[X] My Assistant

@Lement:

xmagus: problem with making monsters be weaker with smaller cost for upkeep is that almost all non-waifu mobs would receive it, because players die due running out of resources mostly - and they can preset battle items to run out of spirit and mana about same time.

Um...?

Sorry, my brain is in TGIF mode, so probably not processing your contention properly. But let me see if I track you correctly.

The issue varst has with non-tradeable food/drugs is that it sucks to be someone who's on vacation and not playing HV for a week or two. I would argue that there's life outside HV, but hey, what do I know about that?

So, players should have an option to set the mobs on "hibernate", with a limit of about 2-3 weeks, and a cooldown timer of 1 week or something. Going on a break, or have exams, or a deadline at work, whatever it is - just set your mobs up, go off and don't come back until the hibernate wears off.

Now, you're talking about player deaths. Well, have the 'hibernate' option lapse the moment you do any more than 100 rounds, say. Have a cooldown so that you can't have it in ALL the time. Have an upper limit to how long a single 'hibernate' can be (and reduce the stats of the mob correspondingly). AND, how about this, reduce the effective PL of the mob while in hibernation, or otherwise reduce its chances of popping up.

That's not called imbalance. Something's not in balance when you put in the same effort and get different result. Those players put in more money/H@H servers/time to get their status.
Also, that won't prevent people from opening multiple accounts. They'll just get even more of them for farming

When the unlocking cost is high (PL1000 and 50% chaos upgrades) creating duplicate accounts become less and less desirable. And if you open several slave accounts it becomes increasingly easier to detect what you're trying to do.

Regarding the imbalance, you're wrong. When you introduce new games mechanics that have a reduced impact on those who already have lots of resources when compared to ohters who don't, you have a glaring imbalance right there. You need a reset first. Point in case: chaos tokens and chaos upgrades. Some players had an enormous headstart on the rest of the community when it came to make use of that meachanics.

@xmagus: Monsters won't die when not fed crystals or food, they'll just stop appearing. Currently, if you go away for 3 weeks and come back monster will hold one gift for you. Not so different with morale/hunger.

@Hohenheim: So don't make that first mob PL1k with 1500 chaos tokens. Make just one monsters,let's say a middling PL like 650-700. Then create another account and try again.

Oh wait, that sounds like an incentive for multiple accounts. Though there is also the option of monsters not becoming active below PL750 and half chaosed, if that's what you meant. Not exactly friendly to newbies, that is.

And the headstarts had been paid for when they did nothing as opposed to making use of them immediately. Of course, there's the imbalance of players at level 200 earning more than at level 1 per same time spent, if you count it as such - after all, players at level 1 start later and thus don't have headstart.

(in other words, you're kind of hard to understand here)

This post has been edited by Lement: May 3 2013, 12:37

When the unlocking cost is high (PL1000 and 50% chaos upgrades) creating duplicate accounts become less and less desirable. And if you open several slave accounts it becomes increasingly easier to detect what you're trying to do.

Regarding the imbalance, you're wrong. When you introduce new games mechanics that have a reduced impact on those who already have lots of resources when compared to ohters who don't, you have a glaring imbalance right there. You need a reset first. Point in case: chaos tokens and chaos upgrades. Some players had an enormous headstart on the rest of the community when it came to make use of that meachanics.

The high unlocking cost will only drive people to make even more accounts, since their ultimate target is to get more monsters. And there's only one Tenboro: he can't be expected to check the database from time to time just to deal with botters.

Those have lots of resources are supposed to buffer those impacts; they spend some of their resources to build these buffers instead of spending them all for profits.
Also, the reset suggestion's strange: since there's also major changes on magic, are we all supposed to be deprived of all the credits/equips/perks so we can start 'equally' after the patch? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)
By the way, note that people who've spent tons of credits on crystals have been the one who's also constantly complaining their effort being wasted and demand some crystals back (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

By the way, note that people who've spent tons of credits on crystals have been the one who's also constantly complaining their effort being wasted and demand some crystals back (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

There should always be some money back thing going when there are changes as huge as this one.

