A Few Comments on the New Event

[Guaran]

PJ after the second kill were any additional scraps found?

[Kulamata]

I am strongly in favor of just about all of the original post.

Howls in the Night, had an attack in the "wilds" between Bristugo and Dalimond, and we had to stop Titus and cohort before they reached Dalimond. Lag was 'orrible, but still fun, and it woulda been worse in Dalimond proper by far.

I agree firmly that events should be accessible to all. Some time ago an experiment was tried that prevented high level players from being able to remain in the area of a low level attack. I don't know why this has not been used since, as it appeared to be a great success.

Inaccessible plots... Well, Harro was raided by the AoP, but after a while it just got to be tedious. At least the AoP was not too difficult, and he and his group could be soloed by 80+ (not sure how +) players.

[PJ]

The plots are in no way inaccessible. They can still be reached, their machines and npcs used, their structures accessed. There are just some nasty, yet avoidable mobs in the general vacinity for the time being.

[Jayne]

Any rare drops or is this just like the outpost mobs?

Jayne

[Tantalyr]

ok.

You said "Event beasties should be soloable, or at most require two or three players of the same tier to slay." Why is that? Whats the harm of requiring more? You don't like to group? Are you afraid that DB will introduce forced grouping?

Umm, Aamer, I explained TWICE in my posts why. It has nothing to do with me, as given my economic circumstances I have the luxury of playing at just about any hour I wish. It has everything to do with players who cannot get online until the wee hours of the morning and cannot possibly put together large groups with large firepower. I am truly sorry that you seem to not be able to comprehend that.

And having an event for vet players no more smacks of veteran arrogance, than making AROP available only to adult dragons. It's a reward for that level of player, nothing more.

The ARoP is a permanent "event" designed specifically as a reward for high level dragons. Regular events are temporary, not permanent.

You asked were the harm was... well, maybe not harm, but which do you think the devs can do more easily and with consistantcy... single tier events or multi-tier events? Like Amon said, 3 events in a row were for all tiers and now here is one for higherlevel players. Where is the "harm" in that?

Because it excludes a goodly portion (perhaps not a majority) of the player base. And I see no value in doing that.

[Guaran]

If you ask me, the lore of the event is the WA 1) pushing the blight a bit further west (as evidenced by the new structures etc just east of the thornwoods), and 2) trying to attack us.

They are throwing thier best into battle.

As the event is the lore makes sense, and weakening the mobs would just make for stupidity. It wouldn't make sense. It would be a laughable attempt at the WA bringing a war to us.

Lower level players CAN participate. They can scout around, look for the big berserker. THIS event is in the east blight. If they want to participate, they can expect to die alot.

I see nothing wrong with the event as is.


What I would suggest, is something happening in parallel to this, where "smaller bosses", i.e. captains or lieutenants or something, stage various attacks in places like New Trismius, Lesser Aradoth, Tishlar (where ever :) to "test" our resistance, interrupt the supply lines, and interfere with the training of the newly gifted. These hunts may or may not have associated quests. Or they may just be raid-like. But would give the lower levels a part of the war to participate in.


I can't think of any game where noobies are allowed to be part of 40 man raids on big dragons "because it's fair".

Life isn't Fair.

This is a War.

Go fight, stand up and defend the lands. Or get out of the way for those of us who will.

[Justa Mirage]

Actually it's nice to have high level content type events and quests... but...

here in lies the problem of:

If you make multi-tiered quests / events this is what would happen; every greedy player looking to make a silver, will be camping the low/mid level quest events and taking the quest items and pawning them to people for money. They won't be there to save a town, or the people, they will be there because there might be a chance of getting rare stuff that can be used on their "lower" level characters without risk.

If there was only a way to stop damage from a character 20 levels or greater from damaging the monster, thus keeping high level adventurers from over-running the quest geared for lower players then there is a chance this would work.

Unfortunately, in the game today, as soon as someone in Marketplace says "Raid on <insert city name>" every "Has a name for themselves" high level player is there to grab the first kills / loot they find hoping for an award / reward

[Aamer Khan]

Well Tant, we are going to disagree, I can accept that.

