North PK related changes

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Mikhan
Posts: 179
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:55 am

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Mikhan » Fri Jan 07, 2022 12:53 pm

Feneon wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:20 am
No matter which side you played though, RNG did more of the work than you did getting a kill or dying. If 9 times out of 10 this means you get a kill then you probably dislike this change. But, if it meant that 9 times out of 10 you died near Kajin, you probably like this change.
The random number generator that determines everything from how much damage is done to whether a bash misses or lands did "more work than you did getting a kill or dying?" Well, sure, I guess I see what you mean. The RNG is always an essential part of any kill or death in this game. It seems that what you're saying is that if a fight takes place at a patty and the patty deals more damage than a player, RNG "does more work" than the player, and this is presumably bad for the state of PK and calls for a change.

But isn't this a kind of silly way to look at the game? When you bash, the RNG is engaged because you chose to bash. For the damage roll on your weapon, same deal. When using mob support, the RNG that determines whether a mob hits a player, or whether a player hits another player with their defense split, etc. -- the same. When ancient trees turn a fight, you can look at it as "RNG did more work than you" or you can look at it that the RNG on those ancient trees is an aspect of the game, just like the RNG on the weapon you're wielding -- RNG is not a player; it is a medium through which the players interact. I guess, in short, I could agree with a statement that says Kajin does more damage than any solo player at Kajin -- but not with a statement that says in such a situation, RNG does all the work. Quite the opposite, I think.

Ragyn
Posts: 327
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:50 am

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Ragyn » Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:09 pm

Seems like a very narrow way of looking at PK. Even if the patrol does most of the damage, it is the player that has set it up by various means, be it target bashing the correct names, splitting up the group to allow for the kill on a low player, guiding the group around and so on. To me it would be better to change the weapons of the mobs at Kajin if you want it downed, but if you want it to be stationary could it at least be in a better spot. NE campsite has always been the worst place for it to be, even when it was roaming. Could be with the opening up of pittrap area that it isn't as terrible now, but I'd much rather see kajin placed 1e of the nomob or at campsite itself or anywhere that isn't so easily blocked up. Kajin is usually used when humans are already heavily outnumbered or too low to use sergeants, having the mob support in an easily blocked position will likely just lead to people going in earlier, similar to how DS often ignores camp and heads straight north or how TS was usually ignored by LS - great changes there though, adding treedoor makes it seem less of a DT for both sides if reinforcements suddenly show up.

Other than that agree with much of what Davor and Mikhan said.

erulak
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:11 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by erulak » Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:53 pm

ERULAK:
So I actually don't mind the new room/connection. That connection can mitigate for some of the 'flock out of FD' or 'DS hits with a dung-ton' situations all the same, but the stationary Kajin feels like an overcorrection that makes the the patrol kind of worthless outside of situations where you can just stand in one room (which is not when a patrol that strong should be getting used). I think it'd be worth considering a mobile Kajin that can move around the loop from 1e No Mob to Pit Trap to the New Room to Campsite.

[Feneon's Response]: The biggest people who will benefit from this change are trolloc absers. Remorts and rogues, while an issue, will benefit more, but the aim is to benefit trolloc absers. With the stationary location Kajin is not going to rescue an engagement while you flee around. The extra path will be useful if you should choose to use Kajin in its current form. Mobs being able to go to either side of Kajin will help build up reinforcements. Likely the biggest issue there is that most groups just clear mobs progressively to get a player into a worse and worse situation.
Echoing other peoples' thanks in the style and thoroughness of the responses, it's very facilitative to an actual conversation. I think the issue isn't so much that it benefits trolloc absers, but that stationary patrols (unless they're absurd beyond what Kajin is right now, think old BF DL or old Granlin), sort of benefit the outnumbering side in terms of boxing the defenders in. I think you sort of get to the heart of the issue that the outnumbering side won't really even try Kajin until the ancillary mob support is dead, and at that point, there's pretty much zero real reason to stand at Kajin.

I think Kajin does need some element of movement and "rescuing an engagement" to be effective -- I would consider seeing how some sort of limited wandering works with the added escape route/circling option in the zone that's in right now.