But you won't, not for another year or so anyway. There are ~20 PL1000+ mobs now, and a whole lot more PL900+ mobs, and a vast horde that are PL500-800 (those I can fight, I mean). It will take a seriously long time before you have rounds exclusively composed of these high-level blighters. Whom, in any case, the lower-level players won't be meeting.

@varst: It will help with mobs from the likes of Tiap and Hito, who apparently aren't playing any more, but whose mobs are still out there. I presume that's what this whole FDA stuff is partially aimed at.

As for the keying, I don't insist on it. But the point remains. I'm just saying that there are ways of deterring people from multiple accounts; this is one of them. Requiring a non-webmail email is probably another. Are the vast majority of players being assholes about this multiple account thing? If so, then it's part and parcel of the game and just let it be. If not, then don't penalise everyone else.

If I were a botter, I would still be having my army of bots spam for food and drugs. I'd reduce the number of individual mobs per bot account, but I would just multiply the number of accounts to make up for it.

I must make it plain that I'll wait for this new system to be in place before pronouncing final judgement on it (like anybody cares). But I do believe that we should be very clear what the ML is for, and whether there are alternatives to what we're all thinking and suggesting now.

Give me at most 3 months and i'll give you a few PL 1000 fully chaosed if you want to (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I'm sure HTTP can go even faster than 3 months (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Give me at most 3 months and i'll give you a few PL 1000 fully chaosed if you want to (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I'm sure HTTP can go even faster than 3 months (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

So you gonna be the new Frith?

@xmagus: Monsters won't die when not fed crystals or food, they'll just stop appearing. Currently, if you go away for 3 weeks and come back monster will hold one gift for you. Not so different with morale/hunger.

Hence, making the stuff non-tradeable shouldn't be a problem, should it? For players who want to be AFK for a while, that is.

But I must differ on certain points. Monster will hold maybe TWO gifts for me if I go off for a month right now. With food/morale, if I don't upgrade or drug my mob, he might not bring a damned thing back once it drops to 0. A bit different there, which I think is why varst said it sucks if you're AFK and you can't buy the necessary stocks.

Oh wait, that sounds like an incentive for multiple accounts. Though there is also the option of monsters not becoming active below PL750 and half chaosed, if that's what you meant. Not exactly friendly to newbies, that is.

Well, right now, there's an incentive for 1 person to have 100 PL25 mobs and 10 PL750+ mobs, right?

With FDA, there will be an incentive for 1 person to have 10 bot accounts, each with 10 PL25 mobs and 1 PL750 mob. Or however many accounts that are needed to have each account self-sufficiently support the mobs associated with them. It may take a while, but eventually you will have the same problems as you face now, only that there are a million more bots running around, chewing up server resources and lagging everyone. Quite frankly, I don't see that this is a good tradeoff.

Here's what I see the fundamental problem is. You have an in-game issue. You also have a meta issue. You use the in-game mechanics to fix both the in-game issue, and you hope the meta issue as well.

Can't be done. A meta issue (botting and incentivisation thereof) can only be dealt with in a meta fashion. If you want to deal with botting, you have to do away with the incentives to bot. I'll grant that it's hard. Very hard.

@Uno: Yeah, that's because you guys have Crystarium and Tokenizer up the wazoo. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Which Tenboro put in. What the hell did he think was going to happen eventually? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Hence, making the stuff non-tradeable shouldn't be a problem, should it? For players who want to be AFK for a while, that is.

But I must differ on certain points. Monster will hold maybe TWO gifts for me if I go off for a month right now. With food/morale, if I don't upgrade or drug my mob, he might not bring a damned thing back once it drops to 0. A bit different there, which I think is why varst said it sucks if you're AFK and you can't buy the necessary stocks.
Well, right now, there's an incentive for 1 person to have 100 PL25 mobs and 10 PL750+ mobs, right?

