Observations after an extended break

[byrg]

lol

[reil]

You can set a watch to who is or isn't going to hit in a city same way you can predict who is going to forego all mob support to go to cities. PK moved to cities before cities were adjusted to reflect that reality, not the other way around.

[Sorvitor]

lol

Spot on

[Eadmund]

I'm all ears if you have counter arguments. I am not above changing my view point if mine lacks clarity. I'd also encourage debate or in the very least, the sharing of ideas, opinions and experiences rather than the peanut gallery posts from fades like Byrg and Sorvitors.

You guys do want people to play and come north and fight you right? How about you see the bigger picture and join the conversation rather than snicker from the side lines.

[Sorvitor]

I'm all ears if you have counter arguments. I am not above changing my view point if mine lacks clarity. I'd also encourage debate or in the very least, the sharing of ideas, opinions and experiences rather than the peanut gallery posts from fades like Byrg and Sorvitors.

You guys do want people to play and come north and fight you right? How about you see the bigger picture and join the conversation rather than snicker from the side lines.

I play both sides, a swath of bonused, unbonused and highly bonused chars.

If you want real feedback I’ll say too often I see both sides using mobs really poorly. Falling back too far and to too strong mobs. It might be 2 v 3 and the 3 hit at trees. The two flee off and fall back instead of re-engaging.

Another thing I see you specifically do is killing minor mob support when you have the advantage. So you clear all around and leave DS no option but to fall back to support that is likely stronger than needed.

LS mob support north of fd I don’t actually love.

You have a ctf which may or may not be flipped. You have some sted but it’s often unused because LS so often has a fc. Ragan is very strong and static. Otherwise you have well which is 2 trees. Mire turns into a DT real quick.

Fd is fine. Inner city is real strong and I have donated many many perfect kits to hitting in fd.

Seems like whatever side I’m on I’m pking inside cities. So I think a lot of it comes down to mentality and recklessness.

I understand you’re frustrated losing Lamans at Akaad, but just because you see a log of Mush and I killing Roberto in his clan rooms and think “that looks easy”. Unfortunately we are often imitated but rarely duplicated. I wouldn’t hit 2 with 3 at Akaad in the future

[Khaster]

TBH the only thing I really agree with is that abs feels kinda bad right now. I have nothing to point at to say why, but it does and that's with a 426 HP buffer. Still gonna play it tho.

To your credit Tusty, I would routinely fight you and your SS buds 1v3, outgeared, in abs, and you always hit at the ridiculous manor pat so I can't really say you aren't fun. Just wrong lol.

As someone else said it goes both ways. Not long ago the complaining was about Sedai groups gating into FD the second DS would hit inside.

I think that a lot of people that play this game would long-term have more fun if they pushed themselves a little more and died a lot more. That includes people that have been playing a lot longer than I have. Like if you can honestly say you are at the peak of what you can be skill-wise in this game, more power to you. I can't say that so I'm not gonna blame EQ or bonuses or numbers if I firetruck up a d-line or stay too long or run in a straight line or forget a vial ... the list goes on.

[Kiltwich]

ABS is unplayable. When an abser shows up people don't think "On no, watch out for bashes from the abser!" or "Oh no, he hits hard!" They think "Oh yay! A free scalp!"

You can't play abs like you could in the old days. Once you are batt, you need to play like a crit dodger.

Doesn't help that a large number of the better pkers in better sets will specifically target low hp absers because they can hit flee you to death regardless of mob support (with a few exceptions -- a few of the patties in hard-flee rooms or channeling/bashing patties, or big patties in doors.... but those are usually so far away from PK that it hardly matters), and also group tactics of telling channies to target those absers.

It also doesn't help that there aren't true rare abs eq pieces. Murgoz eq is heavier, with less durability (abs decays faster), AND larger -pb/db penalties. Compare this with the difference that a lace shirt over a bearskin or ornate shirt over a Ftunic.... it doesn't hold a candle to the amount of defensive capability that a character gains with other set ups.