Call it vet arrogance if you wish, but I see good value in the Developers giving high level players a new challenge.

I had an interesting coversation last night with a good friend on Chaos about the level and power of these mobs. For me, since I can kite, have stuns and high health, I can take most all the kwellens solo no problem. For my friend, 3 hits and they are dead. I happen to be able to fare well because of the choices I made and the time devoted to my build and my friend has a hard time based on theirs... for these mobs. Of course this is not true for all mobs.

The respawn timing for the event mobs is the only thing of real concern to either of us really. If the boss mobs respawn enough, then the majority of players will have equal chance to fight and complete the quest. If the Dev's have them spawning only during US prime time, then you have a valid argument, and I will support that. However, it's way too soon to know anything yet as to respawn times. So I'm gonna wait and see.

But do explain why even excluding a "goodly" number of players from events or anything is in of itself harmful, if there are valid ( to the devs ) reasons for doing so?

Are all players told and can expect to be equal in all things? I fully agree that they should all have equal chance at this events mobs, if they meet the requirement for the quest. But beyond making sure the mobs spawn during a variety of time zone prime times... ( EU, US, AUS ) What else should TG do?

[Senkeleron Fell]

One way they made the multi-tier event work well was when we built the machines that merged the shards. There were various special pieces of the machines to make, and if you were over a certain level you couldn't make them. So it depended on characters of every tier to complete the final quest. Not sure how you would set up something similar with combat but someone must have some ideas....

[Grogo]

Personally I don't really care if the mobs are high level...why not...seems to me people are not having trouble killing them.

Personally do I care that the low levels can not participate fully...not really...why not give the high rating players something to kill.

What I do care about is the spawn rate for the boss that must be killed. If it spawns perhaps every eight hours, I sure won't be there for the kill. Waiting around for the mob to spawn is just as bad in my opinion as the wm spawned trees. If you happen to be at the right spot at the right time, great, otherwise you are just out of luck.

If boss is the only way to make the quest continue, I have a feeling others who find that interesting will be doing the quest.

However, based on this event and the previous treeant event I don't think I will be going out of my way to participate.

[cattoy]

You guys are right, there's no need for every event to be accessible by all tiers.

So, when is the T1 ONLY event? The T2 only event?

These are the people who you need to hook. The T5/6ers are already sold on the game for this reason or that.

The devs are the mother bird. There is a big, loud, hungry bird (that would be the rating 100+ folks) always clamoring for content.

THen there are the scrawny, neglected baby birds hoping for scraps. (those would be everyone else)

You can keep feeding just the big, loud bird if you want. Just keep in mind that a T1 player pays just as much as a T5 one.

[PJ]

One way they made the multi-tier event work well was when we built the machines that merged the shards. There were various special pieces of the machines to make, and if you were over a certain level you couldn't make them. So it depended on characters of every tier to complete the final quest. Not sure how you would set up something similar with combat but someone must have some ideas....

Its important to note that that was the construction aspect of that event, Most of the construction portions of events have had things for all levels, if not all classes/races. But the adventure aspect of that event, and of most events, was geared towards the upper echelons of adventurers.

Freeing the Satyrs
Finding the Dryads
Howls in the Dark
Freeing Feladan
Withered Scales
Dark Cyclone Quest
Bitter Pickle
Nazerdon
Novo machines
Outpost

to name a few, all events whose adventure portion was not accessible to lower level people, or even small groups of people.

[imported_Denrath]

They are throwing thier best into battle.

As the event is the lore makes sense, and weakening the mobs would just make for stupidity. It wouldn't make sense. It would be a laughable attempt at the WA bringing a war to us.

Lower level players CAN participate. They can scout around, look for the big berserker. THIS event is in the east blight. If they want to participate, they can expect to die alot.

I see nothing wrong with the event as is.


What I would suggest, is something happening in parallel to this, where "smaller bosses", i.e. captains or lieutenants or something, stage various attacks in places like New Trismius, Lesser Aradoth, Tishlar (where ever [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img] to "test" our resistance, interrupt the supply lines, and interfere with the training of the newly gifted. These hunts may or may not have associated quests. Or they may just be raid-like. But would give the lower levels a part of the war to participate in.


