Asherons Call: A Little Q&A To Start Your Weekend Off Right

2/11/2004, Rilen asks…
LOL Spiney Armoredillos spawning in Lacuna (100+) tusker dungeon 🙂

Http://www.cathartik.net/dillo_in_lacuna.jpg

haha, it just started spawning out of no where. It’s been spawning all day on about 5 minute respawn rate.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
Do me a favor? Next time you’re down there with the ‘dillos, do a /loc and PM me the results? Thanks.

2/10/2004, Anti-Death asks…
About the New Server

Hello, about the new server, I am wondering if I could test it. This is the first time that I have been to this site. This site was recommended for me from an admin. If I may ask, can you please give me a link so I could possibly test the New Server if you can provide it for me? Thank You.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
I don’t expect that we’ll be having any sort of external test of the server prior to opening it.

2/10/2004, Dutton asks…
Corpse in Abandoned Mine, Leafcull.

Hey Devs,

The corpse of Liquid Ghost has been laying around in the bottom of Sub (Abandoned Mine) on Leafcull for the last couple of months.

Can you do something to clean up the mess?

RSVP

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
Heh, you know I almost tripped over that corpse on LC the other night. But I’m so used to seeing corpses at the bottom of the subway that I don’t even ID them anymore.

For some reason this corpse had forgotten that it ought to rot at some point. It was empty, so I’ve gone ahead and removed it.

2/11/2004, Apocalypso asks…
Can you get Black Bart’s dead Olthoi Soldier out of the Bandit OHN while you’re at it?

Poor thing has been there forever – level 1, first left hander after the entry port.

edit: also on LC

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
Heh, I don’t really have the time to run around the OHN looking for this, but if you run up to it and do a /loc and give me the spew from that, I can probably clear that up.

Interestingly, there’s a really REALLY old standing olthoi corpse on the OP — like “not using the new model old” — also I think on LC, and my coworkers have advised against removing that one. We just think it’s neat.

2/10/2004, AStrange1 asks…
Problem with Font of Jojii

I put one out in front of the mansion and one in the basement for clan use, my problem is every time I go to use it, it opens it.

I have to turn house hooks off when I never turned them back on.

Not sure if anyone else is having this problem, but it is a little irratating.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
We’re investigating an issue that can cause house hooks to turn on when they should be off — hopefully if we can track this down we can get it resolved for March.

2/2004, Al_Neo asks…
Harbringer Quest on Dt is not working?

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
This should be fixed in the February event. I believe it’s just Vincadi’s side that’s broken, I think if you are on Issk’s side the quest is doable.

2/11/2004, Virindi Clown asks…
Can we please have an IDEA of what is going to be done with buffs?

That is obviously the most important change coming to the game right now, and it is far better to let us know ahead of time than with the other LttPs where we can comment but have no say in what actually happens.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
We do plan on posting more details before the changes go in, but I don’t have a specific ETA at the moment. We discussed various options in our meeting today. There’s just more that needs to be investigated (i.e. how much time is required for X, can we do Y twice in the same amount of time, etc) before we’re ready to present it to you.

2/11/2004, AbBaNdOn asks…
Will the Marae Lassel portals change now?

When Dark Majesty content is available to everyone will some of the portals change? it would be nice if u could at the very least recall to some of them.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
There aren’t any immediate plans to do this, but I can suggest it to the team.

2/10/2004, Zenato asks…
XP Scam – Is this intentional?
Ibn,
I was out hunting near Teth over the weekend to gain some XP for my highly gimped mule. Since he’s over level 50, I simply fellowed with him and place him on top of a building at Teth. This would give me a 2.5 click radius of hunting space around the fort. As I was hunting I started to think about how the new XP system would impact *this* style of play. [Lets leave any personal differences on this style of play aside for the moment and just concentrate on the numbers with the new system]

Currently, since my mule is also my vassal I was making 75% of each kill plus about 15% of my mules 75% which nets me about 86% of each kill. My mind started to wonder about what kind of XP rates I’d be getting under the new system. For arguments sake lets assume my mule vassal and my main toon share a 50% passup. Under the same situation I would be making 75% plus 50% of my mules 75% which nets me about 112% of each kill.

Wow! I’m able to make MORE off each individual kill with someone in my fellow then without regardless if they were hunting or not. Ok that was with one inactive mule vassal in my fellow, but what about having more than one? If I placed two mule vassals into my fellowship as I hunted I’d earn 60% plus two times 50% of their 60% which nets me about 120% of each kill.

Why on earth would ANYONE hunt solo without having inactive vassals in a fellowship? I can see it now. People placing inactive mule vassals up on top of the hills at VoD just to get an XP boost on every critter killed. These mules don’t even have to hunt, but just stand there and net their patron additional XP. Some would argue that this is no different then today, but it *is* different. Today you would have a really hard time making over 100% by placing mules into a XP sharing fellowship. With the new rules it would be extremely easy. Is this really intentional?

Now this example was with only a 50% passup rate, but how extreme could this get? At the maximum scale of 90% my two inactive mules sitting on top of a building, tree, or mountain would give me a net total of 168% of each kill. This is with only TWO vassals doing nothing. Working through the math you’ll notice that your benefit doesn’t increase with more and more inactive vassals in the fellowship and it does taper off.

