Friday with Means - April 23rd, 2010 - Incoming

[Wulf-GTI]

This is also going to further nerf NT kiting of dynacamps. I'm pretty sure that camps that I used to be able to to kite will become instantly fatal if the boss happens to be one that warps. (Ok, not *instantly* -- 10 seconds. )

Terrible! Maybe now have get team. So bad.

[Calamite]

"Get a team" is not a valid tactic in dark ruins solo instance, which is not all that easy as it is for certain profs, now it will be a nightmare.

Same about T&S master in LE missions, sure the team will handle him but one or two unfortunate team members will die regardless of their actions, same about DB2 instance, where a team member who just got unlucky to get warped right before cloud is doomed. So basically the encounter becomes a russian roulette, random team member gets killed FOR SURE without any way to prevent it. People will just avoid them, no one likes being killed for nothing.

The root on warp change is being introduced to stop the abuse in *certain* encounters, like pande and (maybe) apf. Ok, it's justified there, but I don't see why it should affect all the encounters where range/kiting/obstacles weren't abused in the first place.

[Saetos]

The root on warp change is being introduced to stop the abuse in *certain* encounters, like pande and (maybe) apf. Ok, it's justified there, but I don't see why it should affect all the encounters where range/kiting/obstacles weren't abused in the first place.

Even in Pande it's barely justifiable, as there are mobs that aggro you across walls if you approach the wall via lag or other means.

[firemanjoe623]

What difference does it make? This is supposed to be a new high level encounter for us to play with. The rewards should go to high level characters. If you don't want something that drops when you successfully complete The Collector then don't roll on it.

I'm kinda amused and somehow amazed at how people are already cutting down loot options when they don't even know what is available. Havng a chance to get items that no longer drop is, in itself, a great thing.. and now you're complaining that you can't get it on your low level characters as well? I hope nodrop no longer available loot items are available.. and I hope there is no way for anyone to get in and grab loot rights for other characters. It would be nice to have an instance where you actually have to accomplish the content on the character being rewarded.. imagine that.

Enough Said.

[bitnykk]

same for me. i'm totally against the lootright resell. not by itself, because there are cases where, e.g., all team shares the income, and paying player is happy to equip fast instead of farming.

but, exactly like financial world or intensive agriculture IRL, that systems has gone mad :
- favorizing credits sellers, as money becomes more rewarding than personnal efforts on equiping, getting knowledge of profession and play actively to drop the wanted gear.
- make people more greedy than ever, rolling on things they don't need in front of people farming it for weeks or monthes, to let a rich & lazy bastard loot for his level 1 alt.

maybe i exagerate a bit, but you get the general notion of the problem. same goes with OSTing hecklers : a well equipped 220 tanking huge amount of grey crap for a mid-level team in medsuit, incapable of playing their toons & making all mid-level content proposed totally unavailable.

such things are a pity as they not always have solution FC can implement : for lootright that's about the behaviour of players, not the game design by itself. but for OST the thing really needed, for long, is make all mobs afraid of high levels actions (mongo, CH, any).

ok, i'll stop philosophing for today ^^

[Lliers]

Terrible! Maybe now have get team. So bad.

Wonderful advice. Especially when it was my virtually-defenseless-NT's job to train away all the adds and kite them to death while everyone else kills the boss. In my experience, the boss doesn't care about the order of the hate list to select who it warps. It warps anyone it feels like. I've heard of stories of people blitzing team mishes and having the boss warp them back even though they were a level or two away and headed for the exit.

Really, as a NT there are plenty of XP rich clumps of regular mobs to kite if we wanted to, but many of use who set up our NT's for kiting are going to find ourselves even less popular than we are now. As it is, I find virtually nobody wants NT's in teams unless they only want us to power-level-kite for them while they afk. Now we get one more reason to get kicked from team. And this doesn't just affect NT's, if that's the case. Usually when teaming with people who do not have a great setup (mercy teaming), the gimpers (often myself included) can often stand back and out-range the boss, provide support damage, or deal with adds (pet classes, fixers, etc...). If this new root systematically eliminates all the weaker members of a team, boss encounters are going to be only fun for twinks and tanks. They can loot while the rest of the team enjoys some relaxing time in reclaim.

