Blight Update 218 Discussion

[Veruliyam]

Same way dragons land!

The 'X' key.

[Northwind]

* Iron no longer spawns east of Acul (Note: Dark Iron continues to spawn).
Please don't bring this change into live servers. Acul is a great place for iron and steel grinding and it would be pity to change that.

* The Spirit of Dralnok will no longer spawn followers.
That will cut part of the fun of killing The Spirit.

*** All the changes involving the resources at Parsinia / Nuthala
I think the region as it is today is really nice and well done. Those being said I fail to see why the changes were needed.

Also I find disturbing all the level increase for mobs in Lesser Aradoth. My level 15war/10cle had issues with the current levels of mobs, an increase in level seems unfriendly for new players -- not alts/multiclassed bipeds -- that have little to no access to good crafted equipment or the ones that do not already have a level 100 in another adventure class.

On the other side (not to sound too negative), the Warrior changes, Balit quest and Imperial Army quest changes are really nice - along with many others fixes

[Raptress]

longer spawn followers.
That will cut part of the fun of killing The Spirit.

As far as I have heard, the way the Spirit of Dralnok is currently functioning on live servers is a little ridiculous. It doesn't seem like "fun" to me when two players finally kill all the adds and get the Spirit to 50%, just to have 8 more mobs spawn and aggro all at once, killing them. This isn't an epic boss; needing more than two people for a simple quest mob in a game with the population of Istaria means that you may well not finish the quest.

[Akrion]

As far as I have heard, the way the Spirit of Dralnok is currently functioning on live servers is a little ridiculous. It doesn't seem like "fun" to me when two players finally kill all the adds and get the Spirit to 50%, just to have 8 more mobs spawn and aggro all at once, killing them. This isn't an epic boss; needing more than two people for a simple quest mob in a game with the population of Istaria means that you may well not finish the quest.

I was one of those two players. Heck, I even wound up trying to use the bugged bloodmage blood doll just to see if was even possible with completely absurd self-healing of about 1550 every 1 1/2 seconds (I didn't -want- to, but it got so crazy so fast I wanted to see how a badly bugged mob vs a badly bugged ability panned out; result: Not well). We stood no chance once the spawn quickly jumped to about 10 followers after chipping them down to 0. I'll be looking forward to both of the mentioned bugs getting fixed. :3

[Northwind]

Well, I really dont know what to say.
Granted that as a solo lvl 100 dragon i could not kill him. Usually i was dropping his health to 15% then I would be overwhelmed with ads.
But I did killed him in an long and epic like battle as a group of lvl 100 dragon + lvl 100 cleric (the biped was multiclassed) or really-really easy as 2x lvl 100 dragons - took us about 30 seconds or less

[LOVWYRM]

I can acknowledge what Raptress and Akrion say.

While we were hunting mylocs just for fun, a player asked for help with Dralnok (and I admit I thought: Babe you are a drag-you should do that alone).
Our group (3 drags 2 uber-peds) ended eating dirt from the doom`s floor.

I think its the same prob like anchor/queen.

I assume,after that fix Dralnok will still have his 8 followers. Which is ok.


*did I hear AI saying from far away: "You all are always complaining- now I give you something to even whine about"*

[Kesqui]

Ad I BELIEVE - in a lair on the W side of the Volcano - (again right above Parnisa) is a Crystalshaper. Iim pretty sure this was a community built shaper and not a player-owned lair so it should still be there.

If you're thinking the community lair with the crystalshaper above Parsinia, that's not the volcano. That's the Lesser Aradoth Deadlands.

The volcano is substantially further north, and I don't believe there's a community lair on it. There's the gem mine, with the viridian azulyte in the mine, but the nearest shaper's over at Parsinia. Not so close when one considers flying with a disk.

[Daulnay]

Thank you for improving the plots on Kion Shore. (2 40x40s going to 62x64 and 52x68! Those seem to be large enough that some people will be interested. I don't understand the minor changes made to the plots in Parsinia or North Parsinia, though. There are already lots of empty plots elsewhere that are similar in size.

Plots in Parsinia would be better improved by three changes:
1. Merge 2 40x40s into one 40x80.
2. More feeder paths/roads between the plots
3. A substantial drop in price for the smallest plots.

A 40x80 is large enough to be interesting to an established player, and will give Parsinia an 'anchor' set of buildings (much like large department stores anchor a mall).

Plots that are distant from gates seem to be very unattractive, because of the cost in time. Feeder roads would help cut travel time down.

Parsinia seems to be designed to introduce new players to the building skills (having 4 of the 6 building skills trainers there, plus both gathering skill trainers). The prices of even the smallest lots are still much too high for new players.

I think the game would retain more new players if they could do building at an early stage (teens and 20s). It would also encourage them to upgrade their subscriptions.

The *real* limit on plot purchases is the real-world $ cost of a subscription that includes one. Players are understandably maximizing the amount of plot they get for their money, and the in-game gold costs are much less important than other factors, except for players who still fairly new to the game. A stiff drop in the price for the smallest plots would not shift players out of their present plots, but it would let new players get more deeply into the game. And that's only good for us.

[AmonGwareth]

Merges aren't an option, but I'll look at adding some roads.

[Daulnay]

Parsinia seems to be designed to introduce new players to the building trades. It's the only settlement with an NPC vault and skill trainers. All of the trainers are building school trainers or gathering trainers.

Please improve Parsinia as a place to introduce players to building!
(proposal over in suggestions)

[AmonGwareth]

Looked at Parsinia. On Blight now, almost every single plot in Parsinia has a road nearby. The ones that don't are the ones behind the trade center or up on the hill above Parsinia. We're discussing the pricing updates internally.

