Nerf Bat of Divine Might +2

[seekeronos]

Noticing that after the update - the BBW and Paramis drones have gotten a little (well, a lot, actually) harder to kill. I'm sure that these aren't the only mobs that have been nerfed, as the patch notes indicate that some mobs were previously dropping things way above their level.

While I'll be the first to admit that previously these were way too easy to kill and offered very phat loot...

... Id like to say that the nerfing this time around is a bit excessive in the other direction.

BBW Drones changes:

- super fast beams that (may) do explosive damage

- crap drops

- aggro first to weaker, low sig toons

Paramis drone changes:

- social aggro (previously these didn't aggro at all, much less link aggro)

- crap drops (only one L8 Platinum scale dropped out of 20 drones killed)

Now this *is* closer to in keeping with the loot tables and general nastiness of L50+ mobs in Live.

However, this is perhaps a bit too steep considering the current server population (much of which consists of multiboxers)

I'd like to suggest either of the following compromises:

1) Revert - or at least sweeten - the loot table while keeping the new social/aggro and uber fast beams on drones. Making 50,000,000 per hour is a bit excessive, but making only a measily 200k from junk parts in that same time frame with an OL150+ toon is nearly insulting. I'd be happy if I made 10M in an hour of farming, which would free me to do other things, like map new builds for my other toons.

2) keep the crappy loot table, but revert the L55 paramis drones back to non-aggro, and revert the uber fast beams on the BBW drones back to the previous state. Even then, I'll be looking for other mob groups to kill where the reward/effort curve isn't quite as steep.

A more acceptable balance is to make the game more challenging, but at the same time, worth the cost of time to make the ammo needed to kill these mobs.

If it costs me as much or more to make the ammo than I get from the mobs I kill with it... I might as well roll a Jenquai toon or level beams to L8 on my Progen toons - both of which I really don't have *that* much time to do at present.

[Suricata79[IS]]

All the mobs ingame are currently been brought inline with thier live stats, they were previously calculated via a generic formula. Also loot tables are been brought inline with how they were in live too.

Noticing that after the update - the BBW and Paramis drones have gotten a little (well, a lot, actually) harder to kill. I'm sure that these aren't the only mobs that have been nerfed, as the patch notes indicate that some mobs were previously dropping things way above their level.

While I'll be the first to admit that previously these were way too easy to kill and offered very phat loot...

... Id like to say that the nerfing this time around is a bit excessive in the other direction.

BBW Drones changes:

- super fast beams that (may) do explosive damage

They have short range beams (energy) and some have medium range ml's (explosive), I can slow the beam firing rate down, but the DPS would remain the same, so they would hit less often but for more.

- crap drops

Drop rates have been brought inline with live, so yes, drops that in live were 1-5% are now just that, instead of been set to 50% as they were previously on some drones

- aggro first to weaker, low sig toons

This is a coding issue that is been worked on and has been going on for a few months now, it is not new to this patch

Paramis drone changes:

- social aggro (previously these didn't aggro at all, much less link aggro)

Altruism (the chance a mob will assist a friend) is still been worked on, these mobs were farmers paradise before, what with no aggro and dropping 1-2 1.5 mill items per kill, which is obviously not how it should of been

- crap drops (only one L8 Platinum scale dropped out of 20 drones killed)

Yup, Items are set to 5% drop rate, so 20 kills is spot on, before these drones only had items and no trash loot set to them

Now this *is* closer to in keeping with the loot tables and general nastiness of L50+ mobs in Live.

However, this is perhaps a bit too steep considering the current server population (much of which consists of multiboxers)

I'd like to suggest either of the following compromises:

1) Revert - or at least sweeten - the loot table while keeping the new social/aggro and uber fast beams on drones. Making 50,000,000 per hour is a bit excessive, but making only a measily 200k from junk parts in that same time frame with an OL150+ toon is nearly insulting. I'd be happy if I made 10M in an hour of farming, which would free me to do other things, like map new builds for my other toons.

Trash loot is currently not selling for enough, it is something we are going to address, a player should be making back 2-3x what the ammo costs from farming a mob, this applies pretty much fo trash loot from lvl 1-9 currently

2) keep the crappy loot table, but revert the L55 paramis drones back to non-aggro, and revert the uber fast beams on the BBW drones back to the previous state. Even then, I'll be looking for other mob groups to kill where the reward/effort curve isn't quite as steep.

The DPS of the mobs is what has been brought back in line, so even if the beams are made slower, they'd just have to do more damage. Some of these mobs are meant to be killed by players grouping, people have just got a little too used to been able to solo mobs that they shouldn't of been able too.