Cerubin is another boss I can think of that will be affected. (I'm pretty sure that many of my toons that I currently team for CoH will be insta-pwned or at best 2-hit or 3-hit killed by Cerubin.)

[Ebondevil]

Out-ranging a mob that can't move is obviously not a good thing. If you are able to stand still and shoot a mob without it being able to hit you back, it's broken and should be fixed.

Having that said, I don't really want warp'n'root on bosses that you can't out-range like that.

Always seemed stupid to me that some bosses were permarooted, there's really no need for it as far as I can tell so instead of having the Warp-n-Root mechanic when warps alone were bad enough, let the mobs move...

Okay this doesn't work for everything but it sure works for the vast majority of Warping mobs which are going to be horrendous with the added root as well.

To be honest the only mob I can't really see being able to move around is the Communications Tower on the DB quest and that's already one of the most broken encounters in the game that causes multiple headaches for everyone.

Mobs which could easily move around and loose the Warp Mechanic:
Dreadloch mobs (Why not?)
Swamp Witches (Why not?)
Griefing Uncle Pumpkinheads (Why not?)
Pande Mobs (Why Not?)
Alien Mothership Master of XYZ (they have a huge range and the rooms big enough for them to move around in a limited fashion already)

And while you're at it make Max range actually meaningful in PvM again please.

[elsaa2]

"Grand Theft Humidity and Borrow Reflect have been significantly altered as a first step in the balancing process for the Trader Profession" should keepers cry more for get a nerf from DF? (shade nemesis nano to keepers) or what is the way for it, 'cos i have a soldier and a doc and gth its annoying but cant be compared with DF, maybe with a balance on that will make some keepers play pvp at tl7 again, just its a thought...

[Calamite]

What you people are calling abusing, or sploting the terrain, was actually a lot of fun.

We're heading back towards large and boring teams, and kill the same mobs over and over again.

It was never fun, just people who thought they're smarter than everyone shouting about it on every corner. Well here's the result.

There is and always was a legit tactic of doing pande without killing tons of mobs with a small team, and the 10s root change won't affect it. It involves crowd control, words that have been forgotten since SL launch it seems. People barely ever use that tactic though, as it involves a really good crat or fixer (although I can't remember last time I saw a fixer use snares outside pvp) and a lot of patience and careful pulling, THAT is fun if you like a challenge.

[Saetos]

The main problem with giving so many changes to bosses, and by extension Pandemonium, is you create a situation where you're really just grooming a 9-year-old dog.

Bar a couple trinkets, people want Beastloot. That's it. Why else are people deliberately avoiding the other mobs, and oftentimes the other bosses? It's not "boss warps" that need changing, it's the reason to stick around and battle the other mobs that need changing.

[Krattonomic]

I agree with Saetos, the whole reason for all the monsters on here is to try everything out instead of just "the Beast" and other things like that,

[Calamite]

The main problem with giving so many changes to bosses, and by extension Pandemonium, is you create a situation where you're really just grooming a 9-year-old dog.

Bar a couple trinkets, people want Beastloot. That's it. Why else are people deliberately avoiding the other mobs, and oftentimes the other bosses? It's not "boss warps" that need changing, it's the reason to stick around and battle the other mobs that need changing.

Well pande has existed for years and never really had that kind of problem, so raising that point now in this thread will most likely lead to your posts being deleted. For now the reasonable suggestion would be to remove the root thing from other encounters than pande.

[Klodovik]

But... Adding 10 sec root is much, much easier to do. *snif*

[Stormgiver]

I think Means forgot something.
The new playfields for orgs from RK3.

