Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

... sit down, kick back and relax, and talk about anything that doesn't belong on one of the other forums.
Elysia
Posts: 7907
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

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

Post by Elysia » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:04 am

isabel wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 4:47 am
Oh you cynics :p we self police so much stuff. We self police same side scalping for instance. I can't imagine that five clanned people on the already thin LS would risk heralds being downed by Gating despite clear imm instructions not to. Tower members are held up to RP standards! They don't wear DL cloaks for instance. Sitters can dole out penances if need be if anyone does try to break this.
I'm not being cynical, I am being observant. For someone to be punished, they need to be caught and/or someone needs to report them. If that doesn't happen and people have their neat little beneficial conspiracies... they will continue to make a mockery of Hall decrees.

iria
Posts: 504
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 5:35 pm

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

Post by iria » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:07 am

To be honest what was the issue with heralds the first time around? If someone wants to farm smobs to r7, why not let them? They're out there filling barrels with the equipment they don't want, they are online. The people who are likely to smob all day, likely wouldn't be out PKing anyway, so it isn't really taking much away from PK in terms of numbers. Keep the current rewards for r7+ if the issue was people smobbing to r8. And the more smobgroups out there the more DS will come raiding if they find nothing up north. As Masaj mentioned there are a lot of ways for DS to find out where smobbers are now and moving around the map as a trolloc has never been easier than it is now, so the reliance on remorts to lead a group isn't as needed as it once was.

Tandrael
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2018 12:02 pm

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

Post by Tandrael » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:28 am

iria wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:07 am
To be honest what was the issue with heralds the first time around? If someone wants to farm smobs to r7, why not let them? They're out there filling barrels with the equipment they don't want, they are online. The people who are likely to smob all day, likely wouldn't be out PKing anyway, so it isn't really taking much away from PK in terms of numbers. Keep the current rewards for r7+ if the issue was people smobbing to r8. And the more smobgroups out there the more DS will come raiding if they find nothing up north. As Masaj mentioned there are a lot of ways for DS to find out where smobbers are now and moving around the map as a trolloc has never been easier than it is now, so the reliance on remorts to lead a group isn't as needed as it once was.
I completely agree with all of that.

Ominas
Posts: 459
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:07 am

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

Post by Ominas » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:49 am

iria wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:07 am
To be honest what was the issue with heralds the first time around? If someone wants to farm smobs to r7, why not let them? They're out there filling barrels with the equipment they don't want, they are online. The people who are likely to smob all day, likely wouldn't be out PKing anyway, so it isn't really taking much away from PK in terms of numbers. Keep the current rewards for r7+ if the issue was people smobbing to r8. And the more smobgroups out there the more DS will come raiding if they find nothing up north. As Masaj mentioned there are a lot of ways for DS to find out where smobbers are now and moving around the map as a trolloc has never been easier than it is now, so the reliance on remorts to lead a group isn't as needed as it once was.
Perfectly said.

I think the original rework was to potentially create pk opportunities. In my experience it just hurt it. I cannot begin to count how many times I would be leading players for heralds and have to sit and wait or stop completely or whatever because I didn’t want to interrupt active pk. If it’s 3v3 and suddenly we roll up the opposing side has no idea why we’re there. Or if we were going to decide to interrupt. It was a huge pain.

I enjoy changes to things like this. It keeps it interesting and fun. I think the tower that was added to seandar is really cool for instance. I don’t mind heralds changing randomly. But I don’t think that was a good change.

That said there have been some great additions to pve. Honestly I don’t really understand a lot of the arguments saying otherwise.

If it’s a question of leadership maybe more players need to learn to lead and fill that void. I learned smobs because no one else was doing it and I was bored during quiet times. Up until just a few years ago I didn’t know any of them.

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 » Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:47 am

Ominas wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:49 am
iria wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:07 am
To be honest what was the issue with heralds the first time around? If someone wants to farm smobs to r7, why not let them? They're out there filling barrels with the equipment they don't want, they are online. The people who are likely to smob all day, likely wouldn't be out PKing anyway, so it isn't really taking much away from PK in terms of numbers. Keep the current rewards for r7+ if the issue was people smobbing to r8. And the more smobgroups out there the more DS will come raiding if they find nothing up north. As Masaj mentioned there are a lot of ways for DS to find out where smobbers are now and moving around the map as a trolloc has never been easier than it is now, so the reliance on remorts to lead a group isn't as needed as it once was.
Perfectly said.

