Revamp for BU, Thoughts?

[Lissette]

Lissette and Devin’s Revamped BU

• LEVELING Change the leveling system of BU so that leveling matters. By this I mean number crunch things so everyone isn’t 50-150 reborns. I would recommend taking the Reborn level such as mine 33, and turn me into a lvl 33. People such as Hoosierho who are Afterlife, would be 1 Reborn cuz she rb’d 246 times, so the level set back would = out to 1
Reborn.
• STATS Change the stat system of BU so that stats actually matter. By changing the leveling system you won’t reach max stats for a long time making stats worth something in BU. I would only give 2 stat points per level. Making the allotting of stats every so more a challenge. One could build a tank class with going CON or one could go warrior type by going all STR or one could go the ninja/accurate hitter low damage by adding AGI, or the healer by adding into WIS/INT. This concept would give BU “classes” without actually changing the class system. As for resetting the stats of players I would change their stats to the right amount based on their new levels. Level 33 would be granted 66 stats.
• EXP RATES Change the exp rates of BU. With the number crunch of levels and the change in stats, we should change the exp rate to match the pace of leveling. We don’t want people zooming through levels like crazy. When someone reborns it should be like WOW not cool that’s 5 today for you…. And when someone in this new system would reach Afterlife… its like Holy shit you have no life… We want something insane to happen when people reach after life. I’m not entirely sure to what numbers each npc should be changed to but I would be happy to sit down with Bone/Cirras/Anyone else in charge, to figure something out from a players point of view.
• HP POOLS Change the HP pools of Boss NPC in relation to where they are in the crafting chain. Every Boss in BU right now is just as hard as the ones before it, making lower levels depend on either High lvls or donations to get started. Also with the number crunch of players, I would number crunch every monster, making the server cleaner and leave sooo much room for advancement.
• LEVEL REQ This is personal liking for myself, I would change all items to unlore, but add level requirements to them. This way players can sell and buy everything but you wont be able to use high level items as a low level. No one likes working for the best items and seeing a new player have them all cuz their buddy was like here have all this free top items. I believe everyone whether they say it or not wants to feel like they are doing something when they make that craft. Possible map level requirements for boss’s but that’s not really needed if the item’s have level requirements.
• MONEY Change the way money is earned in BU. The factory boss is cool, but it’s a long walk and hard to kill for low levels. Instead I would do this.. Change mining or fishing around. I would personally revamp Fishing, get rid of all the big junk you get from it and and instead make fishing catch *Scrolls of money* which can be sold to the fisherman for money. Also the scrolls wont take up a ton of space in the inv so you wont have to relog 4 times to clear it out. I would make scrolls come in various prices like 100 1000 10000 and 100000. But the 10k and 100k would be more rare drops. The 100k would be caught maybe 1 out of every 250 swings. But people wouldn’t care that much because you are still making money off the other scrolls. But you don’t want to just give away money that easy. Each of these scrolls would be hard to catch so you add 1 more scroll in that you catch almost all the time, scroll of money 1 bone. This way you catch 1 bone 70% the time and the other 30% u get other amounts. I believe doing something like this would give the life to the BU economy again.
• ITEM STATS Change the stats and Damage of items. The first thing I don’t understand is why you start off doing 1-50 damage, you do 1 quest and boom 10k damage. It’s like wahhhaaattt? All items need to be redone to fit the new leveling/exp/stat system so that the next item you craft is actually worth it and u get more damage/hp/dodge making it easier to kill monsters.
• DROP RATES Slightly change drop rates. The lower crafts should be as hard as the high crafts to drop. To get a titanium force to drop take forever, you should just invest your time to get a Lightsaber to drop. Just change some drop rates with the level of craft. Nothing to make things super easy, just ever so slightly cuz with the lower npc boss having lower hp they wont be such a pain in the ass to kill over and over again anyway.
• CRAFTING Just from being a player from almost the start of BU, I have much love for the old “TOP items” we once had, but since we have added so many thing s to BU they have become that worth of a jar of Pee.. I would just get rid of everything and start the crafts at God Items. Everything before it that are junk I would just get out of the game and open up the spaces, or get them involved into the game some how.
• WARPING There are so many maps in BU now and a lot of people have no idea how to get anywhere. I think we should do a revamp on the Flute and add warps to more places in order of level difficulty. This way people will know the back pages are for harder places.
• NEW GUILDHOUSE ..AGAIN. This is something I also think is easy fix for a mapper but tricky to find the best one. I think the one we have now is slightly too big and spread out, I would enclose it a little bit or add something in there that could keep some people busy like the slot machines or a fishing pond. This idea is up in the air when it comes to what to do with it I would just like a change.
• QUESTS I have talked with Nurd some on this and he said that soon there will be a lot of experimenting with quests. This I will enjoy so that quests require reading the text and some longer quests for some cool rewards. I personally think people making Alts to get the reward again such as SQ BOT quest is abuse and if caught should be made to pay the piper, whether it’s a ban or deletion of item with extra payment for abusing the quest. Also for rewards, don’t give out 1,2,3 rb’s or in the new system levels. that’s a little too much unless you make quests longer. The way of EO is kinda small so if we make things last a bit longer its more fun in the long run and when you finish them you feel like you did something that a new player wont also do in 5 minutes. The rewards for quests should also compare to the difficulty of quests. Everyones favorite to say is the HBS quest was easy and is so much better than the Dynamo Katana which that quest is terribly hard, Im still on it! Lol.
• SIGNS Not everyone reads the BU website, I don’t understand why I love it. But it’s the sad truth. What I would suggest is the signs that we in the game that you can click on and it says something.. Throw some rules on them, such as the Hp/KS rule and the Bannable words or Any rule or just something you wanna tell your players. A good one for Cirras would be to have a billboard sign in the GH and he can update it and leave messages on there for the players to read when they come on every day.



