The fall of hunting...

[Xaielao]

Just thought I'd post something I've been thinking a lot about lately, hunting. Is it just me? Poeple don't hunt anymore, I never see people forming groups to go hunting, but 99% of poeple solo in Missions or rarely/at high level, do missions as a team.

Hunting USED to be the way to gain experience. Man, if you wanted some quick levels all you had to do was head out to one of the many many hunting spots that were fairly close to town, Athen Shire, Greater Tir County, Vermint Woods, Aegean, Avelon, Newland Desert, just to name a few of the zones easily accessable by clanners for good hunting. I'm sure there are just as many, if not more, zones that were great hunting for OT poeple. I don't play OT so I couldn't comment.

Unfortunately over a series of patches, and months, this began to change. Very early on, those areas that appeared to be popular hunting grounds had there MOB spawn increased or decreased to help out the players. A great example of this was The Beach in Athen Shire. It turned out a LOT of clanners loved hunting there at 10-20th level, so Funcom increased the spawn rate. It was not unknown to gain 10 levels in just a few hours hunting there. From there people moved onto the dangerous game of hunting at the Junk Yard, or trying another zone, perhaps The Longest Road, great great hunting for 30-50 poeple, and it remains one of those zones that is still very highly populated with mobs, from Virulent Minibulls to Twinger Scorpiods to Bloodcreapers and Hammer Breeders.

But as I said.. after months of time, missions began to take over as the more popular method of experience gain. I am here to exam why.. and to help provide funcom with a way to bring hunting back into the game, after all, many would agree hunting in the wilds of Rubika is perhaps the most fun Anarchy Online has to offer.

So here we go..

REASONS MISSIONS REPLACED HUNTING AS #1 EXPERIENCE GAIN
- Missions offer a limited and safer environement, less chance of death.
- Missions offer tokens, which give great bonuses especially the higher level boards. Mission tokens are doubled, trippled and quadrupled as the player gets higher and higher level.
- High level players find getting a team together and doing missions far above there level to be very productive (and rightly so).
- Team missions offer even more experience as well as many unique items that can ONLY be found in said missions, as either mission-only rewards/drops, and boss only drops.
- Missions and team missions pay more money then hunting, and always has. Back in the early days, up till perhaps 6 months after release, people hunted for experience and did missions on the side to make money.
- High level players find hunting and soloing unfeezable do to mob toughness, mostly in MOB damage, partly do to MOB hitpoints. I will come back to this one further in the post.

REASONS TO HUNT INSTEAD OF DO MISSIONS/TEAM MISSIONS
- To see the beautiful sights and MOBS found throughout rubika
- Find some unique and mob-drop only items, such as rare nano-disks, cyborg armor and a few other items.

As you can see above, doing missions FAR OUTWAYS going hunting, simply because it has many more perks and offers much more safty and controlled environment.

Poeple simply have no reason to hunt anymore, very few of us (myself included) find the desire to explore rubika, and that is a sad fact. Rubika is an extremely diverse and beautiful planet, with a LOT to explore. I don't know the exact dimensions of the planet in miles, but I do know it's an aweful lot. I would estimate that 90% of the population has never been to any of the wonderful places or seen some of the amazing monsters found in the more diverse and distant areas of the planet.

People seem satisfied to just do there missions and complain about being bored with the game.

Now back to the high level game. It does lack a lot of content, it can be boring, and part of the reason is the implausability of solo hunting. At level 80 or 100+ mobs simply are to powerful to hunt solo. Many many classes and players find taking down an even level or even slightly under-level mob to be just to difficult to enjoy it. Mobs at this level have to many hitpoints (which I have reason to believe was reduced silently a few patches back).

I've tested this myself. With my 92 soldier I recorded the hitpoints on several of the mobs I fought. I found that humaniod mobs typically had 2-5x my own hitpoints. But that is not the problem as a whole, because monsterous MOBs tend to have less hitpoints then the NPC MOBs, the primary problem is the damage these mobs do.

