Lightside Needs Help

[Paj]

Re: player run mob raids, that would be tricky given the edge they could give with a fade quest. Ditto for porting DS south or to Blodfest or whatever (something I've seen raised a few times). Plus you know it would mostly be (ab)used to obliterate an already outnumbered enemy and there's no real way to prevent that.

Also, pines evolved from an idea like this, where I had anything from ants to lizards loading randomly in a zone. I had it trial run with Eagles in 2010 or 2011 or so. Problem was: sometimes they would randomly bunch up and be unkillable except by a full group, which usually wasn't at hand. Then the mobs stuck around and would sit there the whole boot. Newbies would run into the mobs and die. Sometimes a crit runner would run into them and die. At least as an imm I can invest some time and purge stray mobs, mobol isn't really all that well equipped for that. If anyone remembers the impact those maniacal patrols Caemlyn Road had... Or Dougan randomly aggroing and fireballing you as you run past... Something like that.

I'm looking at more of player master driven patties with qp loss if they are not returned. I know this sounds like increasing moblead number but it could be Mobol driven. We have masters with lots of qps and tps to burn.

Order patty raid ruined keep. Set the patty on an auto path there and back again. Used to defeat a defeated foe? Grims and dread lord would decimate said patty. But it would take party in Rk. Same with trolloc grim patty. It would take PK in the city.

All via Mobol, master, and QP use. If issuing master logs off, mobs get zapped. So it won't stack through day.

Just an idea.

[Thrasymachus]

One thing those rockstar coders might be able to do, without Flash's permission, might be to create a custom Wotmud client with a good map/mapper. The packages provided by various users that augment Cmud/zmud/mudlet/etc., do wonders in helping the new player experience along and just generally improving quality of life, especially insofar as it helps automate certain things like getting out and putting away a lantern, or eating and drinking when hungry, or keeping track of horses, etc., etc. But finding all the relevant packages, tweaking them to fit one's own playstyle, and getting them all installed so they don't break things can be a lengthy project in itself. I don't think it's possible to overestimate the aid that a good, dedicated client that someone could just download once, and have an up-to-date map, a targeting script, horse script, etc., all installed and ready to go could provide, that could perhaps directly link to the wiki if one clicks on item names, smob names, doors, or the nicknames that players have given to important rooms and mobs, among various other things.

Gear can be a big deal when you're trying to learn to pk, but xp matters too, and both are tough to get at any reasonable rate solo, unless there's an xp modifier on. And in my experience, playing LS is mostly playing solo, chatting occasionally, and pking up north or around ef. And if you don't know what you're doing with pk, you're just going to die, and then you'll be out of gear and have to xp solo again. It gets discouraging. Not that grouping for xp or smobbing with a "veteran" is much better. Being spammed around so fast you don't know where you are or what's going on any more doesn't help either. You're basically just being handed a leveled/geared character. Lithe women could stand to load just a bit better, maybe with a nice trinket along with their middling level gear, and be a bit easier to kill. And thieves could stand to load lanterns and a gold crown instead of torches and pennies. Criers are a good source of coin in the early phases of the game while you're leveling up, but once you've picked the easy ones clean, scrounging up whatever it is they want is rarely all that fun. And a good source of coin is really helpful for hardening/honing weapons, among other things.

Clanning, ranking up, and burdensome rp requirements also make a difference. Coming into the game as a solo player, not knowing anybody else who plays the game, and having to come up with some in-character story to clan, role play with people who you don't know, earn quest points and write in-character letters on out-of-game forums, and basically try to insert yourself into existing cliques and groups without really knowing anything about the in-game history of those groups, the personalities of the characters or players involved, and make a name for yourself, that can all be more than a bit intimidating. And then when you do get clanned, if your clan requires you to wear their clan gear (which I consider to be an rp requirement), and that costs quest points to issue, but you're constantly dying in pk because you don't know wtf you're doing yet, then you just end up in an insurmountable qp hole.

All this comes from an extraordinarily casual player that really only ever plays LS. I've got a rank 3 or 4 Valon that I haven't played in what feels like a decade, a rank 1 Novice that I haven't played in just as long, this character that I've just started as I came back, trying to get a good combo hunter, and have taken a couple of months to stat and level up to 26 just today, and a number of others that are probably gone now, having never gotten them up to 30.

[Eol]

I think there's a lot to be said for the smob comments which have been made so far and are something the Imms could address without needing coding.

I actually did a bit of smobbing a couple of months ago and FYI - most of the smobs were WAY easier than they ever had been. Many of the mobs that I remembered as having significant anti-channel malus no longer have it. I don't recall anything destroying us with emotes and my group never really got horrible beaten up. I grew up watching groups get pounded by Disgraced Whitecloaks - the group I was in did him without any trouble (there were 3 of us and a mob). I thought TV brigands, Pravus, Kreeza, DWC, Ragnor, Roland, guy near Remen were all extremely reasonable in difficulty and I thought the loads weren't bad (one time we had all good loads and one time we had all bad loads).

I don't have a solution for some of the smobs that are off in the middle of no where - people will have to find their own motivation. Darkside smobs really are darn convenient.

