Medievia Mudslinger

February 27, 2000

How to Run as Fast as Possible! - By Ogamamn

*Flee* *Flee* *Ow! Bumped into the wall!* *Doh! Locked door!* *Suddenly the Horrid Pillow Monster stabs you in the back, R.I.P... You have been killed!* Don't you always hate it when that happens?

I. Introduction

The first time you get on Medievia or if you're ever exploring a new zone, you either find yourself getting killed, having to flee several hundred times, getting cherry picked by everyone, or getting beaten up by level 5 mobs... This guide is for survival, basically the art of escape and living to enjoy a day of mudding.

II. Running Away from Mobs

The most easiest way to get out of a battle is to flee (try HELP FLEE for information). However, fleeing isn't necessarily the best way to end a battle, especially if you know there's a couple death traps around or more evil people lurking around in a possible place where you might accidentally flee into. Even worse, in some really crowded zones (Mines of Riverton is a good example), fleeing would mean that you just gave up a kill (exp and/or eq), or it shows that you might be severely weakened and be a good target for killing by nearby Pkers. Whenever you see that hints channel activate, listen to their advice about fleeing, "always plan ahead."

One cheap tactic you can do is in any type of zone that you're not familiar with, or if you're uncertain about the types of mobs that come out, is to Shield Room all the rooms that you might have to retreat into. Using Shield Room in every single room works relatively well, or just quickly shield the room that you're going to start a battle in to avoid and intruders from coming in and spoiling your day. In the Catacombs of Toshi, those aggressive ( aggro) guard ants are really annyoing when you're just trying to kill a worker ant or someone. Since those guys hit very hard, you can easily end up being dead if you don't have hp or if you're spamming spells. Either way, surrounding a mob with shielded rooms guarantees you that no matter when you flee, you'll end up in a safe area to rest. But realistically, you need quite a lot of mana to keep shielding rooms. With the new ticking rules, and being a mage with mana kickback, you might be able to squeak by. If you're not, and a non-mage multi like me, PLAN AHEAD, and shield your rooms in a logical manner.

If you can't obtain any person that can shield room, but you've been a thief or are a current class one, running around and laying traps all over the place works quite well. It also has the added benefit that the mobs aggro, they get slightly hurt, so it gives you an easier time killing them. Another problem arises. Traps are very heavy, and unless you've got a Magical Pocket or something that can carry a lot of stones, try finding a mage and lug him around, telling him to Minor Create traps when you need them. If you can't, bring as much as you can carry, and try trapping them at places you know a mob would run out and try to attack you if you flee.

Once you go into a zone, try to learn all the sanctuaries or resting points to buy you some time against a mob that's chasing you. Also, examine how good a mob is at tracking you down if you flee from it, and calculate the time it takes before it notices you and attacks. This, would definitely allow you to save some trouble of fleeing all the time. Keep in mind that not all mobs leave a room just to hunt you down. So far, the best way to learn safe places is to ask clannies and always turn brief off when exploring a new place. Read the room descriptions carefully, since they reveal some things in the room that you don't know about if you don't read. It could say, "this is a good place to rest" or "raw energy pulses through the area." Also, in most pk zones, the sanctuaries are the altars, or the places where it suddenly says, "You have left a Neutral/Chaotic Player Killing Area."

Remember that blinded mobs do attempt to follow you around, but since they can't see you, they usually can't hurt you, so just spell up and sit there. Dragons are the bane of most singles, considering they can easily burn you to ashes if you're alone, out in the wilderness. They also have the ability like the spectral hounds from the Demonlord to break through shielded rooms, but they do this instantly. The best way is to call a dragon and let it do the job, but if you're cheap, and like to exercise, type survey when you see the dragon land. Type link to see if you can get in. If you can, it's not hunting you... but if you can't, run. To escape a fight, just run in the opposite direction of the dragon, and see if you can get into a zone. Dragons sometimes don't follow into a zone, but if all fails, close all doors and pray it doesn't develop the ability to break doors or Ethereal. For altars, you have to be careful that the dragon isn't around when you try to leave it. Typing "where dragon" or scanning can help if you know that it's hunting you and is very close. There's another tactic, and it's just to run and sit around in a stream, as dragons lose your scent.

