Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

[arston]

That said, there are also oodletons of cityheads slain, which also yield qps. 1888 instances of that in the past 3 months, although a bunch of those are also DS as they are written to the same file. Essentially, cityhead smobbing has replaced heralds.

... Yeah I mean the group of DS that we know is organized and crushes all these things is probably the only one doing it though. More power to them but it's not exactly indicative of wide use. I've tried to get people to hit cities with me, it's not exactly something people are fired up to do (on LS anyway).

I understand if the thought was that it was too easy for too little effort but it's gone the other way now I think. The responses it this thread re the heralds seem to agree with that notion.

Am a little confused about the idea that everything is being sacrificed for PK. It seems there has been a lot of steps to make it easier for non PKers to gain qps, rares, tps etc. Which changes in the past couple years seem to have skewed the balance? To me it seems to have been trying to spread "the wealth" out among different kinds of players.

I don't necessarily agree bc I do think there has been quite a lot of added PvE and whatnot, but I think this feeling is coming from stuff like additional ways to be scouted and the snobbing itself being made more vulnerable to PK, such as the herald chains now ending more or less in the Blight. Like it's not just 'oh I'm PvEing and now by chance there's people here,' it is 'my PvE is being directed right to their doorstep so there's almost always PK involved.'

A lot of new things have been implemented for PVE, and as a player that will only PVE if I have any choice in the matter at all, but can still handle myself if it does show up, I really enjoy that. Many of these things like cityheads and heralds are conceptually the perfect fit for me and perfectly aligned with my strengths and weakness, but in practice are impossible for me to do 99% of the time, because believe me any time I am on I am looking for the opportunity to do them and it just doesnt show up.

The problem is that it takes most groups hours to hit all the herald smobs leading up to the blight, and if at any point they get noticed then theres a group waiting for them a quick spam away from any herald smob. If it was defending yourself from 2 or 3 trolls or a remort plus another player thats totally understandable and thats what it sounds like people expect when they think of handling themselves when they talk about the difficulty of heralds, but i have never seen two or three defenders in any ds cityhead or herald. Its always either a lone troll suiciding himself vs a group, or 5+ led by a remort. All it takes is ONE person seeing tracks in the two hours you are gathering the herald scalps, one time ratting, ONE person hearing a chat, or getting a tell inviting to heralds who then alts to ds and discords everyone playing league, ONE locate weave from a dreadlord, ONE person using the basin, and you are stuck outnumbered in an smob a stones throw away from a ds city where all of them can flame directly there and hit grouped, while you are trying to bring a bunch of non-pkers (usually, most of the pk'ers are getting their qps from pk and the majority seem morally against smobbing for qps for some reason) back to safety with half your group dying and nobody getting any quest points for the hours of work they put in.

Cityheads are the same way, back when we were doing them on LS, we would watch the who list and the playground to see if we had enough people to be able to handle it. I would spend 10 hours+ per day keeping an eye on when it would even be possible to do a cityhead hit. We'd finally get 2-3 more high level players than there were ds on and be able to hit, and over half the time suddenly the playground would go from 1 person online, to 5+ hitting us grouped between when we entered the city and when the first cityhead got to hurt. Didnt matter who I was grouped with what time of day it was.

Solution to this: change the playground to make a delay so there's plausible deniability that they were there for 15 mins beforehand.

My point is not to complain, I truly do appreciate the efforts to be more inclusive towards different playstyles, and I personally do really enjoy the risk that pvp brings to pve, and adding those considerations to decision making. My intent when bringing this up is to point how while the concept has been designed to implement risk to the PVE side, the risk is rediculously high for heralds and cityheads, to the point where I go in realizing that even under perfect conditions, I am going into an smob that I COULD solo, and even have 3-4 people at my back, and STILL knowing that I will likely die because im a stones throw away from people who have had hours to scope what we are doing and im at their doorstep where everyone can flame to and group and hit us with overwhelming numbers.

