Are players leaving?

[Aureus]

A few notes from myself as to why I don't have the urge to play anymore.

Player hatred by Imms
This has been seen by me a few ways. Here are a few examples:

• An imm mailing another imm as a mob, saying that I had been seen doing something. Even though I was sure to never be seen by a player.
• An imm using imm look to see trinkets being worn such as rings and using that to IC punish.
• An imm zapping me for multiplaying because I couldn't say the alphabet backwards fast enough while Vaylor had to say it forwards at the same time.
• An imm using flags on a character to block entry to certain clans that had a mobol quest requirement (Kin) even after approval from the clan.
• An imm changing the rules and clanning requirements of a clan (Black Talon) after I had been invited on Anor after being kicked out of the HoL.
• An imm refusing to purge inactive from the clan before a declan vote and using the rules that a not received vote counts for delcan.
• An imm spawning and moving patrols during a quest to give darkside a significant advantage resulting in lots of deaths, who then bragged on his CoL wanted mortal about how a group of CoL got slaughtered in blight.
• An imm implementing a jump exit with a known bug to abuse in Amador during a war his mortal was involved in, then using that mortal to advertise the bug to all the CoL enemies in said war.
• An imm using a mortal in 1 clan, to protect his darkfriend mortal in another clan and backing up that decision with his imm, stopping me from outing his darkfriend using purely in game information.

I think we all know there has been bad behavior before, but there is no tolerance today for the sort of shitty behavior you're describing (aside from the multiplaying bullet, which seems likely to be an honest mistake). An Imm favoring his/her characters, changing rules to disadvantage a particular player, implementing mobol advantages, etc. would be shown the door.

[arston]

Ideally, I would like to see smobbing be the kind of thing that you can go out for a couple of hours and rekit yourself after a rip. Maybe a little bit longer if in full dodge because its considered top tier but still shouldnt take an insane more amount of time. The thing is, I found it easier to basically single-handedly keep the lugard market hall stocked (before the new kmg ppl came in) than i found it to gather a complete set for a friend or an alt, and this is because the loot on smobs is at a good level but the variability of loot is pretty crazy, so that there was always one piece (just a different piece each time) that I would be hunting forever and couldnt find, while carrying around a heavy set looking for it until I gave up.

If it was me, I would change "normal smobs" to standardized loads, whether it looks more like zamara khel in mayene or surelle on chico road where it has two normal loads each smob, or to change it so that it always loaded one specific piece 100% of the time, and loaded other peices on % (like shifty ogier in caralain's sungwood bracelet and dodge sleeves) so that you can be reasonably sure that if you need a specific piece of equipment for your set, u know you can hit a certain smob. (Like "I need a bearskin, let me find someone else to help me flee spike orma real quick cause i know she always loads one"). I would remove all rare loads/trinkets off of basic smobs, leave them on % on the big stuff like jafar/iomm, raise the % on smob chains like the one that ends in paishan or tear brigands, and add a mobol turn-in so that if you participate in "enough" smobs that day than you get awarded trinkets of your choice, example:

I go around (either solo or in a group_) killing smobs. Every smob I kill I type a mobol command such as "harvest scalp" This command works like the daily local smob mobol/ or the herald mobol, so that I can only harvest a chunk of a scalp off that smob once per day, but every member of the group can harvest one chunk. I then smob a bunch of these scalp chunks, then take them to a mob in lugard (or 4k or somewhere) and hand them to a mob one at a time, it runs a check to see if each one coming in is the same name as any chunk in its inventory (so you cant have everyone in the group harvest a chunk and give them to one person). When you turn in all you want for the day then you "say exchange for sid", mob runs a check to see if you turned in chunks that day, then checks a chart to see if you have enough chunks there to get a sid, and hands the item to you and adds your name to a list so that you cant turn in more smob chunks that day.

The advantage of doing it this way is that:
1) you know that if you hit a certain number of smobs than you can get the equipment you need.
2) it provides casual smobbers a means to get the gear they need to get back into pk while putting a check on how fast extreme smobbers can "abuse" things
3) It means if you want to reequip a full dodge set each day then you need to learn the tricks to killing 20 different smobs instead of farming the same one each repop (or however many chunks it takes for the turn-in for 2x gring 2x sid 2x kcuff, if there is one i think it should encompass most of the smobs on the game and take several hours to do)

[Anor]

I think we all know there has been bad behavior before, but there is no tolerance today for the sort of shitty behavior you're describing (aside from the multiplaying bullet, which seems likely to be an honest mistake). An Imm favoring his/her characters, changing rules to disadvantage a particular player, implementing mobol advantages, etc. would be shown the door.

You would think so, but here we are. Some of these are 10 or more years ago. Some within the last year or 2.