Last note here, try to spell up when you flee, and always cast Invisibility and/or Sneak to make yourself invisible whenever moving around. Nothing is better than gliding past mobs that normally chew you up, and it usually gives you an advantage to muscle your way through to a safer place.

III. Running away from PK'ers

Well, one thing most people hate is to be repeatedly killed by a person in very short amounts of time, known as "cherry picking." Trying to stay away from pk zones with these people is easy, just don't go there :). However, if you still insist on going to big places like Pirate Ship, it doesn't hurt to type "who -z" and take a look at who you're going to be with in the zone. It usually saves some time and gold, especially if you get pked constantly and your dragon just flew away. One of the most easiest way to get rid of someone chasing you is to BLIND! Everyone hates that "You have been blinded!" string, and if you have Colour Spray, use it instead of Blind. This works really well against any non-cleric character, and you can usually ignore the person for quite some time to go on your merry way of exping. Even if they can cure blind, it lets you flee and escape to some other area, forcing them to waste time to chase you.

Don't stay there and wait for them, or be trapped in a spam of casting useless blind spells, since they'll come in and start hacking away at you. If you're forced to run, spell up with Invisiblity, Quickness and Levitation (and sneak if you can), and that would allow you to run longer distance without them seeing where you're going. A note here: You might not want to cast Phantasmal Images if you have it, since it lags for a bit and people can catch up to you by then. All you're really doing is delaying your death, since a backstab would take out most of them, and you'd keep losing mana for each time you recast it. In aggressive zones like Xanthal, the person trying to kill you might not remember to sneak or invis themselves, and get ambushed by all the mobs that like to throttle unsuspecting players. Against people that like to flee and then backstab, try resting in front of the door to the Eagleman.

Against backstabbing pkers, never spam spells if you're planning to run. This sounds really obvious, but not many people are that careful. Either way, spamming spells slows you down and allows the pker to recover from backstab lag, and they usually will sneak in without you seeing them, and landing a sucessful one on you before you can think, "where did he go?" Just cast a maximum of four to five spells, since you don't want to think you're always lucky and get a triple cast every round. You can fake someone out by running very fast (that's where quickness comes in) - you stand in a room to catch your breath, and when the person rushes in panting, you can make a quick getaway by taking advantage of his spam. You could also unsneak yourself if you have sneak, run around so he's following you, then type sneak and run off.

If you don't have the luxury of sneaking off or casting Invisibility to escape, try this as a tactic, if the pker doesn't have sneak. Stand in a room, making sure you're spelled up and ready to run. Right when you see, " XXX has arrived," quickly type any of the cardinal directions and stand your ground again. Keeping doing that until you think he ran out of mana or gets fed up with you leaving so fast that he'll leave you alone.

A cheap tactice would be to try all your non-damaging offensive spells, like Poison, Plague, Weaken, and more to minimize some threats that they might try. Also, with Energy Drain being able to reduce vitality, you could hope that the person you're fighting is running out of vitality or movement from chasing you everywhere... so draining him a couple of times might knock him down and force him to sit there and refresh, losing time for him. Ethereal! Before the extra mana cost for movement was added to it, you could ethereal in any direction, given that it's passable, without losing breath or mv! Now, the best way to use it is just to find some locked doors that you can ethereal through, and hopefully, the chaser gets locked out while you get to catch a breath.

Safe rooms are good places to stay in if you're being chased. People with blood aren't allowed to come in, so sit there and tick up till you're ready. If you're in a zone that's completely dark or if it's night, removing your light will prevent your room from being displayed if they scan or just by typing exit. Unfortunately, most zones have some lighted rooms and darkened ones, and not many people would pay that much attention to that kind of tactic to find people. The good thing is that scan can only reveal rooms that are lighted, so if you've got a thief chasing you, remove your light and take a stroll around in the dark. You do have Infravision, so you can see where you're going, right?