A more acceptable balance is to make the game more challenging, but at the same time, worth the cost of time to make the ammo needed to kill these mobs.

This is been addressed with trash loot values, which we are looking at

If it costs me as much or more to make the ammo than I get from the mobs I kill with it... I might as well roll a Jenquai toon or level beams to L8 on my Progen toons - both of which I really don't have *that* much time to do at present.

I've answered the points in green.

Right now the entire mob database is been overhauled, starting with the most popular mobs first. There was 'alot' of mobs dropping loot way over the level of loot they should of been dropping, some loot was also set to insanely high drop rates as well. This is been adjusted to be closer to live, afterall, how can builders compete with each other when every rare item drops after only a few kills?

Overall, the mobs that people will feel the changes the most on are the CL50+ mobs, as alot of these were not set correctly, especially alot of the raid mobs, which people have happily been soloing. I'm aware that people have gotten used to soloing the cl60+ mobs might of been a bit shocked when the mobs hit them back! There was also a bug with HDC that allowed some players to run around with infinate hull as well, this has been fixed too, which I'm sure, coupled with the mobs slowly been brought back inline, has thrown a few people off. I will note though, that the 'tethering' issue whilst kiting should be fixed on the newer mobs, so if you kite some of these mobs, its possable to not get hit by thier beams at all, as the beams are fairly close range.

[evildoer]

Well Im not there yet but the lv36 Sporemother are dealing out insane dmg compared to before with super turbo charged lasers, chem proj, and even summoning. They also got a hefty buff against plasma dmg.

[bondct]

/edit... suricata answered all my points here at the same time I was posting... so great job...

Edited July 5, 2010 by Avani

[Jamosite]

Stop me if i am wrong (because I do not remember) but did the BBW drones on the high end above 50 shoot missiles at you?

I guess a part of that question is can you tell me what tech they use? i'd hate to have a mob with high level Misses and beams.

There speed has been cranked way up.

I get it... Make it a challenge but to remove the drops , the ends don't justify the means. I believe they are overpowered but that's just me

That won't stop me from killing them, I guess till i run out of ammo money :->

[Suricata79[IS]]

The Sporemother is now doing the damage it used to in live, I'm not sure if it is more or less than before, because all mobs that have yet to be updated used a generic calculation server side, instead of actually using the correct values which are now been added into our new mob database.

Please note that with the mobs, it doesn't matter if they are firing beams fast of slow, or if they have 1 weapon or 3, they are all set to do a standard range of DPS per level, This is then calculated between the weapon types.

After watching players on the server fighting the updated mobs, I think I should point out that most mobs have 1 short range weapon and 1 long range weapon, with the short range doing the most DPS. So, if you sit still and don't bother to kite, you will take the full brunt of all the mobs weapons. If you try to kite the mobs you will find that the damage you take is noticably lessened (just like in live)

The trash loot value does need looking into though, as it is too low, considering the item drops have been put down to thier correct levels now.

[Heirkusan]

After watching players on the server fighting the updated mobs, I think I should point out that most mobs have 1 short range weapon and 1 long range weapon, with the short range doing the most DPS. So, if you sit still and don't bother to kite, you will take the full brunt of all the mobs weapons. If you try to kite the mobs you will find that the damage you take is noticably lessened (just like in live)

In live, I couldn't sit at a spot for more then 30 seconds without someone coming (killing stuff wise.) Also easier to find groups, this is why I don't want to play a JD really till my PW/TT is capped out, cause unless he is sporting top end gear, and getting baby sat with buffs. A JD is a sitting duck unless fighting levels under their CL or being high EL,TL. Which in my opinion is stupid, keeping balanced is fine, but having to keep them higher then your CL to farm decently/kill mobs around your level is ugh. Especially without negotiate. I see no reason to play a other class then TE for combat besides TT/PP for charging.

PW is better at 'tanking' a boss mob, say Master, but currently from my understanding its a little very hard hitting. So unless you are in Static/VonBon or lucky to get into the 'in' crowd. It's unlikely to ever kill him due to small player base. Then course BBG,Controller can be soloed from what upper TEs say. I'd like have mobs to do 'more' damage at least some of them, so better ones require groups, but finding a group is not the easiest which resorts to multi-boxing. Then resorts into "why group with others, when I can group with myself and still get all the loot." I'm interested in how these things play out. It might be useful to use my AoE Shield Sap on PW now, mainly so TT doesn't get destroyed.

