There has been a fair bit of discussion on these recent changes, mostly negative from some of the players who are most directly impacted, but most that was done on discord -- I don't expect most folks to scroll up 300 messages to see what was already said for that conversation, so I think it would be best to put those thoughts on the forum.
I wasn't planning on copying and pasting the discussion from discord (the expectation that said folks restate their own comments here), but I will add in my own thoughts:
Outside of the removal of Renegade Cargomaster, I think that the removal of those outer area smobs is a bit misguided. For the characters who are unable to hear raven & rat messages, it is a bit too difficult to reliably find folks soloing smobs in general. And even so, rats and ravens range is a bit too small to scout those far away smobs (especially kk & damane) from regular northern pk areas. The change should be to increase scouting, mobs that narr on the two opposing sides when somebody goes by, similar to how the kandori scouts and flocks of raven work currently.
The interesting choices that the player should be weighing are: "I was scouted, do I continue heading to the smob to solo, or would be it better to abandon and go somewhere else for now?"
Making the sand box smaller doesn't really provide interesting choices, it just makes for a more congested area that specifically inconveniences characters who joined clans along the outer areas of the MUD. The time gating of certain smobs (if I understood the logic correctly) in its original inception unfairly penalizes folks for playing outside of peak hours, though there is something to be said for a "smob hour" type of thing where smobs load better during certain activity windows to promote specific activities.
That said, the current situation where solo smobbers largely in complete safety due to the obscene amount of effort and luck needed to get on their trail as a character without ravens or locate (and portal stone discs are too rare to use on a lark see if you get lucky) is a situtation that was due for a change of sorts.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
I'll add this clarification here, I've updated it to the main post as well as the Announcement:
CLARIFICATION
Oh, if you thought it was a window, it's after 4pm till reboot.
we have created a timer system that takes us to roughly 4-6 pm EST <-- This means right now the timer system triggers between 4 and 6pm. I'm working on getting it consistent and reliable at a set start time. That should give 6-8 hours in that time frame.
I'm still trying to lock this in to a more specific timer. <-- This means I'd like the time it happens daily to be reliable and not a huge window so people know.
While it may unfairly penalize people, we're hoping that 6-8 hour time block gives some overlap or possibility to a wide amount of players to gain value. And if more equipment goes into the game there are a lot of ways that the people in that 6-8 hour time block will naturally benefit people in other time zones (either through KMG, PK, trading, etc.).
Related to scouting or more messaging, I was not around when smob reports were possible, but I would imagine it incentivized waiting for the report rather than exploring the world on your own.
Two places we've made adjustments for scout reports:
Flocks will send their message to the scout master who now narrates.
Winding brigands will notify Fal Dara zone and Keep zone of people hitting the winding brigands.
The flock reports can help give you an idea of where to search for players if you're already looking, but the brigand yell rewards you for being online and waiting for an opportunity.
I've seen people wait for a few tics if it's a stabber then go and kill them because of autowimpy from the mobs, depending on their setup, conversely the stabbers generally stab till batt or beaten then run to a no-hide to regain.
Reports in general have value to say "Here's a possibility!". But if you remember the time period when trollocs were able to "purchase" basin views, it also led to certain players getting killed over and over again by the same people. That may be fun as a trolloc, likely unfun as a human, and when it consistently leads to equipment returns, it's creating a system where one player trades time and experience to another for quest points in hopes that it buys them a reprieve if seen again in the future.
We'll keep reporting in mind, though, as we try new things. The hard part with a group is they will kill a flock of ravens, for example, in one-two rounds, whereas an individual player has to be prepping to kill the flock and if they don't have a high DPS weapon or move, they're likely to get scouted. This was referenced in PK yesterday where a scouting report led to a solo player get picked off trying to join the main group. It's going to happen, but I don't think we need to lean into it up front.
RE: sandbox, we'd love to get to a scenario where we're so congested that we need to bring content back and expand.
CLARIFICATION
Oh, if you thought it was a window, it's after 4pm till reboot.
we have created a timer system that takes us to roughly 4-6 pm EST <-- This means right now the timer system triggers between 4 and 6pm. I'm working on getting it consistent and reliable at a set start time. That should give 6-8 hours in that time frame.
I'm still trying to lock this in to a more specific timer. <-- This means I'd like the time it happens daily to be reliable and not a huge window so people know.
While it may unfairly penalize people, we're hoping that 6-8 hour time block gives some overlap or possibility to a wide amount of players to gain value. And if more equipment goes into the game there are a lot of ways that the people in that 6-8 hour time block will naturally benefit people in other time zones (either through KMG, PK, trading, etc.).
