Inferno outdoor hunting is dead...

[harkness]

Depending on various reports, SK'ing in inferno missions now yields 200-300k sk/hour for a hard, and 150-200k sk/hour with a medium. They also give lots of faction, a chance of a CRU drop, and at most 2 mobs at a time. (ok, maybe 3 for that one room, but there's a lift to run away to there) They are not a challenge, and don't in any sense require a team to use teamwork or any other knowledge of the game other than do as much damage as possible.

Outdoor hunting, especially for those of us who sought out teams to kill at places like tiun, pynnanik, or even teams to kill anansi guardians and anti-molohks near Anansi's Left/Right hand, used to offer reasonable SK compared to missions. It also offered a real challenge. When there was a bad pull that got 6 instead of 2, you needed enfs, docs, and mezzers who knew how to play their profession well or the team died. Even heck spots had a bit of this challenge. Now that the SK reward has been increased so much in missions, outdoor hunting is dead. I just don't understand why FC would go through the trouble to develop outdoor mobs and populate them throughout the world, only to make them irrelevant through overpowering missions.

I'm hoping that I'm not the only one who misses outdoor hunting, so here are a few ideas to revitalize it:
* Across the board 30% SK/mob increase for outdoor mobs like hecks, mortiigs, shadows, anansi, spirits, etc. Make them hit harder if you want, but don't give them more HP. (I'd actually love to see a 70% increase in SK accompanied by a 50% increase in their social agg radius, so you get tons of mobs at once, but if you can pull off the challenge, you're rewarded for it)
* Give dyna group adds a very small chance of dropping dyna phatz. Make it 1/500 or 1/1000, but right now all non-dyna mobs in inferno are just roadbumps for dyna DoT pulls

Alternatively, make missions more of a challenge:
* Why can't SL missions have varied maps like RK missions have?
* Give SL missions patrols the way alien ships have them, so that there's an actual chance that a team has to work together.


I'm not calling for a rollback of the inferno mission SK, I just want there to be some balance.

[Silirrion]

warping to game suggestions, as this is a suggestion for future change rather then any bug with the update series.

Before we introduced the missions people complained they could only SK outdoors and they wanted an option, they also complained that the SK rate was slower then they would like.

The new missions, and subsequent change to xp/sk rewards for quests allowed us to address that.

As long as something is x% better then 'the other thing' players will invariably, and naturally want to do it. Outdoor options have not gone away though, they are still there as a viable choice. So its not a conscious effort to 'make them irrelevant ', we do however genuinely believe that the majority of players prefer the indoor content and like the additions.

SLs missions don't have the same amount of variation due to the way they were originally designed before the Shadowlands launch, it was the intention they would be more 'static' and unfortunately would be a much bigger job then we have the resource for to change at the moment.

[Emergenzee]

if they make SL missions more difficult I expect them to give REAL rewards instead of 1 50% cru and a handful of ****ty rk gear.

[Novafox]

Well neutrals have been complaining for a long long time, Sil. Outdoor inferno or LOTV raids were the chief way neuts got their guardian faction, and we have long felt the combined hits from missions, the LFT interface, and a broken LOTV. Its exceedingly rare to find an outdoor SK team anymore.
I have to go take my orgmates to kill pen hecklers just so they get over 26k faction when they get over 200. And even Adonis is well into its decline.
And I also agree, outdoors hunting was far more fun than missions.
Sure, people wanted options. But neuts got screwed big time. The missions do absolutely nothing for neutrals, nor do people look for neutrals with the way the LFT inferface works. I can spend hours and hours on LFT and not get a SK team with my engie. I've gotten 10x more AI invites than SK invites with my engie. Now, I'm not trying to turn this into a neutral thread, but we were hit harder by this than anyone else.

[Kyai]

SK missions are too easy anyway, even a 219 hard mission is easymode for a team with half a brain, make them harder, a 219 hard mission should be the toughest single team levelling challenge there is; as it stands they're a bit of a joke that can be blitzed in under 40mins.

[Doctorhyde]

Here's what I'd like ... it would benefit outdoor hunting as well as indoor, but would be the biggest boon to the outdoor sites.

XP/SK bonus based on the number of mobs actively in the fight when the current mob dies. Lets make it 10% per mob. Actively means "not mezzed/stunned/calmed".

Got 10 hecklers stacked? Then you get 10x the bonus for the first one to die. That's 100% for the math challenged.

Here's the catch: Any mob that took more than 50% of its damage from an AoE attack instead of direct damage does not give the bonus.

Gives a challenge bonus to the team that can stand its ground under multiple mobs ... and it doesn't give any bonus to kiters.

PS. I'm 1/2 tempted to say that any mob killed by more than 50% AoE damage gives 1% less XP * every mob aggroed at the time. Slight nerf for kiters.

[Megasis]

I like plums

[Odov]

Here's what I'd like ... it would benefit outdoor hunting as well as indoor, but would be the biggest boon to the outdoor sites.

XP/SK bonus based on the number of mobs actively in the fight when the current mob dies. Lets make it 10% per mob. Actively means "not mezzed/stunned/calmed".

Got 10 hecklers stacked? Then you get 10x the bonus for the first one to die. That's 100% for the math challenged.

Here's the catch: Any mob that took more than 50% of its damage from an AoE attack instead of direct damage does not give the bonus.

Gives a challenge bonus to the team that can stand its ground under multiple mobs ... and it doesn't give any bonus to kiters.

