Master Mob Lead (Way beyond 30 days) #SetThemFREE

[daal]

As a two time lightside master, my opinion is that removal of traditional mob lead was a mostly beneficial change.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing this debate develop over the next few days.

[Benito]

Youre more clueless than I thought if you think removing moblead from fades makes them more likely to die; all it means is I am less likely to have the opportunity to take extra risks for more kills, thus I yell goodbye and go afk/rent because I am out of options. Which is exactly what has happened in each situation I originally detailed. If you want fades to die more, whine enough for shadow sneak to be removed and it'll probably happen.

And those anecdotal examples are not also not representative of most PK. Fades are more likely to die, among other reasons, because they're spending more time buffing other players, and have fewer options for exiting in the first place. No more mobs to move to camp ent in order to escape, etc. I'm confident in your ability to find creative solutions for continuing PK apart from moblead--like moving between patties in blight or moving one zone in order to split up groups. As I said before, what these changes to moblead do is make it easier to balance zones. I hear there are good ideas floating around for how to turn north of RK into a decent fall-back position for DS.

But obviously I'd like shadow sneak to be removed and have asked for that for years. It's not one or the other and should probably be both.

The game used to be great because of the inequality and because everyone was playing different stuff and there were a lot of variables in every pk session and fun and exciting dung happened. The game is also designed around power levels varying between characters and races. Making everyone equal does noone any favors; all it does is remove yet more variables to pk which in turn reduces risks.

That's cool, but moblead created fewer variables rather than more. Most of the time, it meant DS retreating to the same rooms in the same zones, and stacking mobs; or forced LS to use stronger mobs in the same spots. More variables doesn't have to mean hand-holding for an already over-bonused class.

In response to Dominus: saying that remorts and masters should have bonuses is fine, but it doesn't get at the content of what we're talking about: are these particular changes good or bad? There's no connection between lots of work and the specific bonus of moblead.

I'm not sure why everyone is apocalyptic about the last month of PK and blaming it on moblead. There were weeks of good PK after the changes.

[achillies]

Not having mob lead is one of the reasons i dont play as much any more. So for those of you who say that is not a reason for reduced activity may not understand what it is like to consistently play in non American time zones.

In an aus play time there often arent many on. If there is no pk, there is nothing for me to do. Achillies is at level 51 as is my other preferred char.

If i cant pk because no ds on and i cant smob with my mob (often there is no one else to smob with) to keep me occupied until ds does log on, then i rent. If i do this for a few days then my desire to log in to the mud is further reduced to the point where if im lucky ill now log in once every two weeks for an hr tops. Outcome, dwindling mud is a pker down.

Off topic the other reason outside of rl i dont play as much anymore is the forum behaviour change ie no one posts anymore. Without pk, ability to amuse myself in low player times and nothing to connect me to the mud anymore to entice me/remind me why i love this place, then it becomes less and less likely that I will log in.

[Vilac]

This isn’t a topic geared towards one person, one type of character, or self gain. I play all types of chars and will do just fine with or without. This is another topic that reminds me of the clan trinket change that I had to advocate against. It’s not in the best interest of the mud population as a whole or in the best interest of gameplay. The bigger picture is what it does to gameplay on the 24/7 vs. the one session someone came with a mob to overpower you or the smob group who killed the smobs you were never going to hit to begin with. I know Elysia and staff were putting a lot of thought and work into the new mobs and perhaps they still have a plan and work to do. However, in their current form and functionality, they are terrible to the purpose of being a frightened young thief. I want more people to play, not be discouraged because they strived to achieve master to have master lead, then given this option. As lykan stated, what makes the mud great is the challenge to do things outside the realm of possibility in a fast paced environment. Masternlead helped that in different scenarios.

[Rentris]

I agree that leadable random-loading mobs should see a return.
I like the aspect that current mobs don't soak up qps but see the DS slowly dying in numbers.
While I do not have a remort, I do believe that fades/dreadlords (from a RP standard) should at least have the ability to lead random world mobs.

[Rark]

Problem is when RP clashes with gameplay. Can't deny that remorts in the past have used mobs pretty excessively to steamroll people, see Benito's points, but I think this is again dependent on the player and skilllevel/confidencelevel, some people will use mobs when they don't really have to, because they are perhaps not used to playing low or not used to pushing their character with the risk of dying.

Although as I said earlier I'd love to be able to solo pk against numbers Blight effeciently again, the real question should probably be if I should be in the position of being able to take down a group of 5-6 in Blight solo. Perhaps its better if people realize hey that guy is probably alone, maybe I'll sit this one out or even hop on DS and we can get some proper pew pew going. Of course this doesn't work every time, I tend to do this and often I'd either find PK dead by the time I've alted or that DS suddenly has 3-4 more and I'm now part of the winning side again! But just as often we get some more balanced and fun PK going as it isn't just one guy sitting in GK while humans clear Blight and go south. And vice versa.

I'd love to see at least one "regular/old" mob in Blight per clan, maybe make remorts only able to lead TKD Spawners and add one in Blight somewhere. Give humans back their regular mobs, it was never really an issue for PK that humans had a mob with em, limit lancer/cav to one leadable mob dusty.

[Rafi]

I miss my master mob. Was the coolest part of being a master. I think a good compromise could be giving back old mobs but have them issueable like in the current system. So you can only get them from town. Put back qps cost. Have to return it to base to get qps back.

[Zeeb]

Would be awesome to have immortal input on what the actual goal of changing leadable mobs was...as I have no idea. Were they trying to down something? What was it? Was it fades in blight? Was it smob groups? Was it zeeb smobbing spider queen? I just don't know!!!

I do know we all got down substantially, to the point where we will probably not use master mobs much at all, fades/remorts got downed the most because they had the most mobs to move. I think small LS clans got hit the 2nd hardest - both of my LS masters went to from having something to do solo (small smob around homeland) to have nothing to solo. So literally 0 reason to log on them unless maybe I was planning to interact with other players (which is something that happens, but not something I have ever planned!).

I know the immortals probably discussed change with very specific goals in mind and ideally would share those goals so we could evaluate based on intent how well its working.

Without the intent it just (at least to me) feels like we lost something in order to either force us to interact more (might have happened) or change PK dynamic (defiantly happened).

[Octavio]

Was it just master mobs that were reduced? I remember reading that Seanchan armored stallions were downed as well. Not sure about Torm or Raken. If that's the case it seems like it's a general reduction of all player / mob partnerships across the board.

[sevas]

As one of those masters who wouldn't leave Falme without a mob most of the time, in my defense at that time we had no leadable mobs in other zones. I really tried hard not to use mobs as a crutch. If it was one on one I didn't use mob If I didn't have to but in SW pk it was inevitable at some point numbers would show. Then most times I died and lost mob too. That was ok, it was fun. Like someone said qp sink.

Having said that I have to agree with Raz, Lykan and Vilac. I really miss those mobs. It is a lot of the reason I don't log Sevas much anymore. A lot of times I would log on at less than peak hours grab a mob and go smob.

It was actually fun and relaxing, I know as a stabber I can still solo smob but with a mob I would attempt things I probably should not have tried. I died a lot but it was still fun. Eq a mob up and just go all over now I hardly ever even log Sevas and smob. When I do solo smob I just stick to stuff I know isn't overly risky. So in 20 mins Im done I depo cash and log out.

I do appreciate the Imms work towards improvement but this is one I myself just cannot get behind as an improvement to the mud as a whole.

#SetThemFREE