In answer to some of the feedback to the 14.5 patch

[________tavumebottes]

the main problem for me :
Why will i spend 2 hours+ with 3 or 4 others teams to take down a boss (and making him spawn ) and have no chance to get a reward(loot) for this.
30 peoples for one loot : (

[______________Tedric]

Great to get feedback from the devs. I'm gratified to hear that what looked to me as total crowd control immunity for all bosses is actually something more complex. It still needs balancing, but I'm happier just knowing the design intent.

Also, *excellent* posts by Bionitrous, they echo my feelings quite a bit. If FC wants to bring tactics into outside combat (which is a good goal), they need to allow tactics. Mobs that insta-warp to you because of pathing problems throw tactics to the wind, and make using terrain to you advantage a joke.

My input to the devs:

- Please balance the camps so that crowd control is a bit more reasonable, at least in some of them.

- Take a serious look at mob pathing, and read bionitrous' comments. The insta-warping mobs are ruining a lot of things that you want to accomplish in the game.

- One of the best (= most fun) hunting places in the game is the NW mines (Harry's). Make more areas like that, see earlier articles in this thread for what makes a spot fun to hunt in. A fun area is challenging, needs tactics, but gives reward for good groups.

- Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated.

[Snuble]

Lots of good points there Bionitrous. Listen to him on this one!

That said, mercenary camp (from now on refered to as ACE camp ) is freaking fun I even managed to escape with some XP two days ago At my teams level (160ish) tertius mobs are actually a nice way to get xp. I still want to kill a primus, but my guild is starting to be carefull now *sigh* But I can probably convince them to try once more And then when you hear *Snublefot shouts: WE ARE PULLING A PRIMUS TAKE CARE!!!* don't get too pissed at me when we once more end up at reclaim...

[___________shadowine]

Bump fr the FC Dev artcile and a really good bump for Bionotrous posts...

I'm dreaming for a Rubi-Ka World where this basics will be implemented and where actions have real impacts on the world...

Imagine if a Dynacamp is too much used/camped the mobs decide toswitch to another lcation or prepare some ambush to players ... :-)

For me : is no loot coming from bosses, nope but have fun and quite probable... (fun and XP are suffisant)

another bump for the feedback from FC.. we need more !

[______________Neriax]

Thank you for your kind and great feedback. Its nice to know some of the things "inside" the Dev teams heads

[Szentasha]

Very good to see some additional communication. Many times in the past when there was a breakdown of communication are the times players were most upset.

I do applaud your efforts to make the outdoors more attractive. I enjoy hunting outdoors, but its really hard to find a team. Lets face it, missions are easier to control and guarentee more experience and loot -- also read: boring and predictable. But people will continue to ONLY do missions because they prefer efficiency over challenge. Thanks for taking steps to make hunting outdoors more rewarding by increasing XP. You might also consider increasing the chance of bravery tokens for outdoor bosses.

I think you should also consider offering XP bonuses to smaller teams. I hate that fact that we are forced to join a large team to get decent XP. Succeding with smaller teams with less professions is very challenging and should be rewarded.

Keep the changes coming, and please don't forget about your roleplaying community with all the recent focus on game mechanics.

[Bionitrous]

One thing that needs to be on the developer's plate if they REALLY want to encourage the mass battles to take down supermobs:

You HAVE to get some kind of reward for contributing to the takedown of a monster that requires up to six teams. 36 people to kill a monster and only 1 person gets anything of value. That doesn't get people together to cooperate in the real world.

Look at killing Jack. You can't even get 6 people together from the general populace because odds are all you'll get out of killing him 3 times is 30K exp and somebody else getting his quest part.

I realize this is hard to implement fairly. You could drop a reward in the inventory of anybody who did damage. Nope. What about the Doc who was healing the damage dealers?

OK, how about this:

SuperMobX is out in the wastelands. 6 teams get together and between them, they manage to kill SuperMobX. Now, all 36 people should likely get some experience assuming they all had someone doing damage. So, when SuperMobX dies, _anybody_ who receives experience from the kill gets a random loot item placed in their inventory. Highest damage team would still get loot rights off the corpse, I suppose.

At least this would foster more willingness to join pickup teams shouting for more members to go to an encounter. As it stands, I really have no incentive to join some uber guild in their efforts to kill some monster as it's obvious the loot goes to them.

This is another reason missions are desired. /team loot alpha ensures that you get something out of the grouping experience. What's the most controversial part of a team mission? You got it. Posting the Boss loot. How many vitriolic posts have been put on these forums over bad experiences following a boss kill?