If the goal is to introduce risk to the PVE, and if the target user is primarily PVE players who are getting a taste of PVP, then throwing them into the some of the most dangerous spots in the game isnt really a great idea, because they have little to fall back on, their only advantage is sneaking in and doing it unnoticed which is extremely difficult for reasons stated above. IDEALLY, you want to have those final smobs surrounded by mixed support, with LS cities close by, and with some way to notify DS that its being done. Couple ways that can be done, Whether thats by having the FIRST smob in the chain in the blight so that ds can see its being done, and decide if they want to raid down south to hit the smobbing group, and DS still has the oportunity to hit LS while they are getting the first scalps, but before wasting hours of time prepping for something thats gonna get taken away from them. Alternatively, all the smobs could be down south, but the herald mob could narrate for DS when it was being done. That way DS could still hit if they wanted to, it still adds in pk risks, and teaches non pker's how to minimize risks and fall back on mobs and have ways to play it smart other than "walk in a door next to a ds city".

That being said, Bearlon and Jehannah are excellent in terms of still being difficult, i still end up failing to hit it even unopposed sometimes if i only bring one person with me baerlon, prefect balance of difficulty, reward, and pk considerations. pk there is very balanced ive seen, it usually goes towards whoever makes better use of the mobs and doors and utitilizes zone knowledge better, so its not generally a deathtrap but still risky.

RP rewards are great implementations on the imm side of it, the system is in place for those people who prefer to do RP. The player base still doesnt generally know how it works yet so many RP'ers are not getting any credit, but thats on the playerbase not the imms, specifically everyone who doesnt RP (including me) learning to use the mobol and award the people who add flavor to our gaming experience. Not saying that we have to change our playstyle to fit RP'ers but that we should learn the mechnisms to award those that have enhanced our game immersion/added to our experience, as we are the only way they get awarded for what they do and bring to our table.

What I'm trying to say is that the system is largely in place for every playstyle to enjoy and progress doing what they like, and it seems to be in a better spot for more diverse groups than it ever has before, but there are a few small things that could be tweaked or approached differently in order to really capitalize on the great systems we have in place now.

[Elysia]

If the goal is to introduce risk to the PVE, and if the target user is primarily PVE players who are getting a taste of PVP, then throwing them into the some of the most dangerous spots in the game isnt really a great idea, because they have little to fall back on, their only advantage is sneaking in and doing it unnoticed which is extremely difficult for reasons stated above.

The goal isn't necessarily risk to pve, but at least making people dip their toes in pk. It's like some people want to have a bonused channeler, e.g. Aes Sedai, without the rp. It's not going to happen, even if you're the best pker in the game. You'll have to dip your toes in rp.

In our experience, it's the players who branch out that stay. If you're only interested in rp and no one is willing, it's easy to go do something else. However, if you can pk, pve and rp, you have far more options than those who only have a narrow interest. It's in everyone's interest that every type is introduced to activities that lie outside their comfort zone. And that is better in a group than going Gap solo when clueless. It's how oldbies were introduced to pking too, through raids around 4k and Emond's Field.

[arston]

If the goal is to introduce risk to the PVE, and if the target user is primarily PVE players who are getting a taste of PVP, then throwing them into the some of the most dangerous spots in the game isnt really a great idea, because they have little to fall back on, their only advantage is sneaking in and doing it unnoticed which is extremely difficult for reasons stated above.

The goal isn't necessarily risk to pve, but at least making people dip their toes in pk. It's like some people want to have a bonused channeler, e.g. Aes Sedai, without the rp. It's not going to happen, even if you're the best pker in the game. You'll have to dip your toes in rp.

In our experience, it's the players who branch out that stay. If you're only interested in rp and no one is willing, it's easy to go do something else. However, if you can pk, pve and rp, you have far more options than those who only have a narrow interest. It's in everyone's interest that every type is introduced to activities that lie outside their comfort zone. And that is better in a group than going Gap solo when clueless. It's how oldbies were introduced to pking too, through raids around 4k and Emond's Field.

With you 110% on that. I love the concept, and I agree wholeheartedly with what you are TRYING to do. My point is that having people who typically dont pk, broadcast what they are doing for hours and then go behind a door in an smob a stones throw away from a ds city where every ds player can teleport/flame to you and you have very little mob support near, isnt "dipping toes", most times during the day its just suicide.

[davee]

Why is playground a thing?

[Carter]

I'll go out on a limb here and agree that old Heralds were way better than the current lot. Pretty much guaranteed pk. Sometimes it's nice to kick back and smob.