My question is to Ibn. Do you think this will promote a different style of solo playing if players could be getting move experience by simply placing an inactive vassal into a fellowship? Has this scenario even been considered?

Perhaps I’m missing something and the new XP passup rules won’t be applied in this fashion. Could someone correct my false assumptions if they’re not correct? Thanks.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
I don’t see this as being a huge issue. Yes, you can get more XP for your main character by doing this and only having that character hunting. On the other hand, under the old system, you could gain XP for dozens if not hundreds of characters with only one character hunting.

But I will bring it up to the rest of the team to see if they share my opinion on this.

2/12/2004, Shen-Mara asks…
New tech on flags?

I screwed up my pennant this month, and the NPC tried every time I asked her for it, until I finally cleared the space. It was VERY COOL. She knew she failed to give me the flag, and so she was willing to give it to me every time until I got it. New tech maybe only applied to her?

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
It’s not new tech, it has to do with how the NPC is coded. This can’t be done with all NPCs, but I was able to do it with Jalina.

(Yes, that’s right, Jalina and her pennant is the first piece of content that I’ve personally added to the game. Heh!)

2/10/2004, Ockham asks…
Ooo spooky, what’s that from? or is it new?

Orion wrote: …and voices that have sung in silence shall be heard once again. So the world will turn, and in turning it shall spin from its axis and be forever changed.
Orion, Designer answers…
Just penned it for the post.

2/10/2004, Jaramar asks…
PK status annoyance on non-pk servers.

Well, I left my home on DT to follow a friend to TD but, being a true Darktide player at heart I go PK at level 39 (first time I could get around to it). Now there is a bit of a problem. I can no longer hunt with my friend due to the fact that NPKs cannot buff PKs so I’m stuck unable to hunt with my friend now. This wouldn’t be so bad if there were otehr PKs around for my to test my skills against and otherwise enjoy fighting, but there aren’t. PKs on TD are exceedingly rare and those of us that stick with it are sub par when it comes to PvE unless a mage yourself. Would it be possible to consider making PKs buffable through the normal means on these servers?

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…I would expect to see an increase in PK players on the NPK worlds come the February event. Maybe not a huge increase, but an increase nonetheless.

2/11/2004, Virindi Clown asks…
If there were no {pvp} timers, you would never kill a single person as it is.

Probably more than half of people escape from fights as it is.

Be logical. You almost can’t kill someone with 400 health, and you will NEVER do it again if they can just recall away.

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
This has always been, in my opinion, one of the interesting dichotomies of DT…

Let’s say you have someone who portals into a dungeon and finds six hostiles waiting for him. Should this person be able to get away?

There are a lot of people who would say, “Yes! This is a completely unfair fight and he should have the opportunity, through skill, to escape.”

There are a lot of people who would say, “No! Why should any one player be able to escape a 6-on-1 situation? If anyone can just run away, what’s the point?”

I think the solution lies somewhere in between. For example, maybe you shouldn’t be able to escape 6 on 1, but a sufficiently skilled player can find a way to escape 3 sufficiently unskilled players? Something like that?

2/11/2004, Virindi Clown asks…
Ideas on how to improve bow in pvp… Bow is worthless. Just for ONCE recent example, a level 126 archer was shooting me for 30-40 or so yesterday after someone debuffed me with level 7s. I fought him twice, and he never went over 50.

I don’t even have missile defense, and I was on a level 95 mage with 260 health and only tinkered leggings, just al 200 baned armor everywhere else. He was no threat, whatsoever. A melee would have torn me to pieces if I had tried to fight in that situation. I didn’t even sit there wiggling. If you do that, you will NEVER get hit. And what if I had BLed him?

I killed two archers unbaned last month on my melee, and he does not have missile defense. I escaped another who had already debuffed me and was shooting before I even tried to debuff him.

Here is the ONE problem with archers: They are based on speed attacks, and the damage for them really is fine, but they cannot rely on that rate of fire with the current mechanics.

There are very, very simple solutions.

One would be to actually make the arrows move fast like they should. At least xbows should shoot as fast as streaks at close range. At long range, a bow’s projectile shouldn’t be any slower than an arc spell.
Their targeting is also stupid. They need to either have two kinds of arrows that give the same functions as bolts and arcs for targeting, or it just needs to be changed so it isn’t the worst combination of elements of bolts and arcs. Right now it arcs at long range, and then is thrown off by even the slightest wiggling. That makes absolutely no sense.

I think the huge mess up with archers really is the only major balance issue. They have been completely taken out of the loop, and it throws other things off when it becomes mage vs melee almost every time.

A few points of progress have been made and certain things have balanced out very well. These things should not be touched:
-One on one or very small fights between mages or melees in any combination, from all mages to all melees.
-The power of unarmed combat in PvP. It has FINALLY been put in it’s place after more than three years.
-Melee and magic defense serve good purposes instead of certain items being capable of replacing them (missile d is an entirely different story).
-Inepts do not make someone completely incapable of fighting.
-You can’t get away with being no-drop and wearing armor from a vendor.
-Skill really does matter (even though the xp gap has widened).

Ibn, Online Community Relations answers…
Interesting — some of your suggestions re: bringing archery up to par are very close to, if not identical to, the ideas we’re working on internally.