Rats - I don't see any reason why rats should load in smob rooms or be part of the mobol. I may sound like a crazy person, but I tried the new FD chain awhile back and one of the brigand rooms in a door loaded a rat in it. Maybe that was random. Maybe I brought it with me and am just confused. I'm just a bit skeptical of something that feeds into a darkside bonus. If a fade wants to find me - maybe they should come looking for me. Darkside smobs don't load wolves.

For some of the mobs with a lot of doors you might consider making the doors not be hidden anymore. How many doors does Roland need? Could there just be a small patrol outside his room that loads a key? Could the number of doors to Ragnor be decreased? Could Aylia's entrance just be a door?

Northern humans/Lancers have needed/wanted something for awhile. Brigand leader camp hasn't been a popular smob to hit - ever. Humans don't really hit gap smobs - most groups don't have someone with zone sense which is the ultimate protection. Lancers asked Doyn for an smob forever ago to equip on. The end result was Siffas which unless its been downed recently is a disaster. Down/replace it even if the load has to be downed. Add an smob to FD road that isn't a troll patrol. Add something to Dog zone - its one of the most empty boring zones in the game. Add something to Granlin zone - there's nothing going on there either. Modify tinkers - I got a bunch of grief from people who didn't understand that this guy is bad, and then down the smob. When you have 200 people a no channel smob next to Tar Valon makes sense - when you have 15 it doesn't.

Could that Carchton guy next to Lugard just be a plain old smob? Has anyone ever used him for PK support (I don't know - I'm just asking) - it seems like an opportunity for something right next to Lugard/Caemlyn.

Could something be done to popularize that weird smob in Lugard that requires a bunch of mobol to climb to?

Not to take away a great from the past - Shadowknight candle - needs pick. The smob is a little time consuming, but probably not unreasonable.

Maybe add an emote outside Obscured's entrance to draw people's attention to it. The trick to killing her really makes her very doable which is nice cause in the past there was a period where she just couldn't be killed.

[Elysia]

I'm looking at more of player master driven patties with qp loss if they are not returned. I know this sounds like increasing moblead number but it could be Mobol driven. We have masters with lots of qps and tps to burn.

Order patty raid ruined keep. Set the patty on an auto path there and back again. Used to defeat a defeated foe? Grims and dread lord would decimate said patty. But it would take party in Rk. Same with trolloc grim patty. It would take PK in the city.

All via Mobol, master, and QP use. If issuing master logs off, mobs get zapped. So it won't stack through day.

Just an idea.

Aside from the balance issue, which I feel would remain and you just know it will be used when it's 10 DS in FD vs 5 humans who already can't really hit to defend their city...

There are multiple aspects in your proposal that mobol cannot handle or cannot do at all. It can only move along a limited path for starters, something like FD > RK is impossible. There's a reason why these moving patrols have a span of under 20 rooms.

It purging when the person issuing them logs off is not possible for mobol at all. It purging for any reason is excessively hard, would require massive amounts of mobol, then still be imperfect. To give you an idea, sure a mob can purge any one room. But that could include any good eq dropped in the room, corpses, the well/ fountain/ streetlights and any other mobs. So it would have to be a selective purge of just the raider mobs, repeated in case there are multiple raider mobs in the room, which would then dump the mobs' eq on the ground. That would mean that for every room, the mobol would also have to do get all, and drop somewhere. That would be absolutely massive and likely wouldn't even fit on any given mob.

A similar problem comes with siege engines btw. That's something I've been working on and off for years, but the fact that every city would need its individual mobol just makes it too big to write, take ages to implement and upkeep and maintenance would be horrible.

To put this into perspective, the ships are essentially 17 rooms with mobol to move them about. That project took me 4 months of only work and very little play. Ditto with quests really. While it may seem simple from a user's perspective, the time required to make neat mobol things work is usually huge.

Remember the idea that newbie had on help forums about more achievements ingame? Something like finding 100 rooms for players to find is quite a bit of work, but somewhat doable given some time. But then you just have 100 rooms going "you have found room number #". Mobol can't go "well, you've found room 1-100, good job!". That's beyond the scope it can do. Many things are beyond mobol's capabilities. And if it can do something neat, it usually takes massive amounts of time to get it to work and debug it.

[ecthus]

Completely agree with the comments below, and I've been harping on the issue for a while now. Fal Dara needs something very close by that's worth hitting and involves minimal risk and small numbers.

Ely, given that the staff is spread thin at the moment, is there anything us non-imms can do that would help implement new northern smobs? Would it help to have specific ideas for loads, rooms, etc, or would that not really be useful?

Actually, I think this is more of a logistics problem. DS has SK a short stroll away, a smob that has no doors. That is an absolutely huge, huge advantage.

Compare that to Fal Dara. Closest smob probably is Forest Brigand Leader, which is behind 3 doors and carries the risk of being ratted/ravened/flocked.
Or Caemlyn. Roland requires a relatively high amount of pick, which not everyone has.
Amador and mercenary commander are probably most alike, although even then you're at risk of being hit crossrace in a door. It's a small risk these days, but even today it's not unheard of.

