Why are absolutely any chances of enjoying PvE being destroyed?

[Elysia]

For the record, this year, to date there have been 1047 herald completion notes.

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. Some people were flipping the ctfs like Baerlon and Jehannah back and forth between themselves, so we had to impose a limit of once per character per day (per city).

That's really the crux though. If you want want progression at a decent speed, someone who plays way more hours in a more favorable timezone will progress a lot faster. That can skew the ease of attaining qps between smobbers and pkers. Imagine there was no once a day limit on heralds or ctfs. Some people would get 50 qps a day doing that and get to rank 9 in a jiffy. Meanwhile, someone like Puny has taken 20 years.

It's about balance of ease, time invested and risks taken. Ironically, the pkers have been complaining for years that there's too much focus on pve and there should be more forcing people towards pk.

The truth likely lies in the middle. For you, Callesa, it's too hard and not enough. For a bunch of pkers, it's already too much. It may not be perfect balance, but it is -a- balance.

[Nevirha]

probably worth the effort

That's part of the problem. Smobbing is almost never worth the effort. The loads are almost always garbage, and on the rare chance you get something good, you're still probably going to be rolling on it between several players.

This game has sacrificed its heart to the altar of PK, and it shows. I don't know if that was said in the bringing back old players thread that got deleted, but I'm sure that having fewer rewarding PVE options doesn't help the game at all. I like PKing sometimes, and I do it across alts. But that's not the only drive for this game for many people, and those people have often been treated like second class citizens because they don't find enjoyment in the same way that the most vocal players do.

[raal]

I'd ask for oilskin type bags load again on smobs for christmas (and look at it to be permanent). There would be groups out smobbing and forcing repops but also if you found a bag load it was worth building a group to hit it. I don't even remember what they could load but the double chance seems good and a way to build adjustments without changing the loads on all smobs....

[Saif]

Smobs have never loaded as well as they have now, except for the time where IoMM flooded the market with pods/mauls some tenish years ago?, but I think even then the vast majority of smobbers stayed on the mainland. There's a ton of different chains to complete. There's smobs that can be done by few people and some that require bigger groups.

So I'd say smobs have never been more "worth" doing than now. The fact that they added a way to craft rares, has opened up that avenue to newer/non pkers as well, so its not just a couple rares circulating between the same players up north.

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.

[Kryyg]

Smobs have never loaded as well as they have now, except for the time where IoMM flooded the market with pods/mauls some tenish years ago?, but I think even then the vast majority of smobbers stayed on the mainland. There's a ton of different chains to complete. There's smobs that can be done by few people and some that require bigger groups.

So I'd say smobs have never been more "worth" doing than now. The fact that they added a way to craft rares, has opened up that avenue to newer/non pkers as well, so its not just a couple rares circulating between the same players up north.

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.

The crafted items brings up a good point. Those weapons are incredibly good by a large margin by anything you could hope to achieve smobbing. Perhaps start loading some of these reagents/crafting items on smobs, including tokens? So if you complete a chain you have a chance to craft one of these fancy items as well.

I do agree with Nevirha that smobbing is an integral part of the game's EQ flow and economy overall. That needs to be maintained and healthy so that us PKers can come and kill you when you wander up north, then die to you chasing you inside cities. A cycle of life. In regards to your comments on things skewing to the altar of PK, this game has and always will be (I hope) a PK game where you are never safe and stand to lose everything. That said the standard sets to basically do everything you want is still so incredibly available.

[Vannor]

Ok we had this exact same discussion for about 6 pages a few threads down.

You're talking about DFs from a complete lack of understanding. Try starting one yourself, I'm sure your opinion would change. You want to be a hero? Well heros need 'villians' to fulfill your hero fantasy.

Typically speaking known DF players are going to be players that have done many of the other things in the game. I played LS for years and years. This suggests a certain level of competence. The known 'class' is among if not the most malused class in the game, the lowest scalp award rate. It's extremely difficult. You don't think the rabid hate that gets thrown our way doesn't have OOC impact? It's tiring, and often unjustified.

I'm sorry but you're coming across as somewhat passive aggressive, even the post title. Nobody here wants you to have a bad time logging in. The game however is first and foremost a PK mud, bottom line. That said the staff have made huge huge advancements into the accessibility and variety in PvE options to cater to players that trend in that direction.

Currently I'd argue that PvE progression via cityheads and the like is the FASTEST means to progress a character at the moment, much to the chagrin of the hardcore PK player cohort. I can't progress via PvE, but if I could, you better believe I would. KMG are a class example of this. Eldrenia/Draz currently are also a great example of this.

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with that, smob your way to master, who cares, but as I said earlier if you don't spend time honing your PK skills, those that have will roll over you when they find you. Kryyg hits the nail on the head, and most smob groups even those I've been in since being back the last 6mo or so still operate that way. You're bonded? You have zone sense. Spam where. Check for shadow eyes, have a plan for when you get hit, and fully expect you will get hit.

