Master Mob Lead (Way beyond 30 days) #SetThemFREE

[Rig]

Next step is for LS to hit inside if they want to continue pking.

this was a good one. I only give props to Lykan and (sometimes) Vilac alts, maybe Jestin, for taking the risk of "hitting inside to continue pking."

Enough derailing from me! I fully agree with Lykan and Vilac. The recent changes have really taken the wind out of a few players. Arguably, it's a better change for some situations when it comes to pk, but I often find myself crit solo vs 2-3 and they're sitting ragan or Kajin once they hit beat.

I'm told there was a lot of work put into these newer master mobs which is great. Thanks for putting the time and effort into trying to create an alternative solution. Problem is, these suck. Razhak and I killed one in 4 hits? You put full abs on it and it takes maybe 4 more hits. You've also removed the option of WVDing this mob. They don't open doors anymore, which imo was one of the great things about these master mobs.

So here you've done a few things:
-Gimped solo smobbers
-Removed one of the awards for becoming master, which sure the Orino and Varcoz had one attached to hip the whole time, but this is definitely something most people strived to become master for
-Gimped the ability to take further risk in pk( though this is player choice I suppose )
-Gimped solo players in General.

I'm sure Spyder won't mind if I use him as an example of players getting metaphorically "fucked over."

He faded, and is an Aussie, when it's almost always the slowest part of the mud. He liked to stab, which was great for doing your own thing. Stab got taken away from fades at the time, and they were offered the alternative of becoming a dreadlord. He took this option. Now he can WVD a mob and solo smob still. Gives him something to do. Then master mobs are removed. It starts getting boring. There is at most maybe 10 players on around this time. Now all he can do to keep himself busy, is maybe rely on going abs stab with 280 hp to keep himself occupied. Sounds extremely boring to me, I know it does to him.

So all in all, I think you've hindered players more than helped them in this case.

[isabel]

Didn't read Rig's post except the first couple lines which were totally inaccurate. A bunch of us hit Zangief inside keep and he killed everyone by himself in that zone - this was after he had been yelling about how much he misse dmob lead bla bla and how pk would have been going on if he only had that. And it was a lot of fun.

[Rig]

To further derail I suppose, please enlighten me how many times you + whoever else hit inside RK

VS

How many times Zangief, Jaster, Jestin, etc have all hit inside Fal Dara.

[Razhak]

I m going to chime in on this discussion, and albeit that master mob lead is the main subject, I will also pull in some other, related things as well.

I am speaking from a DS point of view, but I have the mud as a whole at heart. Unlike some of people posting I believe that all sides need eachother. If we lose a side, like we are losing DS lately, the other side also suffers. This game's gears is the war between DS and LS, and if that ends, the mud will grind to a halt and we will end up with a few people emoting against eachother in city squares..

Removal of master mobs as it has been handled has severely dulled the mud as a whole.

I will explain, first of all, I understand some people perceived the use of master mobs as overpowered, and are happy. I hope after my (long) post, they will see it in a different light.

In regards to PK, the removal of master mobs has lead to alot more of what I like to call: "all or nothing PK" or "steamroll pk": you either win, or you lose. This sounds like how all pk goes, but this is what I mean: if one side (be it LS or DS, leaving the now removed SS out of this matter), they had the option of evening things out with lead mobs. For instance: the other day Decrepit and me were in blight against 6 skilled humans, one being a competent channie. This meant that basically we were screwed. We tried to make stands at patties (both of us being absers), but a group of humans can just concentrate on hitfleeing the DSers, buff some patty mobs and we had nothing really we could do against this. Especially if humans start spamming for shadow stallions, then basically the next step is going all the way in to GK or TKD.

By removing master mobs, alot of pk sessions have become boring: no tactics, just spamming names/race and you will whittle down the side with lesser numbers quite easily. Before you could use tactics with mobs to break this up, to break face off, to engage humans and concentrate on others, to shift the PK balance around to a more favorable position and KEEP PK GOING. This change has especially hit absers hard in my opinion, as they benefitted most from the ability to split face off during outnumbered pk. I think this is reflected in the fact that alot of trolloc abs masters are just not playing atm (personal observation).

Now PK will just end. This has been my thorough perception since the changes: PK ends more often nowadays, with one side just heading in to ride out the storm untill the other side leaves/breaks up.

Another matter is with the raider. I hear complaints that we have mobs in 90% of zones as DSers, and thats true. It is also mostly true that those mobs were used in raids if you got hit outnumbered, which DS almost always is sooner or later if they stay in one area down south. For example, if outnumbered in Andor, you fall back to for instance WB fade, and run the risk of getting doored inside, with the added perk of having mobs to lead around and perhaps get a kill on chasers. I remember logs of fades raiding deep in the south and killing humans outnumbered in doors. The Cravens, Zorks and Punys (or insert other kobal masters) who used to raid tear and fought using mobs around TT. The Atvars who hunted in saldaea, etc, etc. Thats all gone after this change: once you lose a fight and are running, you can better keep running now.

Once again PK ends prematurely and has thus become more boring.

