Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

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isabel
Posts: 1713
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by isabel » Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:24 am

Callesa is nowhere saying they are bad people. She is not talking about intention but about effect. In fact she repeatedly specifies that she is talking about the experience from normal non-solo stab LS pov. I get that people who play stabbers will absolutely not have this experience but that does not invalidate her experience.

You also don't need to understand the details how something works to say that the experience of interacting with it is not working for you.

PvE rewards have been increased but it is all oriented around solo stabbers or around these maximiser Draz groups (cheese groups I think rig called it). All the things you listed Rig need groups for players like Callesa, which is difficult to get in our playtimes + DFS/MCs etc.

Why will anyone join a herald group when they can solo stab? I remember asking many people including people posting here to herald and everyone refused because if you are goal oriented and don't care about the group experience then it's pointless. Unless LS leadership picks up it's no point.

Callesa (and reyne) many of the reasons you listed is why I have no desire to play wotmud anymore. I feel like you put a lot of thought and truth into your post in an effort to make things better for group oriented players but (judging by responses) I don't know if it's worth fighting for when there are so many great games out there.

byrg
Posts: 371
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 8:56 pm

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by byrg » Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:57 am

isabel wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:24 am
Callesa is nowhere saying they are bad people.
Callesa wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:24 pm
...
There are too many of dfs, and I am not talking just about the known ones. Sorry to say that, but if you rat a smob group, that took a few hours to gather (like what happened yesterday), you are a bad person irl. ...
Not to nitpick, but, uh, I certainly read this as saying they are bad people... in the very first post of the thread.

Drybones
Posts: 46
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2021 1:36 pm

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Drybones » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:06 am

isabel wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:24 am

Why will anyone join a herald group when they can solo stab? I remember asking many people including people posting here to herald and everyone refused because if you are goal oriented and don't care about the group experience then it's pointless. Unless LS leadership picks up it's no point.

Callesa (and reyne) many of the reasons you listed is why I have no desire to play wotmud anymore. I feel like you put a lot of thought and truth into your post in an effort to make things better for group oriented players but (judging by responses) I don't know if it's worth fighting for when there are so many great games out there.
There have been great strides in encouraging PvE, lots of quest lines added, and qp/altqp incentives to drive that line. There could be more done to encourage group activities for sure. Personality types and leadership plays a big role into it, as I never see Ominus struggling to put a group together, but solo smobbing definitely factors into that quite a bit. Posts in this forum have contributed to the discussion some, and have helped inform imm opinions too. But, again it goes both ways. The people who disagree put a lot of thought and truth into their posts as well. Despite a rather antagonistic introduction to this thread, there has been a lot of encouragement towards Calissa. People have been (for the most part) disagreeing fairly politely, but still disagreeing with their characterization of the game and its players.

The argument that pkers force people to either quit or play their game is bogus, because the solution forces pkers to either quit or play non-pk when they don't want to. You're just reversing the roles. If you find yourself hating the nature of a game that people have been enjoying for decades, I don't think the solution is to change the nature of the game. As I mentioned above, I think there is a lot to enjoy outside of pure PvE. But asking people to change their playstyle to suit yours is odd to me. Concerns about paranoia and fear among the player base etc. are positives if you view this as a horror RP game. Based on the content from the books and in game, I would view it that way. You don't play DeadSpace if you don't want to dung your pants every now and then. But as you say, this game's not for everyone either.

Arguing that certain RP choices reflect IRL behavior is something that should always be pushed back against in a RP-based environment. It stifles any interesting RP, and it makes people uncomfortable to pursue valid in game options. It's one thing to question whether a feature should be in the game, it's another to attack the players that use those features.

Arguing that certain viewpoints should be heard without discussion is bizarre and hypocritical. There should definitely be some level of civility, but the only personal attacks came in the first post, and those have been met with kind, thoughtful responses that try to give context to a new players concerns.

Draz
Posts: 559
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Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Draz » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:45 am

I'd like to say I really appreciate how constructive people have been here;

I also love Callesa being around as player and all of the people who do stuff for others on this game.

I do think the change to heralds to include up North has made it /way/ harder - and over half the times I've done it we've been hit by DS and usually the group is non-pkers and we've been slaughtered. This is taking into account me outright refusing to do heralds unless people are either part way through, have a plan with all gate codes ready, or have people in the group to run and do the scalps/solo some of the smobs, or frankly if there are more than 4-5 DS looking for when I'm asked to help. I'd prefer to go pk than lead a bunch of people to suicide.