I can't think of any game where noobies are allowed to be part of 40 man raids on big dragons "because it's fair".

Life isn't Fair.

This is a War.

Go fight, stand up and defend the lands. Or get out of the way for those of us who will.

When Denrath was really low level, I know the first thing I wanted to go do was take him out to scout and die a lot...[^o)]

One reason to make the event available for everyone is it breaks up the grind of the day to day playing. Sure, vet players have ground out more levels, and many of them have nothing else to do. That doesnt mean they should be the only ones catered to though. The lower characters NEED something to break up the grind some. In this scenario, it would not have been outside the current lore. The WA is pushing outside the blighted areas and expanding their territory. Lesser Aradoth has a blighted area that the WA could use to stage attacks near Parsnia. Deadpool could be used to stage attacks near Chic.

But, I dont think we know the final outcome to this event. Not that I have read anyways. It could be something new for high level players alone, which would justify the reasoning for it being only for 95+ to some degree.

As for the high level monster taking a big group, I know both sides of this one. You want it to be challenging. However, I was one of those who could only play in the wee hours of the morning (generally from midnight to 07 Central Time) because I was a night shifter. Made it really tough to get groups together to finish off parts of the ARoP. I would have to stay up way late (for me) to get a group to fight Valkoth (I think that is the one). So while you want the challenge, it should also be tempered to some extent so you dont need a group of 15 people just to kill something.

Think that is about enough out of me for now.

[Tantalyr]

One way they made the multi-tier event work well was when we built the machines that merged the shards. There were various special pieces of the machines to make, and if you were over a certain level you couldn't make them. So it depended on characters of every tier to complete the final quest. Not sure how you would set up something similar with combat but someone must have some ideas....

There's the right of it, Senk.

Waaaay back when the "Free the Satyr" event came in, I was but a lowly level 6 Warrior and a level 20 blacksmith. I couldn't touch the satyr ghosts guarding the tunnels being built. Shoot, I'd take a dirt nap if they so much as looked in my direction.

But I could dig sandstone and bronze. And I could make bricks and bars. And I could run those bricks and bars out to masons and fitters waiting to turn them into blocks and keystones and sheets and joints to apply to the tunnels.

I got more than a few death points making those runs. And comparatively I didn't contribute nearly as much as the higher level adventurers and crafters did to the event. But when the tunnels popped, and the satyrs were freed, I really, truly felt like I had contributed something, that I really, truly had been an albeit small part of the whole event. And it made me proud to be part of the community.

We're trying to attract and keep new players to Horizons now. And what better way to do that than to make them feel a part of every event that the community engages in?

The politics of exclusion fare no better in an MMORPG than they do in real life.

[PJ]

Well there you go.

When this event occured, the Sawmill on the south edge of the forest was destroyed, iirc it uses t1 construction materials. Lower level people can help provide resources to rebuild it.

[Guaran]

I can agree about the boss respawn timer. I wasn't a fan of the drop rate of the treeant body parts either. I'd suggest making the boss a 2 to 4 hour respawn.

For the lower level players, there's been plenty of work done to help them learn the game better, and quests for them to do. the game has npc's in almost every town, that will give out quests suitable to a lower level player. New Dragon tutorial came in a few months ago and seems to be doing a good job of keeping the dragon players playing. The new biped tutorial just launched with tuesday's patch. Lesser aradoth was reworkedwith t1 and t2 players in mind: Kion: militia quests from several npc's. Lady Kendra. Guards. (fyi alot of the npc guards around istaria have quests. From mahagra to kirasanct to kion to augundell to sslanis.). Dalimond: Darkstaff, Sly Loki (not far from town). Tazoon: Grant, Wishgiver.Balial, Melagant,..and on and on. I've probably forgot some things in each of the places even. I'm not saying there shouldn't be more work done in these areas, or quests for low level players, but work has been recently done for these players, i.e. I wouldn't say they have been neglected.

[Carinde]

Hello everyone.

While I see many valid arguments, I have only one, and as PJ stated, it's the degree of difficulty in actually landing a hit on Daknor (sp?)