My soldier has quite a lot of hitpoints, with full life implants of QL110 he has 2.6k hitpoints. He's not atrox so thats limited by a small ammount, but stamina and body dev are both maxed out. He is wearing QL120ish Flowers Tech and QL125 Medium Tank Armor. He is not, nore ever was OE'd, all his items accept the tank are self-equipped. He has just shy of 2900 on the 3 main ACs.

Humaniod MOBS typically hit him for 70-100 damage at maximum speed of .5/.5 or once every second. Do to the hitpoints of mobs his hitpoints are usually at 1/2 or less when he does defeat an even-con mob, and that is usually with MKIV. MKIV does not make soldiers invincible, when he uses it his damage take from humaniod mobs dips down to around 30dmg per hit. This has saved his life more times then I care to count, but it has not prevented his death on numerious occasions.

This may not seem bad, but this is humaniod MOBs. One must remember that humaniod MOBs are what most missions are populated with. However, Monstrous MOBs do MUCH more damage. Typical monsterous mobs of his level, lesser Anuns, Greywolfs, Chaos Minions, do 100-150 points of damage a hit, and hit VERY fast, faster then Humaniod MOBs. This can cause his hitpoints to drop very fast.

Luckely he is a soldier who can deal good damage (144 Nova, 110 Flashpoint, both self-equipped) as well as having MK Shield. But many classes aren't as tough as he is at his level. They cannot handle combat like he can, infact there aren't that many classes at his level that can. I dread what my fixer will have to deal with when he gets that high.

My point is, at this level and higher, mobs are to tough. I cannot comment on 100+ as I have no characters that high (I've been playing since beta4, I'm just a slow leveler hehe.) There hitpoints are a little to high, and the damage they deal, at least monsterous MOBs, is to high. I have been told that mob damage increases sharply as one levels past 100.

So can you see why poeple don't hunt? Why go out and hunt monstrous MOBs that do far more damage when you can do higher level missions against mobs that aren't as deadly, in a safer environement, with lower risk and MUCH higher reward?

This is the question I'm asking you Funcom. Hunting needs a boost, it NEEDS to be brought back into the game, and back into your players lives. It's no wonder people get board, all they do day in and out is missions because they are SO rewarding.

A lot of poeple don't realise that missions used to pay even more! Back in the early days missions payed 2 or 3x what they do now. I can remember at low 30's getting missions in avelon that payed 30-40k a pop. But mission locations were much farthur away on average, and poeple cried for change. Location distance was reduced and monitary pay out was reduced as well. I'm glad I was on an extended holiday (I took a 3 month brake between late summer until just after Christmas) because I'm sure this board was was full of hate posts lol. But back in the subject...

I keep dragging this post out more and more, but I'm just trying to get my point acrossed that something must be done to improve hunting. The risk version reward is WAY out of balance for one.

Something must be done.. and Funcom I'm hoping your reading this, and doing something about it.


On a side note, please add to the post and bumb people, especially those of you who miss hunting as much as I do.

[________________Enau]

Well said Fion. I agree 100%. Another reason that hunting has become less popular (imo) is, at least from what I've seen, is there are not too many places to save your character in the wilderness. People are too lazy to make that run time and time again if / when they die. I personally like a big risk of dying. What fun is a game if there is no risk? However, this is a rare point of view, and most people would just as soon level to 100 and never die. I too hope that Funcom will look into this; although, I cannot personally complain about the loot I've come across in the last couple of weeks.

[Inocybe]

The last time I tried to organise a 100+ hunt ... a few people said yes and then when they realised how far we had to travel with nary a save terminal in sight, predictably backed out. *sigh*

There are still some of us who explore and revisit places. I don't think many know, for example, that the spawn pattern of pit lizards have changed over the past patches. Among several of us who RP as 'explorers', we refer to it as "the dragons have migrated". How many of you know that the dragons vanished from Milky Way for a while and then reappeared? And how many would actually care to know?

