Mobs Gone Wild

[Mimir[IS]]

We had an idea yesterday, don’t know if it has been suggested yet or not but here goes.

Problem:

The Combat jobs seem to be generating a bit of anguish for lower players. Un-hunted mobs are going rouge and killing new players.

Cause:

Player with job gets ctd, or can’t get to the location of the mission mob.

Possible solution:

When each combat mission is distributed the following is placed into an accessible location:

Mob, Location, Owner, Bounty (over and above original reward)

If the player who started the mission for whatever reason looses track of this mob the owner’s name of that mob gets deleted and it becomes a bounty kill.

The original owner is no longer able to collect the enhanced bounty reward, but to be fair should be able to reclaim the original reward if any.

The easiest I think would be to use the F1 to direct to a web page set to read the db on issued CL missions.

The bounty hunter would select the mob they are interested in hunting from this list, select submit and it would be marked accordingly and his/her information transferred to the server.

I am sure that there may be other ways of taking care of this but it sounded good to us.

If not flamed to death I will add all the “others” that were discussing this in game.

Edited April 13, 2010 by Mimir

[seekeronos]

The jobs system in general is in need of some tweaking.

(1) Jobs (combat or explore) sending you to places that only exist on the dev server, such as points in Menorb or Ceres/Thule... or in BBW/Paramis (this might be a bit annoying to deal with if/when the devs fix faction and decide to close off these sectors accordingly)

(2) Explore Jobs that break by not having the target nav pop up the "scan" icon (looks like a little eyeball above the nav targeting window)... this seems to be primarily occurring from the Friendship-7 jobs terminal, and at least 30% of my explore job load (I usually try to take 8-10 explore jobs at a clip: leveling PW explore is kind of gruesome) or about 3/10 of these explore jobs fail for this reason.

(3) Combat jobs ganking lowbies in Glenn or NEWBIE sectors. Yes, I saw that job to destroy a "Belter Bing" at Earth Nav some-such...

Addressing Mimir's idea -- programmatically speaking, it might be easier to limit the roving range of these mobs, or set them to non-aggro until they detect that mob's "owner" within a normal aggro radius.

Even better: don't have jobs spawn these things in lowbie areas (typically the newbie sectors and immediate sectors joining them to the "homeworld" sectors.

Have them spawn in places like Arduinne, Inverness, Shepard, Slayton, Carpenter, Aganju, Cooper (but not the Fishbowl!!) VT, VG, KV, Antares... all good places for mobs of that firepower.

I mean, I really like being able to pop that Killer Mushroom mob over at Luciano Compano's ship in Glenn for a quick 7k Combat xp -- it's like 10 seconds from undocking at F7 -- but if I get disconnected while undocking (happens to frequently with my crummy ISP) it will probably wander off and chomp on some unlucky miner trying to scrape up some californium from the nearby roid fields.

Edited April 13, 2010 by -Seeker-

[Terrell [BT]]

Not to mention some of the navs in deploy satellite jobs doesn't exist. For example go to Gravity Well 01 in ABB, and deploy the satellite. (Not to be confused with go to Gravity Generator in ABB, which does exist). Either that or those "gravity well" navs in ABB, and ABG are unmarked navs that are new, that aren't in the maps from Live.

[fuulishone]

Not to mention some of the navs in deploy satellite jobs doesn't exist. For example go to Gravity Well 01 in ABB, and deploy the satellite. (Not to be confused with go to Gravity Generator in ABB, which does exist). Either that or those "gravity well" navs in ABB, and ABG are unmarked navs that are new, that aren't in the maps from Live.

Ruined Moon 1 in Margesi is another one that doesn't exist. Makes explore jobs interesting for my lowbie toons.

Back on topic... Perhaps one way to deal with the mob problem is to handle the combat jobs as 2 part missions. Part 1 - Go to designated nav and interact with a system "Message" (of the blinking type that only activates when you're within a preset range of the nav". Part 2, answer "Ready" to the dialogue tree, which will then immediately spawn your mob within 10km of either your location or the nav's location. Kill the mob, and move on. This would remove the auto-spawning problem.

As a possible side benefit, whatever the issue is that causes explore jobs to sometimes bug out and not trigger the "eyeball" icon will probably need to get resolved before the above can be implemented.