With FDA, there will be an incentive for 1 person to have 10 bot accounts, each with 10 PL25 mobs and 1 PL750 mob. Or however many accounts that are needed to have each account self-sufficiently support the mobs associated with them. It may take a while, but eventually you will have the same problems as you face now, only that there are a million more bots running around, chewing up server resources and lagging everyone. Quite frankly, I don't see that this is a good tradeoff.

Here's what I see the fundamental problem is. You have an in-game issue. You also have a meta issue. You use the in-game mechanics to fix both the in-game issue, and you hope the meta issue as well.

Can't be done. A meta issue (botting and incentivisation thereof) can only be dealt with in a meta fashion. If you want to deal with botting, you have to do away with the incentives to bot. I'll grant that it's hard. Very hard.

@Uno: Yeah, that's because you guys have Crystarium and Tokenizer up the wazoo. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Which Tenboro put in. What the hell did he think was going to happen eventually? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I actually haven't got tokenizer yet (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

So I'd need to spend like a month getting tokenizer 1-2-3 first (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I actually haven't got tokenizer yet (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

So I'd need to spend like a month getting tokenizer 1-2-3 first (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Now to put it in perspective for everyone else.

The full stack of Tokenizer is OVER 9000 HATH!!! (well, no, it's exactly 9000, but I couldn't resist)

Crystarium full stack is a rather more reasonable 1,750 hath by comparison.

I don't feel like quitting my Job just to keep my Mobs alive.

I'm probably going to quite HV cold turkey after that patch, won't even bother looking in the HV subforums anymore. All I do now is check my monsters once or twice a day. I'll probably liquidate my items and then destroy all of my mats and equipment in the Forge. Legendary Ethereal Estoc of Slaughter? LOL, gone. Magnificent Ethereal Katana of Slaughter? Ethereal for real. Leveled staff? Firewood. All my Phase? Hahahaha, rags.

I'm probably going to quite HV cold turkey after that patch, won't even bother looking in the HV subforums anymore. All I do now is check my monsters once or twice a day. I'll probably liquidate my items and then destroy all of my mats and equipment in the Forge. Legendary Ethereal Estoc of Slaughter? LOL, gone. Magnificent Ethereal Katana of Slaughter? Ethereal for real. Leveled staff? Firewood. All my Phase? Hahahaha, rags.

You'll be back (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

So I guess giants will require the same amount of food that sprites...


Won't it affect negatively the variety of monsters we find while fighting? (I mean, all them will be giants and mechanoids) Though it may not be worth balancing the monster types...

You'll be back (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Doubt it. I haven't played a round since September or October.

Also, ewww, I misspelled "quit". Fuck, that's stupid.

Doubt it. I haven't played a round since September or October.

Also, ewww, I misspelled "quit". Fuck, that's stupid.

grumpy you look familier from somewhere

I'm probably going to quite HV cold turkey after that patch, won't even bother looking in the HV subforums anymore. All I do now is check my monsters once or twice a day. I'll probably liquidate my items and then destroy all of my mats and equipment in the Forge. Legendary Ethereal Estoc of Slaughter? LOL, gone. Magnificent Ethereal Katana of Slaughter? Ethereal for real. Leveled staff? Firewood. All my Phase? Hahahaha, rags.

I'd be more than a happy camper to take your leveled staves and any Phase armor you consider rags (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

@xmagus: Monsters won't die when not fed crystals or food, they'll just stop appearing. Currently, if you go away for 3 weeks and come back monster will hold one gift for you. Not so different with morale/hunger.

@Hohenheim: So don't make that first mob PL1k with 1500 chaos tokens. Make just one monsters,let's say a middling PL like 650-700. Then create another account and try again.

Oh wait, that sounds like an incentive for multiple accounts. Though there is also the option of monsters not becoming active below PL750 and half chaosed, if that's what you meant. Not exactly friendly to newbies, that is.

And the headstarts had been paid for when they did nothing as opposed to making use of them immediately. Of course, there's the imbalance of players at level 200 earning more than at level 1 per same time spent, if you count it as such - after all, players at level 1 start later and thus don't have headstart.