The effects on smobbing are evident most in the low number times of the mud. From personal experience I am during my late mornings/afternoons online alone. I used to smob and run around with a mob to gather herb ingreds, get eq, sell for cash, etc etc. The remark that a mob is never a replacement for a player, is in itself very correct. However, then there need to be players to group with to start with! DS at the moment is a dead side, especially during european late mornings/afternoons. These times used to be fun in the past with almost always a couple people online, but now I am more often then not online alone for hours on end then.

The cause for this lull in numbers on especially DS is multifactorial, and certainly not only debit to losing master mob lead. I also think matters which are detriment to DS at this moment are (in no particular order):
- Loss of master mob lead
- The growing unbalance north of Fal Dara between LS and DS: some examples are the insane upping of Lockshear into a mini-Faldara, Ragan-Kajin-Mire-WindingCommy as smob-fallback points for low humans with no more ways for DS to break face off there with a well-lead mob, etc. It frustrates people to see humans be able to rest/regain quite freely close to PK zones when DS has to go into their cities for comparable mob protection
- DS being passed over in alot of new, fun changes to the mud: why no rank 8 perks for trollocs (not fades), to entice them to develop their trolloc master, instead of gunning for remort (only end-game option for DS atm). Swordmaster for LS is a great addition, why no DS equivalement geared towards trollocs (again not fades). Heralds/bounty hunters/whatever other questmasters LS has gotten past year: why nothing like that for DS? All these things make it so much more worthwhile for many people to play their LS character at this moment. It will make DS also worthwhile to play if there is no direct PK, people will stay online instead of idling out waiting for pk to happen. One of the largest upsurges in PK in recent history was when DS and LS has questmobs which awarded for smob/pk scalps from certain areas: those areas became instant PK hotspots with lots of fun.
- I actually think DS could get more players if there were given more end-game options to DS. How many end-game options are there for LS (in no particular order, and not intended to be a complete list): warders, blademasters, aes sedai, morat-torm/raken, BTs, WBs, any rank 8, for a short time ogier (untill removed due to coding issues), and probably more which I forgot. On DS you can fade or DL, thats it (albeit quite much fun, proving as Razhak has been around as a fade for like 13 years now). Add end-game options for trollocs like grey men, behemoth trollocs for other clans, etc. Make it worth while to play a trolloc more, and I am sure you get more players online.

I would love to hear other people's opinions about this matter. The examples I gave are from personal experience, and perhaps others have other reasons to be for or against this change.

How I see it, it has been a well-intended move to change something for the better, with alot of invested time and effort from involved immortals. I sincerely hope those immortals will have the insight to listen to the player base and come to the conclusion that albeing well-intended, this change has not been a change for the better.

We have seen these things before on this mud, the most clear example in my memory being Nass' redo of Blight in the 2000's which ended up being a horrible change and was reversed after the mud made clear why it was a bad change.

Kind regards,

Razhak

[Dimmu]

Following on from Raz's post, albeit tangentially

Since Giramael has gone MIA again, DS has (from what I can observe) little beneficial immortal oversight to help turn around the current lack of players. If there's no pk, people log off. If the time invested in LS was mirrored for the DS, like smobbing heralds for example and coupled with an end game other than remorting, people might hang around and do something.

And as Raz mentioned, the current overwhelming bias towards LS makes me and others even less inclined to play - I've been playing my FC more than my trollocs



I personally have logged less than 30 minutes across all my DS alts in the last week; being the only person on is just not fun.

PS. Old mob lead rules!

[Neveyan]

Great posts above. One personal thing I wanted to add: Went GK the other day, no-one there, then thought I would go on a little adventure with my mob, but then I realized he wasn't there I felt a bit sad/lonely not being able to call up my mob. Rented instead...

On another point, I can't recall the amount of times I've kept PK alive heavily outnumbered (5+) with mobs. Mobs give you such a larger scope for tactics.

[Ragyn]

To further derail I suppose, please enlighten me how many times you + whoever else hit inside RK

VS

How many times Jestin, etc have all hit inside Fal Dara.

fixed that for you:)


On a more serious note, comparing hitting inside GK to hitting inside FD is silly. If you don't have key/pick you lose your horse, human moves north of keep - I assume we all know how that works. Channeling/poisoning mobs in GK, a ton of dism rooms, see the point about human moves. One gate compared to two, one jump exit compared to two, the jump exit itself surrounded by spammables. I hit inside both cities often, but hitting inside GK I actually have to think if I actually have a chance of killing my target - FD it doesn't matter if the target has HPs or not - its easy enough to escape, and if I do end up jumping I have fd fade/camp close by to regain some moves. If I jump from keep, assuming I probably have run around in there a bit, I'll be low moves with no horse, means I have to burn a vial, wait for that to work(vials worth for human vs trolloc/fade) and go rest up mire, then burn another if no one has brought me a horse or if I haven't stashed one, which in turn means PK ends for the trollocs who might've chased me, at least for the time it takes me to go FD get a horse, ride back up. The only thing to worry about in hitting FD are the gate defenses, but we've all beaten that horse to a pulp, it won't be changed.