A personal opinion (as a player not from Draz specifically), is to bring back Legion, Foresters, and Legion 2.0 (Dragonsworn) as they were always super fun for helping people out and equipping LS. I've also really enjoyed having gleemen and wisdoms along on any trips like this, and would love for it to be encouraged.

I'll reflect the above comments about smob groups and DFs - if DS are hunting for pk and you aren't gating, or are otherwise predictable, or lets be blunt, are doing heralds at all,.. they're probably going to find you. A big issue here is the time sink involved in doing all of the heralds together. My personal response to this is to suggest doing 2 heralds at a time (Its such a time sink I hate the idea of doing one at a time),.. and a general request to LS to be willing to help out if a group is doing heralds. I do think my opinions about discording groups to log on and smash are well known, I think its fine for one person, or something balancing, but its not the way its used.

In respect to Ely's comments about cityhits even if we looked at say..Baerlon flipping 6x/day and Jehanna 2x/day.. thats 700ish cityhits.. that means we're looking at an average of 12-15 cityhits most days of the last 3 months, and it aint me or any other LS doing it as far as I know. DS cityheads were all made to narrate (I keep getting told it only goes off at batt - yet anecdotally almost every city we did hit had DS showing up in zone as soon as the cityhead mob engaged on someone, even if we didn't rat or leave tracks). The flip side of that is we've had DS raiding cities for hours each day and I see maybe 1, maybe 2 mobs narrate that they're being attacked, typically once only before they die.

I suspect its too late now but I think perhaps the doubled up rewards for masters for chunks is too much - and think if you want to slow us down getting qps it may as well be replaced with cash or something similar. It seemed to be a core argument for why I shouldn't have 'easy rewards' smobbing and yet has been ignored since.

Kordin
Posts: 712
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:17 pm

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Kordin » Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:37 am

Draz wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:45 am
A personal opinion (as a player not from Draz specifically), is to bring back Legion, Foresters, and Legion 2.0 (Dragonsworn) as they were always super fun for helping people out and equipping LS. I've also really enjoyed having gleemen and wisdoms along on any trips like this, and would love for it to be encouraged.
Just an FYI for those who might not be aware or have forgotten (as I've seen...on this topic? Or another...anywhoooo...);

Gleeman and Illuminators can perform a quick show if there's a 5 min break in the smob run. Group needs to regen, someone needs a smoke, whatever the case may be.

Of course triggering the award mobol (should said performer bring the show mob with them, those don't do anything other than scream "Oh Light! We're all going to die!" (or similar) if DS hits) is completely up to other group members, if they think the show was worth the reward.
The profit for you would be that Imms (at least they used to before, I assume some still go through those notes) award 1 QP for attending a show (I don't know how often and how many QPs per a time period you can get this way).

So that's basically encouragement enough (IMHO, not saying it can't be encouraged even more...) to grab one along. Not to mention there's RPkudos now so since you're dragging someone from an RP clan along, a bit of RP is bound to happen or at least has a chance of happening. It's not always the right time or place or group for RP, I realize that.

Wisdoms - IIRC (don't have one) they used to frequently award for RP logs in clan and if members of the group sent RP letters to Wisdom council explaining/praising the Wisdom who helped and healed, that was also a nice QP amount for said Wisdom. I don't know if there's anything in it for the person RPing and/or sending that letter (other than RPkudos again) in the same sense as the show attendance potential reward...

As for DSworn - they're really just f-ed over by RP, aren't they though? Can't exactly group with Tower and/or Amadorians, others "must" be careful unless they want to get in RP trouble with non-DSworn friendly nations and orgnaizations...unless RP changes around them in some way, it's a risk of a different kind. Perhaps a DSworn can chip in and correct me if I'm wrong...but it seems it's like same cateogry, albeit smaller risk, as if you'd group with a DF (mc or no) to smob...?

Legion - while a lot of Legion members are surely missed and playing in that clan was fun 9.5/10 times, and those players made playing LS a lot more enjoyable, it's not about the clan. It's the people. Same types of people can be in any other LS clan (there are BTs and IFs that helped people a lot and made the side a fun place, even if they'd stab you the next day on the same alt). So bringing back Legion is I suppose bringing back those players or that player mentality. And I've no idea how...