Just the other day on the leader's channel, a guild leader (well over past level 100) thought that the muddevil salamander was a new mob. I was shocked. I mean, this is a low level beast found near the main cities, where low levels hunt even, like South Isle or Newland Desert or Pleasant Meadows or Lush Fields.

And over at the Advy.org forum, someone asked if anyone has actually done solo hunting. You know when people ask this sort of question, it occured to me I had never asked myself this when I used to "solo hunt" long ago ... I mean, I just went out and did it ... just me and my rifle ... an explorer/hunter who stalked her prey in the wilderness.

Do you know what a thrill it is to stalk a Blood Reet at level 12? Blood Reets are social creatures and so risky to hunt solo but that makes it all the more exciting and challenging. Then how about stalk hunting Young Minibulls at level 15? Same thing, social creatures - miscalculate your pull of a stray and you might just have a herd of them chasing you instead. Then how about a level 30 stalking a Gargantula Challenger in The Cage surrounded by scorpiods? Fun!

Now nobody hunts Manteze at Galway Poole. Why? It's a very exciting place to hunt for a young team and a great place for guilds to train pullers and such.

If you're Omni, Rome/Galway combo is one of best places to level from 1 to 35 and you won't suffer the infamous Lagfields syndrome. And if you know the game well and are well-equipped, you can do it in two days. But you won't see people here. Why? I suspect part of the reason why Rome/Galway is so underpopulated is because of the way they changed New Arrival entry points.

For a long while, they made it such that an Omni would only arrive at Omni Ent Backyard 1 and no other Omni city. How boring and what a terrible idea for a population spread. If they did this for Omni, I won't be surprised to hear they did the same for Neutral and Clan arrival points too.

We need a high level hunting spot that echoes Morse Exit -- there was a time when "Meet at Galway bridge" meant something fun and exciting to do.

We need a high level hunting spot that echoes Lush Fields NW mutant camp -- where out of the blue a Lifebleeder will pop up and scare the dickens out of everyone and liven up the atmosphere and kept the team on their toes.

High level mobs, hmm mostly what we have now is -- a yellow or orange mob ... surrounded by packs of aggressive red mobs -- the complete opposite of the NW mutant camp scenario. No wonder, no one wants to go out hunting for the kind of poor xp gain vs risk involved.

Mind you, there are pockets where it is possible to hunt past 100+, but I will find few people to come along. No good loot, no good xp gained for the time taken and no convenient save terminal -- those are the turn-offs commonly cited.

Sooo ... anyone wants to hunt an Obsidian in the most exotic cavern system on this planet? There's a guide here willing to take you there.

[Xaielao]

Your absolutely right. One of the primary reasons can be blamed on the backyard thing. I fought long and hard, posted a few times on these forums, talked to GMs and ARK's, both on RK1 and Test, to try and get this changed.

Finally it has. Finally I can go to West Athen and see large crouds gathered there. Infact just the other day I actually saw a few low levelers hunting Athen Shire!!! I'm serious!

Of course just yesterday I had a lvl 46 guy ask me how to Athen Shire, so..



Shameless self BUMP

[________________Enau]

Athen Shire!!??!! I went there once or twice in my 20s and got my butt smeared. I'm now level 30+ and still too much of a chicken to go back.

[Xaielao]

Haha, them V-bulls are about the only really dangerious creatures out there, besides the Trash King of course.

[_____________Morfeen]

The whole falling of hunting began during the 13.0 series of patches. I remeber form 40-60 hunting Hammers,Scorpids,and Mantezes in Galway. During one of these Patches Hammers were fixed so they became aggro on sight, Also 'The Cage' ,where scorpids and Garg Challenger is, their spawn rates were drasically reduced.

Then NPCs out in VW spawned a lot less frequently. So OT atleast, pretty much depended on 20k to lvl up past 50 to 80 or even 90 then they whould go to EFP to hunt Aces at the Ace camp or the Hunting at the time Medusas. Now due to a bug as FC calls it, Medsusas were Fixed, so they aggroed males, and had thier damage up a lot, making them unhuntable expect for past 150 and even then to hard making it worthwhile.

