Ore fields! too many high lvl mobs!

[Lars[IS]]

Hello, I have noticed that there seems to be alot of high lvl mobs in the high lvl ore fields in the game. It is true that there was mobs in ore fields back in live, but not 5 to 10 of them as it is now. I use to be able to play the game with the mobs called "Catch me if you can" with my JE in life, but now it is more like which Mane is going to kill me now! I also do not remember Manes having the skill See thru cloak, but could be wrong. I went to a high lvl ore field with my JE which had a .3 sig and high lvl cloak and my el is 47 which meens that only very high lvl mobs should see me thru cloak, but was killed by a lvl 45 mane 3k away thru my cloak. Now in live when there was 2000 players online we could get a large combat/mining group together to deal with this, but with so few players in the game wouldn't it be better for now to only put like 1 mob in a ore field without the abbillity to see thru cloak. Why spend countless hours working to get a lvl 9 mining only to find you can not mine the high lvl ore? I think a better option if you want to keep the ammount of mobs in the ore fields would be to just get rid of ore fields altogether and just open up the ore venders that I know are there. Anyway, just wanted to see what you all thought about it.

Thanks, Lars aka Merlin & Crystal

[bondct]

yeah we had an other thread on this goin somewhere.... hopefully we can get some tweaks goin...

[rdalme]

I will agree with you Lars, there are too many too often. I have a PS and mining in pluto for me is a pain. I used to play hide n seek too on my JE now i have to just warp out and hope i dont get blasted.

The ores i can use plentiful, but at a price.

I can understand a equivilent CL mob(s) roaming, I dont know how they are going to even out the CL, but most tech 4-5 ores should or can be around say level 12-16 CL. Perhaps a kinda table. but to be CL17 mining tech 4-5-6 ores and getting blasted by a CL 48? kinda silly. Or like Lars said for now, since there are not a lotta hunt/mining parties all over. I think remove some, or balance the CL. Atleast until the population is up enough to warrant them.

[Terrell [BT]]

I'll have to agree with the OP. Manes did not have the Scan skill in live. They also had poor scan range in Live (Pretty much their only weakness from a JE's P. O. V.). At .3K sig and 3K away they probably shouldn't have seen you at all, even decloaked. In addition, combat level in live had no effect on whether or not you could be seen while cloaked. (Cloak and Scan aren't CL based skils, they're EL based skills) Whether or not the mob in question had the Scan skill, determined whether or not a mob could see you. (Scan of L3 or higher gives the ability to see Cloaked, L5 is share see cloaked with group, and L7 is share all scan info with group) Mobs with the Scan skill were some of the raid bosses/mobs (like in the Fishbowl starting with 2nd wave), the turrets that defended the RD base, the mobs in the Grissom Storm Zones on Grissom planet (they were in the 27ish CL range), and the V'rix.

[Kenu [CDEV]]

manes do not see through cloak. there is no skill that allows anything to see through cloak yet. right now cloak success is determined by combat level. If they are many combat levels higher than you, they will see you. I don't particularly like this system but this is how it works for now.

as for mining field guardian changes, I remember most of the good fields were guarded by hostile mobs unless they were really well hidden. The mobs were pretty spread out though. I remember mining in antares and having to avoid the deviants. It was one of the toughest mining spots for me at the time though the deviants were pretty rare. Besides the asteroid fields in ardus, antares had some of the most dangerous mining fields for JEs.

[Lars[IS]]

manes do not see through cloak. there is no skill that allows anything to see through cloak yet. right now cloak success is determined by combat level. If they are many combat levels higher than you, they will see you. I don't particularly like this system but this is how it works for now.

as for mining field guardian changes, I remember most of the good fields were guarded by hostile mobs unless they were really well hidden. The mobs were pretty spread out though. I remember mining in antares and having to avoid the deviants. It was one of the toughest mining spots for me at the time though the deviants were pretty rare. Besides the asteroid fields in ardus, antares had some of the most dangerous mining fields for JEs.

In all fairness Kenu, I can mine all day long in Antares and play the catch me if you can game there, but other mine fields have just way too many Manes in them. Example, go to Invernse and just try to mine the lvl 3 to 5 ore there! There are so many lvl 25 manes guarding a low lvl ore field that I quit counting at 50! Yes, high lvl ore fields should have a coulpe of maybe 45 manes, but to have 5 to 10 lvl 53 to 66 manes guarding a field is over kill in my book.