Also, the "control" argument and the 4 v 1 situation thing is just bizarre, if I'm being honest. The whole point of going to a patrol is to have some sort of control you don't typically have in 4 v 1 situations, and even then, it's entirely up to the 4 whether or not PK continues in that situation.

Quintilius
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:51 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Quintilius » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:27 pm

but will you sacrifice great practices to get a weave that does damage around these restrictions?
Other than fire or water, what are we talking about? HoA? Is lightning a fire weave?

(serious question)

Zarth
Posts: 364
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:04 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Zarth » Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:50 pm

I think Davor is just mad that his best way of getting kills has been made less feasible. If Jestin doesn't play he might not be able to get another kill ever again.

In my opinion Kajin very rarely enabled enjoyable PK for me. I'm sure that it was enjoyable for high defense low fleelag humans to flee around constantly, but it was not for me and I'd argue any other trolloc abser. Let's consider the 4v1 case where the 1 is a high defense character. Recall that the goal is to get kills and not just to deal damage. How do the 4 go about getting a kill on the 1? Let's just say they hit Kajin with all 4 of them, what happens? The 1 instantly flees before a bash and probably takes 0 damage. Now all of the mobs are engaged so they 1 can return and deal free damage. If the 4 flee off there's a good chance that 1) they'll flee slower becaues of fleelag and 2) the last one to flee will get all the mobs on him for a round and get wrecked. If they flee off they have to try to hit again before they get aggroed by the other mobs. While those mobs may seem weak against defense player I can assure you they don't feel weak as an abser. Especially with the quick aggro on the sergeant mobs!

So this goes on for a while, the 1 flees off and gets free hits in, while the 4 keep trying to get on to roll and land a bash. Let's say they finally land one, if they're lucky they get a few hits in, but most likely autoflee kicks in. Now the 1 actually feels in danger so they want to leave. Well you don't have any blockers because you hit with all 4. They run the 10 rooms into FD. So fine, you set a blocker 2n, now you're only hitting with 3 and the 1 can just leave via burnt. So you block 2n 2e and burnt. Now you're hitting with 2 and the 1 doesn't even have to leave he can just whittle down his opponents.

The issue that I see with Kajin, Treesinger, Lockshear, and other areas are stark when it's high numbers of absers vs 1 or 2 high defense low fleelag characters. The issue is not particularly that it's unbalanced in either way, there are a ton of situations that are unbalanced. If a solo absers hits a smob group he's going to get wrecked, that's fine and nobody complains about it. The issue with these situations is that both sides have vastly different perspectives on the risks, so it ends up just causing negativity. The high defense low fleelag character looks at it and says, "it's 4v1! I am taking all the risk! You should be hitting!". The absers look at it and say, "Even if we hit you you're just going to flee and whittle us down, if we get lucky to land a bash you're going to autoflee! If you ever get close to actually dying you're just going to leave and we can't block you! We're not going to hit!" This causes both sides to be pissed off.

The exact thing happened a few days ago in stedding. Castien (full dodge) was TS, it was Foil (combo heron), Drull (abs), Nazrgun (abs). When I showed up (3 absers now) Foil and the other trollocs had moved to the new sted patty because the trollocs were crit. Castien was wounded and yelling at Foil for going to mobs. I walked in and engaged, Castien immediately moved to Treesinger. I then hit with Foil for a few minutes. I got 1 unbashed hit but was never able to finish a bash timer before Castien fled. Foil finished 2 timers, he landed 1 and we got maybe 2 hits off of it as I autofled Castien when I entered (he was batt). I lost about 150 hps doing this and decided to leave. It was especially bad in that situation because Castien is full dodge and dismounted so unbashed we could only get 2 attackers on him. I'm sure it felt to him that he was taking all of the risk because he was fighting a bunch of high damage weapons, but to us it felt like he had very little risk as he'd just keep fleeing and if he ever got beaten or crit he could just leave through either of the 2 exits. I left and then the rest did too. All the pk did was piss everyone off which could be seen in discord a few minutes later!