(in other words, you're kind of hard to understand here)

TBH, in other words you're pulling a few straw man arguments here.

There's not any higher incentive to create a new account than there is right now, so you tried to pull a clumsy stunt here.

The difference between lvl 1 players and lvl 100 ones and lvl 200 and so on and so forth are well known by everybody, everyone's started from scratch literally stark naked. Even those who now are lvl 400. This has nothing to do with what I was talking about, though, which is the implementation of a mechanic specifically tailored for such lvl 300+ players that conversely impacts more on lower level players than those who are supposed to be the actual target. So, again, another straw man argument.

I'm more than open to discuss my and other people's opinions, but when someone tries to blatantly twist my words it's entirely another matter. If you wanna find holes/inconsistencies and such in whatI said, do it without making stuff up about what it's actually written.

Hm. I guess you made your point a little bit clearer. I see that your issue is that low level players won't be able to maintain their monsters as high level will - however, they'll have less of them, and thus can have happy pills and food hold them up for a time. Albeit it doesn't always hold true, big parts of the game does have you unlock more stuff and tangentially become stronger through leveling. Honestly, a) in terms of relative value, currently the monster lab is disproportionally valuable for low level player, and (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) has a patch ever affected gameplay objectively most positively for low-level players?

And last but not least, some players in this thread have expressed desire to potentially start over with their monsters - but the new players will start at 0 and thus be able to make the decisions that are right in the situation, without losing the time a monster pimp has spent putting their army together.

How does this relate to limiting monsters to a rotation of 13 types(and how does that discourage farming, exactly...?) or needing one to be maxed before going on to another one(lets not even mention the consequences of that for maging on any difficulty), or what is "making good use of the monsters without farming", I do not know. I wouldn't mind if you clarified, as you are not the only one who sees strawman here.

@MSimm1: They shall be pre-buff phases. Enjoy your phase of the raccoon.

xmagus: Hm. I believe Chosen will either to have to sell stuff or is pulling your tail.

... B ) has a patch ever affected gameplay objectively most positively for low-level players?

I don't wanna crimp on Hohenheim, but there is 1 part I would like to mention - the patch that affected PMI affected low-level players much, much less (if at all) than it did mid- and high-level players. I remember dropping a full 7% in PMI from 67% to 60% - and I was level 250 then. I would imagine that the level 300+ would have dropped even more in PMI, and as for the low-level guys? Dropping from 37% to 30% is no big deal (increase in damage is only 9.3%), and they won't have dropped that much anyway.

xmagus: Hm. I believe Chosen will either to have to sell stuff or is pulling your tail.

Well, wouldn't put it past him, you know, whichever way it turns out.

But regarding morale system, under required 12k every 12days/1k per day morale, a monster would reach 10th/32th(above 12k) upgrade in 53.7938(3) days, being a PL of 674, worth 7375186 C at 21c per primary/7c per secondary.

You're assuming that the relationship between number of crystals and morale restored is linear. It's not.

However, the estimated 16k iwbth(0-scavenger) monsters should net then 80 high-grade food, putting it at 0.5% for HGF? Isn't that a bit too high estimated rate, given that monsters have 5% base drop rate already, and 10% of it is already 0.5%?

That said, it is possible my assumptions are wrong. But if I assume hgf is 10% of that 0.5% total food drop rate and 8 monsters per round, it does suddenly jump to 10k rounds needed for 20 monsters.

A lot of your assumptions are changed, and some numbers are still being tweaked. The base droprate for tier-3 food at IWBTH with the current working numbers and no scavenger or powerlevel bonuses is 0.45% per monster. Food was also changed to restore +2000 each.

@xmagus: Monsters won't die when not fed crystals or food, they'll just stop appearing. Currently, if you go away for 3 weeks and come back monster will hold one gift for you. Not so different with morale/hunger.

They would have three/six actually. Since morale is frozen after three days of inactivity, it's just the hunger bar that gets depleted.