Lars

[Terrell [BT]]

manes do not see through cloak. there is no skill that allows anything to see through cloak yet. right now cloak success is determined by combat level. If they are many combat levels higher than you, they will see you. I don't particularly like this system but this is how it works for now.

That does make learning the Cloak skill a problem for JWs. When they learn the Cloak skill, they're Overall Level 10, and they are sent on the mission "Fungus Reconnisiance" (sp?) to see the Evil Mushroom. The evil plants around the Mushroom are all CL15. Which is apropriate for a balanced JW of OL45. (close to their upgrade to Lai'Shao). My JW managed to get lucky and have only a couple of them, and slip in and out without being seen, but most JW's are having to tow back to Yasuragi because they're usually several evil plants there.

[Starfox]

Clearly you did not do a lot of mining in live, yes SOME fields where guarded, most others where not. Of the fields that where guarded, there may be 2 or 3 mobs at MOST guarding them.

manes do not see through cloak. there is no skill that allows anything to see through cloak yet. right now cloak success is determined by combat level. If they are many combat levels higher than you, they will see you. I don't particularly like this system but this is how it works for now.

as for mining field guardian changes, I remember most of the good fields were guarded by hostile mobs unless they were really well hidden. The mobs were pretty spread out though. I remember mining in antares and having to avoid the deviants. It was one of the toughest mining spots for me at the time though the deviants were pretty rare. Besides the asteroid fields in ardus, antares had some of the most dangerous mining fields for JEs.

[Pezant]

I personally don't see a problem with a few mobs guarding ore fields as long as their respawn rate is high. Take for instance the ore field in Lagarto. It is a great ore field but unfortunately it will rarely be prospected as there are way too many mobs and the respawn rate is too high.

[garblesoup]

That does make learning the Cloak skill a problem for JWs. When they learn the Cloak skill, they're Overall Level 10, and they are sent on the mission "Fungus Reconnisiance" (sp?) to see the Evil Mushroom. The evil plants around the Mushroom are all CL15. Which is apropriate for a balanced JW of OL45. (close to their upgrade to Lai'Shao). My JW managed to get lucky and have only a couple of them, and slip in and out without being seen, but most JW's are having to tow back to Yasuragi because they're usually several evil plants there.

Yah, my JD just finished that one. Cloak, approach, wham! Repeat as necessary (quite a few, in my case). I purchased a L2 Mercurious engine at Yasuragi and installed that and with the lowered sig I was able to get close enough to progress the mission . . . but not without the wham! and tow back to base. There's like 8-10 of those evil plants and there's simply no way, currently, for lowbies learning the Cloak skill to complete this without multiple deaths. The whole *point* of a mission to learn Cloak should be demonstrating the value of being cloaked - not the futility of having the mobs see you anyway and kill you.

[Yazuly]

As a JE at EL 37 I've pretty much given up on mining as a source of EL experience. The exp debt and damage to equipment just isn't worth mining at this point (and I happen to enjoy mining or at least did in live). I guess the problem is I have a low CL level. I didn't realize a JE had to be a warrior first then miner second.

Getting one shot killed by by mobs 20 - 30 CL levels above me has lost it's charm to continue mining. Yes I found some unguarded fields but the respawn or competition on those just make mining impractical from the amount of time spent mining versus the return on exp gained. I can do much better with 2-boxing a throw away toon on an Aragoth tour or repeating the quick explore mission recently I found. That is boring and not the way I remember playing the game. I know the JE class is challenging to play, I did it and loved it in Live, but I think the current situation is beyond challenge and into the ridiculous on the mining. I found a level 2 ore field with level several 30 mobs guarding it. I'm EL 37 and I couldn't touch that field for the pitiful exp even if I wanted to.

In the mean time I am having some fun exploring some of the other classes and hoping that the mining aspect gets better balanced.

[Davidr99 [Admin]]

Hey Guys,

At the dev meeting this week we are going to talk and get this problem fixed. I am glad everyone has brought this to our attention.

Thanks,

David

[nimr0dbbow[IS]]

No guardians = pop-rocks

[StarSeekerVDS]

Pop-rocks would be awesome actually, as long as they had the subtle marking on them they did in live. That way a bot gets his ass beat, someone who has been mining too long might have a little nasty surprise for letting his attention slip, and the really bored could go and pop them deliberately.