[Daulnay]

If we can't easily merge plots, what about shrinking one plot very small, and making its neighbor very large? That might make a silly-small plot, but the substantially sized plot would be worth it.

[AmonGwareth]

If a plot is owned on even one shard then we can't do anything with it other than expand it. That is where we run into difficulties and most of the time our hands are tied. As they are with this.

[Daulnay]

I'm impressed by how responsive the dev team here is! Even if you don't agree, it's clear you're listening. Thank you!

Roads:
For crafting, it's nice to have road access to more than one side of a plot, so that crafting building entrances can sit right off a road for quick access. The Parsinia plots mostly have only one side facing a road. A few small alleys between the main road and the beach would improve the beachside plots.

Plots:
On Blight, only one biped plot is owned, the one on the hillside by Nuthala.
On Order, only two biped plots are owned, one of which is the one on the hillside.
On Chaos, only one biped plot is owned, and is different from the plots on Blight and Order.

So, 3 different biped plots out of the 16 in Parsinia are owned. Does that mean the other 13 are available to be merged? In particular, the 40x40s on the seaside, the 40x50s on the seaside, and the 40x40s between the pad and the vault/trainer buildings are all unowned.

Personally, I would prefer that the price of smaller plots drop sharply, but if that can't happen, a merger would be my second choice.

[Akrion]

If a plot is owned on even one shard then we can't do anything with it other than expand it. That is where we run into difficulties and most of the time our hands are tied. As they are with this.

It seems you are already doing this to an extent with the current update regarding plots, but perhaps over time if you continue to improve plots and lairs where you can (either by changing ones you are able to, or adding new ones with better locations/views/sizes) it might encourage some to move and thus free up plots that could otherwise be locked until the end of time.

[Frith-Rae]

If you're thinking the community lair with the crystalshaper above Parsinia, that's not the volcano. That's the Lesser Aradoth Deadlands.

The volcano is substantially further north, and I don't believe there's a community lair on it. There's the gem mine, with the viridian azulyte in the mine, but the nearest shaper's over at Parsinia. Not so close when one considers flying with a disk.

Ahhhh okey, gotcha ya.

I made that flight hundreds of times - didnt really see it as a "long flight" relative to others I had to make out in player towns or other main cities to get from the resource to the crafter. *shrugs*

But gotcha - yea those gem mines - I know those well LOL.

[Frith-Rae]

I'm impressed by how responsive the dev team here is! Even if you don't agree, it's clear you're listening. Thank you!

Roads:
For crafting, it's nice to have road access to more than one side of a plot, so that crafting building entrances can sit right off a road for quick access. The Parsinia plots mostly have only one side facing a road. A few small alleys between the main road and the beach would improve the beachside plots.

I..perhaps I am misunderstanding where you are wanting roads. Because my first gut reaction is, "really? you want roads leading to all sides of your plot to save you a few seconds of dragging a disk?"

Seems a bit much. I dont see anything wrong with having to actually enter into a plot to get some crafting done as opposed to lining up all your craft-stations alongside your roads. I mean..the plots arent that huge that it takes more than 10 or 20 seconds longer when you leave the road to get to the silo/craft machine.

But then mayube you just mean that the beachside plots have no roads at all (cant remember) to them and it woudl be nice if some off-roads lead to the plots. That seems OK I guess.

I just..cant think of a player town or town outside a main city that has tons of roads around each plot. Many plots have no roads or just one road that goes alongside.

[Daulnay]

I..perhaps I am misunderstanding where you are wanting roads. Because my first gut reaction is, "really? you want roads leading to all sides of your plot to save you a few seconds of dragging a disk?"

Seems a bit much. <snip>

I just..cant think of a player town or town outside a main city that has tons of roads around each plot. Many plots have no roads or just one road that goes alongside.

The short answer is, yes. It'd be nice to be able to save a little time dragging a disk. I'm not asking for roads to all sides of the plot, but it'd be nice to have them to more than one side.

I didn't realize how much of a difference this made until I started using Malicore's public crafting plots in Heather, on Order. Both those plots have roads on more than one side, with one running right between the plots from pad to portal. Maybe it's an aesthetic thing, and just *feels* much faster and more convenient; I have not actually timed the difference between roads and off-road there.

And yes, there are not very many plots that have roads on more than one side in this game. However, in the real world many business buildings have roads running on more than one side, and some all around. This is especially true of manufacturing buildings. Convenience is very important to people.

So I think that more road frontage would make plots more valuable, even in this fantasy world. Yes, there are probably better places to add roads, but if it's not much effort then it hurts nothing to experiment.

[Frith-Rae]

Well the initial difficulty I see with my non-
Programming/artist coding eye. Adding roads on any sides of a plot changes the dimensions of the entire area.

As Amon said, at least on chaos some of these are owned. Even adding a single road somewhere in the middle or between any plots would change how all the plots lined up. This would mean Some plots would have to have their dimensions reduced to keep the rest the same, or all plots would have to reposition accordingly.

Which makes for a huge headache just to save players 5-20 seconds of slow-run time.

Now, what makes more sense to my thinking is having player-buildable road tiles for a person to place on their plot that got the road bonus. Then players like yourself who want the travel bonus throughout their plot could build the layout of roads themselves and choose to sacrifice those inches themselves for something they feel is more useful.

I know dragon lair paths have a road bonus in lairs (the passageways do, but not within chambers). So perhaps bipeds could build their own road-bonus including paths.

(never had a biped or a biped plot so heck this could already be in game for biped plots and if so I see no point to rewrite an entire city of plots if you can already put road-bonus tiles in yourself)

[Dhalin]

Could you guys at least add a Crystalshaper near the Kion Volcano/Mine so we aren't screwed when trying to do T1 Lair Work in LA?

I don't think very many players are going to want to drag their disks clear from the Volcano down to LA Deadlands....