Baiting someone while running around through corners works. If you've ever seen "The Fugitive," and how the doctor escapes his pursuers in the sewer scene by placing a jacket at one end and running away on the other, you know exactly what to do. Drop some useless items (maybe a head of yourself) on the ground. Kill some mobs on one end, but leave the others alone on the other. If your chaser uses farsight or scan, and sees a whole bunch of blood and corpses to one end, in a very likely situation, he'd go off in that direction. People without track or Farsight can cast Sense Death along the way, but even if they use it, they'll be misled, since Sense Death reveals how recently a death occurred in a room.

Be very careful about multies with farsight or scan. Just because you ran off in a certain direction doesn't mean that he or she can sit there and scan all the exits, trying to look for you. Always turn a corner when you can, shut any doors behind you, but don't lock them and make the keys "disappear" since that's illegal. :) If you really want to get rid of someone chasing you, have him hit you as many times as possible without you dying, but draw him closer and closer to a group of allies or just a random person and let his blood pile up. Then, run into the room with that evil pker, and you might get both of them to fight. Most people like to blood hunt, helping you reduce a threat. For those of you new to pking, and have some way to cast the Sleep spell, for anyone's that's attempting to kill you, and if it makes, they'll be down for at least 10 ticks, giving you a chance to exp and be left alone. Just be sure that they're level 20 and under. Xezadha Cathedra's a good place to start practicing.

IV. Equipment to Bring Along

I've been noticing for a long time that most people have bags just filled with old eq or things they really don't need. Carrying armor or body types of eq to change modes while inside pk zones can lag you down (the new changes), and you need all those precious seconds to stay alive. Riverton, Karlisna and the Wizard guy in Castle Medievia carry most of the essential wands.

Wands - One overlooked piece of holding eq

You'll need them if you:

  1. Run out of mana and you just need to deliver that one ZAP to kill a mob or player off.
  2. Get caught in firestorms that just happen to come across if you're running in NPK wilderness.
  3. Want a psychological tactic by holding Light of the Suns (lvl 25 shockwave wands) and when you start zapping your opponent, he might get scared and run off... so you get to run too :)
  4. Don't have Invisibility, Colour Spray, or if you can't cast spells.
  5. Get rid of those annoying Phantasmal Images with platinum wands (Magic Missle wands).

Scrolls! You see them a lot in herobattles, but I rarely see them being used

  1. Scroll of Teleport or Book of Bad Poetry, if you can afford any of these, they're a great help in making that annoying pker go away and leave you alone until he manages to come back. In Xanthal, especially when the islands are so close together, if your opponent gets transported onto another island, he'd better figure out how to use the Lighthouses before getting back.
  2. Those evil scrolls of doom, (Shredded Scroll, Scroll of Might, Scroll of Energy Drain, etc.) are very nice things to bring along if you happen to be in CPK or if you want to get rid of someone long enough to let you collect that one piece of eq that you've been trying to get all your life :). Or, just use it to finish off something.

V. How to Heal Efficiently

Yes, I know, I skipped potions and staffs, and some other magic regen items up there, but why bother wasting time just resting there trying to recover health and being a potential target? I can't list off all the helpful potions (there's a lot of webpages that have them), but a couple potions and items that you might want to consider keeping in the inventory are ones that let you heal quickly (greens or golden seals), or keep two crimson or silvery rings of regeneration somewhere in your inventory, to aid you when you need to sit down and tick up. Or, if you can afford it, donate $25 and get a Focus that has better regeneration capabillities than any other regeneration item in the game.

VI. How to Survive in a Formation (or to survive when everyone else is dead)

Formations, they're best for newbies if you want to take on some mobs that you normally can't, or to take on this pker that's been bugging you. Unfortunately, careful planning sometimes goes wrong, and you start to notice that everyone in your group starts dropping dead for some reason. Then, you' re the last one standing... crippled but alive. What should you do?

The best way is to follow the previous tactics on running from mobs, but normally, you group to fight very tough mobs that you can't survive solo. The best way, if you plan on not waiting around for everyone else to corpse and pray, is to leave the zone, and tell everyone that you'd rather go somewhere else. Always set a recall point that you can recall to (spell or Swirling potion), it saves a lot of hassle sitting in the wilderness, if you're not a mage with Shield Room, and waiting forever for that dragon you called.