Last issue is the bash cap. Most set ups are at the bash cap vs their target at moods more cowardly than brave against all non-dodge set ups, and this is exacerbated with the lack of defense as it doesn't force their opponent to be mood brave in order to land hits on them (even while bashed). One less key pk aspect (mood management) for your opponents to have to do gives them a larger advantage in the fight.

Combo: I was super happy to see that combo setups had generally low deffence, until you see that everyone uses rares now. Using rares is fine, but combo setups need to be downed more OR more of a sacrifice be made when chosing between combo pieces. Right now there are some pieces that are simply the absolute best at both absorption and deffence. If people want to fight outnumbered, they should have to chose to wear "lighter" combo with less abs % but more overall deff and if they want to tank more bashes then they wear the heavier abs % and lower deffence options.

Combo should be a balance of chosing to not get your deffence broken from regular melee but taking a lot of damage when bashed vs taking some melee damage and less damage bashed.

Combo weapons : All rares should be downed, in either damage or deffence. Make different rares a trade off, wicked axe has same PB as the best non-rare 1 handed axe but has more damage. Crimson axe has the same damage but higher deff. (just an example) All regulars should be downed. Both in damage and weight, most of their PB is low enough. Not to make Dodge impossible to bash since that ruins general engagements but less % chance of bashing max db for sure. To make absers worth playing or valuable to your team, they have to have an opponent they win against. Why play abs if you can play combo and do just as well and better?

high end combo is a bit too good, still. 260 defense and 73%/76% abs in heavy abs with full rare set....compared to 210 defense and 67% in basic combo with a basic weapon.

basic combo is almost unusably bad, but throw in the heavy combo eq and a rare weapon/chest....it's a night and day difference with the improvement in defense.

Berzerking. Needs to be a thing again. All combo weapons bash so well you hardly ever have to go berzerk to bash full dodge. That should only happen if the comboer is Zerk. Absers / 2 handed abs weapons should be the go-to weapons to bash full dodge brave. That would make playing combo an actual risk/reward situation vs full dodge. Either you go for the win or you go abs-bash vs pesky dodgers. This would lead to more death!

It never stopped being a thing. The main problem is that it's main use case is a win-more tactic. That is, used when you are ahead (and also not fighting absers) to get even more ahead quicker, usually in the context of a 5v3 or otherwise situation where your side is vastly ahead and you don't need to worry much about being walked into a patty.

Low end dodge is still in the worst place though. Still waiting on the armor weave rework to do something other than DB so that dodge can get an honest balance pass to bring low and medium end up to viable but not require a pocket FC for constant arm to be unbashably overpowered (better off spamming at a patty and hoping for split parry to land hits in many cases, which feels bad on the abser side -- if I wanted to play sblades attack/melee I wouldn't be using a damned 2h abs weapon).

[Rig]

I almost want to play again so that I can either:
A: run you down as I have many times
Or
B: laugh and take my time as I slowly track you to Falme/Outpost/Nearest Channeling Mob Support

Or C: You'd die in some dumb way to me as you have across multiple alts in the past

Duh. I die to everyone! I also kill everyone. I am the epitome of greatness.

[Tusty]

lol

Quality advice from an expert PKer

[Tusty]

I almost want to play again so that I can either:
A: run you down as I have many times
Or
B: laugh and take my time as I slowly track you to Falme/Outpost/Nearest Channeling Mob Support

Or C: You'd die in some dumb way to me as you have across multiple alts in the past

Duh. I die to everyone! I also kill everyone. I am the epitome of greatness.

I will say that you are probably the fastest chaser that's left. I don't mind admitting if someone is good. However, good is somewhat relative in terms of what that actually means today.

Is there a way for the Ta, Sei, and Rea list to only count kills instead of reflecting deaths? Maybe make some kind of end game goal to have champion statues of a players placed in various cities once you reach X amount of kills. It would need to be a very high number.

Maybe do the same for leaders. Use the kudos thing or whatever to promote whoever led in a large battle. The good leaders all seem to be gone.

Maybe something like that would help alleviate the really stupid pk sessions that seem to culminate in "if it's not a for sure win then I quit"