I think the original rework was to potentially create pk opportunities. In my experience it just hurt it. I cannot begin to count how many times I would be leading players for heralds and have to sit and wait or stop completely or whatever because I didn’t want to interrupt active pk. If it’s 3v3 and suddenly we roll up the opposing side has no idea why we’re there. Or if we were going to decide to interrupt. It was a huge pain.

I enjoy changes to things like this. It keeps it interesting and fun. I think the tower that was added to seandar is really cool for instance. I don’t mind heralds changing randomly. But I don’t think that was a good change.

That said there have been some great additions to pve. Honestly I don’t really understand a lot of the arguments saying otherwise.

If it’s a question of leadership maybe more players need to learn to lead and fill that void. I learned smobs because no one else was doing it and I was bored during quiet times. Up until just a few years ago I didn’t know any of them.
If I remember right - it was that people progressed too fast because they had chars/groups at the time that could just roll through heralds fast and then some argument that "you cannot be a hero of the Wheel by smobbing" (or something of the sort) as R7+ were considered that....?

Also what Ominas mentioned - leaders. People always (I guess rightfully, before all the non-PK progression options were introduced) looked at R7s as someone who can PK (or is perhaps awesome at PK) and therefore is a leader. Regardless of the ton of examples of R7s who were absolutely terrible as group leaders :D

Fyra
Posts: 505
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:07 pm
Location: Connecticut, USA

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

Post by Fyra » Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:47 am

I want to chime in on the heralds part of this. For me, the issue is that city heads, IoMM, Jafar, etc. do not replace heralds due to the demographics issue. I would log in as a very not elite player. I enjoyed heralds, so I learned the solo ones, and learned to lead the group ones. The cool thing, is I could learn leadership skills in an environment with less stakes for my group. I'm not going to volunteer to lead a group to TKD, cause I don't want to get them killed. Heralds gave us the opportunity to do smob chains in a more accessible way, because we didn't need an elite leader to do so. Now, the most worthy smob trips need an elite player to lead them, and they're not always easy to find.

WIth the old heralds, I'd jump in a group with other pedestrian, everyday, non elite players and just enjoy a cool time heralding. That opportunity is gone now. I, along with three others from my clan or other clans would take our time with them when no elite leader was in the group, and had something to do. That does not exist in the current herald system. Honestly, I miss them. There used to always be someone doing heralds.

Edit: Honestly, with the number of new players coming in, I think it would benefit the game to bring back the old herlads. I'd even lead a group of new players to do those. I'm not leading them to do city heads.

Elyse
Posts: 330
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:47 pm

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

Post by Elyse » Sat Dec 04, 2021 4:43 pm

I've been on an extended hiatus (just busy with other stuff; fully expect to pop back in at times), but have a couple thoughts on darkfriends and side balance. This is not drawing on personal experience from recent months as I've been absent, but I still think it has some relevance.

First is that darkfriends have always been a bit of a tough nut to design properly. On the plus side, they are incredibly bookish and flavorful, and add to the "danger could be anywhere" feel we generally promote, and if you are going to have powerful DS remorts, especially channies, a darkfriend route to them feels RPishly correct. The bad is that, stepping back and looking at things from a community perspective, the threat of darkfriends lurking can be incredibly disruptive. The keys to a game like this are community and group interactions. The most fun times in this game usually involve activities in a group, but once you start distrusting people you don't know well, forming those groups can be incredibly difficult. I know there's plenty of times I've wanted to lead/smob with players I don't know well, but have held back, not wanting to risk walking into a trap or getting stabbed while talking a player through the strategy to use in a given smob. I recognize that I'm one of the more risk averse players out there, but I know I'm not alone in reducing my participation in certain activities out of fear of treachery. Multiplied out over lots of players, these costs, though typically hidden, are real. You never miss the smob group forming chats that aren't sent, etc.

From this perspective, the change in Darkfriend system, promoting automated quests followed by by a period of being a publicly known and wanted killer, seems advantageous, as leaking information to DS to get people killed, in the hope of getting rewarded by a chosen, is no longer the primary means of advancement. But making it much easier to advance as a darkfriend, especially in the unknown stages, naturally incentivizes having more darkfriends playing. And even if darkfriends are no longer going to prioritize getting into a DS leader's good graces by forwarding pkable information, if there are more DFs out there, the chance that there is one player on who might rat out your smob, herald, or quest group goes way up. If I log one and see one known DF and suspect several unknowns are on too, I'm surely not making a public chat asking if anyone wants to herald or hit IoMM, even if there's a chance the DFs might not all be reporting the info. So even with the current darkfriend system designed to minimize the cost in trust amongst players on ls, it may in fact be increasing distrust just through higher numbers of DFs out there.

