It's To Hard OR How I Built A Vault

[Durand]

This will be ill received, but I think it is time someone said it. There are a few things that really irritate me, and these two are near the top when it comes to Horizons. This is not meant to be constructive or helpful, purely for shock value.



"It's to hard. There shouldn't be a mob that is higher than the others in this area. This is going to scare new players away."

/rant on
Your absolutely right. In fact, we should color code the freaking areas so that you know that every single mob is level X! I completely understand why you shouldn't be expected to be alert when you are hunting. I mean, seriously. The mobs should actually pass out and die at the site of you. We should give away free experience for even leaving a TOWN! What kind of game company would expect that you actually pay attention when you hunt, and would make hunting challenging by placing a mob that is....gasp....3 levels higher than the others! If they are going to do that we should have NPCs go hunting with people to hold there little hands. A level 20 among level 15's! That needs a support ticket to fix the imbalance in game play. New people will quite if it is that hard.

Seriously! There is a big difference between hunting and grinding adventure experience.
/rant off



So, all right then. The other thing that really frustrates me is plots. If you think Horizons should be SIM City. Stop reading now.

/rant on
Where do I even start. What is the purpose of a plot? That's right. It is a mega vault! Build 10 houses crammed together and fill the dead spots with silos and tents. Great idea! You know what would make your plot look a whole lot better? A bulldozer or a fire.

'Hey, I would like to buy X, Please send tell.' "Oh, we have that in our MEGA vault, I mean plot. You can just take whatever because we have stockpiled 500 of item X." <blank stare> 'Eh, okay...well, I would really like to buy it...you know....that whole lack of economy thing, and actually earning it.' "No, no...just take what you need." Behold the new monster, Undead Economy!

"I can't find space, all the guild houses are full and so are the houses and silos and tents. We need MORE item capacity! Ummmmmm...NO, you need less junk. You have 10 of crystal X and costume Y. Maybe you should stop hoarding like a DRAGON and keep what is useful. That economy thing is sitting in your MEGA vault.

"I don't want the Blight to be able to hurt or destroy my buildings. If they add that I will leave." <twitches> Okay, sorry guys, we need to make a peace deal with the Aegis. We can't have them disrupting SIM City. I mean, people are not playing to defeat the Aegis or advance the storyline. They are playing to build HUGE MEGA FREAKING VAULTS, err..plots. Maybe the Aegis will let us build blight anchors that store 1 BILLION Items in another dimension on our plots! Right...

"If people leave and come back and there plot is destroyed, they won't stay" Two words. Plot repossession.

"People can't play all the time to make sure their plot is not attacked." So why did you buy a plot in Old Oaks, rather than Kion? Right, sorry, I forgot that the plots are bigger in Old Oaks for the HUGE MEGA SUPER FREAKING VAULTS.

/rant off

I guess what I am saying here is that you can make things easy for people who complain about things being hard and turn Horizons into a hoard version of SIM City. Don't even get me started on 'We need another portal because I have to walk to far.'

[CallakDW]

"It's to hard. There shouldn't be a mob that is higher than the others in this area. This is going to scare new players away."

/rant on
Your absolutely right. In fact, we should color code the freaking areas so that you know that every single mob is level X! I completely understand why you shouldn't be expected to be alert when you are hunting. I mean, seriously. The mobs should actually pass out and die at the site of you. We should give away free experience for even leaving a TOWN! What kind of game company would expect that you actually pay attention when you hunt, and would make hunting challenging by placing a mob that is....gasp....3 levels higher than the others! If they are going to do that we should have NPCs go hunting with people to hold there little hands. A level 20 among level 15's! That needs a support ticket to fix the imbalance in game play. New people will quite if it is that hard.

Seriously! There is a big difference between hunting and grinding adventure experience.
/rant off

The only thing I ever found annoying about the mob levels in HZ when I first started, is that named mobs get to keep their low level rating most of the time, but they are usually as dangerous as anything 5+ levels above what they display. I allways figured, reguardless of being named, their level should reflect their dangerousness.

Other than that, I miss when HZ wasn't all zoned out. }:=8(

/rant on
Where do I even start. What is the purpose of a plot? That's right. It is a mega vault! Build 10 houses crammed together and fill the dead spots with silos and tents. Great idea! You know what would make your plot look a whole lot better? A bulldozer or a fire.

Hmm yes, I've seen this. Eww.

'Hey, I would like to buy X, Please send tell.' "Oh, we have that in our MEGA vault, I mean plot. You can just take whatever because we have stockpiled 500 of item X." <blank stare> 'Eh, okay...well, I would really like to buy it...you know....that whole lack of economy thing, and actually earning it.' "No, no...just take what you need." Behold the new monster, Undead Economy!

