Discuss: 13.8 'Minor' world and monster changes

what a bunch of bs.

Slyyk your telling me you find teams who want to go all the way out there to gain levels? And because they need this so-called risk?

In BS, if we aggroe 3, and one dies its takes 2 mins for that person to come back, where as if your In the middle of nowhere it would take about 20 mins minimum.

~oh but then you'll say get a engineer.

Ok so far we need a fixer "like you say" for quick evacuation to the grid( although whats the point, are u going to fly back out there again?). An engineeer to teleport people back. You mentioned a Mp as well. Now a "good" doc i needed. Ok great. And then a few good tanks~ well actually its just 2.

Hmmm.... your telling me you find all these profession everyday, and go out and hunt? ~ enjoy AO, cause thats just a headache.

I much prefer, /s ENF level 120 LFG in BS. Find a team, does't matter too much what u have, just need 2 healers. Good exp, there is still that "risk" of dying, but its just safer and more time consuming.

~ You knew you were going to get flamed, do you get your kicks from disagreeing? And plz tell me do u seriously do that each day?

Cub! Picture! Picture!!

/me all giggly hyped up about it

:p

heh only 4 more hours :p

Again Miriandel, Im not going to argue about xp/risk problem. That is too true. But, since starting this thread I explored the region once again. The result? Still no teams. I dont doubt your guild goes out there from time to time. Heck, I even mentioned that the only feasable way is through guild hunting. But, right now the general populace DOESN'T hunt in those huge lovely looking playfields.

Slyyk, most people do want a challenge. Otherwise the two most popular sights past 70 wouldnt have been cyborgs in avalon and crater solo hunting. I have yet to have more fun than storming the base in avalon with two other teams. Six or more of the members are Going to die! But, it feels like a real assault.
I dont think you get my main thrust here. Its the harsh reality of how long people are willing to spend on forming a team, going out three playfields away and hunting in a place where there is no easy way to reform or save massive amounts of xp after one disastrous pull.
If it were like you said, there would be several teams in peak hours out doing exactly that. But, reality is far different. Very few people go out there in teams.
No, most want to start up AO, join a team within 10 minutes and be blasting stuff within 20. People have a limited amount of time to devote to it.
Im not asking for much here, just a few scanners next to the reclaim booths out there and an ammo booth for you gunslingers.

Cub, I am absolutely not saying I do this every day. I can't because noone else wants to. Most people would rather just

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/s ENF level 120 LFG in BS. Find a team, does't matter too much what u have, just need 2 healers.

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and take the easy way out. The few times I have been able to get people to go exploring has been with guildmates who trust my judgement and know I won't bring the 2 or 3 of us into the pits of hell with no chance to escape. I don't like spawn camping so I don't do it often and, therefore, don't level very quickly. I'm only level 71 so I can still solo a mission and don't have to group to complete one yet, though I know I will in the future.

Shard, your right I did miss your point. After reading a couple more of your posts I managed to see that your also fed up with the same old thing day after day. You also said

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If it were like you said, there would be several teams in peak hours out doing exactly that. But, reality is far different. Very few people go out there in teams.
No, most want to start up AO, join a team within 10 minutes and be blasting stuff within 20. People have a limited amount of time to devote to it.

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Well, it's idiots like me who think if maybe I talk long enough I can get a couple people with a bit of time on their hands to go out there with me. No I don't get my kicks from disagreeing. I agree totally with the facts people in this thread have stated about the limited areas where people do hunt. I do, however, disagree about there not being more areas to hunt. No it's not safe and you could die and get sent to reclaim a very long distance away. I don't mind this. I just don't want the opportunity taken away from me and others like me from the overcrowding that would occur by sprinkling save terminals all over the place. If you want to spawn camp then by all means go ahead, but please leave the exploring to the explorers.

My 2 creds.

Never thought you were an idiot. Hey I want people more involved as well. But, the way to get people to do things in rpg's is to give them incentive to do it. If you make teaming to hard in a particular region, people simply wont go there. If you make lvling too boring because of repetition, people wont play.
As it stands, the Valley and the entire south eastern section of our world could be turned off and very very few would care. Why should they?
Its such a shame. The playfields are so gorgeous. Someone must have worked really hard for sooo long to make them, just to watch as the average population in the six playfields comes to about seven.
I just logged out of the small clan base in the belial forest. Present are two guards, two mission terminals, three unused shacks and one reclaim terminal....

Hey slyyk,

i didn' realize your only in your level 70's. Sure at level 70 ill fight outdoors, hell i use to do it out in vw OT camp, and medusas and many other places.

But at level 120 u need about 4 million xp and to have it all lost cause of a bad pull is harsh on your soul. I'd probably just log.