PS: I played JD in live, but I a lot younger. I was something like 50CL/30/40 or something I was a kid, i mostly soloed and would kill things in VG cause I didn't know how to really play besides to hit f, and hit my shield. Your post in my opinion screws over Beam classes till upper end with the high % beam range increases, unless multi-boxing or magically finding a group. Overall outside of grouping with Father. I found maybe 7~ groups, besides Paramis drone area. Which I've found a few just so you don't have to fight over every single spawn so EXP is about same and such. It's not that I have to group there, it just makes so I don't have to 'fight' for kills because I don't like kill stealing, unless they do it to me.

I support Eye for a Eye ruling.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Heirku

[Suricata79[IS]]

The Controller is not in right now, didn't realise he was not spawning properly, he is no longer soloable by TW's though, or shouldn't be atleast.

Right now there is an issue with the way the raid mobs are placed, because they are not progressivly spawning you are getting multiple bosses and trash attacking you at once, this wasn't as big an issue before as mobs were not set to aggro, now that they are though the way the spawns are handled will need tweaking. Although i did just watch a raid group take down the Master in the Fishbowl, so it is still possable, just not solo anymore!

[Heirkusan]

. Although i did just watch a raid group take down the Master in the Fishbowl, so it is still possable, just not solo anymore!

See Static/VonBon in crowd comment. I've tried to get in a raid once in a while, but doesn't really work unless you stay on forever and sit by FB 24/7.

I see most 'raid' content should be 1 full or 2 full groups at best just due to population.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Heirku

[Tienbau]

BBW Drones changes:

- aggro first to weaker, low sig toons

MOBs are designed to attack the highest sig toons first, but as soon as damage levels are taken into account that goes out the window. Is the low sig toon a JD with super powerful beams? If the low sig toon is doing the most damage, then yes they will get aggroed on first.

This could be a buff thing, although I'll have to check the source. At the moment the buffs on mobs are broken while we transition to a new system of handling.

Was the low sig toon either doing lots of buffs or are they the hardest hitter in the group?

[bondct]

MOBs are designed to attack the highest sig toons first, but as soon as damage levels are taken into account that goes out the window. Is the low sig toon a JD with super powerful beams? If the low sig toon is doing the most damage, then yes they will get aggroed on first.

This could be a buff thing, although I'll have to check the source. At the moment the buffs on mobs are broken while we transition to a new system of handling.

Was the low sig toon either doing lots of buffs or are they the hardest hitter in the group?

the Low Sig toon was my L104 TS sporting a 1.2 sig vs the 1.5 to 1.7 on other toons... the TS was not firing or doing any buffing... just doing nuttin... the grp was 3.. a TE and TT firing... the TE got off like 4 rounds b4 the TT chimed in... and the drones first target to shoot at everytime was the TS that was doin nuttin... so obviously mob design is still being worked on...

but in the meantime I will gladly take some lower level toons to use as sacraficial meatshield lambs... and by the time the drones kill them off I will be well into their hull lmao at their stupidity and combing their corpses for ubers...

[seekeronos]

MOBs are designed to attack the highest sig toons first, but as soon as damage levels are taken into account that goes out the window. Is the low sig toon a JD with super powerful beams? If the low sig toon is doing the most damage, then yes they will get aggroed on first.

This could be a buff thing, although I'll have to check the source. At the moment the buffs on mobs are broken while we transition to a new system of handling.

Was the low sig toon either doing lots of buffs or are they the hardest hitter in the group?

The low sig toon was a L100-ish TT buffing the PW (shield charge/recharge)

[Tienbau]

thanks, I'll be checking this out.

[seekeronos]

I see most 'raid' content should be 1 full or 2 full groups at best just due to population.

I'd just like a reality check on this, too:

Builders Inc. is also one of the more populous guilds on the server (though probably less of a hard-core raiding guild than Static or Voncorp) and we'd be pretty hard pressed to put together six full groups to do raid bosses of any stripe.

On a good night, we could get two full groups of OL150+ toons, and maybe a third and fourth if we recruit some folks from outside the guild.

But expecting us players to muster 36+ unique OL150+ toons for a single raid like in the days of Live™ is a little unrealistic at this point, with an average of 150-ish unique toons logged in at any given time.

[seekeronos]

All the mobs ingame are currently been brought inline with thier live stats, they were previously calculated via a generic formula. Also loot tables are been brought inline with how they were in live too.

I've answered the points in green.

...

Trash loot is currently not selling for enough, it is something we are going to address, a player should be making back 2-3x what the ammo costs from farming a mob, this applies pretty much for trash loot from lvl 1-9 currently

...