Related to scouting or more messaging, I was not around when smob reports were possible, but I would imagine it incentivized waiting for the report rather than exploring the world on your own.
Two places we've made adjustments for scout reports:
Flocks will send their message to the scout master who now narrates.
Winding brigands will notify Fal Dara zone and Keep zone of people hitting the winding brigands.
The flock reports can help give you an idea of where to search for players if you're already looking, but the brigand yell rewards you for being online and waiting for an opportunity.
I've seen people wait for a few tics if it's a stabber then go and kill them because of autowimpy from the mobs, depending on their setup, conversely the stabbers generally stab till batt or beaten then run to a no-hide to regain.
Reports in general have value to say "Here's a possibility!". But if you remember the time period when trollocs were able to "purchase" basin views, it also led to certain players getting killed over and over again by the same people. That may be fun as a trolloc, likely unfun as a human, and when it consistently leads to equipment returns, it's creating a system where one player trades time and experience to another for quest points in hopes that it buys them a reprieve if seen again in the future.
We'll keep reporting in mind, though, as we try new things. The hard part with a group is they will kill a flock of ravens, for example, in one-two rounds, whereas an individual player has to be prepping to kill the flock and if they don't have a high DPS weapon or move, they're likely to get scouted. This was referenced in PK yesterday where a scouting report led to a solo player get picked off trying to join the main group. It's going to happen, but I don't think we need to lean into it up front.
RE: sandbox, we'd love to get to a scenario where we're so congested that we need to bring content back and expand.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
I wanted to first say that I appreciate the way staff are trying to experiment with this and approach communication about changes. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and transparency.
I'll withhold judgment about whether I like the changes or not until I've played around and seen for myself how they influence player activity. One thing I wanted to throw out as an observation is that with Caemlyn and Cairhien heralds in particular, I often do not have a hard time between 9 pm EST and reboot to get groups together to do 1-2 herald chains, and with Gate you can get through it very quickly. However, I almost never see anyone smobbing around the map like I remember from years ago. And there have been times that I've tried to start up a group, and several people sit out because they already did that chain today, so instead they just idle in a city or go try to find PK.
I think the general removal of several smob doors has made people more willing to fight inside or near smob areas than from what we have seen in the past, while still being choky and at times dangerous, which I think has been a good change. And I really like being able to do multiple herald chains in one go when there is interest, for people seeking PvE routes for QP. But in some ways, tying a majority of the predictable QPs to heralds has sometimes been more restricting. I would personally like a PvE reward system that promotes hunting a greater diversity of smobs, because it feels more immersive to me and it's fun to hit something that you haven't done in a long time. Maybe the loot reward changes you're suggesting will do that, but I do think that PvE QP options are desired and give advancement pathways for people who aren't primarily in the mood for PK, which will entice a broader range of players to stay logged in.
A potential change would be to remove QP rewards for heralds and allocate those rewards to other content. For example, I think adding in more local smob reward options, increasing the rate of random QP gains, or even allowing daily smob "bounties" for QPs by way of scalp turn-in are worth considering if you are trying to entice a diverse crowd of players while also encouraging a wider range of smobs to be hit.
Another thing that has been a big hit with special holiday events has been a special smob that loads special items, less common gear, or other rewards. If you added another type of wandering smob that "parks" in a given zone every 24 hours, and has above-average gear as well as a chance to award something like 1-2 QPs per boot, Imms could monitor the list of possible zone options and also rotate it over time, which could be a fun way to pull for more group activity in different zones. I have also had some pretty intense PK in Baerlon or around other CTF areas, so you could increase the rewards for flipping it (either % chance for better gear and/or +1 QPs
I do like the idea of adding more scouts, flocks of ravens, smobs narrating, etc. or some other system for raising awareness about where players might be as a way to let smobbing lead to more PK situations.
I'll withhold judgment about whether I like the changes or not until I've played around and seen for myself how they influence player activity. One thing I wanted to throw out as an observation is that with Caemlyn and Cairhien heralds in particular, I often do not have a hard time between 9 pm EST and reboot to get groups together to do 1-2 herald chains, and with Gate you can get through it very quickly. However, I almost never see anyone smobbing around the map like I remember from years ago. And there have been times that I've tried to start up a group, and several people sit out because they already did that chain today, so instead they just idle in a city or go try to find PK.