1. I was working on this throughout the day and was getting side tracked with the baby crying every 5 minutes and all the house work in the middle. So if anything seems random or out of place please let me know and I can explain it better or if I left something out. Please feel free to use any and all of these ideas, I would really like to see all of these come into play someway in BU so that the playing experience is a lot better. I have a few more ideas here and there as does my hubby (Devin) incase you were curious who he was at the top of the page. He thought of most of this as he does computer data work for a living. Please give me feedback on this whether its good or bad, I won’t hate anyone for bad feedback as  long as its helpful so that way I know what I can improve on before setting forth another idea.
2. Thanks for reading Admins, See you in game :D











EDITED FOR UPDATE

BU REVAMP PART 2 / Updates to my last revamp for bad ideas.


• WARPING-  Change some of the warps to more key points in cities and towns so players can still see the great art work the mappers are doing. We need a middle where players walk to places but not 30 minutes to one place. Possible make the flute charge 1,000 bones per warp for players so money has another use while it could make some players walk if they are greedy. A tie in with signs – Put up signs at different cross roads that have boss names with arrows, such as the cross road of woodland monster and Genie(Zomboys) This way it gives players maps to explore but also a little tip to what boss is what way.

• QUESTS- Make the players read the quest lore so that they can get invested into the game. It would take some time to rework some of the quests but try to get an overall story line going through out BU. There is a possibility of side quests and 1 big main quest line.


• TRAINING AREAS- Maybe 2-3 npc mobs in a slightly separated area on the same maps with 2-3 npc per mob that have decent spawn rate with low but not junk exp rate and have medium hp. This gives players a change of pace to level in areas but but not so good that they will farm them like crazy. A possible duty for Mod admins be for occasional patrols through these areas to make sure players are happy / sharing / and high levels are allowing low levels first rights to low level training areas. This makes a happier training experience for all players and it also gives Mods something to do instead of sitting in GH all day.

• BOSS AREAS- As always High HP, High damage, Good exp. A boss should be a BOSS, but regulated to the level of a boss in which the items it drops. The boss’s in BU should gradually get tougher instead of all being so hard the first and last boss of BU are the same and need 8 people to kill. The minions are the boss should be easier as they usually are with their drop rates medium to easy depending on how many of those items you need for quest. The boss as always should be a hard drop rate. All bosses are free to hit, no claiming spots unless HALF hp. Which includes Red – Yellow – Or Low Green. Don’t be a KS Dickhead. It’s not cool.

• GAME PLAY- Make the game progress smoother, this can be done by the lore of quests that lead you into the next area. This will again bring reading the quest texts into the game a lot more, not to mention give our quest writers a better feeling when people actually notice the effort they put into these quests.(Nurd) – Shoutout! Having the next area of the game doesn’t have to be the next map your standing in so this way you can explore a little bit, but the quests should give you a leading explanation on where to go and how to possibly get there.

