Spider dungeon and soulpain

[Banduk]

In the past we had a nice training area for high level fighter called the „Spider cave“. You could go there, train your char and would find with high probability anybody else to PR with. This works even if only a few persons were online what the most usual situation nowadays is.
Anybody decide to correct the weapon of the main residents the soulpains from fists to knife. Now it is much too dangerous to go to there and the dungeon mostly is empty.

But what a surprise. since the fighter training dungeon got taken away the amount of players dropped by felt 20 and the total amount of players online even more.

I know the soulpain never should be that training partner but it worked well over month. I know as well that we don’t want to support power gaming.

But based on my opinion we are not in a position to go to the bad side for any player group. The lost players are 20% of the total amount of player!

The bad thing was not the capability of training, it was the much too high loot on my perspective. So why not let the soulpain thresh with fists at level 80 around but reduce the loot to 3-4 silver and no magic gem even if this is not fit into any fancy structure the player has no clue about and don’t need to know as well. The low loot would even make the dungeon not refinance to the player since the damage of the equipment would cost more.

The argument: “Go in groups to there!” do not fit for me. I run around for weeks (RL weeks!) to find anybody who may join but failed in the overmost cases. Yes it even come to the situation that I throw a 9 year (RL year) figure setting away and go into any stupid PvP training once another high level fighter is around and put the capability of nice RP aside.

PO Banduk

[Achae Eanstray]

I fully agree with this proposal. Making the soulpain into a monster that even two warriors above 90 carrying gemmed weapons can't fight is ridiculous and has reduced the roleplay for what was a nice dungeon to go to single or in pairs in order to meet others, down to empty. The dungeon is now unusable to the average people playing the game..making it no point in even trying to go there nor check to see if your char was lucky enough to get something from the fairies which was near. Why mess up something that a lot of chars/players had a good time going to?

http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=10379

I realize there is another dungeon in the works but again the question... why change something that worked? As Banduk said, simply reduce the loot if that is the problem with this spider.

[Rakaya]

as far as I know, the soulpain was never think as a low lever spider. I have a list and there the soulpain is a level 8 monster. It was always a bug, that she has no weapon and armour. The spawn points of the spider in the dungeon should be overworked.

[Achae Eanstray]

Whether bug or not, the spider is too strong now and the once well used dungeon is not used at all. Even a reduction in the number of soulpain is not helpful if chars have to simply run from them unable to kill. Why make so many dungeons require large groups in a game with not a large amount of players? Sure keep a dungeon or two for groups.. but make a few have enough to accomodate the way the game is actually played now.

[Estralis Seborian]

Soulpain = Level 8 = Bad ass boss.

If such a monster is spawned in high numbers somewhere, the spawn is badly designed. Hence, the spawn needs to be corrected, not the monster wrecked. Do we have a Mantis report for the spawn point? If not, the coordinates are needed (roughly).

[Jupiter]

There are so many points here and you throw them all together. So let me answer seperately to them.

Soulpain = Level 8 = Bad ass boss.

Corrent.
There is nothing to discuss here. Actually, the monster is still too weak because some can still kill it alone.

Why make so many dungeons require large groups in a game with not a large amount of players? Sure keep a dungeon or two for groups.. but make a few have enough to accomodate the way the game is actually played now.

So you want more dungeons with weaker monsters. Don't see why we would need to weak the soul pain for that. Make new dungeons or remove the soulpain (as Estralis said).

I know the soulpain never should be that training partner but it worked well over month. I know as well that we don’t want to support power gaming.

So you want to be able to train you skills more easily without high lvl monsters. This seems to be the actual problem you want to solve. It has nothing to do with the soul pain in particular.
So instead of wanting a buggy monster back, make a sound proposal how monsters should be structed so that you think skilling is properly possible.

Weakening the soulpain is NOT an option. We do not make bad work arounds when the problem is somehting else.

[Achae Eanstray]

Why not move the monster to a different dungeon then and keep the spider dungeon for what people had fun using it for? Single or double char place to go to hunt and also meet other chars there? That dungeon in the US evening time was crowded with chars.. something to do and a place to meet others. Allow it to continue as it once was i.e. a place you don't have to be maxed with maxed gems to use nor get large groups.

[Jupiter]

It was a gold farm. That needs to be fixed also.

[Banduk]

It was a gold farm. That needs to be fixed also.

3 silver drop

Weakening the soulpain is NOT an option. We do not make bad work arounds when the problem is somehting else.

I agree, better we lose player than do a working workaround.
Good decision.

[Estralis Seborian]

The spawnpoint will be adjusted with next update. Thanks for pointing out the inbalance!

[Jupiter]

3 silver drop

I was talking about the dungeon as a whole. Small spider dropping topas rings and stuff.

I agree, better we lose player than do a working workaround.
Good decision.

And you think you do any good with your attitude? I asked you for a sound concept and that is your reply. Sorry but if you keep that hostile tone, I won't bother to answer at all anymore.