I think the general removal of several smob doors has made people more willing to fight inside or near smob areas than from what we have seen in the past, while still being choky and at times dangerous, which I think has been a good change. And I really like being able to do multiple herald chains in one go when there is interest, for people seeking PvE routes for QP. But in some ways, tying a majority of the predictable QPs to heralds has sometimes been more restricting. I would personally like a PvE reward system that promotes hunting a greater diversity of smobs, because it feels more immersive to me and it's fun to hit something that you haven't done in a long time. Maybe the loot reward changes you're suggesting will do that, but I do think that PvE QP options are desired and give advancement pathways for people who aren't primarily in the mood for PK, which will entice a broader range of players to stay logged in.
A potential change would be to remove QP rewards for heralds and allocate those rewards to other content. For example, I think adding in more local smob reward options, increasing the rate of random QP gains, or even allowing daily smob "bounties" for QPs by way of scalp turn-in are worth considering if you are trying to entice a diverse crowd of players while also encouraging a wider range of smobs to be hit.
Another thing that has been a big hit with special holiday events has been a special smob that loads special items, less common gear, or other rewards. If you added another type of wandering smob that "parks" in a given zone every 24 hours, and has above-average gear as well as a chance to award something like 1-2 QPs per boot, Imms could monitor the list of possible zone options and also rotate it over time, which could be a fun way to pull for more group activity in different zones. I have also had some pretty intense PK in Baerlon or around other CTF areas, so you could increase the rewards for flipping it (either % chance for better gear and/or +1 QPs
I do like the idea of adding more scouts, flocks of ravens, smobs narrating, etc. or some other system for raising awareness about where players might be as a way to let smobbing lead to more PK situations.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
I've seen the idea of using more flocks and scouting to increase risk for smobbers being thrown around, but I think it's a bad approach compared to simply centralizing*. The goal should be to reward those who actively go out raiding and looking for tracks/signs of movement by giving them a higher chance of encountering others - not to reward those who sit back at Well and wait for scouts or flocks to pinpoint the enemy's location for them. As long as there's nobody with basic initiative on DS, you should be relatively safe most places on LS. The only exception I can see is providing a global warning when a Gate opens. Would actually love to see Gate completely scaled back to only work in one specific room per zone for that reason. It's a stupid weave that takes time but no skill and actively circumvents a pretty broad swathe of gameplay -- whether it's encouraging people to be extremely risk averse (losing codes) or just treating WoTMUD like a 10 room game.
* would rather see something like Kurch rewards, maybe even tie it to Kurch rewards, where increased loads happen on a rotational basis and encourage people to go different places at different times.
* would rather see something like Kurch rewards, maybe even tie it to Kurch rewards, where increased loads happen on a rotational basis and encourage people to go different places at different times.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
I think cargo master is irrelevant because he loaded nothing. I would have enjoyed if they actually put him in something worth killing him for. As for the rest of removals I feel are just purely punishment. I think they should put the others back into the game. As for centralizing the smobs it seems an attempt to make it easier for pkers to find rogues soloing smobs. I feel this is completely unnecessary. If people wanted to pk they would seek it out. To try to force players into pk situations when they are just trying to get some gear is unhelpful at best. The immortals should represent all the playerbase and not certain groups or factions. One of my friends was told directly "We don't care about players like you" by an immortal. Such a person should not be an immortal. If we are to respect the time that the immortals put into the game I think it is fair to ask them to respect the players time. This game is a dying medium and removing half of the game to force players into a smaller and smaller area I think does a disservice to this game and the people who originally created it.
If the immortals want to promote smobbing by increasing rewards in a certain time period that is a fine method. This change feels mostly punishing and a little reward considering how rarely people form groups to smob. You are not going to fix it by removing smobs so players are forced to do something else. I think many players will elect to play less often than conform to this carrot and stick method of inducement.
If the immortals want to promote smobbing by increasing rewards in a certain time period that is a fine method. This change feels mostly punishing and a little reward considering how rarely people form groups to smob. You are not going to fix it by removing smobs so players are forced to do something else. I think many players will elect to play less often than conform to this carrot and stick method of inducement.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
At first, I did not understand the thought process behind the upcoming changes. After the clarification, I am looking forward to them. A window of 6-8 hours in a centralized location (Andor in the beta phase) that guarantees better loads on smobs but also opens the doors for people to go and look for the signs that Erulak pointed out (tracks, smells, etc) in hopes of generating more cross race encounters.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
the only disconnect I see here are as follows:
It feels like punishment to those playing in off peak hours. I know we're trying to make things more inclusive, but I'm unsure why we wouldn't just keep solo smobbing as is because the loads aren't great, but they do offer something to do when there's not a ton of people online that can commit to a group smobbing session, and it's also fun to do. It's something to pass the time with a chance for something neat to load once in a while, gear alts, whatever the case may be but, I personally didn't see the harm in just keeping solo smobbing as is, and then up the loads and rewards for people banding together in peak hours to reap better rewards? Not everyone who plays, plays the same way. Some prefer to do things on their lonesome which I think is perfectly acceptable.