I'm not posting again after this, and not in any subsequent incarnations of the same thread. PvE is extraordinarily efficient at progressing at the moment if you do it right. Your arguments about DFs come from a place of ignorance, and I say that kindly, it's not what you think it is.

[Ominas]

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.

[Rig]

To pop some bubbles with my bubble popping pin:

The increase of PvE rewards over the last 6 years has been…huge. There’s been obvious added checks, and some balances. Introducing but not limited to:

Heralds: a great way to teach some newbies/help non-masters/a viable source of quest points/added rewards for larger groups who don’t use master mobs/something to do that isn’t the same 3 smob chains.

City-heads: An albeit ‘risky’ way of gaining rewards/added flavor of being able to start pk/ability to teach players or help them gain confidence in north zones/the ‘excitement’ it can entail for people looking for something other than boring and uneventful smobbing/incredible rewards, even after reaching rank 7.

Sunken City/Puzzle Palace: Great smob, decent rewards. Great for questers who like to figure things out, a ton of rewards in terms of equipment.

IoMM: Great set of smobs. Great for equipment. Great chain. Nuff said.

Kandori Merchant Guild: a whole clan dedicated to basically PvE. Amazing.

Lugard Market Hall: Added avenue of increased rewards in regards to qps/gold/accessibility to equipment.

These are all huge improvements over the years that have added a lot of missing flavor for PvE options.

RE: Bonded Warder
Confused as to how you equate you and your warder online to being worse than you and some random. Multi bash is still powerful? Your warder has the ability to hit everything they’re buffing and sit them for long periods of time. Perhaps investing in healing weaves will soothe some of the pain. The removable of WvD was very important in not being able to cheese smobs.

RE: Known Darkfriends
Not even really arguable, the hardest goalpost in the game to overcome. There’s less players than you think making it their mission to ‘screw over LS’ while they’re smobbing or whatever else. In fact, your argument stands around how they ruin the general cohesion and cause distrust and bad vibes to the rest of LS. In the same breath, you say that they’re bad people irl, and nothing can change that, because of in-game choices made. Not understanding the little disparity between “you’re a bad person in real life and you should think about your actions” and “all you do is make everyone angry and mad” is something you should look at changing. Most, if not all of the current known darkfriends playing are some of the most helpful people you’ve met, OOC.

[Drybones]

Ultimately, it's a two way street. When I PVE at work, I have to hide in the city when pk shows up. The pk is ruining my ability to PVE easily at work. When I decide to go afk in Caemlyn throne room until it fades away, I'm also ruining their ability to pk. Same if I choose to ignore an RP conversation at tower square. We have no obligation to participate in other people's gameplay, but it effects their gameplay no matter what.

When each of us logs in, we have a goal we would like to achieve. Whether that is pk, pve, or rp, it depends on the person behind the keyboard, the character they log into, and the time of day/week they log in. I pve/stat at work, I pk on the weekends when I have large blocks of time, and I RP/smob on weeknights. Most new players tend towards pve b/c it's a great way to get introduced to the game. Most old players tend to focus on pk for several reasons. First, we were forced to learn pk in a very necessary way back when 200 players packed the small number of zones to the brim, and everyone was trying to kill everything. Second, we can smob in our sleep b/c PVE is a necessary part of the game and we all learned how to do it. As a result, we have a fairly well balanced skillset. Most of the pker's you vilify as evil IRL actively participate in pk, pve, and rp. Razhak smobs, Razhak pks, and Razhak writes rp stores (iirc). Most of us do.

Hell, pking on a trolloc, or betraying on a DF is RP in and of itself. It's the nature of the wheel of time. Varied playstyles add to the richness of the game we play. We need gleeman telling stories in town squares, even when you don't feel like listening to fanfic. We need trollocs bashing heads and eating corpses. We need CoL trying to stab accepted while they try to learn to solo smob. We need SS being pompous pricks while they try to coerce you to join the dumbest cause on the planet. Each has an important role within the game, within the context of the wheel of time, and each crafts the roleplaying game that we all love as opposed to a PVE, random gear generator like Diablo.

Try to enjoy the atmosphere, try to accomplish your goals, and try not to get too upset when those goals conflict with the goals of other. After all, conflict is the heart of literature, and that's what brought us all here in the first place.

[Detritus]

RE: Bonded Warder
Confused as to how you equate you and your warder online to being worse than you and some random. Multi bash is still powerful? Your warder has the ability to hit everything they’re buffing and sit them for long periods of time. Perhaps investing in healing weaves will soothe some of the pain. The removable of WvD was very important in not being able to cheese smobs.

To pop some bubbles with my bubble popping pin:

I could kill significantly more smobs with wvd, 20 more sps and a random abser than i could with 20 less sps, autorescue multibash, no wvd.

This from someone that has "cheesed" pretty much every mob in the game at one time or another.
That's not to say i couldn't kill some smobs faster with the multibasher, but less of them are viable at all.