If you plan on staying, make sure everyone knows where to pray, since walking across vast portions of wilderness without help can get rather dangerous. Even if someone in the form can Summon or Phase, it gets annoying if more than one person isn't with the group. There are many zones which block Summon or Phase, so be careful.

Don't be afraid to go against the standard formation rule of "Stick the spellcasters in the back and the warriors and thieves up front." Clerics can now absorb a lot of damage as they can heal themselves as well as they heal someone else, and I've often seen many single class clerics with better HP than single class warriors. Warriors and Thieves are still the best frontline troops but take care as a cleric with better HP may make a better front ranker if they have not practiced dodge or parry to any great extent. Dodge and Parry can save a massive amount of healing mana. A Thief without Dodge could be considered useful in the back ranks using Throw or a wand of some sort.

Alternatively, a mana shielded Mage can be placed in the front rank to absorb heavy amounts of damage when in mana mode. Make sure the mage is freshly sanced before doing this, otherwise you may have a dead one on your hands. The standard rule of Warriors and Thieves to the front is generally followed by most people, however.

If you have a good mud client that can support scripts or triggers, try arranging one that can support formations in Medievia. With this, you could reform by using the numerical keypad, typing shortened commands, and so forth. There are a few clanpages with help files for this sort of thing so hunt around.

The real best way to hold a giant form is to be flexible and change formations whenever possible. Let's say that the entire front is suffering badly, so, why not switch the ones in the back to front, bringing in barely hurt players?

It's very hard to keep track of healing, since during a fight, it only shows the lowest percentage of the person in a fight. If the person is serving as a tank and 50% of his hp is like 500 more than everyone elses, he probably doesn't need everyone scrambling to heal him. A couple reasons that in forms, people tend to run out of mana faster than soloing. The best way is to assign clerics to heal a certain person, and if they're not going to be casting offensive spells, use "fr, or freport (form report)" to see who really needs a heal.

What should you do when someone tries to attack your form in PK? Make sure no one flees, or it's going to be one easy time picking each of you off. Stay together, move all the trippers and bashers to the front, and see if you can get them to not have a chance to flee.

Watch out for people that cast Hands of Winds - it always makes, unless they fumble it, at least one person fall from the form. If this ever happens to your form, and if you're in some very hard zone or in CPK, it's best to follow the ideas of running, and escape. It's better to save yourself than to die trying to get everyone together and then die attempting it. You could always make up an excuse saying, "Hey, at least I tried."

However, if your form had planned things well, choose a meeting spot that people can run to if this happens. An altar, a non pk area, something like that works. A room with only one exit is good, at least you know where the pker is coming from. Follow all the general ideas of forms, but it gets harder without form talk or freport. Best advice I can give if your formation is destroyed, is to tell everyone to run. Pkers generally don't fight unless they know they can win, so if you're in a large group... they also might be in a large one.

VII. A Couple Last Words

One thing that would help you in your adventures is to play Medievia with a good ISP that doesn't crash or disconnect a lot, one that doesn't lag much, as a lot of battles are decided by that critical second. Medievia softens the "one who bashes the keyboard fastest wins" rule, but not by much. One Medievian told me, "One who has the fastest reflexes is the one that always wins."

Also, never Word of Recall or Teleport unless you really have to. Getting pked and sent out to a room in the wilderness closeby to the zone is better than launching yourself to a very far place. If you word when pked, you usually end up in city Medievia, since getting pked resets your recall point.

Make use of the new "mode" command, that lets you switch between different types of gear in different enviroments. One should always have a lot of hp to counter backstabs or Malediction and manage to live to run away. You don't need a lot of mana if you're just trying to exp and survive in pk zones, drag those potions along, stick some wands in your belt, and you should be fine. Always keep in mind that when you get pked, never ever yell something degrading. It makes the pker angry, it makes you look bad, and instead of just one person killing you for a pk, it might turn into a massive pk fest against you. Otherwise, have fun exping, and most of all, enjoy your experience on Medievia when you can!

Last words here, this is a pretty long article, but it covers a lot of the ways of surviving on Medievia, there's so much more to the game than reading an article and not really playing it. So, get on right now, and see if you can survive a little longer than normal!


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