[Terrell [BT]]

No guardians = pop-rocks

Orefield guardians and pop rocks is just fine. As long as they're of apropriate level, number, and respawn rate for an Explorer of the apropriate level to mine there. Explorers, especially JEs will usually have combat lag behind Exploration, for skill reasons.

Also please remember that Traders and Warriors are more combat capable than Explorers of the same race and adjust guardian mobs accordingly.

[garblesoup]

Orefield guardians and pop rocks is just fine. As long as they're of apropriate level, number, and respawn rate for an Explorer of the apropriate level to mine there. Explorers, especially JEs will usually have combat lag behind Exploration, for skill reasons.

+1

[Yazuly]

Orefield guardians and pop rocks is just fine. As long as they're of apropriate level, number, and respawn rate for an Explorer of the apropriate level to mine there. Explorers, especially JEs will usually have combat lag behind Exploration, for skill reasons.

Another +1 for the above.

Jack in the box is okay as long as it is within the level of the individual explorer. A JE does not have the defense that progen or terran would have. I'm not looking to be able to insta-kill a rock popper but I do want a viable chance at escape and decide if I want to go back and fight it more on my (stealthy) terms.

[Mattsacre]

well a word about the poprocks...they where to 5 increment @lvl +1 in CL..what this mean= if the field was a L1 field and you had a pop rock the mob would be CL5 +1 or CL6..giving a player at that lvl a challenge but 2 lvl higher could shrug them off. I also noticed in live that fields that had high lvl of ammo ore was not just +1 but +1 more over that.

As JE lagged in CL but had good reactors they would usualy mine a little lower very fast and this would be fair in CL for them. A PS usually would be a little higher in CL and/or geared w/shields etc. to stand up in cl to mob..so they would mine to level just a little slower because of reactor limits.

The usual breakdown of mobs in poprocks (there were some exceptions in special fields)

ore lvl/poprock lvl: mob spawned from L1=CL6,L2=Cl12,L3=26 etc. if the ore field had high lvl of ammo ore or mission ore it would have a +1 to that making the mobs be odd CL like L1=CL7,L2=CL13 etc.

The guardian mobs most often were indeed manes (jenquia always complained because they was energy immune)ore fields close to navs/gates would usually have 2-3 guardians (like on nav 6 in and inverness) and more remote fields would most often have 1.

There were fields that had exceptions on mob spawn because of npc activity, such as the gas fields near trades fort and hasters point/end in inverness were he freetraders had a on going battle with manes. Those mobs were more on a clock..1 spawned ever x amount of time and y of the neutral guards. If you killed the say manes at hasters point then the freetraders whould reach a finite amount of number and then just wander around ontheir teather. If you killed the freetraders then the manes would spawn on time and gather a large number but also cap at a finite number.

[Suncat]

I never had an issue with pop-mobs in live, since that was just part of the issue of being a miner type.

There should be some risk when you are out mining the ores.

The risk should be around the same level as the ore field or a few above.

Now, I did get into an issue where I had joined some combat groups in live and my CL went up to high for the beams/shields/reactor I was using.

So in my instance the ones that would pop in the higher level fields would smack me around a bit much.

Again, I think there should be some 'risk' to mining.

[Lars[IS]]

Hello everyone again,

This reply is mostly for David and the other dev's. I was asked to do some checking out of the mine fields in the game and to talk with players and get views on the problems relating to ore fields. Here is what I have come up with:

The main problem fields seem to be in Endriago, BBW & Inverness. Although there is some problems that seem to relate to all the fields, but first will list the 3 sectors with the main problems 1st:

Endriago: lvl 3 to 6 ore field above planet. Has mobs ranging from lvl 8 to 42 and the count is well over 10. Problem here is that the lvl of ore does not match the mob lvl. Problie the highest lvl mob should be from lvl 25 to 30 for a lvl 5 ore field.

BBW: Where to start, First there is from 5 to 10 mobs guarding small lvl 7 to 9 ore fields which only has about 3% lvl 9 ore in them. Mobs here are manes that range from lvl 45 to 66.

Inverness: Ore lvl 3 to 6 and is a very large ore field. (Took me well over 2 hours to clear by myself) This field is infested with lvl 25 manes. The numbers range from 15 to 50 for some odd reason. I found the respawn rate at around 30 minutes which is the only reason someone could mine here. I brought my lvl 110 PW to clear out the manes which took about 15 minutes. Problem here is that with so many Manes you need a high lvl combat toon which meens no cl points.