Uck, a lot of this going on WITHIN my guild. I rarely ever go to buy somthing from a consiner these days. It's usally a guildee request after I've gathered everything I need for it. Though I suppose if I got frusterated enough in my comp hunting that I might buy from the connie.

"I don't want the Blight to be able to hurt or destroy my buildings. If they add that I will leave." <twitches> Okay, sorry guys, we need to make a peace deal with the Aegis. We can't have them disrupting SIM City. I mean, people are not playing to defeat the Aegis or advance the storyline. They are playing to build HUGE MEGA FREAKING VAULTS, err..plots. Maybe the Aegis will let us build blight anchors that store 1 BILLION Items in another dimension on our plots! Right...

"If people leave and come back and there plot is destroyed, they won't stay" Two words. Plot repossession.

"People can't play all the time to make sure their plot is not attacked." So why did you buy a plot in Old Oaks, rather than Kion? Right, sorry, I forgot that the plots are bigger in Old Oaks for the HUGE MEGA SUPER FREAKING VAULTS.
/rant off

Soo, I'm not sure I understand, are you saying no one that can't play all the time should buy a plot in a dangerous area? Because honestly who wants to buy one if it gets trashed all the time and they can't do anything about it? Why have a plot there in the first place then? The thing here is if it was full time real life, you can at least break out the old axe and defend your estate. Mabe eventually you can hire NPC guards perhaps?

[Nanain]

Uck, a lot of this going on WITHIN my guild.

erm in every single MMO I've played, no one sold things to guildies...or am I missing a point?

[Durand]

Soo, I'm not sure I understand, are you saying no one that can't play all the time should buy a plot in a dangerous area? Because honestly who wants to buy one if it gets trashed all the time and they can't do anything about it? Why have a plot there in the first place then? The thing here is if it was full time real life, you can at least break out the old axe and defend your estate. Mabe eventually you can hire NPC guards perhaps?

The point I was trying to make, and probably didn't do such a good job at making, was that anytime someone suggest that there should be risk in owning a plot, people cry foul and want to kill the suggestion as soon as possible.

I think that if such a system were to be implimented 'someday,' then there would have to be alot of balance. Not to define a whole new system, but collision detection or an equivalent would need to be added so mobs didn't walk through structures, buildings would need a reasonable amount of resistance and 'hitpoints', frontier plots would be more likely to attack (as oppossed to say Kion), and players would have to have the ability to build stronger, better structures and have guards to protect them even when they are away. I would even be happy with the Blight just replacing your structures with Blighted building versions that look bad.

Again, I'm not advocating the details of a new system. I'm just more than a little aggravated that each time someone suggest that the Aegis should be able to impact settlements and structures, people cry foul and say they will quit without even offering a reasonable discussion of what or how a system would work. I would be grateful for a plot that allowed me to build walls and place npc guards, over building MEGA SUPER VAULTS.

As for the lack of economy due to hoarding, my problem isn't so much that people are helping each other as the fact that people can store a million items and keep asking for more item space like the recent vault upgrade. People don't need more space, they need to hoard less stuff. If people had to choose and pick what they wanted to keep, or had something more useful to build than more storage space, I think it would cut down on the number of items that are floating around in game, and motivate people to put some items up for sale. Giving people something better to build than more storage would help alot, but this rant wasn't directed at the developers so much as it was at the players who don't want to risk anything when they hunt, or risk anything when they build.

[Tcei]

My expericne has always been that way Nan, only exception being if someone was just really in need of cash, in which case a guildy or even the entire guild would "buy" what ever item from the person. Hz is a bit uniqe in that this has spred to pretty much the community as a whole.
I both like it and hate it.
I hate it in that it makes it hard to aquire money.
Like it, because I can trade other valuables forthe things - if only because I dont have money.
Also older players have been known to donate/lend money to newer players, this is actualy how I managed to buy my first lair. In my case I never actualy asked for it, it went something along the lines of
what cha doin?
crafting gems so I can buy a lair.
How much more do you need?
About 400s
Oh, ok here! *hands over400s*

As far as plots filled with silos and other storage. While it may look tacky, I can understand being a crafter. I would absolutely kill to have a couple of silo's opened in my lair. Ontop of that I'd love to have a hall/lair room made, or a borrow a friendly bi-peds house, just so I could dump off my collection of techs I use for crafting and my crafting scales. Of the few public storage silos/houses/lairs ect that i've found, I've noticec fill up real quick.
I really have no comment onthe bilght attacking plots other than, as I understood it mobs/areas dont load untill someone has come into an area and been there awhile, to prevent major lag issues/server strain.