• LOTTO- NO MORE ALTS IN LOTTO UNLESS ITS ADMIN NORMAL ACCOUNT. People who bring alts into lotto are the ones who usually either don’t come on til Friday or they sit in GH and don’t play. They bring 4-5 alts into LOTTO and get free items that way and it ruins the BU economy. I love Lotto and getting a chance at a good item is great. But I’m one person I should get 1 chance. People getting 4-5 chances is like O_O really… its quiet improbable but what if 1 person got 5 caelic blades… It could happen, but would it? No, maybe. But just think of the items that are given away, It should be a bonus for people who play the game not a way to get items every week so you can sit in GH til the next Lotto.

[Graul]

Well you certainly put a lot of effort into this, or Devin or whoever. I want to read it all but I don't want the words to be burned into my retina so that every time I blink I see letters in my eyelids like some crazy person D:

I don't think you've taken into account the limitations that the current BU client has though, its sort of why things appear so messy, like RBs and what not. But a few stand out thingymabobs...

Warps are the reason no one knows how to get anywhere, adding more warps would probably hurt more for the sake of convenience. (Not to mention all the mappers hard work will go unnoticed, or errors that need fixed will go unreported)

Fishing & Mining do need some new life, Mining especially as.... well you can't even sell all the junk you get. I think Rare Emeralds should be added to mining cause it makes sense mostly.

Recycle the obsolete craft items is good, it could maybe even give the chain to break the infernal crafting chain that never ends.

Signs! I like signs! :O

Drop rates ties in with the atrocious craft chain I think.

Perhaps this would be better discussed in Insomniac's corner as he makes the new client.

[Lissette]

Thanks for the reply Graul, Most of this was was in mind of the new client coming out, I know the admins are stuck with a lot of what is now because of the locks EO has. The feedback about the warping definitely helped and I'm working on a new idea to replace this one. That's the one big mystery in BU why are Rare Emeralds not in mining, The world may never know... Pssst Cirras Nudge Nudge Wink Wink.

[Nurd]

This. I love this. I love nearly every aspect here and I think it would work wonders to BU and bring in a tonne of players.

Unfortunately,

BU is 30 versions in. It's been going for 5 years. We're in far too deep to just change everything that people love about the game - especially the high-attack rates. Everyone loves hitting 30-40k's. This would be perfect if BU was just starting off, but it isn't. I mean, don't get me wrong, the majority of all of this is very much possible, but the whole nerfing characters, NPCs and levels, it's just.. I don't know. Especially this far in. People will do nothing but complain, and they won't be able to see that their position on NPCs would be the exact same as it is now, just they hit less and instead of having reborns, they have levels.

I love the idea of signs, but I would use them to point the direction of areas in traveling maps and towns. I wouldn't use them to display the rules. Instead, I would like to update the #rules command to the current rules, so it's easy to access by the players. Like you said, people don't like having to come to the website in search of BUs rules. People like things on the tip of their fingers.

I think warps should be taken out entirely, or as you mentioned, having people pay in order to be warped. Depending on the distribution of Bones and the amount given, each warp should cost far more than 1k or 10k. If the Bones distribution remains the same, I'd make it a very large amount (5-10m per warp). It will give the people with lots of Bones to waste their money a little, and it will encourage people with not-so-many Bones to explore the world.
I would also make the Magic Flute a very difficult craft. Again - more encouragement to explore the world. Like people not reading quests, warps are considered an insult to mappers because it means their hard work is going unnoticed.

Level req's I'm not a huge fan about. Maybe on weapons and armor, so like you said, they're not distributed against alts. But, level req's on maps are a no-no for me. It denies people of exploring the world.

Revamping fishing and mining is an excellent idea, especially adding Rare Emeralds like Graul suggested. I'm all for that. I was thinking throwing in some items in fishing/mining and adding more crafts too.

Quests, like you said, I already mentioned to you. It would be difficult to get it to the standard you'd like to see, but reading quests isn't something I'd like to force upon someone. I find it very insulting and degrading when people don't read the quests I do, but, it's just something I'm going to have to agree with.

I'd like to remake GH too. I do feel it's very big but I don't mind that too much. I have a few GH remakes stored somewhere that people, previously, have liked. So hopefully I'll get a chance at remaking GH for everyone.