[isabel]

Ideally, I would like to see smobbing be the kind of thing that you can go out for a couple of hours and rekit yourself after a rip. Maybe a little bit longer if in full dodge because its considered top tier but still shouldnt take an insane more amount of time. The thing is, I found it easier to basically single-handedly keep the lugard market hall stocked (before the new kmg ppl came in) than i found it to gather a complete set for a friend or an alt, and this is because the loot on smobs is at a good level but the variability of loot is pretty crazy, so that there was always one piece (just a different piece each time) that I would be hunting forever and couldnt find, while carrying around a heavy set looking for it until I gave up.

If it was me, I would change "normal smobs" to standardized loads, whether it looks more like zamara khel in mayene or surelle on chico road where it has two normal loads each smob, or to change it so that it always loaded one specific piece 100% of the time, and loaded other peices on % (like shifty ogier in caralain's sungwood bracelet and dodge sleeves) so that you can be reasonably sure that if you need a specific piece of equipment for your set, u know you can hit a certain smob. (Like "I need a bearskin, let me find someone else to help me flee spike orma real quick cause i know she always loads one"). I would remove all rare loads/trinkets off of basic smobs, leave them on % on the big stuff like jafar/iomm, raise the % on smob chains like the one that ends in paishan or tear brigands, and add a mobol turn-in so that if you participate in "enough" smobs that day than you get awarded trinkets of your choice, example:

I go around (either solo or in a group_) killing smobs. Every smob I kill I type a mobol command such as "harvest scalp" This command works like the daily local smob mobol/ or the herald mobol, so that I can only harvest a chunk of a scalp off that smob once per day, but every member of the group can harvest one chunk. I then smob a bunch of these scalp chunks, then take them to a mob in lugard (or 4k or somewhere) and hand them to a mob one at a time, it runs a check to see if each one coming in is the same name as any chunk in its inventory (so you cant have everyone in the group harvest a chunk and give them to one person). When you turn in all you want for the day then you "say exchange for sid", mob runs a check to see if you turned in chunks that day, then checks a chart to see if you have enough chunks there to get a sid, and hands the item to you and adds your name to a list so that you cant turn in more smob chunks that day.

The advantage of doing it this way is that:
1) you know that if you hit a certain number of smobs than you can get the equipment you need.
2) it provides casual smobbers a means to get the gear they need to get back into pk while putting a check on how fast extreme smobbers can "abuse" things
3) It means if you want to reequip a full dodge set each day then you need to learn the tricks to killing 20 different smobs instead of farming the same one each repop (or however many chunks it takes for the turn-in for 2x gring 2x sid 2x kcuff, if there is one i think it should encompass most of the smobs on the game and take several hours to do)

Everything Arston said, especially the bit about casual players.

I'm trying to think what would make me want to play again - would be if i could regear without hassle. Log on and actually find some quick non-toxic/ppl-complaining pk that was semi-fun (not chasing a freebie stabber around hundred rooms - looking at you harun and aloisa ! U know it! And also Jaxon). Or if there were the fun leaders pking..like jestin-apprentice davor or trik-apprentice ragyn.

But they prob old and yelling at potted plants now sooo

[Erulisse]

An Imm favoring his/her characters, changing rules to disadvantage a particular player, implementing mobol advantages, etc. would be shown the door.

Or better yet, temporarily shuffled off till the heat died down.

[Erulisse]

I've mostly quit. Occasionally I'll log on for five minutes and then drop link. Partially this is because I've really accomplished most of what I wanted to do. Partial I'm just tired of the shutting down of anything fun to do other than pk. Finally most of my friends have moved on (see Anors comments) and it's just not that fun anymore.

[Detritus]

I stopped playing for 15 or so years, went overseas and never resurrected the old zmud computer.
When i came back 3 of the major things that i thought "who in their right mind thought putting this in the game in this way is a good thing" were warrior attack, clan pracs and easily accessible craftable 2handed defence daggers.

Tower people without integrity or character separation make me not want to play my most invested character, followed by nerf into the ground of bond. Not being able to clan unless you play at active times or grease up to inactive discord warriors makes it difficult to get invested in progressing other characters.

I play less and less without having things to progress.

Adjustments to Panarch, and overall lost interest in revamping city heads, comes from players using multiple channelers to nuke it once and then kill it eight times in a night when it started respawning without mobs without reporting it. Or various other mechanics that they’ve discovered in order to farm things.

This depresses me a little, much like Ranam did a cool massive event for dark side and as soon as his back was turned Dah and some other Ghar' masters killed the Akkad he'd been using without it's entourage.

So then we check on 100% loads and find that over a four day period Evil Elyas was being hit between 6-8 times a night by three players for a decent time span.