[Tolveor]

So one question since there is so much focus on heralds. I know random drops are a thing, but are random qps for smobs a thing still? I personally feel if we want to promote casual grouping for the casual player, that random qps and drops for normal smobs are a better route to go than doing heralds in blight. And maybe it's still a thing and people just forget. I know i have gotten jcuffs and sid/gchain drops out of just smobbing normally with 4+ in a group.

[Enoch]

So one question since there is so much focus on heralds. I know random drops are a thing, but are random qps for smobs a thing still? I personally feel if we want to promote casual grouping for the casual player, that random qps and drops for normal smobs are a better route to go than doing heralds in blight. And maybe it's still a thing and people just forget. I know i have gotten jcuffs and sid/gchain drops out of just smobbing normally with 4+ in a group.

This can still happen. It's relatively rare, but I was in 2 smob groups over the last couple of days. Hit a lot of smobs, but each day got 1-3 qps from it. Also saw a kandori, gold chain, a gold ring, and a couple red robes load as bonus loot since we had a good group size.

[Fuujin]

I'll go out on a limb here and agree that old Heralds were way better than the current lot. Pretty much guaranteed pk. Sometimes it's nice to kick back and smob.

agreed, new heralds suck. Some of them don't make any sense either. Why in the hell would a Tairen herald care about some monster in the Blight? The average Tairen doesn't even believe in trollocs or fades, we have no business with anything that far north. It was one thing when you'd sometimes have to go to blight for a final smob, but now if you don't know blight you simply can't finish them. I am grateful to players like Ominas and others who regularly do herald runs, but I didn't join DoTS so that I would have my arms twisted into learning northern zones.

Give the heralds more variety like they used to have. They don't all need to end up Blight. There are better ways to introduce people to PK in ways that are more conducive to actually learning the ropes than to shove a bunch of smobbers in blight and saying 'good luck, hope the 3 qps is worth it'

[Kordin]

I can't remember if this was the topic where this idea came from, but just wanted to say thanks Elysia and I hope this works out!

Git smobbin'!

viewtopic.php?f=3&p=133984#p133984

[Alison]

I don’t think city heads replaced heralds really. City heads are just more worthwhile. They load something. They were worthwhile to hit. Everyone gains something from doing it whether you are clanned or not. Tp/eq/qp etc.

If I take the time to put together a group it’s going to be to attain something more than just qp for specific players. I want everyone to be able to enjoy and potentially win something. They can be exciting for some players. The idea of raiding an enemy city for instance.

Heralds were kind of the relaxed way for more casual players to do something. Especially for those that don’t really enjoy pk. I just about refuse to do them now just because of boredom but it was good how it was.

I think some of the frustrations players have voiced about some of this stuff is valid. Not all of it. But some for sure.

This part sums it up perfectly and is my opinion on why i dont do heralds. It used to be something fun. Now? Why bother. It will end in pk and it always does. Few times Detritus and i did it and what happens. We got some pk. So it looks like the herald system ending in ds territory was designed to go to pk rather than reward? Meaning its designed now to , oh you want to smob, well good luck its going to become pk whether you want too or not.

At this time, and for the last few months. The mud has become waved by dark riends.

Vannor has a point that if you don't really know the system, you cant say much about it. All i've known over the years is that darkfriend road was not a choice i would ever make.

That being said, its a shiny system now that almost everyone that has a df, is trying out. Hence the flux of dfs.

(i managed to play a tainted mc for years without anyone finding out . Then i got bored and gave him away. )

Every few years we get this types of waves. It will subside. only the hard core dfers will keep going.

As for the warder / sedai bond. I see the wvd being removed as a low blow from the imms. Like the blindsided nerf to our hps. Given that there is probably a grander plan for balancing, i would like to take the time to just wait it out. I havent had Detritus around since this nerf, but i bet that with the right coordination the right as pairs will find a way to make it work. As a pker/rper, i have seen both sides to the argument that this is mainly a pk mud. Its really not. It is relatively simple to not engage in pk. I find balance in rping /smobbing/pk

When I want to.

For now. Lets give the imms the benefit of the doubt and let them reveal the steps to the grander plan as it goes along. This lot of imms are by far the best lot for this trying times rl and game time. Thank you , Imms.