Northern humans/Lancers have needed/wanted something for awhile. Brigand leader camp hasn't been a popular smob to hit - ever. Humans don't really hit gap smobs - most groups don't have someone with zone sense which is the ultimate protection. Lancers asked Doyn for an smob forever ago to equip on. The end result was Siffas which unless its been downed recently is a disaster. Down/replace it even if the load has to be downed. Add an smob to FD road that isn't a troll patrol. Add something to Dog zone - its one of the most empty boring zones in the game. Add something to Granlin zone - there's nothing going on there either. Modify tinkers - I got a bunch of grief from people who didn't understand that this guy is bad, and then down the smob. When you have 200 people a no channel smob next to Tar Valon makes sense - when you have 15 it doesn't.

[Santino]

Santino-- we had issues couple years ago, but I am SO glad to hear you say the things you did in your previous post. I agree that we (players) are the most important aspect to making this playground the best it can be. The entitlement issues and whining has an impact just as you describe. The people who do it know who they are... there is a couple right now that if you look at their last 10 posts on the forums... 9 if not 10 of them are just bullshit remarks or flame another person or their ideas. Nothing constructive, inspiring, or helpful. We can all make this place a little better if we very fine person, gender being but a construct of society less and help more. Heck, bitching less is helping more... two ravens with one throwing spike!

Riley, player of Taziar and Kerryk.

Implement Ebou Dar 2017 campaign! Get out and Vote! *wink*

Well said. We can discuss this stuff all day long but if we don't change how we as players act, and actually log on and actively make an effort to improve things from our end, then all of the potential changes we gain are a complete waste of time.

And our issues were my fault. We'll chalk that up to my immaturity and being an idiot as well.

[Elysia]

Ely, given that the staff is spread thin at the moment, is there anything us non-imms can do that would help implement new northern smobs? Would it help to have specific ideas for loads, rooms, etc, or would that not really be useful?

There's not that much you can do except perhaps everyone not bombarding me with mails. I'm still working on weapons changes, the type where I fix a "fair condition" loading item and replace it with a pristine loading one, or adding loads on stuff that wasn't previously loading. Once that's done, there's still stuff on my to-do list that has been sitting around since November.

Then there's the bureaucratic proposal hoops I still have to jump through wrt any smob changes, so it's going to take time, assuming the proposal is even accepted.

[Vivienne]

What takes up a lot of our spread-thin Staff and time is a Catch-22. We ask for player input, and sometimes we get some really good ideas that get us excited. As we think it through, we discover that it won't work, or we find ways it could be abused and cause a major issue that we would then have to address with some kind of draconian or convoluted new rule(s), which we really don't want to do. We often then take the time to explain why it won't work. Sometimes it stops right there. Other times, the player comes back and tries to argue it (or take it to boards with pitchforks and a mob, thinking that will somehow change the answer), and we usually come back again to re-explain. I mean, we like the open communication but if we tell you that literally, something won't work with the tools we have, it would be great if the same idea from the same person didn't come up again three months later, and we start the cycle all over again.

It's a drain of our "Immergy" (aka, creative energy and time) to keep saying "No" all over again. Honestly, we don't like to say "No". We'd rather say "Yes". Speaking just for myself over the decades, I have a book of ideas that players have come up with. Many of the ideas would be doable with coding, and that's something that gets rationed out - game stability comes first, then game enhancements for things already existing, and then game-changers. Just about everything remotely viable ever suggested is on a list.

So if you have an idea, great, put it forward. If we can't do it "now" because of what our toolkit is, please gracefully accept that and move on. Sometimes a seed is planted and we find other ways to make something happen, but usually that is a convoluted process of trial-and-error that becomes a puzzle instead of a goal. "That didn't work, what if we try it this way?" "Well dang, that's causing problems here, what if we try it this way?" "Yeah, that's causing way too much lag with the executions world-wide, what if we approach it this way?" It's just as much fun for us to try to make things work, but when we get to that point it's way, way, way on the back-burner as something to tinker with.

[Thrasymachus]

I gotta say, though, that the mobol put in by Elodin this week to let barrels in the various cities move their stuff to Caemlyn's junkyard is a welcome addition. Makes it easy to re-equip after Taim incinerates ya and you didn't get everything off in time because you wasted precious seconds not realizing you were on fire. Which is to say, it makes it much more acceptable to take risks and die. And getting to be ok with lots of dying is probably one of the biggest hurdles for a new or casual player to overcome.

And it might just be confirmation bias, but it seemed to me like LS was a bit more active in the days after this thread was created (and especially so after Elodin's barrel-to-junkyard change). Maybe threads like these should be viewed less like calls to action on the part of the Imms, and more like reminders to players to play LS more and remind them of what it was like when they were new, or out of the loop, and the sorts of help and things they needed way back then. Sort of like a catharsis that, once expressed, allows people to move forward and step up to do what they can, instead of waiting on an Imm to do something.

[Kathala]

On behalf of the fallen, I want to thank DS for the eq returns. While I can't guarantee they will come out right away, I'm sure it helps in the long run.