If the change I offered above were implemented, I'd be more than willing to help anyone and anybody in some of these outdoor encounters. If there was no corpse to loot on these super outdoor mobs, but instead a single item were placed in the inventory of every player who got exp, I would probably engage in this type of hunting _all the time_.

It may sound petty and one might say I should trust my fellow players to allow me a fair share of the corpse loot. It doesn't work out that way in reality. I trust my guildmates implicitly. However, we are only about 8 of us above 160. We have no chance at some of these encounters. However, we'd LOVE to be able to help. Just not if the reward is little more than a nagging su****ion of foul play or unfairness.

[___________Graukonig]

Requiring certain actions to take down boss MOB is step in the right direction. I like the fact that one had to nano debuff neleb so that he couldn't keep up his shield. But it needs to be taken one step further. The MOBs AI needs to be reactive and adaptive.

Example:

Current Neleb;
-standard MOB AI, hit the person highest on hate
-Also, recast super shield when falls unless MC< 400

New Neleb;
1. Attack target highest on hate
delay 40 sec ( time for superShield to fall )
2. cast superShield
success: goto step 1
failure: nano debuff PC that debuffed me; ( target MP and trader nano debuff skill requirements)
3. Attack highest on hate
delay 30 ( for nano debuff to wear off )
4. Cast superShield
success: goto step 3
failure: attack PC that cast last nano debuff until another hate >=240
goto step 1
// end the process when all targets are dead or neleb dies ofcourse

This a very basic example of how one could ****e up an interaction. Here the new Neleb is fighting a group and directing most of his attention on the tank. Then a MP cast a debuff on him that stops his shield. He's annoyed by this , debuffs the MP, and goes back to attacking the tanks. The MP does it again and now neleb is really pissed so he attacks the MP until the MP is dead or someone does alot of damage to him.
Its slightly more realistic and thus more interesting than neleb just working down his hatelist or going crazy on the MP after the first debuff.


As shown by Bio's posts, and hopefully by mine, a good AI can add a great deal to a game. Just keep working on those AIs and the your computers will develop content by themselves through a dynamic world.

[Beartwo]

Originally posted by Sillirrion


Don't underestimate your fellow players. These things will be figured out and tactics devised. There are players out there serious enough about their AO playing to sepnd the time, there always is in any MMORPG. New high end stuff will come out and people will say 'thats impossible' whe they get mashed the first few times.

Some will give up, but a few determined guilds will stick at it and learn, and then they will monopolise the camp and start getting accused of things by those who couldn't be bothered to spend the time in the first place.

It's happened so many times before it's not funny anymore...

This is the correct way to develop things, make them more challenging, not just take longer by bumping HPs up. (It might take longer while you calm, root, charm, attack, counter attack and pull, but its a damn site less boring then chain healing and just charging.)



What you mean is you didn't like it. I found the patch very good so far, added content that I have enjoyed and spent time doing so.

Yes, there are still issues to balance and some classes need balancing (I wouldn't put soliders top of that list by a long chalk either btw, most I know handle themselves very credibly in combat, not saying they don't need some FC lovin' just saying a few others do to!) but this can be done hand in hand with new content.

As someone who doesn't play Class X or Class Y I don't want to wait three or more patches before there might be something that interests me. Personally I think one general patch, followed by one profession patch is a good rotation. Sure the general content patches might not please those hell bent on getting their proffesion 'fixed' but they are welcomed by the vast majority of the player base.

Nice post, but seriously... have you tried playing a soldier?
I have gone from the uberest of uber to nothing. I can do missions IF i am in a team. 50% missions are still very iffy even when I have fixer ncu buff and all the goodies I can shove in there. In team missions I cant pull aggro off the doc even.. and I am supposed to be a tank? What good is my TMS if I never need to use it?

Simply put. The soldier has a lot of problems that stem from one thing, we cannot do the damage we are supposed to do. With 66/33 weapons and conflicting clusters we are stuck with sub par attack rating, with slow weapons, and in pvp the damage we do simply doesnt cut it against any prof.

I might (on a good day) try to fight an engi or an NT who doesnt see me coming. But apart from that I have to Killsteal in large battles to get any kills at all. In 2HO I am usually ignored by the clanners until they have killed off the ones that make a difference.

14.5 is mostly good for me, since it has added variety, its just a shame it hasnt added anything I might want to do (missions are still 99% of what I do).

The one thing I wanted to get was the Martins, but some silly person thought it unbalanced. Guildies have tested it and it isnt unbalanced or overpowered.. its worse than a Nova in use...