After this happend, I wonder what we going to do for XP, for couple weeks i just wondered around till someone in my guild named Blizzaro organized Borg hunts in mort, we were post 100, Have to say hunting borgs was quite cool and very excting cause even post 100 they were very danagours to deal with, esp since they agro so easily. It was during this time I found out bout BS, lot of people had already been doing missions for XP, While it was kinda cool, it was very tendous and got very boring so, I tried my best to hunt Borgs and such.

Well then the suppersion gas lvls changed, Mort and EFP went to 25%, and this discouraged hunting in those areas so people did missions even more. Then when Team Missions came out end of story, hunting outside at any lvl just wasnt worth. becuase you get tokens,loot,xp, and rewards all in one nice little package.

So in Short the death of outside hunting was due to team missions, and various patches, Something drastic has to be done to even make people think twice bout doing team missions. cuase the reward of hunting outside dosent even come near Team missions. They are good, but we *need* alternatives.

[MissMaul]

Can I have an exact location of this beach? I'm trying to find all the cool places on Rubi-Ka

[Inocybe]

You hit it on the nail folks.

* Outdoor mob spawn reduced across several zones.

* Drastic changes to two popular hunting spots for levels 90-130ish

* Introduction of new prof nanos that are found only in missions (started with the MP summon creation nanos, NT Enfraam nanos, Trader and Doctor warp nanos, Fixer Bootleg nanos, etc.)

* Introduction of team missions

... and now the latest

* Drop availability of new prof items and prof nanos in team missions only


Surely we do value team missions as a welcome feature but not to the point that we want to do it every single time we log in, what an utter bore. Somehow the concept of VARIETY seems to have been chucked out the window. So yes, there were calls of long ago to fix team missions, so yes very good, team missions finally came ... but why was it introduced at the expense of outdoor hunting?

Why introduce something and then nerf hunt spots no one complained about?

Variety. Why is this word so hard to understand for FC?

[Intenseheat]

This is all painfully true. I joined right at the start as an Omni crat. No one even thought of doing missions for xp. We all went out to the omni forest barracks to find a group and went to one of the mutant camps from there. Then at level 20 or so you went to Galway and hunted in the waaayyy NE part till about 30, then in the cage till 40 or 45. Then you'd go to 2HO (That's right, groups used to form there!) and hunt till you were big enough to go to PM, and so on and so forth. Then around November, the transition to missions began, and was in full effect around February. Now with team missions, there's no hope for it. FC seems to be trying to open up the wilderness with the rearrangement of the whompas, but it's not going to work, sorry. Probably, when the expansion comes out, the Shadowlands will be 100% desolate, because by their very definition I can tell that they are going to be generally hard to get to, without any settlements, and with mobs that hit too hard. How can we put hunting back?

1) Put more save terminals in the wilderness. There are tons of little villages out there, how hard would it be to stick a save, reclaim, and bank in them?

2) Unique roaming mob loot. STOP putting unique loot in team missions, and put them on Tarasque-style-uber roaming mobs out in Mort, the Valleys, Avalon, or EFP areas. Thus, camping is eliminated. This game was supposed to stop the camp-fest of EQ, but we find people camping in all the dungeons. If you don't know where the mob is gonna spawn, and the mob can move around, it makes the loot that much more precious. This of course also influences guild work, as the mobs will be super tough, and require a whole guild to take down.

3) More experience from non-humanoid mobs. Eliminate the possibly of the monstrous mobs to be in missions, and double the possible experience gained from the monstrous mobs. Thus, it makes up for the time factor involved in getting to the mobs, moving from one mob to the next, and getting back.

4) Make some really, really weird looking mobs. Right now, they mostly run-of-the-mill. Only ones I can think of as being really original are the Eyes, Babyface, and the Lifebleeder series. If you get some freaky lookin' stuff out there, people are gonna wanna see it.