No-alts-at-lotto will be an excellent idea, I too feel everyone should only receive 1 chance to get something good, but to reinforce that we'd have to get rid of the multi-client. Is that something you really want?
The current items in lotto are picked so nobody gets something extremely good, such as your 4 Caelic Blades that you mentioned.

Anyway, I like I said before I love the ideas and I think it would fit perfect - but for a new upcoming server. Maybe we can implement when the new client is finished, but in recent versions... not a chance.
I appreciate your concern for the way BU works and the amount of thought you've put into this. I hope something is done about the way things are done here.

Also, thank you for the shoutout. Means a lot to me! :)

[Lissette]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Nurd, I know with any change to BU everyone just complains, I don't there was anything in BU that people didn't complain about, even the new Lotto (Free items I hate this system!) lol. I'm glad you understand that things would really be the same but a lot cleaner looking with added advancement.

For the signs about rules, I was thinking on your path way out of the Rats map you could see a few maps that say like the top 3 rules that every player needs to know. But for sure for directions instead of bugging admins which way is this.

I kinda agree that warps should be taken out to an extent, with how many maps we have now, that's a long walk lol, I would put a few warps in key places but again make it a charge (based on the flow of Bones) to go to those places.

Yeah not a fan of map level req, More so the items so I don't see people with a caelic that just started and I've worked my ass off for months to get one. (I didn't Im just saying :P)

Fishing and mining I think everyone just agrees they need to be revamped, no brainer.

I've never written a quest or coded before so I'm not sure the extent of how its really done, but I hope you keep up the good work, I enjoy the quests now and hope they continue to challenge us.

Can't wait to see what you can come up with for the GH <3

I'm glad no one can get that good of items in lotto, but as for Multi, we usually have enough Mods on that can search for Known alts and kick them, and if others try to sneak through with new alts, they will be punished, it's another duty a Mod can have instead of sitting in GH all the time.

It does make me sad that we are this far in and to redo a lot of this wont happen because were so far in, but I'm glad were 5 years in and strong. Thanks for the read and see you in game :D

[Soren]

BU can't even afford a revamp with the unstable community (as in, everyone's a high level and has A LOT of stuff to lose, and there is no way to see how many people would return after a wipe or revamp). Yes starting a poll would work, but then you'd miss the people who don't frequent the forums, people who don't have a forum account, inactive people, and such. BU's just far too progressed for a revamp.

HOWEVER. I think revamping VERY small things at a time could work. Obviously you would start off with fishing/mining, and progress there. Or just fishing and mining. They're so useless and a waste of space at the moment. All in all though, things have piled onto one another and a revamp of 5 years worth of work, where several of those years were "non-optima"l updates and you end up with WAY too much work.

Holy balls though. If anyone on the admin team was even considering a revamp, you've definitely given a place to start. Good job.

[Ninsun-Jenica]

This must have taken a lot of time, it was an awesome effort. Love your ideas. It's too bad that Josh and Graul are right, that there are so many limitations with especially stats, and since BU has been up for so long it would be hard to change.
Either way, this was a great post. Lots of good ideas.

[Cirras]

-raises hand- Planning revamps all the time. It is a good post.

[Alpha]

Just read through what was mentioned and I see most of what was mentioned to be logical and will defiantly provide a better gameplay for all.

Just needed to add a few idea perhaps they can be considered if the coders where not aware of already.

1- Pets : Remake the whole pet system, it is quite useless at the moment, for example, when the best pet attacks for only 300 damage it is not quite good. Another fact is the healing, the ratio of pet healing is very slow.

2- Fishing/Mining: I know a lot was talked about this, but I was thinking also that we can be allowed to filter what a person can mine/fish for rather than ending up with a complete inventory with lots of crap and end up relogging several times just to empty that stuff.

3- Bosses: Yes, I totally agree with Lis about the concept of bosses.. When a boss that drops titanium force takes quite a while to kill and only drops 1 tit force at a time has a drop rate of 5%.. if not less, that's just not logical.

4 - Lottery: I don't know why you're against it, but I actually think it's quite good to have that, since as Nurd mentioned "the items are picked by admins" so there are definatly a lot of them would be junk. I can't see why not have the alts. Unless the admins put out better items in lotto then I would change my mind.