To Razhak's points about endgame, that would be great. I remember you wrote up some nice alternatives to remorting at some point with different bonuses, those were great and would definitely spike the interest in DS again I think, would for me in any case - problem would be when every trolloc you face up north is a rank 8 with superpowers+remorts as a regular human, kind of how ds who list would exist of 75% remorts for a bit after the whole remort system was revamped. Would be nice to see some questmaster things for trollocs to do during downtimes. To the overall numbers it comes and goes, LS was in a slump when I came back from a couple months break, now for the past month's time DS seem to have gone extinct at certain hours - that being said we had 10?11? ds inside FD yesterday and we had a struggle getting humans there so perhaps people are starting to log more.


Edit:
To the point about mob support/fall backs for ls/ds, if you don't think Blight is a good enough fallback point then you're doing it wrong :p I personally really like that humans have fallback points up north now, means PK doesn't have to move to winding/dusty. I do agree that LS needs to be severely downed, remove the aes sedai, maybe just revert it to old LS and leave one roaming patrol of a 4-5 mobs? That said sometimes PK does become stale, but I think that is more due to leadership, a refusal of using lesser mobs, stedding is an awesome place to fallback to to try to even the fight a bit, before you get low enough for DS to have incentive to hit you at Ragan - frustrating to have humans sit at a smob if they are only outnumbered by 1 or 2 and they all have fullish hps. But I think that is more the playerchoice rather than a mistake in having mobsupport there - you see the same thing the other side around where DS will sit at a patrol instead of using the 2 mobs one room next to it.

[Theid]

While the clever use of Mobs can be called Tactical, I also think people living forever and not dying due to using mobs is a fail, not a win. Excellent pkers should not be granted a no death get out of jail free card that is any-mob lead. The more I think about it, I think Fade mega-mob-lead is the real problem. Regular clanned mob lead is still OP but not as bad.

Oh and I apologize Razhak, but the example of 2 not being able to fight 5+1FC sounds reasonable to me. Even with mob lead you'd be hard pressed to stay alive and get a kill anyways. And while I am all for continued flow of PK, I do think there are times to give up and go in or die trying.

And I agree with a lot of what Razhak said towards Darkside being low activity vs Lightsides "renewal" and smob/qpt perks. DS needs some love in the form of rewarding down-time activities.

[Benito]

The fades are wrong. Mostly. But they are right inasmuch as the moblead changes were a nerf to DS, and particularly fades - one that needed to happen. What fades are complaining about is that the risks they have to take are closer to the risks that players on every other character have to take regularly. Describing this change as "bias" towards LS assumes that the starting point was a neutral balance between the sides. That's false. DS has been easy mode for at least the last decade. Something needed to happen, and moblead was the simplest way to make that change.

I actually agree with what's been said for most of the arguments for the old mobs, outside of PK - I have no problem with mobs as they were used for smobbing, exp, quests, etc. A few comments on mobs and PK in no particular order.

1. The primary problem with DS masters and PK is stacking, in two separate regards. First, DS generally has more masters in PK, and have way better access to mobs than LS masters. Second, this access to mobs (particularly for fades) allows stacking in rooms that are hugely disadvantageous for LS to hit if they've only narrowly won a fight (think 1s fence or camp ent.) This makes it way harder to balance zones and actually creates more situations for steamrolling. I like that moblead allows for moving PK to somewhere unexpected, but most of the time it was used to keep PK to a few particular rooms where DS could always win.

2. Razhak described the change as being bad for absers, and I see the argument for that in terms of defense. However, the thing to consider is that offensively it actually incentivizes playing absers over, say, a channie. If you're a channie and end up buffing a mob, it's all the better. You can still weave your target without much risk of getting bashed. If you're an abser and hit a patty, it's hugely frustrating to end up buffing mob after mob, unable to engage on other players. From what I've seen, the proportion of channies on LS has dropped after the changes.

3. I get the point about more options for keeping up PK, but it's wrong. It's not good balance if one player can survive inevitably in Blight against 6 or 8. It means that the character is overtuned, and fades have enough defensive bonuses as it is. We can pretend that mob lead was mostly used in situations where a solo heroic fade fought off the hordes, but the reality is that mobs were primarily used to minimize risk, neutralize LS mobs, and win in situations where DS already had an advantage. Remorts can act like they want moblead back in order to take risks, but really they're upset that they're getting killed by something other than channies and freak stabs.

My suggestions for compromise would be to revert moblead back with the following changes.
-fade moblead is reduced to one particular mob, no more than one of which is found in any zone outside of TKD. That would help with endless stacking and also reduce the effectiveness of multiple fades in the same PK.
-cost of mobs is increased to 10 qps

[Razhak]

Like I said in my post, people need to look at the mud as a whole.

Saying stuff like "the fades this.. the remorts that..." does not help. People post on an alt, in most cases their best known. All fades here could have posted the same thing on a large number of well known LS alts, and it would have meant the same.

Claiming there is a DS/LS bias, based on with which alt the posts are made, is rediculous.

Attack the message, not the messenger, and keep the discussion clear cut.