[Ragorn]

Haha .. a nice example of a good player proposal, which was completely discussed to dead by some staff members and then locked.

Do you really think, this is a good approach to motivate the players, to take part in the development of this game???

"Player involvement" ... that sound a bit like a bad joke to me.

The current empty spider cave is a good example, of how you are wasting the valueable time of the developers (building the map, defining spawn points, implementing thowse two nice quests, etc.)
Some small adjustments would have been enough, to keep this still an attractive (training) area for any kind of figthers.

[Achae Eanstray]

The spawnpoint will be adjusted with next update. Thanks for pointing out the inbalance!

If there is a monster in the dungeon that only maxed chars with maxed gems can kill then it won't be very helpful even to adjust the spawnpoints as pointed out previously....typically 1-2 chars went there and two high end chars not with maxed gems but some can't kill the spider. Will the quest be adjusted so it can be completed by these 1-2 chars and not run into the soulpain that is unkillable except to some?

The purpose is to make the place a fun place for chars to go to again before it was changed...having a quest that can't be completed and a spider that blocks off part of the dungeon doesn't sound helpful. Possibly I am misunderstanding?

[Estralis Seborian]

As the other thread was started by a developer, I am a little puzzled about the intention of this thread - what is the concrete proposal here? The lock was put in place because the discussion became personal and the general point was accepted. A solution will be released with the next update. If there are additional points, the thread can be reopened any time as per http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 94&t=38863

I did some (small, as in little effort, but not so small in terms of significance) adjustments to the dungeon so that it is not a death trap anymore. Feel free to send me your feedback after the next update or, if you have access, check out the dungeon on the devserver!

And now a smiley for all who love christmas cookies:

[Kamilar]

Players are earning too much game money? So? If it's fun, let them. People aren't going to play a game that isn't fun. You start with that and let the game grow up from there focusing on developing the parts that the players like. We like the easy spiders. Make more of them. Lots more. Fill the whole place full of them. It doesn't fit with the original concept? Throw that concept out the window because it wasn't fun and we hate it. That seems so obvious to me that I can't believe we even have to discuss it.

One of the issues with Illarion is this idea of maintaining super serious roleplay. We can have fantastic, rich and dynamic roleplay and still have fun. There has been a long history (at least from my perspective) of players finding something really fun to play with in the game and the staff shrieking that something must be horribly wrong with that thing and rushing to change it so that all the fun is sucked out as quickly as possible.

I promise, fun doesn't cause any brain damage.

[Djironnyma]

the point of limit the ammount of money witch comes ig is not about beeing realistic, but it is about inflation. Why it is no fun to earn a hand of copper? Cause it have no value. So indeed anyone want earn much money. But on the other hand if you throw to much money into the game without having a good way to get it out, the mony lose on value. If everyone is rich and have some hundred golds, no one will do something for a hand of silver. Its a devils circle.
So keep the monsters drop to a limit i not to limit players fun or be "relaistic" but to protect players fun by keepung up the value of their earned money.

[Vern Kron]

Basically: Players like to gather gold and test their skills. This is good.
Dev's want to keep the game balanced, to make sure that the powerful and rich do not become so rich that it breaks the game's economy.

Imagine it like this: when you hit a certain skill level in fighting, you get a card. This card allows you to go to the bank, and as long as you are in the bank, you are making money.
You leave that bank, and return with your bags of gold. You feel great! But you have a few purchases you would like to make, and a few things occur at this point. You either over-buy, over-pay, sit on the money bored, throw it in the town, and drastically effect long-term goals that are meant to be slow (which is fine IMO, but will in the long run seriously unbalance the game further).

This effects other prices, by driving the prices WAY up. Which would be fine, if EVERYONE could have that same chance to get that same money. But as that price goes up, the lower skilled characters cash flow doesn't increase, but they still have to pay more. That sucks, and turns people away from the game. OR: It goes to gems, which then drives the rarity of the gems WAAAAY down. Which is not great either.

The rich need a solid money sink that doesn't unbalance the game.

Or we drop the loot of the spider a little, and return him to the original difficulty.

I fully understand from the development perspective, you want this monster to be TOUGH. You want people to -really- have a challenge when fighting it. But that challenge was not established before hand. From what it looks like, Estralis is already changing that situation. I think people would accept these sorts of changes to what they are used to, if the change occurred a bit slower: perhaps increasing the difficulty of the creature in increments rather than a HUGE jump. I know it's a pain, but people may have accepted this sort of thing easier than just a wide sweeping change. I get that this game is not run by Blizzard, and no one is expecting you to act like it. But to your players, who love this game, and sometimes feel as though there is not a ton to do: making things harder for them does not make them happy. It is not a challenge to 'rise' to. Play with us. Be with us. Feel the heartbeat of the game you are creating, and then act.

It does bother me that this spider thing has become such a breaking point in the community, and honestly I think we need to evaluate why this was so poorly received by players, and why the development side is so frustrated as well. Let us practice the rules we have established: we play with each other, not against each other.

