Vannor wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:04 am
Id be very very surprised if your smob group was hit because of an unknown DF ratting, the system for getting that to occur is actually a whole lot harder than you might think. You might've left tracks, had a rat/raven on you, or just gotten plain unlucky.
Without giving too much away about the unknown DF process, the way you think they progress demonstrates you don't know very much about the system. If anything unknown DFs are benefitted more by working with LS 90% of the time rather than against them.
Yes, you are probably right, I don't know much about it. But what I've observed on others and myself: the recent tons of dfs (especilly Lisennet) are leaving behind a lot of ooc emotional damage and player distrust and similar stuff. Which is not helpful for having fun on a game. I know you are ooc really trying to not just destroy others. But while we may keep parroting that DFs are a totally bookish and valid IC choice, the wave of DFs right now is making ooc damage to people. The suspicions are high, the amount of real LS on the who list is lower, and I don't think this is the best thing for the game.
So yes, I may not know much about the DF system, because I always knew it was not for me, I am not capable of either the level of ic/ooc separation of feeling like a bad person (I play to be the hero), and I am also not naive enough to think the IC actions don't leave OOC damage.
While I may admire the amount of work Lisennet has put in her character and I totally recognize how bookish some of the aspects of this are (except for rping openly the black ajah, that is not bookish at all, or the fact that the black ajah just observed acceptedds and recruited after shawling), I think she has harmed the mud ooc enormously too. The levels of suspicion were never that high. I am by far not the only one, who thinks about another player being a traitor long before I consider any other of the totally reasonable options you've mentioned.
PvE is great, although PvE being interrupted by PK isint a new thing, not even close. I think there's a gap with newer LS groups that comes from many people progressing a long way via PvE without developing a good base set of PK skills to respond better when you are hit by DS/LS. If you don't spend time honing that skill, you are going to die to people that have.
You're missing the point here. I am not arguing about pk being wrong or new as a way to disrupt the pve elements I am just saying, that if it happens too often, I m forced to play someone elses game, to give someone else fun, and someone else rewards. Because most of the time, I am not having fun pking at all, I am simply not that kind of a person, it is mostly an exception to have fun while pking (and it usually happens in group vs group pk, so not happening for vast majority of my time online).
Your advice sounds nice at first and I would partially agree. Some pk skills should be learnt by everyone. But you are basically telling me to give up on playing Age of Empires, just because other people want to play Counterstrike all the time, and their fun is more important than mine. (Perhaps not the best examples, but they demonstrate the point). And I am expected to serve as their fun just because they don't have other people to play with on the Who list.
So, do you really believe I should either stop playing wotmud, or just to play a totally different game than I want 100% of the time just to satisfy others? Are they really that much more valuable than me, just because they do a more prestigious activity? Just because they don't have anyone else on the who list, anyone who might actually want to play their game?
Regarding knowns and their prevalence. There's arguably 3 active ones at the moment. I can't speak for other knowns but most active LS know I won't grief you, I generally don't loot (I don't need it/got nowhere to store it) and on occasions I might whisper to those I think who are struggling where some XP scalps might have been magically left.
The prevalence varies based on paytimes. If I could play at 4am all the time, I wouldn't complain at all. But the known DFs make like 50% of the highbies on my wholists for the majority of the time. That is a hell of a prevalence.
I know that you do all that, and I am grateful. If you wanted, you could make the game really hell but you choose to be cool instead. But that doesn't change the fact that you are one less player for smobbing on an already very short wholist, one less player to come to help against DS, and one more threat. That's why I stick to my idea of our need for a LS remort, to keep people playing LS too and dilute the DF amount a bit.
Generally speaking the 'known' cohort knows the system is a drag on LS at times, and are sympathetic to that. But we have a goal to reach, just like you, so we're obviously out to try and do that. The staff have a close eye on knowns and are looking to evaluate the system to change it where it needs to be changed. The known players also provide feedback all the time and yes one of the main concerns has been the detriment to LS that known DFs cause.
The cat is out of the bag, I don't think there is any solution at all. Right now, I just hope you will all just get your remorts asap, so that people get less paranoid, use the narrates more usefully again (because we are now at a paranoia extreme), don't worry this much about DFs. Because while we may agree that the LS is meant to be IC fragmented, we are now having it OOC fragmented too. A game that is supposed to be multiplayer now has a very visible "other players are probably traitors" sign on every who list. When you finally get enough scalps and the remort, you will be just a standard DS, and will let the LS profit from some desperately needed (even though partially fase) sense of security within our side.
I also think the current addition of Graymen is a problem too. Not primarily because of any pk concerns, or even because of getting killed while doing other stuff. The IC things are ok too, I find many aspects of this new addition cool. But it is a huge OOC message from the staff: screw the LS and get rewarded, nurture the LS and get punished and told to learn the PK better.
Now that I think of it, perhaps it would be better to just strike more harshly and not take any regards anymore. If you could kill me 20 times a day, could you just get your remort in a month? I would gladly sponsor this with my exp and even eq. There are like 5 active known DFs, how many Aes Sedai scalps would it take, to finally get the LS back to a sort of normal situation? I will stand there and not even try to run, to make it faster. I just want the game back. Perhaps the good Pkers slowing you down are actually making a huge ooc mistake, because they are prolonging the LS' suffering. Perhaps if we all just got scalped enough times on purpose, we could help you get what you want and get back what we want.
I agree heralds are a little low for the difficulty, and could perhaps be looked at upping again given an AS/Warder pair have more difficulty steamrolling everything - which just about everyone agrees is a good thing. They are still a very strong class and definitely strong vs PvE
The heralds are laughably low for the difficulty, and the change of them to make them end in the north=turn the smob groups into just easy scalps for ds, is extremely unfortunate. Is anyone even doing them semi-regularly now? Is it worth it to anybody? I don't even get full qps, as I am above 1000 qps now, so basically no reward at all (the few tps will be lost long before I get to amass 50). So, are people supposed to try to reach the Rank 8 (the supposed alternative to remort), or not?
A solution would be to change a part of the options back the more reasonable ones. So, some days, the herald chain would be the one leading to the north =impossible to do for most players, and some days it would be the actually fun one. And seriouly up the rewards, give QPs to everyone, including Masters. Without Masters and in general skilled players putting together and participating in the Herald groups, the feature is dead.
Where is the strength of AS/warder in PvE? The only way to be a PvE strong AS now is to have good stats (harder now, especially with the hp cap, the prerolled or similar are not good enough for PvE), to become a sleep stabber (wasn't that supposed to be the discouraged strategy) and wvd abser (again something that was discouraged in past). The bonded pari may not steamroll everything, but it should definitely be very strong, it was supposed to be one of my main perks for Shawling, wasn't it? It is simply a lie, that AS are such strong characters, most of our advantages were taken away. Yes, exceptional fighting players will excel at having an AS char, but basically in the same way they will excel at having a Damane, Dreadlord, Accepted, anything else. But being AS doesn't really give many advantages, especially compared to the effort required to shawl.
Really, the people hating the AS chars, FCs, and the bonded pairs have won. It's rather trash now. It used to be fun, but now the fun ways to play the game are to be either american (to play with many people), or to be a solo stabber, and/or DF. That is rather narrow.