The fall of hunting...

[______________Orchid]

Originally posted by Loostik
It IS appreciated that actually some actions are undertaken to revive Outdoor hunting.

Nevertheless, Dijou is right, if nothing else is one, outdoor hunting will still remain either unfeasible ( solo) or not motivating enough to gather teams. Motivation for team outdoor hunting is currently only based on Unique items, which leads to a very predictable outcome : camping...

Solo mission in team is shockingly easy. With a team of 6 level 90 guild mates ( 2 docs) we actually finished a level 180 mission in BS, without the feel of a real danger.... How is that possible ? Of course this creates
1°) an incredible imbalance in the reward ( XP and loot) between missions and outdoor hunting, and that DOES minimize you chance to find a full team for Outdoor hunting
2°) a boredom feeling... If i can already do level 180 missions at level 90, what will be new and exciting for me in the coming months ?

Clearly, FC must find a way to nfluence the difficulty of a solo mission depending on the number of Key Holder for this mission
But the risk with "key count" is that you would soon see hords of Engineers getting solo mission for their team and warping them inside...
So maybe difficulty should be based on "Key count", AND the engineer warp should become outdoor only ( => Teammates can be warped at the entrance of the mission) ... < I can see major flaming coming >


Anyhow, lets keep on drawing funcom's attention on this issue. Solving that would make undoubtedly AO the most exciting MMORPG EVER ( i have played a few for the past 3 years...)

Actifed , the good Old Doc

Im a level 44 adventurer now, and I took a mission inAndromeda the onlywayfor me toget there was to swim across the river, impossible, you need a death wish to cross that river on foot, I think there should be a way to buy a fairie across?

[Shrpshooter]

I believe that a big part of the hunting versus missioning has come from the fact that all good areas for 100+ ppl to hunt are PvP! And since I turned lvl 75 (PvP cap limit), I have not been attacked by a person less than 1 1/2 times my lvl (usualy double). I am all in favor of a challenging fight but come on. I hunted alot with some of the same ppl I started with at lvl 1-5 and most of them have dis-owned hunting all together because it wasn't if you where going to get attacked but just when it was going to happen. I still hunt for the pure enjoyment of it, and its not uncommon for me to spend the better part of a day hunting and come back with little exp to show for it because of High lvls stalking the hunting grounds. So the only real solution I see for this is to keep the PvP caps on till about 160 or so (seeing how your teaming range would be about 40) and also put more items on larger mobs outside (this would take some of the glory of missioning away and make ppl team to get the items from the large mobs). Just my personal opinions (I know you PvP'ers don't like my idea but thats just because your the guilty ones doing it

[______________Scorus]

The dyna-camps are basically outdoor boss rooms. There are 14 in 14.4, all in Andromeda. There are whompas to Andromeda from Newland, Trade and Tir, though if you are low level then getting out of the whompa area without a Yalm or non-general speed buff is almost impossible because of the Vultures. There are rumors that there is a fixer grid exit in Andromeda also, but I don't think the fixer grid was implemented in the first iteration of 14.4 on test.

Each camp is one race (leet, Hammer, spider, etc.) and has a boss and several minions. The lowest one seems to be for a team of around level 40ish. No idea what the highest is. They drop the special stuff mostly found in team missions in 14.2. They are designed so that they can be moved around between patches.

Scorus

[____________Nobelium]

Dyna-camps sound really cool to me. Any alternative to the mission grind is welcome. I've been complaining that most of the space on the planet is wasted for a while. Good to see them doing something about it.

[_________GoldenAngel]

I remember back in the good ol' days of hunting Lush with my Doc. Around 20th level I would get a full group of 6 melee'rs that wanted a rush. We would head to the SW corner of Lush (West of the resort) to a cave down there. (not the SW Mine)
Place was crawling with claws. Gave the newcomers a 10-15 minute "Rules of Engagement" speal and then we went all out. Would be nostop combat for 2 hours or so. By the time everything was dead, or we just decided to pull out, everyone was hipping and hollering about how fun it was. Corpses would decay because nobody had time to loot. IP would go unspent for 3+ levels because there was no time. I (the doc) would go through 200 Nano rechargers due to chain casting team heals for 2 hours straight.
My point is that it was a lot of fun. Most of the people only did solo missions, or hunted at the mines with the whole 'Onsie-twosie' careful pulls by a team that wanted to stop and prepare before each mob.
Sure the things werent red, they were yellow or green. But that wasnt the point. IT was the rush of fast paced combat. The enforcers got to be the knock-down-dragout-beat-things-up-until-YOU-decide-to-stop type.
There was no "Stop I need to rebuff". Or "Wait, I think we'll get an add if we pull that one." The whole point WAS the Adds. The whole group was in a small area, nobody more than 5 feet from their teammate. If they wanted to work on one of th 6 mobs attacking us alone, so be it. Most of the time they just attacked one until it was dead then tabbed to the next. They didnt have to run off to attack the next one, it was right there in front of them. And with the doc spamming team heals as fast as they could be cast the fighters thought of themselves as nearly immortal. (This was before the "Speedup of combat" patch, mind you.)
Leveling then was Quantity over Quality. Sure I was on a few 'Quality' hunts and they were fun too. But theses hunts were when you just wanted to cut loose and fight something for awhile.

Now adays theres nobody wanting to do that. They want to get a team mission and kill as many reds as they can, skip the boss and go on to the next mission.
Thats dull and boring.
Id love to go out and hunt in many of the other areas. Problem is that nobody else seems to want to. To risky for to little gain. And I dont blame them.
Spend 5-10 minutes getting to a nice fun hunting spot with some intresting MOBs to fight. (5-10 minutes from the save point that is) then fight taticlly, as a team, avoiding aggros or dealing with them. No real loot to speak of. Fairly standard XP for the area no matter your level.
OR spend 5 minutes getting to mission area, fight one MOB at a time as you come to them sectioned off into their own little rooms. Better general loot, RARE loot, TEAM MISSION ONLY LOOT! PLUS dynamic XP according to your mission level, even if it is 1 1/2 times your level. AND TOKENS!