Now, is there an alternative? I don't know, I think a key has to be players realizing that sometimes the situation just doesn't allow for good pk. If that happens then I think you have to leave. All staying around is going to do is get you mad. I think an interesting change would be to have Kajin be mobile, but change campsite area to be 3x3 with like 3-4 sergeants/soldiers and set 2n2e5n to be the nomob. This leaves some more space there, allows Kajin to roam around a bit, but you only need 1 to block now (though it's not a terrible block for either side as it's 50/50).

I also think that there should be a collection of mob only weapons with extremely high ob and low damage and that don't chortlesnorfling pierce.

Foil
Posts: 81
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Foil » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:45 pm

A lot of very good discussion on the thread. People have made great points all around. Not really going to bother with my two cents on any of it directly.

I just wanted to say that I feel like a lot of times the balance of the game is more focused on the higher tier player. The bonused ones or the high skilled ones. What a bonused/skilled player can do at a patty, or playing around a patty is a far cry different from what a casual, decently statted player can do. I often think of the trolloc abser because I am very biased on my views. I mainly played darkside over the years and most of my experience is there.

I have heard the argument many times "I play a regular trolloc all the time and I can do this, I can do that, I bash and get kills". That's great, anyone can get a kill every now and again. At the end of the day what usually ends up happening is experienced highly bonused, well statted players in full dodge or high end combo flee around strong mob support while the less geared, knowledgeable players get pk'd by mobs and they clean up the kills. We call it mob support, but really the mobs end up doing the lions share of the actual pk.

It might be fun gameplay for the person fleeing around those mobs watching absers die, it might give you some excitement to pk out numbered that way, but for the persons who are fruitlessly chasing you around get slapped from one end of a zone to another and eventually spending their 5 in the CoD it wasn't that much fun. It becomes hard to encourage people to stay positive and pk when time and time again they given the same results of failure at Kajin or the like.

The answer and solution? I don't really know, I appreciate all the effort Fen is putting into it, some of the changes not great, some of them didn't work out the way he wanted. I am glad so many people are working towards fixing northern pk because it really is a large motivator in people playing and being happy around here.

Atkins
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:55 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Atkins » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:00 pm

I think the real issue is rate of changes. Too much stuff at once as was pointed out leads to having no idea what is affecting your outcomes.

isabel
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Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: North PK related changes

Post by isabel » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:11 pm

@zarth - reading your post what jumped out was that it seemed defensive setup (especially for a dismounted character) was the issue and not the mob support. Imagine the 4v1 with an abs human and defensive ds rogues for instance.

Also assuming the pk is dynamic, there is every incentive for the defensive 1 to leave mobs and chase after low hp absers no?

Razhak
Posts: 1396
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:43 am

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Razhak » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:24 pm

There is lot to argue for or against patties, playstyles or numbers in pk. I am not going to go into that, or repeat many of the (good) arguments made about this here.

What I do dislike is how every narrow/chokey/deadend zone (or part of zone) seems to need to have backdoors/entrances now, or how everywhere doors/entries need to openen up or spammables removed. It basically makes it easier for people (especially for high defence players) to survive, instead of forcing them to do-or-die sometimes.

I just dislike how the mud gets made more fleebee friendly instead of choked/closed down more to promote pk where people are forced to take a shot/take a chance to win (or die trying).

Zarth
Posts: 364
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:04 pm

Re: North PK related changes

Post by Zarth » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:54 pm

isabel wrote:
Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:11 pm
@zarth - reading your post what jumped out was that it seemed defensive setup (especially for a dismounted character) was the issue and not the mob support. Imagine the 4v1 with an abs human and defensive ds rogues for instance.

Also assuming the pk is dynamic, there is every incentive for the defensive 1 to leave mobs and chase after low hp absers no?
What abs human? Do they still exist???

4 ds rogues vs 1 abser and the abser is not going to go Kajin, they're going to go in. Excluding some city heads or absurd mobs like old warders there's not enough mob support in the game to make that worthwhile. In my opinion there isn't much incentive for the 1 to come off mobs either. They might chase off of mobs briefly if the the abser is crit or the group is split, but if the group gets together it will be back to mobs. This is the correct decision for the dodger in that case too.

If you make the mobs useful for absers in 4v1 now they're absurd for dodger/combo.

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