This issue of numbers leads to another issue, raised by lots of folk over the years but I think most clearly by Eol, who pointed out the critical importance of LS having enough total numbers relative to DS in order to make the mud environment work right. When LS numbers get too thin, there aren't enough LSers to give good PK, and you end up with many more people looking for what kills they can get on xpers and the like. When the xpers, smobbers, etc. feel the reward isn't worth the risk, they shut down or substantially curtail their activities, and the whole LS experience starts to feel dead. PKers feel outnumbered, PVErs stay inside, and the end result is fewer people wanting to play. Note that there's NOT something inherently bad about killing PVErs, or that the players who hunt them are somehow deviant or bad. In my experience, many of these are in fact extremely nice and considerate players. And to be sure, big DS smash groups, DF murderers, and sneaky stabbers in the south have been part of this mud forever, largely to our benefit. But when their numbers grow too large relative to the number of humble tree slayers and bandit hunters, or even worse, too large relative to the number of solid dependable LS PKers, you risk a chain reaction with both PK and PVE kind of shutting down, even more people choosing to play their DF, and LS losing much of its character.

Many of you have suggested that Callesa get better at PK, or be more vigilant, etc. And I agree, running is much easier than chasing, and it's very satisfying to realize that *BAD NAME* is scary but that even if you are less skilled as a fighter, by keeping your head and applying some relatively straightforward tactics, you can regularly get away. So by all means, learn and practice the PK basics, even if you don't prioritize PK in your regular endeavors. It's similarly very valuable to practice "constant vigilance" as was beaten in to me in my days as a novice, in equal parts from wise aes sedai counsel and the daggers of folks like Torit! But constant vigilance does have a *real cost*. Constantly spamming kill, where, diagnose or the like, continually worrying about tracks and locs, limiting your public conversations when wary about revealing you'll be heading to a vulnerable location...all of this adds up fast. In the heat of pk, or in small doses on a dangerous quest (saying heading off to do Justice) it can be really exciting. But when you just want to relaxedly hit a couple of smobs, kill some trees, or teach a newbie how to reequip, all of which are useful and satisfying but low reward ventures, at a certain level of danger the vigilance isn't worth it, and the prudent play is to just stay inside. If there are a bunch of known DFs on, for example, it probably isn't worth it to go help smob up a reequip for a player who has just lost his set, even though many would ordinarily be happy to help. We usually talk about incenting activity by increasing the reward (lets have heralds to encourage more smob groups, let's give people qp for helping newbies) but for lots of positive activities, minimizing risk is the incentive that works better. The problem, of course, is that this is difficult. Upping rewards is simple and easy. Put more gold on the smob, add a qp or tp payout, etc. Reducing risk while not undoing the general feeling of danger is a much harder balance. And while I understand the rationale behind a lot of recent changes aimed at "helping people find enemies," (we live in a massive world with a smaller-than-ideal playerbase), the side effect of increasing the risk on low reward but community-positive efforts like smobbing up a combo set for that midbie is harmful.

Again, given my current hiatus, I'm a bit removed from the exact situation on the ground. But I've logged a bunch of time on this game over the years, and I feel I can still contribute even from a distance. That said, I've been a bit of a first year law student on this one, spotting issues but not offering concrete solutions, and actually finding solutions that don't in turn create worse problems can be incredibly tough. Accordingly, while I haven't agreed with all their actions, I really want to thank the Staff and Imms for their efforts. Their willingness listen to players and to experiment with changes has been exceptional, and I feel the mud is in very good hands.

Stomp
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:25 am

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

Post by Stomp » Sat Dec 04, 2021 6:50 pm

Make everything easier except for channies. Channies are overpowered, make everything harder for them.

Ominas
Posts: 459
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:07 am

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

Post by Ominas » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:36 pm

@Stomp - Remove rogues

@Elyse - Really good post. It was very well thought out and written. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

Reyne
Posts: 1418
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:46 am

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

Post by Reyne » Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:32 pm

Why'd the rewards for Masters get downed (apparently across the board for PvE stuff if we're counting heralds)? Kind of felt like a waste of time when I got nothing for flipping Baerlon and Jehanna.

I understand once a day because people were going back and forth between alts to rack up the score but one QP would have been nice.
Last edited by Reyne on Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:50 pm, edited 10 times in total.

Post Reply