CLOK BBS

Yes, I want to complain about the repetitive and predictable red monsters that wander certain fixed areas of the game - a fungus-covered bowtruckle scarab, a desperate and emaciated coyote, a starving prairie wolf, a young canim scavenger, a weathered brigand, and others.

These monsters are tired and worn out. We as players have little motivation to kill them because in short time they will be replaced by a carbon copy. There is little to no reward to kill most of them.

These encounters are done to death. I would like to see more variety in the locations and types of these recurrent red monsters. I would like to see a higher period of time between spawnings of them. On the other hand, even if they are not killed, another one (with some random variety) should be spawned in the area after that time period, so that it makes a difference if you kill them or not.

Killing one of these dangerous prowlers should result in a bounty of, say, 50 riln at the nearest town hall.

This stale part of the game really needs to be freshened up.

I'm sorry if this isn't eloquent, but I really had to get this off my chest and no doubt I am not the only one who feels this way.

*sigh*


*hangs up hat*

First: It's easy enough to get 50 riln out of what you kill in the wild. Kill, skin and butcher the coyotes, kill and loot a brigand, blah blah. Not only that, but I don't think a town hall particularly cares what happens out in the wild as long as it doesn't directly affect the town.

Secondly: If you feel that things could be changed, it'd be a good idea to at least tell the GM's what kind of things you want.

Personally, I find these critters interesting.

As a side note I have a slight problem when someone says someone else "should" do something instead of "could".

The wilderness critters aren't out there to be exciting to hunt, or rewarding, or in any way enticing. They're out there to make the wilderness wild and dangerous in comparison to towns and other safe havens that aren't the wilderness. If you'd like more variety, you're free to give some suggestions.

I have no real problem with the wilderness critters, however I do think a small bounty for taking out canim in the ruins does make sense. mistral probably isn't thrilled to have them around, and may be grateful to those who can deal with them. though i will add, that the bounty should remain low, at least for the scavengers. that way hunting them does not become a substitute for doing other things.

Kent wrote:Yes, I want to complain about the repetitive and predictable red monsters that wander certain fixed areas of the game - a fungus-covered bowtruckle scarab, a desperate and emaciated coyote, a starving prairie wolf, a young canim scavenger, a weathered brigand, and others.

You seem to want to complain about everything.

These monsters are tired and worn out. We as players have little motivation to kill them because in short time they will be replaced by a carbon copy. There is little to no reward to kill most of them.

Not everything in the game is there for you to grind for riln. That's the real issue here. If those brigands dropped solid-gold maces you'd be killing brigands for days. Some things are there to kill, annoy, or inconvenience you.

These encounters are done to death. I would like to see more variety in the locations and types of these recurrent red monsters. I would like to see a higher period of time between spawnings of them. On the other hand, even if they are not killed, another one (with some random variety) should be spawned in the area after that time period, so that it makes a difference if you kill them or not.

And none of the other hunting areas you grind are done to death? In most of those areas there is only one mob that you kill ad nauseam.

Killing one of these dangerous prowlers should result in a bounty of, say, 50 riln at the nearest town hall.

The incentive for killing something that is attacking you is that it stops trying to kill you.

This stale part of the game really needs to be freshened up.

I was actually thinking we need more mobs, more dangerous mobs, in more places to better reflect how dangerous the Lost Lands are. There's a reason people tend to stay in Shadgard or Mistral Lake, and when they do travel they stick to the roads (which are marginally safer) instead of traipsing through the woods like a madman. And even then the roads should be an invitation for ambushes. So pick your poison: Bandits lying in wait on the roads or all manner of horrible beastly, infested, or undead things in the wilds.

I'm sorry if this isn't eloquent, but I really had to get this off my chest and no doubt I am not the only one who feels this way.

Bull[crap]. You're not sorry at all. How many times have you been told to knock it off? You could have replaced this entire post with, "I'd like to see more variety in the wilderness mobs because, right now, most players just tend to ride past them. Maybe we could slow down the spawn rate but increase the spawn cap so that they slowly build into a swarm? And I think the treasure might be looked at." I suggested not too long ago that the treasure drop for nethrim be increased, but I first talked about all the things I like and I did it without insulting the staff or acting like an ungrateful git.

i have a suggestion. I'm one of those who tends to walk/ride right on past those particular creatures, unless they stop me, then i beat the tar out of them.
I have noticed the follwoing things about these creatures.
1. they are really only located around Corvus, Shadgard, Mistral Lake, and Valeria.
2. They are pretty tough in comparison to the players that initially roam those areas in some cases.
3. there is only ever 1 young scavenger, brigand, desperate coyote, prairie wolf.