I am going to wager that most people that smob are looking to smob, not get raided by people looking to take advantage of them. This concept is strange because in the past, we removed doors from smobs and we removed smob reports, lots of things that made it relatively safer for smobbers to just focus on the PVE side of the game, but now we're moving back towards centralizing smobs and maybe even experimenting with reports again for some? Sure many will participate in smobbing like a herald or something for the chance at a QP or to give them something to do between PK sessions but, I'm not really sure making it more condensed for remorts to pick groups apart is really the move either.
Who knows, maybe it is! I'll support it either way at this point because I don't have a choice but, I really think you could have let people keep those smobs and solo them in peace while also following through with your centralizing of smobs and upped rewards for group efforts in the peak hours.
in summary: don't punish people for small numbers and having fun. To my knowledge they're not doing much wrong, other than spending their time as they see fit on a game. You can do your centralized upped rewards group smob thing without removing those other smobs. If you want to make things more risky, then severely up the stabbable smob loads but, maybe also make them hard hide or something challenging to put them in compromising positions on the map with more doors, reports, etc to deter stabbers from hitting them solo. This way you can do these smobs, they do load better on %, but they're very dangerous and you're almost better off bringing a friend anyways. Just my two cents, looking forward to smobbing with friends in a group though! reminds me of the old TAR!
It feels like punishment to those playing in off peak hours. I know we're trying to make things more inclusive, but I'm unsure why we wouldn't just keep solo smobbing as is because the loads aren't great, but they do offer something to do when there's not a ton of people online that can commit to a group smobbing session, and it's also fun to do. It's something to pass the time with a chance for something neat to load once in a while, gear alts, whatever the case may be but, I personally didn't see the harm in just keeping solo smobbing as is, and then up the loads and rewards for people banding together in peak hours to reap better rewards? Not everyone who plays, plays the same way. Some prefer to do things on their lonesome which I think is perfectly acceptable.
I am going to wager that most people that smob are looking to smob, not get raided by people looking to take advantage of them. This concept is strange because in the past, we removed doors from smobs and we removed smob reports, lots of things that made it relatively safer for smobbers to just focus on the PVE side of the game, but now we're moving back towards centralizing smobs and maybe even experimenting with reports again for some? Sure many will participate in smobbing like a herald or something for the chance at a QP or to give them something to do between PK sessions but, I'm not really sure making it more condensed for remorts to pick groups apart is really the move either.
Who knows, maybe it is! I'll support it either way at this point because I don't have a choice but, I really think you could have let people keep those smobs and solo them in peace while also following through with your centralizing of smobs and upped rewards for group efforts in the peak hours.
in summary: don't punish people for small numbers and having fun. To my knowledge they're not doing much wrong, other than spending their time as they see fit on a game. You can do your centralized upped rewards group smob thing without removing those other smobs. If you want to make things more risky, then severely up the stabbable smob loads but, maybe also make them hard hide or something challenging to put them in compromising positions on the map with more doors, reports, etc to deter stabbers from hitting them solo. This way you can do these smobs, they do load better on %, but they're very dangerous and you're almost better off bringing a friend anyways. Just my two cents, looking forward to smobbing with friends in a group though! reminds me of the old TAR!
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
I think one thing that Immortals have done a generally bad job of communicating is that just because something becomes less soloable does not mean it stays as difficult for a "group". That is to say, I've noticed there are smobs out there that were soloable (via stabbing) but really difficult to complete with 5 people without stabbing, so they were pretty much just exclusively stabbed all the time.
Those smobs may not be stabbable anymore, but they are relatively easy to do with 2-3 now. If you are literally the only person on the list, I can see the issue, but I can also see why solo activities aren't a focus when there are routinely people just spamming them even when there's plenty of people online to form groups of 2-3.
Those smobs may not be stabbable anymore, but they are relatively easy to do with 2-3 now. If you are literally the only person on the list, I can see the issue, but I can also see why solo activities aren't a focus when there are routinely people just spamming them even when there's plenty of people online to form groups of 2-3.
If you're basing that off what I said, it wasn't anything specifically communicated by Imms on any post I know of, it was referencing people in this thread proposing things like more passive reports.
Re: Smob project recent changes & discussion
Any time frame on when this will be implemented?