Fair enough. That addresses my primary issue - if the trash loot is brought from the current 800cr. - 1,200cr. per L8/L9 junk item (based upon sales to vendor by my PW w/o negotiate) to something on the order 12,000cr. to 18,000cr.)

Particularly on the L50+ mobs: I'm not suggesting that L36 Sporemothers drop multiple, stackable lots of items for 18k a piece.

[Tienbau]

The low sig toon was a L100-ish TT buffing the PW (shield charge/recharge)

so far in every test I've run - and I've tried many combinations (JE and TT, JD & PW, JE & PW, PW & TT) - the lower sig players are completely ignored when I move a combat group near an aggressive enemy, until the low sig toon starts firing.

Perhaps in the case you mentioned the TT has a higher actual sig than the PW - this can happen. I guess I also need to factor in threat level too. I'm currently trying a few tweaks that should make the aggro a bit more even.

[Heirkusan]

so far in every test I've run - and I've tried many combinations (JE and TT, JD & PW, JE & PW, PW & TT) - the lower sig players are completely ignored when I move a combat group near an aggressive enemy, until the low sig toon starts firing.

Perhaps in the case you mentioned the TT has a higher actual sig than the PW - this can happen. I guess I also need to factor in threat level too. I'm currently trying a few tweaks that should make the aggro a bit more even.

Random bug, my TT with 1.9k sig, vs 0.6k on my JD. I can attack creatures, and they'll never go after me just TT when he just sits there. (Currently leveling this way instead of having to waste time summoning iway from group of hungry NPCs)

Edit: Currently at Sirius Planet, if you want to watch and see for self. Going to be here for a bit.

Edited July 6, 2010 by Heirku

[Tienbau]

Random bug, my TT with 1.9k sig, vs 0.6k on my JD. I can attack creatures, and they'll never go after me just TT when he just sits there. (Currently leveling this way instead of having to waste time summoning iway from group of hungry NPCs)

yep I'm seeing why this is happening. This will all be fixed after the next restart.

[Kenu [CDEV]]

I'd just like a reality check on this, too:

Builders Inc. is also one of the more populous guilds on the server (though probably less of a hard-core raiding guild than Static or Voncorp) and we'd be pretty hard pressed to put together six full groups to do raid bosses of any stripe.

On a good night, we could get two full groups of OL150+ toons, and maybe a third and fourth if we recruit some folks from outside the guild.

But expecting us players to muster 36+ unique OL150+ toons for a single raid like in the days of Live™ is a little unrealistic at this point, with an average of 150-ish unique toons logged in at any given time.

I don't think we expect you to get 6 groups together to beat a boss/raid. This change was more to sort out the issue of people soloing the bosses/raids. Has anyone tried the raids recently that can tell us how many groups it took?

[seekeronos]

also noticed:

Drones in BBW are not giving faction anymore. Is this a bug... or a new feature?

If drones in general have been removed from giving RD faction, there would really be no reason to touch them at all now (at least until the crap loot trade-in values are adjusted more favourably)

[garblesoup]

The low sig toon was a L100-ish TT buffing the PW (shield charge/recharge)

In Live a TT buffing Shield recharge was insta-mob-bait. Trust me, I was that bait oh so often. So I would say this particular aspect appears to be working as in Live.

[Terrell [BT]]

also noticed:

Drones in BBW are not giving faction anymore. Is this a bug... or a new feature?

If drones in general have been removed from giving RD faction, there would really be no reason to touch them at all now (at least until the crap loot trade-in values are adjusted more favourably)

I noticed that too, I was killing the training area drones with my JT earlier today, got a bunch of devices, which my Scout added to her recipe book, but no change in RD faction.

[Suricata79[IS]]

I don't know how it was on other servers, but on Pegasus most raids were public, not guild run, so if you needed more people you just asked in a public channel, I saw 2 raid groups in the fishbowl last night that were from several guilds, so public raid groups are happening.

Right now, raids are not planned to have 6+ groups to complete, more like 3-4 on the big ones, however, people have to remember this is a test server! There is still work to be done on mob AI, some skills still need tweaking, progressive spawns still need to be coded too so you arn't fighting all the bosses and trash at once. Eventually you will find combat working much more like live, but it is going to take time to put these changes in, so some patience (and feedback) will be required. :-)

[Suricata79[IS]]

Just a heads up, I'm investigating the damage multipliers on mobs today just to make sure they are working correctly.

[Rossdie [BT]]

I just have one question as I know mobs are still being tweeked. What are the scan ranges for the mobs at right now, I noticed after the update yesterday the fish in cooper are seeing my 2.0k and lower sig chars from 11-12k away, is this normal?