Its not i take the easy way out, its just with the amount of time i have to play ~ along with my other 6 characters, i don't have too much time to be "cautious" "safe", but i can see how u could, at level 70 its not as hard.

~ anyways, we all have our own preference. but if u seriously wanted people out there, a safe scanner would be great. Cause if u think of it, FC took away all the good places to hunt, Medusas are gone, so everyone went cyborgs, now thats gone. Its basically Broken shores left.

.//sigh

To all the people who are "You just don't want to take risks, you want XP"

DUH! Are you mental? Its called rational human behaviour. The guy who just wanders out to kill things that give maybe 1/2 to 1/4 the XP in the same period of time with about 5x the chance of dying or having to spend 20 minutes to reach the same point after dying is NOT behaving rationally.

Reward must be commesurate with risk. You want people to be combing the Artery valleys for some other reason than general boredom? Fine, make killing the nasty things out there a VERY profitable thing to do. Don't get hostile and whine about how people "aren't playing the game right".

And yes, I have spent hours hunting the valleys, mainly for the afore mentioned boredom. I have gotten stompped by green Bushworms and then spent 20-25 minutes to get back to the same point (Rez in Last Ditch, wait for plane to reequip, zone up to Aegean and down to USEB because if you zone directly, the plane gets stuck in the water, zone into the Artery valley, land, run for a bit from the stupid Anchorite you didn't see, wait 10 minutes for the group to get gathered together, buff up for 2-3 minutes, and then go forward to kill a green for 5k XP at level 120)... Meanwhile, someone at Home or wherever in the same 30-40 minute period can easily finish one mission for 1-2 million XP...

And if you're going to say "It shouldn't be about the XP" I'll simply say, YES, it is, because its the one status resource this game really has that most people care about. And even if it wasn't about the XP, its about the ratio of time spent playing to time enjoying playing. A person who plays 2 hours a night is NOT going to want waste 25-40% of that time in travelling or other unenjoyable activites.

Players need a carrot. If you dont lead them with one, they wont go! If you are going to fill your lovely landscape with Black Death and Grimwolf subspecies, you have to place quick medical facilities nearby(scanners) and make the potential prey actually worth killing, reward wise.
Here is the other option:
"101 Martial artist seeking team for missions"...no calls for revolution or revenge...the only sounds heard in Home.

i couldn't say it any better canary, good post.

as for carrot boy, i understand kind of what your saying, but i don't get what mas' have to do with it? :p

Only used Ma as an example of people over 100 standing around shouting that they want to join in team missions in BS. Isnt that what everyone wants to do once they reach the century mark in AO?
Heh, well, Ive beaten this thing to death. The reason I have is that I think this issue is greater than any game balance issue. It is more directly related to how the game is played minute to minute. It is more of a factor on IF you want to log in with your 100+ character in the game.

ahh.. i see what your saying.

once u get to 100+ in level, your role in ao is kind of like your role in everday life. Its basically like work.

Here is life:

Get up,
Get out of bed
get ready (brush teeth, shower,etc)
eat
get in car
drive to work
start working
finish work
go back home
sleeeeep


Ao:

Log on
go to broken shores
Find a team
duplicate keys
Go to mission area
Start killing some mobs
finish the insanely boring mission
leave mission area
go save
log out for the night

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Whoo hoo! sounds like fun. Now how much am i paying monthly to do this again? /sigh at least my boss pays for my account =)

You can't forget the petition for each link dead team member in broken shores... and it's broken for shore.. ;)

Just a note on the issue of BS lag (yes it can be taken both ways).

It's not the number of players in BS that is the problem, although that can only make it worse.

Occasionally on RK2 BS will be completely empty, and you still get the lag. It's just a really bad design. If a map like that was made for a First Person Shooter game, no one would play it and no one would download it. Unfortunately we are stuck with the cruddy map design because it is part of the world of Rubi Ka.

I'm sure it also doesn't help that the city and the surrounding area are all one zone.

Here is is, the unedited Truth:

People above lvl100 or so keep complaining about the lack of things to do able 100th level. How could this be? Are there things that you can do at 10th level that you are restricted from? Are numerous interesting playfields impossible to access for a lvl150 character? No. Are lvl 197 characters prohibited from speaking with the lower-levelled masses? No. Are lvl 134 characters prohibited from participating in guild activities? Not that I am aware of.


Could it be that people who are high level are bored because they are playing the game in the most boring possible way?

Could it be that by associating themselves with people who only want to powerlevel in missions or low-risk/high-yield hunting grounds, high level players are exposing themselves to the tedium of hitting 'tab' then 'q' and maybe a couple of special attacks?

If your goal is to reach high levels quickly, I highly reccomend that you bore yourself to death amassing the perfect Uber-gear and Super-Von-Uber implants, then go finish it off with hours of senseless slaughter. That's what got you above lvl100 in the first place, right?