In the age of powerleveling and wanting things easy people make the obvious choice. Personally I never was that big on the tokens. Sure they were nice and all but I didnt see Tokens as a real benifit, more of an RP tool for your standing in the faction. Now they are only sought after because they are really easy to get and the XP bonuses. <sigh>

When you group with someone now adays the first thing they say is "Who's getting the mission?" instead of "Where we want to hunt?" Maybe its just people being lazy. After all you have to know where to hunt at your level, a mission is always the level you want. Not to mention it could be 3 doors down the block from the save terminal instead of half way across Rubi-Ka.

People say the play the game for the awsome graphics then bind themselves to looking at the same old building walls the whole time they are in the game. Bring back outdoor hunting. This goes as much to the players as to Fun-less-Com.

[____________Ironheel]

I just pray that Funcom's ideas to get people to go out and hunt are ideas that will actually motivate people to HUNT, not camp. There is a huge difference and from the sounds of what the Dyna-camps are going to be Funcom thinks we'll be happy to camp outside. In my mind hunting should require you to run around and find mobs, not just hang out on a certain hill or whatever near where a lot of mobs pop out.

[alphane]

Originally posted by Ironheel
I just pray that Funcom's ideas to get people to go out and hunt are ideas that will actually motivate people to HUNT, not camp. There is a huge difference and from the sounds of what the Dyna-camps are going to be Funcom thinks we'll be happy to camp outside. In my mind hunting should require you to run around and find mobs, not just hang out on a certain hill or whatever near where a lot of mobs pop out.

*

/agree 100% , dyna-camp is an intermediate solution, not the correct answer for true hunting. i personaly dont want to see anymore uber guild camping the good spots.
If we dont keep this in mind we are going the wrong way.

[Xaielao]

w00t Cosmik replied to my thread

I am very very happy to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. And cosmik thank the devs for putting the boss monsters out in hunting zones and also for the wompa changes! I haven't seen Nizno to tell him that so, if you see this do tell them

I play on test quite a lot, as you can tell from my sig, and I've taken my soldier out to Andromeda to do a little scouting. There are perhaps 10 'camps' of monsters out there, they varry from 50 to 100ish. Each camp has about 10 normal mobs of varying types, Shades, Red Widows, Breeders and yea even a leet pack I hear.

These monsters are protected by a boss monster, I killed the shade one, and he dropped about 6 items, useful ones. He didn't have any unique or Boss only loot but I will kill him and perhaps some of the others later to see if that was the exception. I took on the Red Widow but for my soldier it was even con and it wooped on me lol, but I feel eager for a rematch, cause I got a 164 HGB on last night MUAHAAA!

Little note, there are a LOT of these Dyna-camps, Andromeda right now but I hear some higher level ones are comming in later versions of 14.4 on test.

The mobs are on a 10 minute respawn, so camping will be reduced to waiting 10 minutes for them to spawn again, or just walking a short ways and taking on another group.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it will soon be time for me to create a new post called The Return of Hunting!!!

Lets all cross our fingers now and pray to the hunting gods

[____________Underdog]

Kudos for more high level outdoor hunting areas! With missions, one has a choice: solo or team. With a strong mob with a possibility of aggros, team play is therefore strongly encouraged. The stronger the mob, the more likely team play will become the only viable option.

[______________Orchid]

Anyone can tell me if its worth it to hunt at the end of the world in the Avalon desert area for whats out there?

Anun Shredders, LifeBleeders, Night Predators, etc.. they seem pretty badass to me.. am I wrong?

[alphane]

I opened a poll so that everyone concerned can vote about this topic.
Multiple choices are available. You can choose any combination that fit your requirements.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=32561

[Darkbane]

There are a number of changes in 14.4 which afect the viability of hunting. They are all listed earlier in this thread so won't repost them, but the gas changes, new Whumpas, new Save points and the Fixer Grid are all significant.

The 'dyna-camps' (not a very good name for them as they currently are, don't seem that dynanmic) are also nice and provide an alternative mean of getting boss-mob only loot, I hope more are added in different zones down the line.

Ideally though, these camps should wander about, maybe getting moved every few days. And roaming uniques should still be added. And random mob mini-events could be neat such as coming across a group of omni and clan fighting or a group of a certain mob type attack an outpost. And... I could go on

[Mire]

I remember back in the good ol' days of hunting Lush with my Doc. Around 20th level I would get a full group of 6 melee'rs that wanted a rush. We would head to the SW corner of Lush (West of the resort) to a cave down there. (not the SW Mine)

I remember that place! I only went twice(with a guide) can't remember if it was you or not. It was a blast! 2nd funest 4hours I had playing.

[Isisnorfret]

Old thread but..

I still miss hunting.

[MORB]

Yes... They did some efforts toward hunting, but it still doesn't work.

The sad part is probably that only with a few, well thought changes, I think that people would go hunt again. Everything is there, I think it's just a matter of tuning: add save terms, add some new outdoor-only loot (or move over some of the current team-mission only loot), in short fix the reward balance between hunting and missions, and take the higher risk of hunting into account...

[coldwarkid]

Dynacamps currently have three very nasty problems associated with them. One of these is only a problem for pet professions (irksome, since we've been told we're supposed to be good at hunting outdoors) but the other two affect everyone, nano intensive profs particularly. Fix these and the dynacamps will be much more playable.

Cheers,

~R~