Ironfist (Barbarian only)
  • Precision (Soldier only)

Paladin:

  • Heavenly Balance
  • Test of Faith
  • Apocalypse
  • Holy Reprisal (Avenger only)

Thief:

  • Knife Fighting
  • Spiral
  • Scorpion Strike (Ninja/Venomist only)

When should I get instinct?

There’s no hard and fast rule, but in general, “when you can afford it.” Your initial trains will probably be better spent on maxing out your stats first.

What should I get instinct in?

There’s a few choices here. Whether you go for offense or defense first depends on your playstyle. For example, someone heavily into epics may want to focus on defensive abilities first to increase survivability, whereas someone into questing and powerups may wish to focus on offensive abilities to kill targets more quickly.

As a general rule, offense is going to be more effective than defense – this is similar to the argument for using dual wield vs. weapon + shield. More (and/or stronger) attacks means you kill mobs faster, which means you spend less time in combat and take less damage overall. Defensive instinct is typically only going to be useful at SH level.

Initially dropping a single point into multiple useful instincts could also be valuable, because it gives you a chance (however small) to gain a benefit from it, and single points are (relatively) cheap.

As a general rule, 25 points in two similar or related skills/spells will be better than 50 points in a single one due to the diminishing returns on instinct points. Also note that 50 points in a single instinct are more expensive than 25 points in two, due to how instinct costs scale – spreading your instinct around will tend to allow you to get more of it overall. For example, 25 instinct in a single skill/spell is ~11k trains, while 50 instinct in a single skill/spell is ~60k trains. You can get 25 instinct in 4 skills/spells for what you’d spend on a single one at 50.

What instinct is best to get?

First and foremost – the best instinct is one that you’ll actually use. Don’t get instinct for a skill/spell you never actually utilize, or it’s just wasted trains (and money.)

  • Sanctuary is roughly equivalent to Dodge, though Dodge is going to tend to be better if you’re fighting mobs with lots of attacks or lots of mobs at once. Sanctuary is a flat percentage damage reduction, whereas Dodge gives an extra chance for 100% damage reduction on each attack. Dodge is going to shine if there’s a lot of attacks incoming, while Sanctuary is going to tend to be overall more reliable (albeit to a lower degree.)
  • For melee, Fourth Attack is going to be better than the other attacks, since it’s more rare in the first place – you’re going to tend to get more benefit out of 10% extra in Fourth attack vs. Third or Second.
  • Also for melee, dual wield and haste are going to be roughly equivalent – but remember that spreading the points around is going to tend to give a better return than focusing on just one.
  • For a spellcaster, your best spell at higher levels is going to tend to be what you use instinct on. It may be worth putting some points into a lower spell that you get faster though, if you do a lot of leveling and less sitting at SH.
    • Example: for a mage, putting instinct into Miasma would give you more damage in the long run than putting it into Immolate, since you get the Miasma spell 20 levels earlier.
    • On the flip side, putting instinct into Immolate may be better if you don’t get dragged or you do want to sit at SH – the extra damage is more useful at the higher levels.
  • Fast healing and meditation are underrated instinctable abilities – fast healing can equal up to 1k hp in a tick simply while standing around, and meditation can massively improve mana regeneration when brewing potions (and you don’t need to spend money on mana pots that way.)
  • Enhanced Damage is an overrated instinct – because it doesn’t always trigger, it’s going to tend to give you less overall damage than fourth attack. An extra 10% chance at +100% extra weapon damage (i.e. that fourth attack) is better than three extra 10% chances of +10% damage (i.e. enhanced damage triggering on a strike when it may not have otherwise done so.)

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Xaeris for providing most of the actual useful content for this guide, and Saraid and Blunt for giving it a sanity check.

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