Ok, here is the list of problems with all the ore fields:

1. "Manes" Manes according to almost every player I talked to are the real problem mob in the game. They have the skill grav link which anyone who has done combat with one of them know they hit you over and over again with. According to David, they can use grav link every 10 sec and have a 40% chance of hitting you with it. When my PW was clearing out the field in Inerness he was hit atleast 10 times every minute of combat. Now the lvl 25 Manes do not stop you in your tracks, but only slow you down, with the stuck graphics problem the effects never go away until you either gate or dock at a station which is very fustrationing to say the least. It is my opion that Manes should only be aloud to use a skill once per combat as this would make them more ballanced a mob to combat with.

2. Ore respawn Rate! In live ore would respawn for 30 sec to 2 min. Now they seem to respawn anywhere from 15 to 45 mins. I went to the gas field in Glenn the other night and for the first time since I found no one there so I could test out how long it took me to clear the field. I was able to clear out the field in 15 min's. In live it was impossible to clear out this field and there was never any less then 10 miners working on the field. The field in Glenn needs to be atleast 10 times larger with a respawn rate of 30 sec as it was in live.

3. Wrong ore in rocks! I have seen wrong ore in the rocks many times. I understand that the lvl 2 gass that is in the higher lvl ore is a place marker for something, but with the stortage of lvl 9 ore in the game, about 60 to 75% of the lvl 9 rocks/gasses have this lvl 2 gass in them.

4. Camping out in ore fields! This is a touchy subject but needs to be listed here with the other problems that is in the ore fields. I have noticed some guilds that are camping out in ore fields. I will not list there names, but anyone who has done any mining knows which 2 guilds I am talking about. Come on players! Do you really feel the need to camp out an ore field? I understand the need to camp out the mob spawns, but lets get real. You should pull the field and move on! This is only fair and if they caught you in Live doing this your account would get deleted. I can not tell you how many times I have gone to Glenn gass field only to find one guild camping out at one end and the other guild camping out the other end. This is not fair to the real players in the game who enjoy mining and making the rounds. I would like to see a way for the devs to program into the game if a toon is parked at an ore field for say 10 minutes without moving they would get logged off. Not sure if that can be done, but that would solve a big problem that I and others have seen with the ore field campers.

I know there maybe other issues when it comes to ore fields, but these are the importain ones. I hope Daiv and the other dev's find this report usefull and if they need anymore help with this issue or any other issue in the game fell free to ask. Anyone who know me knows I am a fixture in both TS & the game and problie have more hours racked up playing then anyone else. I look forward to the day EnB go's live and will do my part to make it happen!

TTYL :-)

Merlin, Thor, Crystal, Siren, Jade, Topas, Zeena & Zaadar

[syphon2020]

simple solution is to go back to live standards we are getting to far away from that goal. Ore fields should never be able to be cleared out that was just stupid a knee jerk reaction to people whining about ore being cherry picked. I commend the devs for addressing a player problem but that is a problem that is just best left alone for now not enough people in the game to really worry about that problem at the moment. Poprocks are a way to get rid of macro people you know what who cares if someone wants to run a macro and you choose not to thats your choice. Thats how they like to play the game. They servers are going to get wiped over and over again until it goes live address macros at that time right now we are here to address bugs and missing content not if someone is macroing if they ore spawn was set back to live standards and they ore field clear bonus thing gotten rid of then it would not be a problem. 20 plus mobs guarding an ore field is Stupid and yes I mean Stupid it makes no sense mining is supposed to be relaxing people do that when they are not wanting to combat most miners have a combat toon they do combat with they play there miners when all they want to do is mine and relax. Im really starting to believe that some of the people working on this project now did not even play in live.

[nimr0dbbow[IS]]

If you get Renegade Progen Faction then you can mine their roid fields fine..

[Lars[IS]]

If you get Renegade Progen Faction then you can mine their roid fields fine..

That would be fine when the Faction system works without being reset, but as many have found out the hard way you can spend the day getting faction to only have it reset when the server is reset.

[Starfox]

If you get Renegade Progen Faction then you can mine their roid fields fine..

This is the most asinine response i think i have ever seen!

[nimr0dbbow[IS]]

This is the most asinine response i think i have ever seen!

Yes I suppose it is, but then again you get RD faction to get into the RD system; what may you need Renegade Progen faction for in future? It is a main faction, like RD, like Chavez, like anyone else. If you treat it like a 'safe to kill faction' then you may regret it in future.