Personally, I have no issue with his strength, his type of attacks, or anything else he does. However, to think that he is only level 125 and has the evasion of something a level 700 might not reach is absolutely astounding. Players with skills of 12 - 1600 were destroying pockets of air for the majority of the battle. It was only when casters broke out Perfect Spell that they were able to do any truly significant damage to him. While this next statement might be a bit extreme, it practically makes any attack we have useless. I admire Tulga for presenting us with a challenge, I truly do. However, a challenge is not created by taking the statistic slider for enemies and moving it all the way to the right. Honestly, Daknor's as big a silo, yet we can't hit him. If you want him to have this super evasion, change his race to a Dryad or a Wisp. At least then it would remotely make sense.

I suppose that my gripe is just the insanity that's brought about when trying to attack him. What's all of our training for if we can't even strike the enemy presented to us? We don't have to do maximum damage when we hit them, but we should at least be able to get more than 1 or 2 hits in every couple of minutes without waiting on perfect spell to become available again. The Satyr machines had incredible resistances, and we did barely any damage. However, all of us could hit it, and that gave us the drive to keep going. Gigaroth and his child, even without the benefit of Banish Armor or Armor Shreds, could still be hit a rather decent percentage of the battle, even if only for single or low double digits.

I would much rather see an enemy of his type with various abilities to be used against us rather than what is here now. Valkor, for example, and his amazing "kill everything within earshot of my fortress" attack is a wonderful idea. Get a group that doesn't know what they're doing, and he wipes the floor with them. Gigaroth's Whirlwind...same thing. Grizzlerot's Rancorous Blow...all of them required strategy to get around. None of them had to be incredibly complex (except Grizzlerot), but it was something that the gifted could use their heads to figure out. Give these enemies something more than incredibly beefed up statistics.

Just tossing things out here, but imagine Daknor with a non-dispellable Dwarven Toughness effect, or perhaps even Fiendish Channeling. Make these effects stay on him permanently. Sure, it makes him harder, but it also makes us think. Obviously melee fighters are in for a rude awakening while trying to attack him, but that gives a chance for the magic users to shine. The melee fighters could instead be the tanks to guard the mages. With the "reflect" effect of Fiendish Channeling, it naturally puts magic users at a disadvantage, but gives those physical men and women (and asexuals) a chance to do their thing, while perhaps allowing the magic users to be in a support role and offer heals, stuns, roots, or other debilitating effects on the enemy. In just those two examples, no one is exluded, but each side is put at a disadvantage to varying degrees, and relies on the other to get the job done. There are so many other combinations that could be employed here, and wouldn't require some massive overhaul to the combat engine or anything else of that nature.

In short, if we're going to be beaten by an enemy, let it be due to a strategic failure on our end and not because of ultra high statistics.

Hey AAO, have you figured out how to make that Flame Resistant Robe yet? *grins*

(...and Jayne, I haven't seen any rare item other than a trophy fall from this guy, and a piece of burnt hide.)

[Senkeleron Fell]

Another interesting thing to note is that if they did have an event that was low-level-only there would be such whining from the higher levels that you would have thought they missed their chance to talk to god. That is why we have tons of lvl100s with their Kion Militia badge. If that had been limited to people lvl20 or less there would have been no end of outrage.

[Carinde]

....such whining from the higher levels that you would have thought they missed their chance to talk to god...

[:D] Now that, my friend...is funny.

However, perhaps that's how it should be. Let there be quests and emblems that are restricted to certain levels, classes, combinations, etc. If you miss out on them, shrug your shoulders and keep moving. We all don't have to get everything here, and the fact that's it been the opposite of that for so long might just be something that needs to change. Not everyone has Scabreia's Heart Staff or a Boars Hide Mask, yet people got over it and moved forward. A tremendous amount of people don't have Valkor's or Reklar's weapons, and they continued on. Perhaps we need more things that not everyone can get (perhaps not in the manner that you have to get Valkor and Reklar's weapons, but a quest that just plain and simply isn't for everyone.) Some people get things that others don't, that's life in general. Whine about it if you like, but eventually you'll move on.

AAO....I *really* need that robe.

[Jayne]

Thanks Carinde! I was waiting for an answer to that.

Maybe I'll check it out, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over him then.

Jayne