Are players leaving?

[Paigey]

First of all, A big thanks to the imms for posting an overview of clan bonuses. I could've sworn wisdom FCs are allowed to get more element levels than non-clanned (likewise dragonsworn), or does that not count?

Wisdoms have clanned weaves, but they don't seem to be counting clanned weaves as a bonus (not noted for other clanned weave having clans). Master FC sworn used to have flamestrike as a bonus, I assume it's still there

600 qps and I agree that those sort of things should be listed.

[Draz]

Hey everyone. I haven't caught up yet. Just to be clear - I can't think of a single thing an imm has discussed or asked my opinion on that I haven't then made a solid effort to work with. Also with respect to most of these smobs; almost without exception we had imms clearly making changes.
If I hit an smob one day; and the next day when I hit that smob it starts quaffing bubblings - then that is 100% evidence to me that imms know that I'm hitting it.

As a caveat (whine) I'd also say if I've sat in an smob talking to an imm - spoken to another imm whose assured me that the smobs are setup to have various nochannels/!channels is intentional, and if hitting that smob entails such risks as failing an incin and being 1shot killed, or having a group of DS hit you in doors, and takes literally hours to do solo,..and the smob has tiered loads for different group sizes.. it entirely does not make sense to me for imms to then punish me because the smob is too easy.

Anyway - again. If you ask me to do something I'll typically do it. I 'might' ask for a reason.

[Draz]

Ok big ups to the various people staying on topic, and many thanks to the imms.

[Kryyg]

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.

Also, can we increase damage across the board. I'm tickling people with a heron and offensive and it's not nice. More people need to take damage, including me. So much downing! Damage needs to be higher than ever in PK - everyone is max statted.

[Anor]

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

Player hatred by players
My first clanned character was a Wisdom. This was fun for a while as I ranked up but as I learned the game I stated Anor and joined the CoL. I played Anor like an asshole whitecloak as per the books and enjoyed that for a long time. My next alt goal from here after being in the Defenders for a while was to have a Gaidin. I think my 1st Gaidin holds the record for character clanned for the shortest amount of time. I entered using the lifelong bond method that was available back then, requiring full approval of the sitters and the Gaidin council with a restriction of only ever being able to bond the single AS. The instant I was clanned (and I mean while the clanning mobol was going off) an imm contacted me and said I would not gain forum access as a declan vote had been started. A couple of days later I was declanned. My next few attempts ended in similar ways. I would receive in game tells or discord messages saying that people had worked out that the applicant was played by me, and that there is no way I would receive their vote.

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.

Unknown punishments to unwritten rules
This has hit a few ways. I was once docked 50qp (I say once but I actually received this multiple times resulting in a couple hundred qp lost) for attacking an unwarranted Red Eagle while I myself had a Red Eagle warrant. This RE had earlier that day tried to kill me on multiple occasions. Later in the day I caught him stalking around Amador looking for me and I opened with a landed stab. This resulted in the dock for attacking someone without a warrant. When I questioned the incident asking for clarity as to what the period of time is that I must now assume they are not trying to kill me, I was only answer with "it's common sense". What did this mean, 1 RL day, server reboot, 1 mud day, 12 hours? All I got back was "common sense". Goodbye a couple hundred qp. There are other such examples of docks, zaps, deranks and what not for other such things not written down. I remember once being docked a few hundred qp because I awarded council quest qps to 2 people I was playing on a LAN with while on holidays. I was told there was not enough evidence that they had completed the quests, so they got docked the qp and I got docked multiples of what I rewarded. Apparently my log of the events could have been fabricated. I know of someone who once got incinerated by an imm because they were doing a smob in a way they didn't intend.

A solution to the unknown punishments really should just be an agreement that unless what is being done is really abusive (like using a clanned character and mob assist to kill another mob for its load) then it should be communicated that it isn't intentional and will be changed, and have that communication and change documented publicly. Adding in a punishment when the player was just using whatever they had at their disposal to achieve the goal shouldn't result in a significant penalty.



I guess at the end of the day its hard to find the motivation to keep going when either what you want to achieve is walled off to you, or there is uncertainty about how you will be treated for doing things, or there is no way to make progression on a character other than PK (PK is mostly dead in my timezone, and even more so if you are trying to do it purely by wanteds and not crossrace).

