Mudstats and state of our playerbase

[Dragoth]

So Choobs, you are saying there are a 100 areas in sloth that need a redesign ?

[Jag]

I think I'm more like the huge majority of players who really like sloth4 and most of its changes (not part of the quite small percentage of frequent whiners) . Splork hit the nail on the head when he said it was easier to add things then take them away. This definitely makes everyone happier when it is done that way.

(Warning my whine is coming, skip this if you don't want to hear it. )

But, since I got no response from my tells about a problem with a recent "take away" nerf, I thought I would air my opinion here.

Since I've been playing a necro for a good while, the recent "taking away" change surprised me and it has hurt my play a lot. In fact, since the change I have almost stopped playing. I'm still giving it an occasional run, but the drop in effectiveness is quite painful now. The nerf has cut my runs in length by about a half. My regens are required much more often, etc. All caused by a "taking away" change. I think anyone whose runs were cut this much would have a grievance.

I'm referring to the almost universal lowering of corpse levels. I don't think this affects a lot of people, but for a necro at my level, it is quite bad. A huge number of areas used to have decent level corpses that were reasonable to kill. This allowed necros to make animated pets without much problem. Now there are only few soloable corpse mobs per continent.

Play has changed significantly. When I want to run an area, first I have to leave that area, regen, run a different area for corpses, regen, make pets, regen, just to run back to the area I wanted to hit in the first place... it really cuts into the fun. Animated pets have been seriously nerfed for necros and that is a huge part of the necro arsenal.

Thanks for looking at this.

Jag

[*Chobbs*]

@Anrok:

Yes, that is what I said. They don't all need 100% overhauls, but retouching here and there.

Some of these areas are over a decade old. The game and its mechanisms did not remain static in all this time, and player power has grown tremendously over the years. So yes, a lot of these areas have become severely dated and need some updating.

@Jag
last player Jag
Jag's last logon was Sat Aug 7 19:12:33 2010

[40c 40d 40m 28n 24w 22t 19o 16b] Jag %s

If I'm not mistaken, you can animate a gaunt/ghast at best. I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe you can't find a corpse to animate either of these. Perhaps you have another character with 40 necro. Still, there is no shortage of wightable corpses. Lichable and up might be trickier; let me know which continent/which corpses you're referring to. Aside from two or three mobs on AH, there haven't been any corpse level lowering (that I'm aware of anyways) in months. Vague claims such as "general corpse levels lowered" doesn't really help. Even though there are only 9606 mobiles in the game, I'm not omniscient enough to know exactly which ones you're referring to.

Thanks,
Chobbs

[Dragoth]

100 areas to redo is not too shabby if you consider you that have to go through every mob in the area, might be quite a bit time consuming. But im sure there are some areas that need alot while others just need minor changes. I see pretty much every area in the game utilized one way or the other, like hellwell might be crap exp and there arent too many peolpe who can run it efficiently but its awesome eq and gold. But if we are being real, what else is there in this game in terms of area popularity? It's really all about exp and gold and eq and if an area does not comply to any of those things, then it will just sit there being unrun, especially if its a hard run with a few aggro mobs, like vampire lair with those huge aggro vampires - who ever runs there now ? And as far as i can remember those citizens arent bad exp, but you need to kill vampires, then regen full then kill, then kill vampires again etc - it slows down your exp getting considerably as you can clear 2 exp areas in the time it takes you to clear 1 run in the lair, and the exp is not really twice as good to compensate for that, some immortals just dont think of that when they make an area and then they wonder why does noone run my zone, the exp on some mobs is not so bad ?