What about them?
It was promised that they'll get ingame the first patch after the merge...

-.-

[Raggy]

What about those that will not necessarily be in top notch equipment. How will they access that new content. They said it's going to be hard, will you invite the average "Joe"?

Didn't think so.

Congrats on completely missing the point of the new instance.

The collector instance has been designed with the top players in mind as there are people who don't like PvP and only like PvM (yes they exist).

These particular players have been seeking challenging gameplay for a long time but it has never been delivered because Pande isn't the state of the art challenge it used to be and all the LoX instances can be done with 4 or less people aswell, which shows how easy it is for the higher end players to complete the current content.

The new instance, which has been highlighted in every FWM for the past month or two explicitly says "Your going to die if your not godlike and have a brain", there is nothing for 'The Average Joe' because it wasn't DESIGNED for 'The Average Joe'.

[Ocene]

Congrats on completely missing the point of the new instance.

The collector instance has been designed with the top players in mind as there are people who don't like PvP and only like PvM (yes they exist).

These particular players have been seeking challenging gameplay for a long time but it has never been delivered because Pande isn't the state of the art challenge it used to be and all the LoX instances can be done with 4 or less people aswell, which shows how easy it is for the higher end players to complete the current content.

The new instance, which has been highlighted in every FWM for the past month or two explicitly says "Your going to die if your not godlike and have a brain", there is nothing for 'The Average Joe' because it wasn't DESIGNED for 'The Average Joe'.

Congrats on the new discrimination of AO.

I wonder how many NTs, traders, will receive invites to those. 12man saved Keepers, if there's no fear in the new place, I wonder about them too.

I wonder how many people will leave disgusted.

[Saetos]

Congrats on the new discrimination of AO.

I wonder how many people will leave disgusted.

Giving people a new challenge is "discriminating?" Should we hold picket protests for people who wear Omni Steel-Ribbed and Carb helms at 220?

[Ocene]

Well you can always do LoX then!

No, I will do the new instance, not sure about MPs, traders, keepers, maybe there's a role for them in there. I hope for them there is.

[Mastablasta]

Congrats on the new discrimination of AO.

I wonder how many NTs, traders, will receive invites to those. 12man saved Keepers, if there's no fear in the new place, I wonder about them too.

I wonder how many people will leave disgusted.

Well, what do you care anyway? You stated earlier that you didn't want any random groups, so maybe if people stopped playing with random groups and with their friends, we would largely be without this problem.
But I guess that's too much to ask. People actually making orgs and such because they want to play together, not just because they want more farm targets for AI armor and placeholders for towerfields.

quote of the day, taken from a newspaper: "For every idiot who pees in the drinking well, there are 100 thirsty people who are now incredibly pissed off."

many of us ingame are those who have yet to experience every boss encounter in game yet, even as they were created to be by the developers, and the 10 second warp-root would ensure that we never will experience whats proper on any boss encounter that gets you warprooted. thanks a lot to those who pee'd in the well.

Can you explain why it is that you will never get to do that? Other than of course giving up beforehand. But then, that's a very typical AO player thing. Give up without trying and go to forum and cry.

[Lusos101]

Frankly, and as much as it pains me I have to say it: This thread is getting obscene. It is indecent how selfish people can rationalize, whine and detract when they ear of a feature that may put in danger one of the things that is destroing the game. Soloing and multilogging are some of the main reasons for the game to be sinking like it is now. It needs to be fixed and FAST. But most people prefer to be the big fish in a drying pond.

This new feature may or not be good, it probably will need some adjustments and exceptions, it may even be bad. We will have to try it and evaluate it. But what it intends is an essential step to fix the game. Each new toon needs to be played from beginning to end. And be developed properly along the way. This is a game that needs to be played solo, in small teams and in raids. Each type of game play should be viable. But each should be played in its proper place with an adequate reward.

Those who really dont have the patience anymore to play properly should try other games. Make space for some noobs. The game needs them more. Much more.