north pk

[Cruoris]

Trolls became lazy and just sitting in Keep on their bums waiting for pk to happen at their door.
With modern DS mobility(flames, blodfest) I'd expect more people to raid. Alas, DS lost their old agressive raiding mentality and turned into SS at best. Lots of people migrated from LS/SS to DS and brought their mentality along.
Also, due to side hierarchy DS is very affected by remorts. If remorts want to spam smobs day and night then trolls will do the same in most of cases.

LS has absurdly strong mob support at any given pk zone up north, which gives them safe spot at any given time unless its 8vs2 pk or something. It would be much better if LS had regular type of patties instead of smobs like TS, Ragan, Commy, Kaj. These smobs are also hard to flee due to 1 exit or hard to escape if opponent gets reinforcements. Kaj has only 2 ways to retreat in comparison to Blight which has 4-5. Hitting Ragan at Gap can turn into failflee fest. Same with Commy and Mire. Most DSers will just give up pking and go back to smobbing once pk comes to these spots.

[isabel]

100% agree with Cruoris. Nobody wants nonsensical mob support like 1-exit Ragan. A great addition was the no-channel shivs for instance.

I also think if we reduce xrace alting time more it would also really help because lopsided numbers just leaves people feeling annoyed with the game because neither side gets pk. I'm not sure what the purpose of the '15 mins' is because 15 mins is a LONG time in terms of pk ebb and flow. It's just an arbitrary number. If we're looking at time units that actually come into play in pk, look at things like:

- How long will one side stick around waiting for the other side to regroup and 'come out'/hit?
- How long will most group back and forth sessions last (assuming one side has a reasonably competent leader and the other side doesn't)?
- How long can a vastly outnumbered side keep the pk going?

If any of the answers to that are "less than 15 mins" then the 15 mins time is basically useless for the current pk session. And that means that the 15 min alting time does not help to alter the balance of the Current pk session (usually). Which means that if there is a vast numbers disparity, people just usually rent / do something else because they can't/won't get pk, or else they go and smob or something else that their side is doing - which is pretty much what happens.

[hasp]

Isabel brings up some good points. 15 mins is a long time to wait.

[Sarryn]

15 mins is pretty dumb. At this stage in the game and life 15 mins is an eternity. And will definitely make me forget I even wanted to swap sides. Imms need to realize time is money as the saying goes. Anything that takes to much of it will become less and less appealing. Specifically because we’re generally all in our upper 20s-30s+ now. Time doesn’t become more ample as you age. Unless you have special circumstances, aka a slack job or no job etc. We have girlfriends, wives, houses, kids, jobs etc etc.

As far as DS pk, generally the only times I see DS lose is when LS has channelers. Otherwise DS generally comes out ahead. I dunno about the whole LS and super mob support stuff. Yeah the mobs are tough. Generally when I’ve played LS we’re outnumbered 2 to 1. And DS is to scared to hit those scary mobs still. When they finally work up the courage, they usually end up whooping us. But as with all pk, situational/bonuses/channies/skill level comes into play. I feel like DS usually has more masters and or remorts then LS up north. LS’s counter to the extra damage etc is usually channelers.

Auto correct is the bad

[kendall]

I actually disagree with 15 mins being too long. When numbers are lopsided for any side most people don't bother to alt and even it out and I doubt a lower wait time help that. In some cases players actually alt from the lower number side to the other to join in whatever they are doing.
Sadly there are far too many opportunistic players that would take advantage of a shorter crossrace alt time to join in something that may already be lopsided to begin with.
Some players would use a lower alt time positively, but I believe they would be the minority.

[Asandra]

Not to mention smob trains or other stuff you cannot narrate or chat about if that time gets lowered. It's already iffy as is

[Sarryn]

Always will be the piggy backers who don’t like a challenge. If your still at that stage in your mud career I feel sorry for you. Get better and accept a challenge. Try keeping fights fair for instance. Always baffled me how some pkers think it’s fun to roll over pk. I routinely don’t even narrate in pk until I need help to try and keep it even/more fun. I die more in those instances sometimes but again more fun and challenging. I’m ok with that.

[Tusty]

2 cents from someone who has recently starting playing again after playing heavily in the early 2000’s.

My observation on pk in general is that there are really two extremes present. One group of people who do not want to pk whatsoever..and one group of people who are extremely bonused and decked in perfect sets/rare weapons running around.
So if you are in the middle you aren’t going to get good pk either way.
*remembers the days where the majority of people were in hillman eq with hooked spears or claymores 10v10 *
It seems to me that it’s too easy to live. Too many mobs, too many safe places, too many locking gated cities.
Probably no real answer to it, just the framework that exists now with a lower player base.
All in all the game has been greatly improved by the imms with the added content! Maybe as the rust continues to come off I’ll have a different POV regarding pk but as it is now I feel like fodder against all the masters

[Elokar]

Kaj has only 2 ways to retreat in comparison to Blight which has 4-5. Hitting Ragan at Gap can turn into failflee fest. Same with Commy and Mire. Most DSers will just give up pking and go back to smobbing once pk comes to these spots.

It seems to me that it’s too easy to live.

Unsurprising that people will want to pk in a zone with a dung ton of exits and one sided aggroes. Very risky pk that. You could argue that allows you to take more risks, but that's more the exception than the rule. Numbers have heavily fluctuated on both sides since the great covid plague. It would be nice if people refrained from joining an already winning fight, but that's also the exception more than the rule.

As to Cruoris comment about raiding, people don't raid because raiding sucks. Typically, you might smash 1-2 unsuspecting noobs, LS rallies, DS gets too overwhelmed for their mob support, DS runs around wide open zones until LS gets bored or they get moves to go north or hop into ways. Fun. If you're really lucky, you smash a smob group inside a smob which is hardly PK. If you get unlucky, you run around for an hour looking for tracks or resting moves and never see anyone.

[Cruoris]

As to Cruoris comment about raiding, people don't raid because raiding sucks. Typically, you might smash 1-2 unsuspecting noobs, LS rallies, DS gets too overwhelmed for their mob support, DS runs around wide open zones until LS gets bored or they get moves to go north or hop into ways. Fun. If you're really lucky, you smash a smob group inside a smob which is hardly PK. If you get unlucky, you run around for an hour looking for tracks or resting moves and never see anyone.

Sadly, this is very truth. There are very few cases when you can get fun or even any posititive results during your raiding. There are very few people who will actually stay and pk you instead of running in or calling for unnneccessary reinforcements or use mob support that is unneccessary strong(city, patty, etc). As a master rogue it makes much more sense to raid for obvious reasons. Don't think there is a point for nonmaster nonrogue to bother raiding unless they want to track smobbers/start group pk and expect to be rewarded for it.

Back in days it was easy to find 1-3 people who will fight you for hours and actually take risks to finish you. I guess people adapt and learn on their 'misstakes' and stay away for risks these days.