Anyways, i dont really see this as an issue personally as i know which areas to run with all my characters and i seem to be getting ok exp, but then again all my characters have awesome class orders with decent eq and i know all the areas and i've test tried all the runs to get the optimal exp per hour rate. Yes, i get nowhere near the same ammount of exp that i could get i sloth3 and aged exp and exp penalties are annoying, but i just work around the system by clearing all aged mobs, then renting for a day and coming back to do the same run next day, once my penalties are up i just join an exp group and do some gold runs to remove my exp mobs from penalty list and off i go again. Of course if someone else was running the same exp mobs then my system would be ruined but thankfully we dont have alot of players who can solo my mobs to mess this up )




to Jag, the corpse issue was not really a taking away, but a bug fixing as you could animate any undead from any corpse, so that had to be fixed - it did take quite a bit of time to be fixed though and necro's got used to easy corpses and instant undeads. It was quite fun while it lasted though, animating a wight from another dead wight was ace.
But you'll stop worrying about corpses once you get wraiths anyway.

[Jag]

My necro is Yersinia.

[Jag]

The general corpse leveling was over a month ago. I did not immediately complain because I first tried to find substitutes, then tried working with what was there, then tried "tells" to imms.

I'm not sure which imm did the lowering (it was a gem thing to stop gem farming I believe) but if you check, I think you will find there was a large number of corpse changes.

Jag/Yersinia

P.S. Dragoth I am aware of that bug fix and am not complaining about it. There was a separate general lowering of corpses that I used to make vilewights in almost every area that has them.

[*Chobbs*]

@Jag
Again, unsupported claims of "general corpse level lowered" isn't very helpful. I can say there was a "general corpse level increase". Do you want to check 9500+ mobs to verify this? You would also have to know what they were before, else how can you tell if they've changed? It's easy to just say "check it" while remaining vague.

Specific examples would be appreciated. But remember, one or two changes isn't an "almost universal lowering of corpse levels." What are you killing? Perhaps they should be made 41+ so that you can use those instead, since you seem to require significant preparation and large undead to bring them down.

The only changes I'm aware of were the mangonel lizards [x2] in Mage Tower Ruins and the arctic wolves [x3], both of which had huge corpses for their absurdly low 'difficulty'. There are still plenty of fairly easy to obtain lv41+ corpses on AH.

Again, if we don't know about these issues, we can't resolve them. Imms aren't omniscient, so don't resent us for not knowing what you're thinking.

Chobbs

[Jag]

I have no resentment at all and hope you realize I was slow to complain and in fact don't like doing it. I'll compile a list of what I can remember being changed and send it to you.

I realize the change that affected me was done to fix something else in the game. It had a bad effect on my play and that was, I'm certain, unintended.

Jag

[jezer]

* Often in immortal replies we read something like "that's wrong information, your just not good enough or you don't know or don't look." How is this our fault when we can't see mob levels, we don't even know our caps, and it's such a secret society up there when it comes to releasing information. It's fanastic that you know because you can look at area files and game formulas, but we can't. We don't even know exactly what some spell effects do. Try the bite on naga, there are a number of different messages, one is a successful blind, the others I have no idea about... this is the norm, this is what we put up with, so please don't tell us we are wrong or stupid when we get skimpy information and have to beg it out of you.

* I'm sorry if Splork feels put out by the fact I had a shot at some of his changes. Exactly how do you say you feel the history of someones decisions have been poor with out hurting someones feelings? There are no "hard" feelings here, but I still wanted to express this.

* These fresh newbie's without inhibitions that you love to watch, don't seem to be staying or playing to higher levels.

* Soloing is important for some of us, you just don't get the timezone thing do you, it's like everyone is American. Sometimes I just want to play the game by myself... who wants to help me run quest mobs, just for myself? People do? What world is this your speaking of and how can I login? Utopia v1.3?

* Some player told me - when lyme first opened again, it was about 35% lower on xp (On the typical solo runs it's even lower). Given the added hard ships or our "inhibitions from s3" I still think your insane if you think the average player who wants to "ENJOY" and be "ENTERTAINED" by playing sloth is going to wear a smiley face while finding the right grain of sand on a beach on there way to a +1 if they are lucky.

Your reply Chobbs mostly just gave a counter perspective, it doesn't mean that the problems aren't still there - or can be ignored, even though you did try and "come back" on most of the points.

