Regarding the kiting of large numbers of NPCs

Torven said he seen something he didn't like in Terms raids where they were kiting..

 

And our official entry into VT is rotation of Dec 12, just because we are playing around in there now and planning ahead of where to place coth bots etc does NOT mean we are not going to do a full clear!

 

Can someone outline what's broken? Or is this a product of crafty intersection of several abilities that might not have been possible during the original design and release of the game due to the amazing leaps we have made with server/PC processing power?

I can be honest and say that at times I feel the favoritism does seem to tip towards Tem. However, I have to remind myself that is often born out of jealousy of not being able to push some boundary first and leveraging it until Devs have time to deem it inappropriate and adjust for it. Frankly, we all know the "Firsts" have always enjoyed unforeseen/unintended mechanics manipulation and then grumble when the nerfbat was swung.. just about every game's history is rooted in it.. If anything, I should be disappointed in myself for not getting there first to draw the ire of Devs and server mates.

 

Yes. The way Tem was doing VT was contested. Including kiting TVXs and use of coth bots.

Its not about any favoritism. Its about over-trivializing content.

Staff has conceeded to allowing coth bots in VT. Staff has conceeded to allow kiting for TVXs.

Planting bots past blob1 cant use bard kiting.

Some code changes are coming to limit kite sizes.

Its not about favoritism. Because it was discussed to completely disallow coth in VT. That significantly affects all guilds.

Everyone needs to chill. Not much is changing.

 

Its always gonna seem like favoritism towards Temerity. They get to content first. Staff dont watch much after expansion is released. They are burned out.

First emp kill went easy. Second emp kill, was when the DA aggro dump was triggered. Shortly after that, it was nerfed. Nerfed specifically targeting Temerity, because they were ones almost exclusively using it.

There is no favoritism. There is no spoon.

 

So I can understand both sides.

In Torven’s case I’m sure he spent countless hours in VT. Not just parsing out AC, resists, and DI/DB values on mobs. Also figuring out mob spawn locations, pathing arcs, respawns, trap locations/respawns, loiter behavior, etc.

It isn’t as simple as looking at the map. Specific spawn spots could only spawn as specific level mobs. The trash near Diabo on first floor are mostly higher level mobs for example and the trash just beyond the one-way doors on the third floor are mostly lower level mobs.

Had this level of detail not been put into the zone, CotHing may not have been possible due to any number of potential inaccuracies such as see invis flags, pathing arcs, assist and proxy ranges, etc. Hell, clearing may not have been possible if the one-way door rooms involved 10 Eoms incorrectly.

So I do understand that after all this work, Torven sees both guilds currently in VT, avoiding 90%+ of the zone trash. I imagine it may feel like you built your kid a treehouse over a few months and then he never goes inside it, but instead he just plays with some left over 2x4s you have from the project.

But I also do understand other people’s views. Vex Thal is notorious for over the top trash clears that are long slogs with no notable drops, faction hits or EXP on the way. It’s not a zone or clear that people regularly enjoyed doing. If any of you played during later expansions, some of the raids were similar to this. Sendaii in DoDH was a decent example of a very long raid that was challenging and served as an gatekeeper to the final zone of the expansion. King Odeen in TSS was a very long trash clear of a raid with multiple phases that allows you to access the end zone of the expansion. My live guild did the raid one time and it took them 5.5 hours, instances automatically collapse after 6 hours. People really just wanted to hit these targets one or two times and then farm the faster/easier end zone targets.

In the case of Vex Thal, people are after the tasty loot snacks of bosses, but really don’t look forward to the trash clear. I don’t blame them much, but I understand the argument that you should clear it once to “access” those bosses.

It’s difficult for people to go backward in their expectations. For many people who played on AK their expectation of an EXP group was to hit around 1 AA an hour. I am not surprised people try to AE entire zones with bards or color Stuns to achieve this rate. Anything less can feel unbearably slow to some. Which basically describes any group in Luclin other than an AE group or a Ssra group built around a Charmed revenant.

Similarly, many people on AK were used to CotHing to almost every boss in VT. Those from TLP servers were used to either zoneline pulls or just ridiculously OP DPS letting you crawl the zone in 3 hours even with the trash clear. I’m not surprised both guilds in the zone currently are aiming to reach these clear times by relying on CotH bots.

Personally, I think the compromise the Devs have reached on this topic is reasonable.

• Cap the number of mobs you can reasonably pull/kite to the numbers that were feasible on AK.
• Require a guild crawls the zone one time to plant CotH bots and to access the raid mobs within rather than using the roof to bypass most of the zone or kiting mobs out of the way as you park CotH bots.

I imagine as Advocatus and Nemce have stated, they haven’t even begun their VT rotation and they plan to do a full clear when they do start, so they will be meeting the Devs wishes. Then they will be able to CotH through the zone for the rest of their clears.