Anyways...my two cents on this...

Taziar
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Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Taziar » Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:56 am

Incentivizing more group PvE would be great. I know I would group more if there was something interesting to do... more "end game" raid like. We have IoMM and Jafar but if there were some more spots that need a full group to hit that were interesting I would actively try to group more.

Tower of Ghenjei is one that could be freshened up and released as a permanent "end game" smob for example, the more bookish the better.

Ominas
Posts: 459
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Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Ominas » Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:34 am

Drybones wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:06 am
Ominus
:o :shock: :evil:

How dare you

zankou
Posts: 117
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2016 11:17 am

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by zankou » Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:52 am

Masters already primarily get a few tps instead of qps when turning in chunks. There is a %chance of getting a qp but In my experience it’s almost always a few tps. I choose to do cityheads because the only way to get pk anymore is either try and fleehit someone kajin or go into a LS city anyway. Might as well flip a cityhead and maybe get something. The bonus is sometimes humans show up to defend and we get a little pk.

Elysia
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Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Elysia » Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:16 am

Kordin wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:37 am
The profit for you would be that Imms (at least they used to before, I assume some still go through those notes) award 1 QP for attending a show (I don't know how often and how many QPs per a time period you can get this way).
Yep, we still do. One qp per character per day. And the occasional twice that if there's glee and lumi performing in difference locations.

All things aside, I've never liked heralds. I had an alternative in March, which was even approved, but here we are in December and zero progress because I haven't had time. Spending 40ish days on the Tower shawl quest didn't help, I suppose, but after years of not liking aqps and the series coming out, that had to be done.

I should note that I've been tossing things to "won't have time until next year" to clans since October, so hey, that's imm life. :P

Anyway, the idea was as follows:

If you're in Illian and your smobgroup has a Companion with it, you have a chance at a qp.
If you're in Great Forest and your smobgroup has a Forester with it, you have a chance at a qp.
If you're in Andor and your smobgroup has a Queens Guard with it, you have a chance at a qp.

The goal obviously being that there is a benefit to being in other clans than Tower and your being in said other clan brings something desirable to the table.

But, like I said, here we are in December and... :?

One final thing I keep forgetting to say is that the general idea of changes has been to bring outliers closer together, so the game is easier to balance:

E.g. master damage came in a big chunk at 1000 qps, this has been changed so a rank 2 starts getting a +1 damage.
Channeler hps had gone up too much over the years, e.g. quite a bunch with 320-340 hps - a literal ice spike away from the same hps as most other classes.
Warrior berserk gave them twice the potential damage output of every other class in melee, that was replaced.
Borderguard damage still exists in its old form, which is higher than it should be, and will be changed.
There were bugs with multibash and at the same time some other changes were made.
Wvd was changed, mostly because players requested it, but it fits with bringing the extremes closer together.
The huge differences between players' stats was changed by allowing people to be set to current prerolleds.

So no, this is not just picking on LS, or even channelers, but the effects when something is out of whack that is an advantage to channelers is just far greater.

At the same time, sometimes a coder wonders "mmm, I wonder if I can" and that lead to gray men. The masking function they have is a result of a long standing wish for a mask feature, because cool. Plus Taraboner and Aiel veils and Fal Daran laws that no one may cover their face, so clearly masks were a bookish thing.

We don't just go "well, we like DS more, so screw LS" (I think DS players would even laugh at the notion, because they've been saying imms hate DS for an Age). However, DS were promised trolloc clan bonuses before I even started playing and that's a whole other level of "well, here we are". :P Those have been worked on for a while now. We want LS clan bonuses too, but seeing how hard it is to come up with diverse perks that we can work with re: the code we actually have, that is probably going to take a fair bit longer.

Tl;dr there is a reason to the madness, and, don't just assume people are picking on your side, when most of the time there is another reason for how things are. E.g. mobol being absolutely useless to affect pk in a useful way. Coders not having the necessary access. Flash picking one update and not the other. Simple time constraints and things getting pushed back.

Drybones
Posts: 46
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2021 1:36 pm

Re: Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

Post by Drybones » Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:33 am

Ominas wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:34 am
Drybones wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:06 am
Ominus
:o :shock: :evil:

How dare you
Haha, *hugs*. I thought it looked wrong when I wrote it.

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