The fact areas are apparently so high maintenance, suggests to me they really do need to be changed. Maybe the area files could be parsed out, inserted into a database, and queried to gets highs and lows, and then area files written back. If you create the right tool, this work could be helped along - all though I seriously do understand how much time these things can take. I'm porting 18,000 lines from VB6 to .NET atm. .NET Conversion tool... yeah right.

I do understand this would make mobs go up and down significantly... but last night I logged on, group had just finished, about 10 players on. So I go to solo, someone runs shadowkeep... so I run murkwood once for some insignificant xp, I feel like logging out because the time feels wasted compared to better runs. If xp had more of an average line, I could theoretically run anywhere for my communist xp and be rewarded fairly. I went back to trying to knock together some drachma, killing two run mobs, a competition of who had the better regen rate. I don't think I can knock together 30m solo in an hour atm. My next level is about 700m.

24hrs of xping solo so I can get the (improvement?? - which is mostly unknown... of course) of warrior level 37 - the new awesomeness after warrior 36, of course I don't want to run prongs like in s3 and get it over with quicker, I want to do this killing maenads, then goblins, then gnolls, then kobolds because diversity is fun or something. You don't solo much do you?

[*Chobbs*]

@Jezer

Often in immortal replies we read something like "that's wrong information, your just not good enough or you don't know or don't look."

- Thank goodness none of these replies fall into that category. Don't use the fact that it's an immortal reply as a basis for your soapbox rantings, not without actually reading the reply first.
I was actually asking Jag for more information, specifically which mobs he believed were changed, so I could go and verify that myself, instead of wading through all 9500+ mobs and kinda just guessing. Is this imm information, what Jag thinks? Since when did we get access to this sort of information? I guess I was also being too vague and opaque when I mentioned two specific mobs that were changed.
Also, I can't nor do I feel the need to have to be able to look at game formulas to enjoy the game. Doesn't really add much to the game for me. And not knowing means when folks ask me, I can honestly say I don't know. Pro tip: Try getting your facts straight instead of making things up and passing them off as true. Do show me where in this thread I've said folks are wrong or stupid and I will apologize accordingly. Having a different opinion, or a "counter perspective" as you put it, is not calling people wrong. Please don't turn this into a baseless "imm v players" rant.

- Sure I've seen plenty of newbies leave after a few weeks. But I've also seen plenty of newbies stick around for months. Given the fact that we've only been up for a bit over a year, that's a significant proportion of the time. They might not get to the higher levels, but they're still learning and might not be able to level as fast as veterans can. Or maybe they're enjoying the journey, instead of some blind dash towards 9x40. To you, they might not 'seem' to be staying long, but clearly your perception is how things must be.

- I was in Asia for the last two months, prime time there was off hours in America. Logged on sloth there, still managed to get a lot accomplished, largely solo. A lot of groups running too, much to my surprise. You can still try Utopia 1.3 if you really want to (I think v1.4 might be out), but I personally recommend Sloth.

- So lyme used to be 35% less exp. I guess it stayed that way. Nothing in sloth ever changes, right? Or something. Imms must not listen since Lyme is still at the 'when it first opened' stage.

- Who's ignoring the problems? Like you've said, you yourself have helped spur several changes in problematic areas. Other imms have done their share with their respective areas. I myself have spent hours trying to improve various areas, completely overhauling a few while tweaking mobs here and there, all in an attempt to try to help resolve these problems where I can. Still spend way too long trying to tweak things here and there to fix these problems. I've tried asking for more information from players about perceived problems so that I can take a look at them, (try actually reading my last two replies), but I guess since I'm an imm I must be ignoring everyone or something like that.

- Solo much? Of course. More solo exp than group, by maybe a billion or so exp over pc lifetime. Spend probably 70% of the time solo, rest grouping. Why is this relevant again? Oh, perhaps you're saying I should get more of the group perspective. Okay, I can do that.

@Jag
Thanks. Once you've compiled that list, just send it to chobbs@slothmud.org and I'll get back to you on that matter.

Chobbs

[*Splork*]

Actually you clearly were being rude and obnoxious in your post. Also, half of the changes you mentioned were not my decisions but that of the entire Immortal staff. I simply sign my name to them in a post, as thats my responsibility.