Whenever DH or BS get to VT they’ll know the expectations of a single clear to plant CotH bots (if they so choose to use some) before doing CoTH clears.

Personally, I much prefer this alternative to being banned from using CotH in VT or AE Kiting.

I am curious what the code change for the kiting will involve, so that we can be aware of what’s a bug and what’s intended. If I had a magic wand I’d have mobs aggroed beyond say 100 or 120 or whatever cap it is set to, will not aggro you until you have fewer mobs chasing you.

 

"Hey Karl, check it out. Some suicidal wood elf is running around being chased by 100 guards, lol.. Should we join the chase?"

"100 guards? Nah, they got it.. Plus I'm lazy."

 

That would be great darchon! i'd be able to pull deep deep deep into zones and zoom right past the entrance mobs untouched cause I reached the magical cap!

Or when my bard's kite is at 100 I could just run over anywhere within a zone without the fear of an add or trap flee stunning me

Brilliant!

 

FWIW, I actually really enjoyed the VT crawls we did to place our CoH bots. I never raided VT on Live, and never crawled VT on AK. Before TAKP, all my VT experience was basically "Beam me up, Scotty," bang head against million-hp four-arm, gawk at loot, repeat.

Crawling VT gave me a sense for how the zone fits together, how the keys and warders work, why we kill the named in the order we do. It was fun following along on the EQAtlas map as Zooks led us on a trainy lolsy romp. It fleshed out the storyline, the shape and feel of the dungeon.

That said, the shine definitely wore off after a crawl or two. In the long run, I agree that more efficient raids are usually more fun. Also? When all the challenges in an expansion have been overcome, what remains are challenges we create for ourselves. Tem's raidleaders had a lot of pointless fun racing through Growth clears to keep beating our personal records. I imagine we'll amuse ourselves similarly with races against the clock in VT and elsewhere on the moon. We'll probably dream up new harebraned strats in the process. If the devs ever disapprove of them, we'll happily adjust. This is their server, after all. We are their guests.

 

I'm happy with this resolution. Sorry any misunderstandings and thanks for all your work.

 

Lol. I look forward to you running past a mob thinking you’re invulnerable only to find out one of your train leashed and you get flee stunned to death.

 

could also make mob 101 to warp on top of you

 

so business as usual yeah? lol

 

Tem could coth NAG coth bots and drama solved.

Plus, once coth bots are placed. It still allows you to clear trash - you dont have to use them. Decide that clearing trash isnt the best use of yoru time? Coth away.

Wonder what that server would look like...

 

Just curious as to how you guys know if you have 80 or 100 mobs on you? I mean who is actually counting?

 

I don't mind the new rule for VT. And I understand that ME kites were not possible on AK and were yielding a ridiculous amount of XP. I'm fine with the changes there.

My main concern is that there is now a new "universal" rule, which is really just targeted at a handful of zones. It's going to have some very annoying side-effects. How is this going to affect Plane of Fear? If mobs start leashing after 100 are grouped up, then that's going to make the bard kite very difficult. What if the stunning/aoe crew in pofear wipes and the bard is stuck kiting the zone for an hour? Is that illegal? Does he need to take a TL and come back in for the kite once the raid is ready?

What about Plane of Growth? A popular strategy is to kite a massive swarm of mobs (which aren't all stunnable) in a circle while pullers snipe mobs out to bring to the raid. Is that illegal now?

What about powerleveling new toons in kurns with DS on a high level toon while the lowbies nuke, or mass-killing lower guk for reet crown faction? They doesn't necessarily require stuns, but I guess I can throw an AoE stun on the train once it arrives to make it legal.

I would be much more comfortable with code designed for these zones specifically, that won't cause problems in a hundred other places.

 

There are maps of the area with dots indicating how many mobs are in those areas. If you kite those areas you know how many mobs you have.

 

Because that was more or less possible on AK (I presume) and mass kiting wasn't or was significantly harder at least, depending on the size/location.

VP and ST went live in an era before youtube, probably before Fraps even. People weren't doing this stuff then so devs weren't thinking about it. Doing it on TLPs is another universe. We always cleared ST, every single time in 2001. CoH bots weren't a thing back then.

The entire point of non-custom emus is to replicate the gameplay with precision, regardless of how bad it is. Were I to make a custom server, I'd dramatically adjust the RvR of Luclin, but that's not the project here.

The reason I signed up for this job is to replicate EverQuest's early era and the brutalness of the PvE game, which has yet to be replicated in any other game. For years now I've seen my goal chipped away at, and now we have a server that does not meet my standards/goals of why I got into this project. Let me turn this around: why should I continue to work on a server that allows this kind of behavior?

When something about the emu makes content harder, players are quick to gripe. When it makes it easier, players gripe when it's removed/corrected after I usually find it without much help.

This is more akin to somehow triggering the Vulak ring to stay active, waiting 3 hours without killing a thing, then pulling all the trash out, keeping it occupied with zero risk then killing the Vulak pinata for loot.