And you wouldn't want to team with any interesting people. No, you need to team with the perfect blend of fellow powerlevellers who want nothing more than to kill and move on to the next victim.

Rubi-ka is full of interesting places and interesting people. If you are associating yourself with boring places and boring people, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Set your priorities: Do you want to have fun, or do you want to level up? If you want to have fun, make some sacrifices for it: you do not need to level once a day. If you want to level up really fast, well, you already know how to do that, but stop complaining. You've chosen your path.

Personally, I like to blend the two: fun taking precedence.

Spoken as a true level 46.

Let go to a static dungeon! oh, camped and boring. well, lets help some guildmates get a robe from neleb! camped and boring....

well, special mobs then? nugget? hmmm, seems to be camped.

Broken Shores missions! ooh, crashes too much, laggy as heck.

DAV? exploring, fun! and nothing to do out there except maybe run around get some screen shots.. ok, bored now.

There are not that many zones to explore. If you think that the map listing on some GUI world map is correct, then try going to most of those places. Over half aren't even open. Maybe they'll add something later, but otherwise it's the same old crap.

Get over 100 before making assumptions about being over 100 :)

Doc, you demonstrate my point perfectly. Thank you.

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Let go to a static dungeon! oh, camped and boring. well, lets help some guildmates get a robe from neleb! camped and boring....

well, special mobs then? nugget? hmmm, seems to be camped.

Broken Shores missions! ooh, crashes too much, laggy as heck.

DAV? exploring, fun! and nothing to do out there except maybe run around get some screen shots.. ok, bored now.

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I am aware that there are numerous playfields that are not implemented at the moment. I've been playing for a rather long time.

If you find playing AO as a straight level-up/shoot-em-up game, you're bound to get bored in a hurry. The "get a level, get new gear" mentality only works for so long before the bottom falls out.

and so does "exploring".

:)

Burrowowl, why make such blanket statements? Next are you going to tell us to "stop complaining and get a life" like is posted whenever someone has a complaint?

The main thrust behind this thread was to give people an incentive to go in the less travelled or hunted areas. Yes, socialize. Yes, you want to hunt with friendly people. But, tell me where I can find those people in the deep artery valley? When do they hunt there? When does anyone? Hunting there at lvl 120 isnt like hunting varmit woods at lvl 50. Yellow critters there are all aggressive, come in packs and are on a different power scale than what you encountered at lower levels. An orange lizard can wipe out a team. Without booths to scan, who needs that high of difficulty?

I am a role player to my very core. But, I know that to get people to do ANYTHING in a game, you have to give them a carrot. Instead of dismissing the entire thread, ask some high lvl roleplayers what 'the valley' is like. Its not a question to me about leveling fast. Its a question of finding a team,at all, that is willing to hunt in SEVEN of the world's playfields. Because if teams were out there, I would be joining them. I dont want experience, I want entertainment.

One update, since starting the thread: I have made my fifth major expedition to the "valley" and south/eastern foul playfields. Yes, I have been that desperate to get out of Home. Alas, I still havent found a team hunting in the region.

In the interest of not looking like a total jerk:

The main purpose of my post was to point out that this thread had devolved into a griping session by players of high-level characters that there is nothing for them to do.

These gripes came in the form of requests for more lucrative hunting grounds for high level characters. These requests were laden with disparaging comments about the mission system, which were being touted as the only way to play once you are high level.

I am suggesting that the requested changes will not solve the problem of bored players at high levels.

There are a number of problems with the game as it currently stands. It is not as robust as it possibly could be. The tradeskills system is tedious, the solo-missions get tedious, the group-missions are yet to be implemented (I'm looking forward to those, btw), and the quests are few and far between. There are also server stability problems, lag issues, and profession imbalances in PvP and PvM. These problems affect far more customers than the high-level game inadequacies do.

As for a lack of teams in the Artery Valley and such, every one of you (Shard) that is out there looking for expeditionary teams into those regions reduces the problem. The more people like you that get to high levels, the better it is for the rest of you. The AO development team has created a really cool world for us to have fun in, and it seems wasteful to me for all these accomplished characters to be wasting away trolling mission terminals.

Anyhow, here's my position on this in a nutshell: Kindly become part of the solution to your problem instead of griping at Funcom about every little thing. If you have a character whose skills are broken due to implementation problems (a longtime complaint of agents and adventurers), see if these problems have been brought to funcom's attention (they probably have), and either cope for the time being, or play another character. This is a main reason that I'm playing a low level Crat right now: my other characters stopped being fun to play, and now i'm enjoying myself again.

I'm just glad Funcom is still working on it instead of scrapping the whole project in the face of negative feedback and cynicism.