Secondly,mentioning that you are simply stating a history of my bad decision making is amusing, as not only do you not know what is or isn't my decision but its clearly YOUR opinion and not that of most players these days. As its been repeated time and time again by these players, they mostly remain silent and enjoy the game, as it is a game.

Either way, whatever,
Splork

[DSF]

Well...i'm not Jezer and i tend to dislike his obnoxious way too. But here's my summarised 2 cents worth.

I play sloth as a game. Since S3, it's been a game and will always be. In other words, when this game is down (due to whatever technical problems), the tendency to feel bored is there and somehow, i dun turn back to facebook games (despite it having pictorials). I ended up patiently trying to log back on and seeing if its up.

This game's fundamental is still very D&D, improve, improve, improve. Adding to the fact that there's so much variety of players with different character (not pchars but character). Some throw their anger into war on gossip, some decide not to group and sending tons of tells, some nice pple (like my clannies) who share and care, some nice players who are very capable.

As much as i avoid giving imms opinions, i'm more interested in fixing bugs. Reason is...bug was not meant to be...such as runes not giving proper stats. As to fixing the game...it's just a game. A game which i enjoy and hopelessly addicted due to the fundamental reason of improvement.

I'm a dad now. I've grown like Rick. We have different priorities now and thus, i appreciate the imms as they are doing it out of hobby. Without which i will not have a game to play, to chat, to improve.

All in all, it's still a game which i enjoyed for years and i see myself continuing to enjoy for years.

@Jezer: Prehaps, just prehaps, you should try to play a necro. I see Wimpy and Acme doing some mobs that i as a warrior couldn't really kill. One thing is, you know that there's always a price to pay/some sacrifices in any classo. I'm loving it playing a warrior now, as much as some pple's comments that warriors are dead boring. Pls dun even bother responding to my simple way of phrasing and perception. Its just a request as you have yr freedom.

To all: I appreciate a lot of things. I appreciate Sloth uptime, zuzu helping newbies, Chobbs fixing things, Ryn/Van/Zuzu Leading,. I appreciate my clannies, I appreciate gems (changes which i think is good and exciting), i appreciate honor points (Akasha's implementation), i appreciate twigs to ogre, I appreciate new AQs, tons more....so...i appreciate Sloth.

As such, i like to say: THANK YOU ALL IMMS! for keeping Sloth Alive.

P.S. I only dun appreciate one thing...that's Tuk.

DSFREN

Afternote: After re-reading my thread, I wondered why i even bothered to type this when i rented and was suppose to go to sleep. Now it's 1.34...way pass my bedtime and i know i'll be suffering tomolo at work. Nevertheless, I appreciate...and i hope pple learn to appreciate. And my opinion is, Splork is trying. He is the person who "remove all" on me and wiped all my eq before. He is also the same person who created a cravat satin that was lost due to the recent crash. Given his limited time he can spend with his kids, he still bothered to reimburse me back, of which he could just brush off blaming it on luck or whatever. As such, it's all part of appreciation, and i have tons of that for sloth and gang.

1.37am. Really time to sleep....but i learn a sentence from Sloth

"SLEEP FOR WEAKS!" of which i do acknowledge...I'm WEAK! so here i am...going to SLEEP!

[Tuck]

P.S. I only dun appreciate one thing...that's Tuk.

muhahaha, luv you too, ladyboy.
All hail dsfren, most playerkilled char on sloth

[Thraxas]

@Jag
last player Jag
Jag's last logon was Sat Aug 7 19:12:33 2010

[40c 40d 40m 28n 24w 22t 19o 16b] Jag %s

If I'm not mistaken, you can animate a gaunt/ghast at best. I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe you can't find a corpse to animate either of these. Perhaps you have another character with 40 necro. Still, there is no shortage of wightable corpses. Lichable and up might be trickier; let me know which continent/which corpses you're referring to. Aside from two or three mobs on AH, there haven't been any corpse level lowering (that I'm aware of anyways) in months. Vague claims such as "general corpse levels lowered" doesn't really help. Even though there are only 9606 mobiles in the game, I'm not omniscient enough to know exactly which ones you're referring to.