As I said previously, Temerity was never witnessed doing what NAG did, let alone after this thread appeared. The kiting I observed Tem doing was the TVXs.

Extremely large kites were not possible (or much harder) on AK because:

* In many zones, pathing did not allow it (i.e. mobs would start running backward and forget you)
* Mobs there got stuck on stuff, warped on the puller's head, then immediately bashed.
* Large pulls lagged zones considerably. This causes them to rubberband/run slow and then they leash/forget as you run out of range.
* Pulls didn't bunch up nearly as much on AK, for several reasons; so the 'balling' here which even if you don't PBAoE them still makes it considerably easier/safer to kite.

 

You're thinking about this too hard. This is just a general rule before the code to enforce it comes online in 8 days. If you can somehow manage to aggro 80-100 NPCs in lguk, then go nuts.

I don't see why a bard would need to aggro 100+ mobs at a time in a plane if they're just holding them to be pulled. Regardless, if you're killing them all, devs aren't going to care about the number. We're mostly concerned about bards kiting the zone without raids killing much of anything while a raid kills Tunare to avoid any sort of clearing.

Pull limits will be adjusted on a per-zone basis.

 

Thanks Torven. Appreciate your hard work and understand your reasoning.

It's been a challenging expansion for us to shift from mostly single target raid boss kills, to the more complex mechanics of Luclin encounters. Nobody here fills full raids of single boxed chars, and everyone is terrible at tri-boxing. Finding ways to work around these limitations and ensuring targets are still killed for those tasty pixels involves creative use of game mechanics whenever possible. Being able to effectively pull, tank, heal, debuff, dps is part of growing up as a guild, and something that won't be avoidable in Planes of Power. As is evident by our lack of full NToV clears, this is hard. I guess Vex Thal will have to be our brutal learning2play arena.

Sorry for the headaches and my stubbornness.

 

wow...

 

Back in the day when I used to DM for friends playing D&D I would set up encounters I thought would be appropriately challenging for the PCs. Often it would play out more or less how I expected but on numerous occasions they surprised me with completely unexpected behavior and tactics, sometimes completely trivializing the encounter.

I never punished them for this.

The encounters, the trash so to speak, were obstacles to be overcome but the method of doing so was completely up to the players. As long as they got by alive (more or less), then they defeated the obstacle.

I dont see how this is any different, honestly. Sure I agree NAG should have to full clear once to plant their bots and it sounds like they think that is fair too. But after that, anything legal to defeat or evade the obstacle within the game rules should be allowed. The GMs (Torven) should feel free to change things to make it more challenging as they see fit, too. But for gods sake dont punish with forcing tedium, that's crazy.

 

100 mobs in lguk will kill you if you don't ae stun

 

We all already did this to ourselves by downloading the client.

 

Aggroing mobs with a bard and running in a circle is not some novel brilliant strategy that nobody though up until TAKP's tacticians had some epiphany. It wasn't done because it wasn't doable. I know because I did a lot kiting myself, and it plain did not work in many locations/conditions.

The exploits used on AK to do TVXs required significantly more creativity. Groups were also exploiting Shei, Blood and Ring of Fire among others. If kiting worked well, they'd have done it, because they were thinking up all sorts of other crazy stuff. I'm not suggesting that kiting is exploiting or that RoF was kitable; I'm saying that if it worked they wouldn't have had to exploit kitable things and that they were doing things far more unintuitive such that kiting wouldn't have eluded them. (said exploits involved use of Shield of Songs in particular but did not involve kiting)

 

Technically don't you have to crawl VT twice due to the way the warders work..?

I am in no rush, TAKP isn't going away - that is why I only have 14 aa's on one of my 3 toons, the others are not even 60 yet.

Having said that I have cleared VT in expansion with a full raid of single boxed toons and I can tell you it was the most boring thing I have ever done. I have also single boxed through VT on Live with an over powered toon and again it wasn't fun either. I play EQ to have fun and I think a lot of the time that point is missed. Its the single biggest reason I moved off of p99 because of the whole raid crapola wasn't fun. Running through VT with 25 - 30 real people boxing 2 or 3 toons at a time, having to keep moving or respawns will get you seems fun until you realize that one mistake (especially with the gate/inturrupt/DA changes) just ruins your whole night.

Basically all I am asking is to please whichever changes you make we will abide by but remember to make it fun still.

 

Just crawl once (killing bosses/removing warders) to plant mages then COTH 2 WIN on subsequent raids.

 

Just to be clear - there was never a plan NOT to crawl VT to place bots. The 1 bot that was placed by kiting had already been placed and was removed. We have like a week of pure VT scheduled to place the rest of the bots, i have a lot of sock laundry to do before then.

 

Yeah but if you want to plant coh mages on all named you would have to crawl twice, one for each direction.