[Gretchen]

lmao thanks for sharing anor

if i layed all my stuff out like that they would site ban me hahahaha

[Ghast]

I'll admit up front I didn't fully read everyone's posts after Feneon's because I have an idea that would hopefully solve the PVE issue he brought up.

Change coded loads on smobs to 100%, then have an invis mob with mobol to remove said loads from the smob based on who enters the room. Store information on who hits what smob on that invis mob (so it will clear every reboot). The more time the same names hit the smob during a given boot, the more chance that particular smob's invis helper removes the rares from the load.

Practically speaking, this would mean soloing/same group smobbing the same smob over and over within a given day would produce less and less loads for you. You'd have to hit other smobs and/or have different players in your group to try to get better gear. This would promote collaboration with new players and spread smobbing out besides players just hitting those two smobs they know load really well over and over.

Alternatively, you could just load zero rares on smobs and give them basic eq, then do a load in a pouch or backpack using the same type algorithm above. This would prevent smobs from losing vital eq for the actual hit itself.

EDIT - after thinking about this some more, the alternative suggesting of just loading the good stuff in a pack works better for two reasons: probably easier to load things than to try to remove them from a scripting perspective, and also you get the slot machine effect where people will be more likely to hit the smob regardless of how it looks when they look at it because there might be something awesome in the pack/pouch.

[Gretchen]

so my posts are getting deleted because of my tone and people thinking i am attacking them

i would like to say sorry this is not my intent at all

and i shall stop posting

[Elysia]

I'll admit up front I didn't fully read everyone's posts after Feneon's because I have an idea that would hopefully solve the PVE issue he brought up.

Change coded loads on smobs to 100%, then have an invis mob with mobol to remove said loads from the smob based on who enters the room. Store information on who hits what smob on that invis mob (so it will clear every reboot). The more time the same names hit the smob during a given boot, the more chance that particular smob's invis helper removes the rares from the load.

Practically speaking, this would mean soloing/same group smobbing the same smob over and over within a given day would produce less and less loads for you. You'd have to hit other smobs and/or have different players in your group to try to get better gear. This would promote collaboration with new players and spread smobbing out besides players just hitting those two smobs they know load really well over and over.

Alternatively, you could just load zero rares on smobs and give them basic eq, then do a load in a pouch or backpack using the same type algorithm above. This would prevent smobs from losing vital eq for the actual hit itself.

This is one of those "you could just"...

1. This cannot be automated. Mobol can't handle the math of what is hit by whom how often and it doesn't do well with lists of anything, including who hit what how often.
2. That means this would come down to imms reviewing all dozens upon dozens of smobs and how often they're hit and by whom. Not tenable, unfortunately
3. And this is just at a glance, because I have serious doubts mobol could even make this work due to each name in a smob group having to be added manually and then space restrictions become a thing, quickly.

[Ghast]

I'll admit up front I didn't fully read everyone's posts after Feneon's because I have an idea that would hopefully solve the PVE issue he brought up.

Change coded loads on smobs to 100%, then have an invis mob with mobol to remove said loads from the smob based on who enters the room. Store information on who hits what smob on that invis mob (so it will clear every reboot). The more time the same names hit the smob during a given boot, the more chance that particular smob's invis helper removes the rares from the load.

Practically speaking, this would mean soloing/same group smobbing the same smob over and over within a given day would produce less and less loads for you. You'd have to hit other smobs and/or have different players in your group to try to get better gear. This would promote collaboration with new players and spread smobbing out besides players just hitting those two smobs they know load really well over and over.

Alternatively, you could just load zero rares on smobs and give them basic eq, then do a load in a pouch or backpack using the same type algorithm above. This would prevent smobs from losing vital eq for the actual hit itself.

This is one of those "you could just"...

1. This cannot be automated. Mobol can't handle the math of what is hit by whom how often and it doesn't do well with lists of anything, including who hit what how often.
2. That means this would come down to imms reviewing all dozens upon dozens of smobs and how often they're hit and by whom. Not tenable, unfortunately
3. And this is just at a glance, because I have serious doubts mobol could even make this work due to each name in a smob group having to be added manually and then space restrictions become a thing, quickly.

That's a big bummer. I've never worked with mobol so I guess I was thinking it was at least somewhat similar to other scripting languages. Get Flash or whoever to install a javascript engine