SO bottom line for me is that 14.5 is ok, but it doesnt excite me. With the upcoming scope nerf and the unavialability of the new weapons ....I am bored :/

[Gridfan]

((dmg dealt by team-mobhp) + (dmg taken by team-team hp)) / mobhp = % of xp increase for that team.


((40000-10000) + (90000-30000)) / 10000 = 3



Yeah I know the math suck, but ya understand the concept I hope.

And the concept is. the more "battling" you do the greater the reward.


So the longer the team fights the greater the reward.

The more you get your ass kicked around and the more you kick the mob around
the more you gain. the longer it takes to take down the mob the more you are rewarded
for your efforts.

A team that kill the mob quickly will gain less.
a team that fought bravely for hrs will get a huge reward.


How does my crewd (and flawed I'm sure) math/implementation look?

I do hope a FC dev see this and considers the concept.
(screw the math, my math sucks. but the concept is noble enough

And if several teams fight the same mob, they all get a xp % boost depending on how long
each team have fought, and how much beating they have gotten and have given...


Now this may seem flawed in that easy to kill mobs wont give as much % boost to xp if at all.
But consider you could prolly kill 20 easy mobs in the time it takes to take out a really hard one.



Do any think my concept would be usefull for dynacamps and outdoor statics?


(waits for people to shoot his concept into pieces)

Remember the concept is simple. team/multi team fighting with a mob(s).
The more difficulty there is killing the mob the more xp % boost ya get.
Calculated induvidually on a per team basis.

So a team that have fought for 2 hrs and then get backup and 2 min later the mob is dead.
THe longest fighting (and most beaten up team will get more than the 2 min backup team...

[________________Bald]

I like to hear more like this.......

[_____________Niraxtc]

nice article. with all trouble about the coming scope nerf it really made up a little reading how dedicated and thinking over the designers are.

BUT btw: i have one special problem with one boss mob group. its the one located in enigma island. now the designers that created central aartery valley and deep aartery valley brought up all these enigma ppl. that seem to be very strange but not hostile. they are different. they seem to love geometric formes and rational thinkings, yet in a balance with the nature. - ok - while i kill them for having finally Ga4 dropping i think about that.
now if you visit enigma island what kind of bosses do you find there deep in the enigmian isle? humans. BORING. plain normal humans. not some enigmean king or something, just some usual like boss-room mobs.

to my understanding the enigmean seem to have been on rubi ka before the humans came here. i dont think that a human boss camp controls this civilisation that lives far away and tries to cultivate the woods and planting seeds thinking meditating or whatever.


thanks for the attention,

/niraxtc
lost chapter fixer

woodstocktc, pre 12.6
www.teamcow.com

[_____________Cloudehxx]

Im sorry, heh this isnt a good post by FC its just rubbish.

You try going to the Merc Camp.

Ian Warr for example;

Even if you stand in the MIDDLE OF THE ARENA.

If you can, IF you can withstand his hits for at least a minute? The mobs in the NE and NW corner agro you, these are Primus and ANOTHER Boss Mob.

All who teleport you to them, so you are fighting Ian Warr then Notum Profundis Warps you to him.

I got teleported 6 times or more, it was fast, around the Merc camp , it was stupid.

I havnet seen anyone slow, root, calm, charm, (ac debuff?) or anything on the primus, even secundus, Tert's and Quad's are easier.

There is one possible weakness.

I have seen many times mobs fight EACH OTHER.

Now maybe each corner, ne/nw/se/sw agro each other?
But how is it possible to get them to fight.

Get a fixer to pull all of them to the other corner and Evac in hope they agro each other and fight?

but what does this accomplish? About 5min later they are respawned.

Oh and learning the guard paths is another STUPID thing.

about 4 teams of us where in the SW corner.

Then all four mobs from the NW corner decided to -Warp- to us.

Excuse me?
All of what he said is just a bunch of crap, im sorry to be so blunt but it is, if you want to say something liek that at LEAST MAKE IT SO.

Warping, Line of site is the main problem.

[Luss]

As an Adv I love the new outdoor hunting as I prefer to "run" from location to location. Yes the "Warping" is a pain but you gotta take all that in and plan for it to happen when attacking something.
Come on! It's a game!

I havn't found too many of the new camps but I searching and having a blast!!!

[__________JohnMclain]

I'd like to comment on this again, this time I'll try not to bend forum rules (:P Cz)

About giving mobs "weaknesses" and needing "tricks".

* You do not currently give the user enough good feedback when a debuff or ability does not work, or more importantly, WORKS.