[Durand]

There is alot to be said for earning something, which I think has been lost on many players. The same players that want a house that stores a million items, a portal, shrine and pad on every plot, resource spawns on and around their plot, mobs that can be mass killed for massive experience, unlinked spells so they can cast different tiers of the same stun spell, and quest that reward players with levels, not experience.

Then there are the players that would like a plot that has more purpose than storage, a horse rather than a portal, mobs that are varied and take some skill and attention to hunt, more spell variation, and quest that advance the story and involve the player.

[Frith-Rae]

The mobs should actually pass out and die at the site of you.

YEA!!

and you don't have to express a point - remember - this is ranting .

(though being a dragon I at least have an excuse for keeping pointless things in my vault!! Though I do clean house a few times a year *chuckles*)

[CallakDW]

and you don't have to express a point - remember - this is ranting .

Just because it is a rant, doesn't mean it's not trying to put a point forth. IMO, ranting is just another way of expressing ones feelings about a situation that isn't quite, shall we say, diplomatic. If someone is screaming in my face about somthing, I still have an interest in what intellegence it might contain, espicially since it tends to be hurting my ears.
}:=8p

[CallakDW]

erm in every single MMO I've played, no one sold things to guildies...or am I missing a point?

IMO, this is the way things should be within a guild, but I wanted to cover it anyway, since I very rarely need anything outside the guild, and this too effects the economy. I'm not really sure what a satisfactory remedy would be.

[Goriax]

I agree with most of this. It really bugs me every time something is proposed that requires people have to run 15 minutes or avoid something which might actually kill them.

When HZ was in development I was looking forward to a much more active fight. I wouldn't mind defending my lair. It would make the game a LOT more interesting if the opposition were carefully balanced. They'd have to do some things though. First and foremost there would have to be some way of recovering if your plot IS trashed. Otherwise it takes on some of the aspects of permadeath. I've been working on my plot on again off again since dragon lairs were released two years ago. It would NOT be fun if it were trashed. Any more then if a character I'd been playing with for two years were permakilled.

They could do stuff to make it work though. Either make things much easier to rebuild, or issue novians for anything destroyed (perhaps at about 90% so it stings but isn't fatal).

Give players some leeway in defending their plot. You shouldn't have to be logged on at exactly some random, server appointed time to have a chance of defending your plot. Perhaps you could get clues that something is afoot, with clues of where the forces are massing to destroy your plot. You can then do a preemptive strike. Or perhaps clues as to when it might happen so you can be logged on -- somewhat unrealistic, but more workable. This would have to be thought out carefully, but it's probably possible -- at least for players who don't mind putting forward a little effort and taking a little risk.

The HZ plan during development was that player built structures could not be destroyed although WA forces may decide to camp out on your plot. Community structures could be destroyed though. So I wouldn't have to rebuild my lair, but I may have to evict a bunch of level 120 blights or something.

[CallakDW]

Before the merge there was a very real danger of some settlements being attacked at random times, it only killed off all the guards if you weren't there though, there was really not much more they could do.
Here's a possibility- perhaps if an assult does not get routed within a set length of time of it arriving, blight anchors could be set up in the middle of town that blights the area, and prevents machinry from working and despoils anything kept in silos (Locks out silo access, doesn't damage the contents ... or does, slowly?) untill the anchor is brought down.

[StalePopcorn]

Actually there are some really great ideas here:

1. WA invades building area, sets up spawn point
2. Community buildings all get blighted - all machines are beginner machines (instead of expert, jman etc)
3. Community has to beat up some machine that is "linked" to the blight, but may not be close by i.e. in the middle of a heavily infested area
4. "Alarm" (system message or some such) tells when a new infestation is going to happen i.e. "5 minutes to save Harro from invasion!"

That would be pretty awesome, people porting all over the place to defend/attack as needed.

[Tryagain]

Actually there are some really great ideas here:

1. WA invades building area, sets up spawn point
2. Community buildings all get blighted - all machines are beginner machines (instead of expert, jman etc)
3. Community has to beat up some machine that is "linked" to the blight, but may not be close by i.e. in the middle of a heavily infested area
4. "Alarm" (system message or some such) tells when a new infestation is going to happen i.e. "5 minutes to save Harro from invasion!"

That would be pretty awesome, people porting all over the place to defend/attack as needed.

yeah it would be. But I believe it was stated some time ago this wasn't possible with the current setup.

[CallakDW]

yeah it would be. But I believe it was stated some time ago this wasn't possible with the current setup.

You know, from time to time it seems like HZ just isn't all that flexible. I wonder how many times Bliz had to revamp their engine to make it do all the things it currently does.

[Drakarr]

I agree with alot of this rant but think it needs to be done by Foamy