No one wants the crappy gold chain bi-product, it was farmed for the weapon.
I've killed evil elyas a lot, 6 months earlier I could have poped up on those logs, it's also pretty specific in how to deal with the mechanics and it took some fairly specific testing. It's also hillarious how many times people have died to this "farming" of the smob, far more than any other smob in game. If portal stones didnt exist elyas wouldn't be rediculously simple to access. Remove the water rooms or give them canoes and he would have been solved. It's also harder to kill with more people.


Oilskin bags were glorious gambling days, % chance on any smob, % chance of loot. Farm the variable difficulty smobs without knowing what might be in bag or to repop it so it might load a bag!

[Orino]

Since the question was asked…

I left for two reasons:

1. This game takes a lot of time and is changing rapidly.

2. A particular player and harassment.

I keep checking to see if this player has quit. I don’t think he has…

I would also get tired when people would call me names in pk (mob-rino). Just not worth the effort.

Orino

[Alison]

I’ll save any thoughts on smobs and what’s been done until you guys are finished looking at it then. But I think we need to change how we view smobbing in general. Some of these players have really good points which I’m sure you’re aware of imms. Thank you Elysia and Areolas and Feneon.

Wow. almost 16 pages read. This is like a small book ive gone through.

Echoing Ominas here.Thank you for responding.

As a primary Smobber, most of my gaidin and myself would rotate around the world and do smobs. Through nerfs , through adjustments. Heck gating to Silvak always felt wrong to me, but it was part of my circuit.

We did not abuse. I will become extremely bored with this world if i had to hit something 100 times.

I even joined Draz a few times on the Evil braem hits , but not nearly enough to warrant it as a farm.

What i want to clarify here and something everyone should understand. This world is made out of coding. Some of us can understand codes and adjust our patterns to match. Thus a player, having figured out a certain pattern would adapt to that thing/smob. Some of us then get bored and we wait for the next iteration- when it changed and go back to just find out what the new pattern in the code is. I think that is why i get so bored here sometimes as some things just stays the same.

Incoming rant: Toxicity is hurtful to our community and honestly . "Name and shame." or name the problem and discuss. if needed. That way it is
known and can be addressed.

Some of the best conversations i've had with the player of Detritus was the mechanics behind smobs. It made me love him more for piquing my interest in the game. Anyone see him tell him i miss him.

By far the best 16 pages ive read. If anything awesome happened in the last 2 pages, ill have to go back.

Just to iterate what feneon did with the group hitting caemlyn city head.

In the past, some of my warders and i have had many imms do on the whim "coding changes" as we smobbed or just hanged out in the world. I flippen loved it. I've had hugs from imms that i didnt even know was behind it. And loved every bit of it. That being said, i am sorry the group that did the caemlyn hit didnt like it, but if you look at it in another way, you had on demand interaction between yourselves and imms.

That is gold. There is always two sides to every story.

As for the changes. I dont understand half of what is happening and i want to believe in the bigger picture. Yes i hate the nerfs, but after a bit, i adapted. Instead of maybe naysing. Lets adapt and communicate.

And a last thought. If imms can allow open communication between players like draz (and his ability to do things effeciently) by saying. Hey draz camping at elyas and hitting him 100 times. Whats your thoughts on it. Instead of bringing the stick, might lead to great adjustments.

I will wait for whatever changes comes for smobbing, cause that and rp is my first love here. Thank you imms.

(One imm had a grey man chase me all over the map. Into smobs, out of smobs. I think detritus at some point wanted to scream.)

[Mronz]

Am I correct in reading that the staff has issues with certain smobs being constantly farmed? If a group of players are willing to put in the work what's the issue? Alternatively if it's flooding the market, maybe increase pop time?

Even reading that there were issues with heralds giving 100s of Qps over a few months being an issue is quite striking to me.

Honestly, I think we need to make the change someone above recommended. Completely nerf rank 7 bonuses to more aesthetic or minor offensive/defensive. Having a time constraints to progression simply because it was past precedence or because you think xxx is appropriate is just plain awful on today's gaming community. Even if we don't down masters - who cares if everyone gets master in a month provided they put in the work to complete the requirements.

When people were more active and PK more common I could easily get 30-50 qps a day. I don't see why the same can't happen with alternative means. Clans can still make their own rank wait times if their elected council deems that fit but most of the clans I have been apart of have actively decreased this wait.

This.
Starting out as a non-pk oriented player, the long held sentiment was people must earn most of their QPS through PKing, since this is a PK, mud.

If we could ever just accept, whether I earn 1,000 qps in 3 months through pking, for X hours, or I earn 1,000 qps in 3 months, from smobbing for X hours, that's still player activity, and people should be happy.

We should not be judging or trying to devalue someone's interest, based on what we think they should spend time doing.

Instead, we should be trying to make sure the game offers different, yet still equitable, pathways, to achieve QPS character progression, based on what people want to spend time on, which will drive player activity.