* You are REALLY devaluing support professions by making all their supporting abilities non functional. Nano shutdown, evade and nano resist debuffs, deprives, etc etc non of this seems to work. Whats the point, why not bring along only MA/Enf/Doc to these encounters. If these abilities at least worked PARTIALLY it would be helpful.

* Your current engine/technology don't allow 4-6 teams to play together in any coherent manner. There is so much lag/slowdown/whatever that the best you can hope to do is press "Q" and get your specials off when they regen. (Im running 1.4ghz, 500mb ram, Ge3 & DSL).

Example: The Pest

Simply because you can "sucessfully" land a nano on a mob doesn't mean it does SQUAT. Unfortunately, all the MP's in my clan were convinced it did something because it "landed". In reality he never quit AoE nuking us for 2-3k.

What we see: "Nano program landed successfully"
What we would be more accurate: "Save your nano"
What we SHOULD see: "Nano shutdown partially resisted, you debuffed The Pest for -200 to all nanoskills"

Then maybe instead of AoE nuking us for 2-3k he would nuke us for 1.5-2.5k.

Then after he's deprived by the trader it woudl go down to 1k-2k.

Then when you put your teams together things would be attractive for all profs instead of "ok all the ma's and 2 docs get in one team, rest of you gl staying alive". This is how it's basically played out now.

Johnmclain 142 Fixer
Kruschev 162 Bureaucrat

Wishing I'd rolled an MA so I'd have a char worth a damn for these encounters.

[Nyadach]

Many good ideas here...and I have to say these outside bosses are great (in most cases). Was out "playing" with Lord Dragonclaw, Lord Pain, and the Lunatic.....sheesh guys how many bosses in one place? hehe. Lots of fun though (even if very painful) which is the main thing, atleast we can laugh at death
Thing is though, in places like this part of the problem is greatly that of crowd control, yet the area it's set doesnt help this. The weak walls in this area makes it near impossible what with mobs litterly from the other side of the area coming right in to you. The number of add's, and very powerful add's makes the place a death trap. I have to admit calming was fine (to a certain degree with a few tries), but nuking was a big counter, counter, counter...heck the only nanos sticking were calms. Shame not much use when the mobs litterly come through the walls at you.

I kinda figured you designed this place where u kill off the lunatic to get in, then progress though the passages going from one boss to the next? Nice plan shame it doesn't work due to the weak walls with mobs warping through them If the walls here were fixed, this place would be great (ain't killed anything yet so no idea what loots in there), and a great place to stash some nice loot I hope

14.5 and 14.5.1 added some very nice stuff partically for the Enfs, Soldi's and NTs out there. You've really opened up a lot of possibilities for new more team orientated game play, other than missions mission and more missions. All good Just keep on with the improvements.

[Bionitrous]

Regarding NanoShutdown apparently not working. I'm fairly sure that some of the 'attacks' of boss monsters are actually 'attacks' and not nanos. That is you may have shutdown his nano but it's still using one of its 'weapons'.

I think.

[__________JohnMclain]

Funcoms basically admitted that most/all debuffs do very little to normal mobs much less these ubermobs.

I used Nano Shutdown as an example, but the list is long.

While that Pest AoE might actually be an "attack" instead of a "nano" or whatever, a deprive or blind should effect it. That was simply an example of one support ability in one encourter.

John

[Krabbus]

Originally posted by tavumebottes
the main problem for me :
Why will i spend 2 hours+ with 3 or 4 others teams to take down a boss (and making him spawn ) and have no chance to get a reward(loot) for this.
30 peoples for one loot : (

That's the big issue about the new camps... I guess I never will see the engyonly armor that The One drops :/

[______________Lirona]

I've just started a new char, Meta, Clan. About level 16, and I'm starting to see more outdoor missions to areas like Greater Tir County, where most of the mobs are orange or red outside. No problem, I've run to areas with a lower runspeed and not died, I think. Not quite.

I had assumed outdoor pathing had been drastically improved, because I couldn't see them (Keep in mind they're trying to kill me and have a VERY good chance, so I'm not stopping to watch.)

FC, this change makes newbies (and I mean actual ones, not the twinks) completely unable to do their missions past, oh, 13th level or so. Since you can reach that in about....an hour, if you hurry, that's a lost subscriber. At least, I know I'd have quit if my first few characters had gone from "complicated but moderately challenging" to "this is impossible, I don't know why I'm playing this game." My personal opinion is that you should turn the mob-warping off. You really need all the new blood you can get.