Thanks,
Chobbs

Chobbs,

as we've discussed via email and gossip I have the same views as Jag about this shortage of corpses, its ruining the play of necros.

I've made a significant number of sensible suggestions to you about corpse levels after having investigated and documented over 1200 of the 9606 corpse levels in game which from the player side is slightly harder than it would be as an imm.
In my balanced suggestions I suggested raising a number of mobs and lowering others ... after this research, careful thought, consideration of game balance and time consuming effort how successful was I? 2 mobs raised 3 lowered. I believe you expressed surprise at my disappointment ...

Thankyou for engaging in the conversation with me let me know if you really and I mean really want more suggestions,

T

[*Chobbs*]

@Thraxas

Nod. It's true, you did express similar discontent as Jag. I believe the words you used were that "there is [was] a perceived lack of availablity[sic] of corpses to collect. [emphasis added]." But I do also remember you mentioned that the lowering of the mangonel corpses, just one mob (let's stretch it to two, since there are two of them per repop), prompted your own extensive investigation, whereupon you discovered quite a lot of other viable lv41 corpses for use, and that was just on AH alone.

Very impressive, 1200 mobs. How long did that take to get 12% of the mobs in the world? Were those all unique mobs? Did you know what level these mobs were before, or if they were even changed? If changed, when? The issue is moot though, since all I asked for were the names of the mobs that Jag believed were changed so I could investigate further, unless these 1200 mobs were the ones Jag were talking about.

Again, as I mentioned in the email responses and must stress here, there are a lot of other factors to consider when determining corpse level. Pushability of mobs, saves, wraithform considerations (seems anything 41 largely ignore wraithform), bone armor (lv41 seems to break bone armor more frequently), who knows what else I'm forgetting. I do have necros in mind, but again, I also think about the other 7 other prime classes.

"Balanced suggestions". "Sensible suggestions". Good. Very good use of rhetoric. I'm impressed. But please remember that both of those terms are matters of perspective, and that suggestions are just that, suggestions. I did take all of your suggestions into consideration, and I responded to 5 out of the 6 (counted dark dreams ones as one since they were all asking for the same thing: allowing undead corpses to be animateable, which again(third time now), not going to happen. If you really want, I can say I responded to 9/10). 2 mobs raised, 3 mobs lowered. Yes, that's true. Is this the universal drop in corpses? A difference of one? The three that were dropped were 3 you didn't know about until you investigated, so how did this affect your run again? They're still wightable corpses, which I'm sure no necro ever uses.

Here are the changes I made:
Lowered:
- Arctic wolves [Ice Mountain] from 41 to 40 (x3. I guess these are the three mobs you mentioned)

Raised:
- green dragonites [Mage Tower Ruins] 30 to 36 (or something wightable now)
- Dracartan [Mage Tower Ruins] up to 41
- Ice Queen [City of Ice] up to 41 (sure she's easy for an avatar necro, but can be rough for lower level folks. blasted restorations. the entire zone is largely a corpse farming zone, just keeping in line with that)

I also told you about many more lv41 corpses that you didn't know about, two of which you said "yes I hadn't tried them, I have now and they're nice corpse mobs, 1.1 - 1.3mill chop, thank for that, all the more welcome as they're close to the chaeston guard elves, thank you." As regards to the others, yes, you are right; they probably are very stabby mobs. Who knows, maybe they are thieves or mages or non-necros out there that might be able to kill them easier.

Surprised at your disappointment? Hardly. I expressed a bit of regret at your reaction, but I'm not naive enough to be surprised that people get disappointed when they don't get everything they want.

@everyone
I'm always open to suggestions, but I reserve the right to say no. I will continue to provide 'balanced' and 'sensible' reasons for my objections, so you know that my objections are not baseless. But please remember that they are just suggestions.

Feel free to email suggestions to chobbs@slothmud.org and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks,
Chobbs