5- Crafting chain: Please don't kill me.. I know this was mentioned a hell lots of time, but sadly it was never implemented.. We have only 1 crafting chain!.. and every item in the next version adds up to that chain, that's just ridiculous and boring, especially when crafting high level weapons like moving on from caelic to BO (how ridiculous is it when you have to craft a BoF - Carnage cube - E-cube). And from now I am expecting V31 best wep would be (Arctic blade - snail slasher - Rigor?..) Just add a new chain for crafting

6 - AOE for newbs: I don't want this to turn into FE but still didn't a lot of admins see how many newbies are either quitting or begging around to get an aoe weapon? I know earlier there was a quest for a decent aoe wep, but that was only for a limited time, I suggest add a new aoe wep that goes between a purple light saber and BoF.

That's all I can think of now to add up on the list of revamping BU.

[Lissette]

Thanks guys for the feedback!

Soren I wasn't thinking of any wipes. Everyone would keep their items and with the levels they would just be set back to a ratio of what they are now. In retro-spec everyone would still be the same levels in relation to the other players. This would just open up more levels to achieve. The same goes for stats, its just a ratio crunch so that we don't max out stats so easy and we have something to work towards in the game. The people that sit in GH all the time with either continue to stay there lol or they might actually try playing the game and get some enjoyment. The other players who try to level and craft in my opinion would have a better time if the game was more balanced and leveling had more of a purpose. Like you guys said good things come in time, I wouldn't expect BU to Poof redone overnight, but some changes here and there to improve the game instead of keep stacking the game how it is over and over for another 5 years would just make matters worse.

I Really do appreciate the comments guys, whether good, bad, or constructive it helps me think of better and different ways I can think of more ideas to try and make more and more people happier playing BU. I love BU and I want to make more and more people love it too.

[BrokenSword]

some of the ideas for helping noobs in this are good, but destroying the current craft chain will only make those of us who acutally play the game feel our hard work vanish and then why would we log back in? i know i wouldnt return after the YEARS spent to make my weapon/armor. that said i dont mind making the chain easier such as dreads being a drop, monstro blades being a drop, and  maybe require only 1 carnage cube for bo staff instead of both. things like that help those behind catch up and wont effect the top craft people. i almost have my alt a staff so its not impossible. the problem is no one wants to work for it.

i have met many noobs in random places without a clue where to go. perhaps we need a more obvious noob route. kind of like noob island where they cant leave until the get the purple ls quest done and maybe even toss in an rb scroll to get them hooked early. i see 0 reason why noobs r shown maze before anyting, that is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE way to introduce a new player. i repeat NOOB +MAZE = PLAYER LEAVING.  as others has mentioned maybe even a noob aoe. i know the point of aoe is to strive people to grind or donate, but i think right now we are just tryin to attract more people into the game instead of losing them to the other 9 servers where its super easy mode all day everyday.

i like the flute so please leave that.  if u dont know your way around then ask and learn or just adventure. please add many many more places to it or replace a few like pk doesnt need to be there. just make a portal near fountain in tut for pk as no1 goes there anyway. and this can be said for alot of old areas.

 we have too many gm's, 2 many trolls, and not enough people playing. if you play bu then u know this to be true. look at it from a players eyes, if u have no1 playing, tons of people talking smack. and hordes of gm's sitting on each other. what is the real point of being a player in bu. i am the minority in your video game and have been for 3+years on/off now. thats a real bad sign compared to what u see in other free games like this one.
 a side note the hide command  should not be used to HIDE FROM YOUR JOB AS ADMIN.  i honestly beileve it should be removed entirely as i see no benefit for being granted such power and given an easy way to avoid detection. who is watching those in power??? i left bu last time because of 3 admins who should have never been admins did nothing but hide  and who currently are no longer admins.  funny isnt it i come back and still see similar things being done with hide . make hide a lvl 4 command  as those 4 and up dont abuse it constantly.

  erase everything but gh and you will see how bad things are. however if u delete gh. you will see  your maps become filled. trolls left alone, with no1 to bother they will leave or play. gm's free of babysitting duty and can help new people who just sign in for there 1st time and add new life to bu. this was the old bu. my bu.

lastly someone mentioned god items or something, in an mmo named ffxi there was things called relic weapons, while i do not think this should be weapons in bu as our current chain is difficult enough, perhaps create new hard to get peices like luna shades or luna sam hat something like that and to get them u need relic currency. make this currency drop off several low/high things so low level and high level have a currency they both can use/trade. this will bridge the gap and help those starting out make money while those who have everything actually spend theres instead of owning the whole bu buck store like some currently do.