[seekeronos]

Not to mention some of the navs in deploy satellite jobs doesn't exist. For example go to Gravity Well 01 in ABB, and deploy the satellite. (Not to be confused with go to Gravity Generator in ABB, which does exist). Either that or those "gravity well" navs in ABB, and ABG are unmarked navs that are new, that aren't in the maps from Live.

I had my PW out looking for that Gravity Well 01, and had that Shinwa Patrol Cruiser following me around like a rabid puppy dog trying its darnedest to kill me. (I just grav-linked him and let him stew whilst I looked around for this elusive non-existent nav for a good 20 minutes).

And don't forget Adriel Prime in Adriel Prime/Proxima Centauri --- which I believe DID exist at one point, as there is/was a noobie mission involving that nav point (it's a massive roid/moonlet about 15km due north of the Adriel mining station)

[garblesoup]

Problem:

Un-hunted mobs are going rouge and killing new players.

Ahhh, so the mobs are pretending the new players are caribou and shooting them from helicopters?

<g,d, and r!>

[Gobblu]

More like they think the new players are oompa loompa, and are eating several for breakfast.

[Tienbau]

LOL, I got a laugh from reading these writeups, but yeah the system is still in first draft and needs a lot of work.

What I need is a concise list of problems. So far:

. combat/explore jobs sending players to unreachable sectors. - fixed but may need server restart.

. combat jobs spawning mobs that gank low level players. - temporary fix to have MOB only damageable by job owner and MOB only aggros on job owner.

. explore jobs not popping up with completion icon. - I already know why this would be happening, but didn't think of it at the time.

. explore jobs with navs that are too difficult to find or don't appear to exist. - very easy to fix.

. killer mushrooms are dangerous to noobs. - Kids - don't mess with dangerous or unidentified mushrooms; seek the help of a botanist; by the time mushroom season comes round even 1st year botanists *should* be able to identify the fun ones.

. job terminal can cause client instability over time. - I *think* I know why this is; there are some job maintenance opcodes I'm not using.

any other job problems which aren't related to the above?

[cpwings]

LOL, I got a laugh from reading these writeups, but yeah the system is still in first draft and needs a lot of work.

. explore jobs not popping up with completion icon. - I already know why this would be happening, but didn't think of it at the time.

any other job problems which aren't related to the above?

I noticed while doing the repeatable scan job in VT, that when I warped to the target nav I sometimes overshot the spot and needed to back up before the scan icon would light up. Not sure if this is what you meant.

[Terrell [BT]]

I noticed while doing the repeatable scan job in VT, that when I warped to the target nav I sometimes overshot the spot and needed to back up before the scan icon would light up. Not sure if this is what you meant.

That's also happening with Explore Jobs occasionally.

[Yazuly]

Another problem that occurs is people killing the mission mob for your mission. I occasionally find corpse of crazed miner for <my toon name>. I've occasionally arrived in time to see others loot the corpse of crazed miner for <my toon name>. Once I managed to get enough dps in to get the kill while someone else was shooting at the mission mob (wonder if that was a KS on my part?).

If the mobs were made non-agro, at least to those other than the mission player, problems with lowbies being eaten by other's mission mobs or arriving to find your mission mob is a corpse might be alleviated.

Another suggestion would be to not have the mission mob spawn until the player arrived at the location, or at least the sector.

[seekeronos]

Back on topic... Perhaps one way to deal with the mob problem is to handle the combat jobs as 2 part missions.

Part 1 - Go to designated nav and interact with a system "Message" (of the blinking type that only activates when you're within a preset range of the nav".

Part 2, answer "Ready" to the dialogue tree, which will then immediately spawn your mob within 10km of either your location or the nav's location. Kill the mob, and move on. This would remove the auto-spawning problem.

As a possible side benefit, whatever the issue is that causes explore jobs to sometimes bug out and not trigger the "eyeball" icon will probably need to get resolved before the above can be implemented.

Epic, awesome, and I would hope.... usable idea. +5

Edited April 15, 2010 by -Seeker-

[Mimir[IS]]

Epic, awesome, and I would hope.... usable idea. +5

LOL and now what will I do with my new avatar?