So with those things in mind I suggest the following.
each area have a couple of different creatures that spawn in that region, some can be the same as other regions cause well you won't find infinite diversity anywhere. These creatures should spawn themselves until there is a total equal to or exceeding 1/4 of the number of rooms in that region.
They could also spawn with random difficulty levels which could or could not be determined by an adjective in front of their designation.
Example:
Mistral environs
toddling young canim scavenger. melee and brawling with claws at about 25
young canim scavenger. melee and brawling with claws at about 50.
adolescent canim scavenger. melee and brawling at about 100.
adult canim scavenger. melee and brawling at 150.
brittlebranch forest
bedraggled brigand. 25 ish skills
camouflaged brigand. skills 50 ish.
experienced brigand. skills 100 ish.
weathered brigand. skills whatever he's at currently.
I'm not seeing love done to the real wilds so here goes the region down south of Emleth as a general whole.
black bear cub.
black bear adult.
brown bear.
grizzly bear.
more wolves ranging from whelps to a pack of them. I could totally dig roaming through the wild forest and walking into a room with 3 or 4 wolves grouped you could put their join/leave on a random check and then you'd have a whole new dynamic when it came to getting to breakenridge pass.

Anyway, I'd completely be willing to work on some of these models if there is interest.
As far as random highwaymen on the roads... I think it's something that would be cool but that they should be an annoyance factor in most cases
highwayman jumps out. you attack. he gets hit and runs away. you don't hit he knocks you down and steals 5 riln. Completely random anywhere..

I feel like a little deviation here and there on most if not all mob spawns could be present. Even if it's just size/build differences. I'd even like to see this down to the squirrels. Not every squirrel is going to be the same size, after all. I could see this being done with a permanent effect that's added randomly when a monster spawns, along with a tweak to it's name.

This way you could have, for example, a big young canim scavenger, or a small young canim scavenger. The latter would probably put out less damage, but be harder to hit in general, while the former would hit hard, but be an easier target and so have a lesser dodge rating. Depending on your skills and goals, one of these might very well be significantly more dangerous than the other or they might just be different flavors of the same thing.

Kent wrote:Killing one of these dangerous prowlers should result in a bounty of, say, 50 riln at the nearest town hall.

Here's the heart of the matter. Kent just can't figure why it's worth doing somethin if he doesn't get paid for it! Greedy mercenaries.

Bryce wrote: Here's the heart of the matter. Kent just can't figure why it's worth doing somethin if he doesn't get paid for it! Greedy mercenaries.

No good, stinkin mercenaries, why I bet they'd slit their mama's throat for a nickel...

That always bugged me! Why did some lame ninja have a great Western cowboy musical theme?

This version can be Bryce's theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmoLL9TMmC4

Rias wrote:The wilderness critters aren't out there to be exciting to hunt, or rewarding, or in any way enticing. They're out there to make the wilderness wild and dangerous in comparison to towns and other safe havens that aren't the wilderness. If you'd like more variety, you're free to give some suggestions.

Xavier has made some of the suggestions I would have made, in terms of types of mobs. For that fungus covered bowtruckle scarab, maybe the occasional mad dog or infested badger or fungassed pheasant or something different.

I would like to see the current mechanic of:

If brigand is already spawned, don't spawn another;

replaced with

Spawn another mob regardless - of random type along the lines suggested by Xavier.

perhaps with a cap equal either something like 4, or the number of players logged in at the time. Or perhaps with no number cap at all. Either way, this will make it worth while to stop and slay that monster.

While I think it would be awesome to see more variety, I would ask those suggestiong to keep in mind the newbies. If no cap has been implemented and brigands were allowed to spawn until theirs heart's content, or canim are, then a newbie wandering around will have zero chance of learning the game.

I get that the wilderness is supposed to be dangerous and with it's fair share of risks, but I would support putting some sort of limit on it so that people can still have a chance to learn, explore, and enjoy the game. As ideal as it sounds, I really don't think there are going to be as many people as there should keeping the problems at bay. Either that or Lavi's gonna be one busy guy.