PS. I'm 1/2 tempted to say that any mob killed by more than 50% AoE damage gives 1% less XP * every mob aggroed at the time. Slight nerf for kiters.

AND THIS ONE TIME.. AT BAND CAMP!!!

[Dugglerrr]

Here's what I'd like ... it would benefit outdoor hunting as well as indoor, but would be the biggest boon to the outdoor sites.

XP/SK bonus based on the number of mobs actively in the fight when the current mob dies. Lets make it 10% per mob. Actively means "not mezzed/stunned/calmed".

Got 10 hecklers stacked? Then you get 10x the bonus for the first one to die. That's 100% for the math challenged.

Here's the catch: Any mob that took more than 50% of its damage from an AoE attack instead of direct damage does not give the bonus.

Gives a challenge bonus to the team that can stand its ground under multiple mobs ... and it doesn't give any bonus to kiters.

PS. I'm 1/2 tempted to say that any mob killed by more than 50% AoE damage gives 1% less XP * every mob aggroed at the time. Slight nerf for kiters.

That sounds like pure enfo/doc love.

[tweeky]

That sounds like pure enfo/doc love.

hate for low tl7 toons since everyone wants 215+ and theres no one in pen :/

[Odov]

gimp NTs more please

NERF XP FOR KITING !!1!!1!! (2 days later you beg for an ely kite team.. in which the NT does all the work and lazy AFKers get to leech)

[Kari]

SK missions are too easy anyway, even a 219 hard mission is easymode for a team with half a brain, make them harder, a 219 hard mission should be the toughest single team levelling challenge there is; as it stands they're a bit of a joke that can be blitzed in under 40mins.

Did they get scaled down? either everyone is a lot better than a year ago, or 219 hards aren't anything like so hard. I can remember several wipes from some quite ridiculously nasty mobs last year, last one I did seemed about as hard as a pen med.

[Tchaa]

You went from reasonably hard work to make SK to extreme SK easy-mode. Where did all the progression obstacles go? Mandatory transition quests for all SL playfields? Gone. Faction Raids? Gone. Challenging outdoor hunting? Next to extinct.

How many people dinged 220 yesterday? 5? 10? 15?

I remember back when that number used to be 1 per week and how I sent a gratz even if it was nobody I knew directly. Nowadays.... well.... wtf are Soldier12345, Helloimadvy and Docalt anyway?

[ninor]

I don't think the mission are a problem. Except of the static layout.

All kinds of players will use them to level which is ok. When I want FUN I get some org mates and farm for patterns or other dyna bosses.

So if anything should be changed, only the layouts engine, like RK missions. that would make them a bit harder and put in a minimal darwin check.

[Healyhatman]

Some guy: "Neutrals got screwed"

Neutrals were never meant to be an actual side. They get a lot less than other sides in most other things, this is just making it better for everyone else, not particuarly worse for neutrals, and what % of the servers are actually neutral anyway?


And as to the LFT interface maybe someone can suggest an extra 2 "Side" options in the interface you can filter by, "Not omni" and "not clan"

[Wilsonat]

Well neutrals have been complaining for a long long time, Sil. Outdoor inferno or LOTV raids were the chief way neuts got their guardian faction, and we have long felt the combined hits from missions, the LFT interface, and a broken LOTV. Its exceedingly rare to find an outdoor SK team anymore.
I have to go take my orgmates to kill pen hecklers just so they get over 26k faction when they get over 200. And even Adonis is well into its decline.
And I also agree, outdoors hunting was far more fun than missions.
Sure, people wanted options. But neuts got screwed big time. The missions do absolutely nothing for neutrals, nor do people look for neutrals with the way the LFT inferface works. I can spend hours and hours on LFT and not get a SK team with my engie. I've gotten 10x more AI invites than SK invites with my engie. Now, I'm not trying to turn this into a neutral thread, but we were hit harder by this than anyone else.

Choose a side. Fence sitter.

[sobeguy]

People are unfreakinbelievable. To take a thread about outdoor inferno hunting and in less than a page of posting arrive at "pick a side fence sitter. . . ."

WTF is wrong with you people?

[Pala]

didnt the designer of the mongo raging trader tell you to pick a side sobe?!!??!?@!??@!??!?!?!?

[harkness]

You went from reasonably hard work to make SK to extreme SK easy-mode. Where did all the progression obstacles go? Mandatory transition quests for all SL playfields? Gone. Faction Raids? Gone. Challenging outdoor hunting? Next to extinct.

For some reason, FC has decided to switch target audiences for Anarchy Online. The current game is really targetted at people who enjoy a technically challenging game, the people who really stick around are those who enjoy the numbers games of twinking, or the varied possibilities offered by perks and gear.

I don't know why, but FC seems to have decided that the market they really want are the people who want to log in and kill things and not think too much. See the increase in mission rewards and the removal of the station starter area. The problem is that there is already a game targetted at that market, and that game is WoW, and it's better at those things.

Anarchy Online is a game with outdated graphics and a crippled engine. It's never going to attract a large new audience. What FC needs to do is keep their current customers, and most of those are people who enjoy the technically challenging game that AO has been in the past. Unfortunantly, those are precisely the people who are being driven away by changes such as the huge increase in SK bonuses, and the ease of reaching 220.

[Odov]

Arrien, just want to say.. how does a few "noobs" dinging 220 effect you? Did it shrink your epeen? You can always just post your /played data if it makes you feel better.