5) Make some outdoor dungeons. While not quite as thick in unique loot and spawn camping as the indoor dungeons, they will have those elements. Some unique terrain would be nice, as well as unique mobs. The dungeon should be set apart by mountains, much like the Omni OP in The Longest Road where the Lab dungeon is (The one with TIM). Perhaps make Yalms unusable when entering the area. I'd recommend a setup something like this (horrible forum art coming up)
______________________________________
| | | |
| | | |
| HARD MOBS | BOSS AREA |
| | &REAL HARD MOBS |
| |____________| |
| |
| |
| EASY MOBS MEDIUM MOBS |
| |
| entrance |
|____ | _____________________________|

There would be no divisions except for boss area, that would only be where the spawn points were for the mobs, they could wander around. The "Real hard mobs" would spawn frequently but not have any super-special loot so as to discourage camping the boss. This is probably the most difficult of my ideas

6) Lastly, I put the thing that will probably happen anyway Screw up missions. In some way, make them not as good. Either make it so that at least TEAM missions cannot be received in city areas *cough* Home *cough*, if not all missions. I'm sure a bug will pop up somewhere sooner or later to mess them up anyway, eh?

Them's my ideas. Like 'em, or I'll relieve myself on you while you're sleeping.

[Xaielao]

good ideas Preeminance.

The beach is easy to find. Just go to old athen, go out the west gate and as soon as you reach the end of the bridge and hit the road, turn to your left and simply follow the river edge. You'll zone to Athen Shire quickly and then after a short run, you'll hit the beach. Across from it is a small mountain range that can be fun and challanging to climb, with a great view. There used to be some bots up on those mountains, not sure if there are anymore.

[______________Wahoo.]

LeveLs 38- 46

Go down LR stay on right side of the killing everything along the way. After a while you will come to a road which goes to the right follow it . There is a major spawn about half way up . On both sides. One side is life bleeders though so becarefull.

For harder mobs go on the left side of LR hammers.

[_____________Lionhrt]

Alot of good points expressed in this thread.

Missions I think are what sucks the most in this game. Thier so small, uninspiring, all one level unless you do boss missions and too dam long. ON the other hand the outdoors are bright, full of wildlife like bird and bunnies, nice music, and weather (would be great if this actually effected game) but without anyone hunting.

I miss hunting outdoors alot. I can remember the first time they put shade mobs up in tir. It was extremely exciting fighting them while listening to the music as the days turned to night. Thier was a truck load of them and you had to figure out ways to pull without aggroing the whole place. We usually get a fixer in the party to buff the puller with speed buffs while pulling 10 - 15 shades or outlaws out to the front of the opening till the last one stopped following. Then we would pick them off one by one since no one was up thier at the time. Thier had to be around 25 of those mobs lurking around. Funcom pretty much nerfed it till now thiers very few thier and once you kill them they spawn so slow like the temple.

Back in the days when varmond woods was heavily camped. Fighting those rookie camps was just a blast. Having them continously spawn around the camp fire while your constantly being attacked was exciting and made the time go fast. Its sorta like how the 2ok camps are now but with more aggroes and less downtime.

The cyborgs in mort and in avalon was fun to fight for awhile but now thier just empty places taking up space.

Lush fields is probably the best spot nowadays for anyone rerolling a character but thats starting to slowly decline with people plus that only lasts till around level 50.


Its something to sit here and think back to how things have progressed or degressed in the year that the game has been out. What once was fun has now been reduced to empty wastelands. Its already bad enough that if you have been here since day one and been doing solo mission for cash and items to upgrade your characters. Now your reduced to doing even more missions for teaming. Those missions are so boring, small and doesnt seem alive and thier so long. Im actually at the point where I cant stomach to even log in to play. This is coming from someday that played quake2 for 3 years and didnt find it boring.

My last character I have made is a crat. I was able to hunt with him outdoors in lush fields until level 50 and I have never hunting outdoors again and im currently 115. Sixty five levels of doing team solo missions. Maybe 2 times where boss missions. Not one group ever wants to hunt outdoors. Im always in the game so it doesnt matter what time of day it is, nobody hunts outside.


As a crat I miss using my charms since im always doing mission at level 170+. Also I dont get to use my other nanos hardly at all like area roots, slows, fear nanos etc...

[Thyrra]

there is a feeling, that i share these days, that FC saw people leveling so fast that they'd get bored eventually and leave the game and take their money with them. instead of adding things to make people want to stay in the game once at high level, they seem to have decided to slow down leveling.

i recall one day in vw when the bluebags went crazy. they spawned and roamed more than normal and because very agressive. the whole hunting field on the near side of the river, near the crossroads, was desolate. people used to go there to find teams. this night everyone was at the zone barrier to vw talking about how crazy it was. i remember that fondly now.

then the hunting nerfs hit. they added OPs with scanners near where people were hunting at low level in clan lands, but dropped the spawn timers so much that it was not worth hunting there anymore. ggrrrrr

now there is a 'generation' of rubi kans that don't 'know' what real hunting is.

---

i really like the idea of an outdoor dungeon. i hope FC takes note and develops it like it deserves.

[__________Holmgehirr]

a bump for hunt.

[BGumble]

Meet me at the bridge!

Things were such fun back then.

In addition to all the reasons above there are a couple of very significant ones:-

1. Outdoor mobs dont give enough XP. Once you get past around level 50 your levelling would be painfully slow with only outdoor hunting. Maybe this is how the game should be, after all. Second or third time around it doesnt take long to reach 100. Still, if you are hunting in an outdoor spot with all the additional risks that gives (random wandering mobs and huge pulls) you should be compensated for it.

2. Single player missions are just *way* to easy for a good team of 6. A good team of 6 in their 60s-70s can take a 120-130 mission in 20K and level in about ohh, 15-20 minutes. Something needs to be done. Either XP should be reduced more when you have 6 players in a single player mission or the mob difficulty should be dynamically altered upwards.... 1 player = 100% difficulty, 3 players = 140% base difficulty, 6 players = 160% difficulty. Something like that.

[alphane]

/agree 100% , especially Preeminence and thats THE post i would like FC take in consideration. A Cz post started with this idea in mind but for some other reasons " how to stop camping?"
Well, simple, bring back outdoor in the game.

Random mobs in random spots with unique/nodrop/special loot that could give ANY player a chance to find those nice items that only uber guilds can get just for credits or E-BAY.

quote preeminence:

...If you don't know WHERE the mob is gonna spawn, and the mob can move around, it makes the loot that much more precious...

We could then cross the country to find them, visit and discover the world of Rubi-ka.

Raise down dramatically Mobs damages
Raise up the Xps gain.

Makes the mission a bit tougher . Do you think normal that me and my teamates at lvl 100 are able to do QL180 missions ? its crazy.

A Cz or Cosmik comment would be very appreciated.

Its the most interesting , responsible and smart post i read here for a long time now.

[cold]

Hunt... outside... *sighs sadly*

[______________Wahoo.]

Really alot of people are leaving beause of the lack of content . Plus after your 1k board do you really wanna do missions till level 200. I mean ..i have to respect those that did but, god how boring. The AO staff should realise this will run players off. I know alot of great spawns but at high levels when your skills are sharp and have no way of being truly challenged . At high levels there are no hunting area's .

Please funcom remember reward balance.
Includes:
1. How hard are the mobs are.
2. What type of zone 75% ,25% or 0% !!
3. Aggro involved.
ECT ..
Balance the Xp and reward drops please. THis is one thing that kills hunting.

[alphane]

Its time to make this kind of thread a sitcky thread if we want to be eared.
I suggest that all of you that aggree with the general idea of hunting improvment and rehabilitation should talk to their guildmates and teamates and bump the thread with their own thoughts and suggestions.
Next patch MUST BE the OUTDOOR patch.