[Banduk]

As the other (this one) thread was started by a developer

I totally disagree.
Even if the color of my name left hand is blue, first at all I'm a player.
I spend 5 days/week >10hr/week time IG. Maybe it’s too few since I feel Illarion fading away. Last Friday evening was the first time in 8 years I was the only character online during a main playing time. This decides me to think about and make the proposal.

Therefor I like to tell how a player of a high skilled fighting char feel since the fall of the spider dungeon, the drop of player and the loss of training capabilities.

Just to mention: You need an attacker above level 80 (level 8 “bad ass” monster) to learn once you reached Skill 90.
In the moment the spider got updated the armory level I talk about were 99,2. It happened short after the Illarion meeting in October. Since that time I was about 100 hours online with that char.
I wanted to have one armory skill to 100. So I reduced all activities to do this single skill only. I never did any MC collecting activity, except 3 days, where I maxed woodcutting to 100 to have anything I can do, if there is no RP around.
I know I’d had need anything in between 50-500 soulpains to gain the 100 in the lost dungeon.
Fighting down a single soulpain takes me now about 5 minutes where I not even can take my eyes from the monitor or my char will not survive. (attack 100, parry 100, weapon gemmed to 160 (486 gems in), armory 99). For the first 4 weeks I had no idea how to survive a fight against the level 8 monster and I must call me lucky to know one of the few other player personally. Our discussions showed me the way.
But even if I know a way now, more than 2 or 3 fights are mentally not possible per play session.

For weeks now I count the skill gain in pixel. It was a successful week, if the skill bar increased 1 or 2 pixel.

The bad thing, I haven’t reached the 100 it yet! I can’t say this sounds like fun. The only swirly I’ve seen is in a skill I never wanted (woodcutting).

Please doesn’t stress the dungeon spread too much money into the game! If we really like to take that away, it could be done in 5 min. The issue is “How to train a high level fighter?”, nothing else.
((sorry to all English speaking people, I'll stay in this unknown language which I cannot speak and where my capabilitioes to express myself are very limited.))

[Kamilar]

the point of limit the ammount of money witch comes ig is not about beeing realistic, but it is about inflation. Why it is no fun to earn a hand of copper? Cause it have no value. So indeed anyone want earn much money. But on the other hand if you throw to much money into the game without having a good way to get it out, the mony lose on value. If everyone is rich and have some hundred golds, no one will do something for a hand of silver. Its a devils circle.
So keep the monsters drop to a limit i not to limit players fun or be "relaistic" but to protect players fun by keepung up the value of their earned money.

I personally don't care if the game has inflation. I don't care about realism. It's a game. Players aren't motivated by the number of coins, they're motivated by the amount of fun they have. Players with a large pile of gold will do something for a handful of silver if it's fun. Fun should be the driving factor behind all development decisions.

If the almighty economic balance is so important, the necessity seems to be putting in a good way to get the money out. Taking away the fun parts of the game is not the solution because then you sacrifice players to maintain purity and that's just nonsense. It would be smarter to roll back the spider den to the way it was, warts and all, and work on a fun money sink. Maybe the soulpains were a mistake but they were fun even if they weren't intended to be.

If restoring the spider den is too offensive to the purity of the Illarion concept, the next best thing would be to delete the soulpains from the dungeon entirely though that wouldn't address Banduk's issue of training against a monster for a high level fighter. That issue will remain. I don't think a little tweak will do it.

[Estralis Seborian]

“How to train a high level fighter?”

I think this brings up a new point. Currently, level 7 monsters bring you to level 90-100, depending on the individual monster strength and level 8 monsters bring you all the way to level 100. It is indeed true that those level 8 monsters are rare and very strong. They are meant to be boss monsters, no daily cannon fodder. If they are too strong for three well equipped characters, we need to consider some balancing. I guess one aspect that can change all this is the introduction of a proper healing method with e.g. priest magic.

That learning becomes very slow at high levels is just intended. For levelling from 0-90 you need the same time as for 90-100, with the last skill point having just 1/100 the learning speed of the first skill point. This is by intention and if you compare this to similar games (AAA titles), you always find a comparable learning curve. It is the same for crafting, you also have to craft the very best items that might require merinium and sometimes pure elements to get to the last levels. I am not sure that making reaching level 100 by just normal actions would be a good change for this game.

I need to stress this: To have a single place with a single monster that is utterly underpowered but drops loot like a big boy and gives skill to the very end with no real risk is not a goody for players who know this but just an exploit of an obvious inbalance. If you say learning is too slow generally, we can change that (for all actions). If monsters are too strong, we can also change that. But please, do not propose to add a bugged monster because you are not satisfied with other game aspects. We need to a find a good balance between effort and benefit, because without challenge, no fun is generated and without proper reward, the same holds.

All in all, I must say that I would prefer some more constructive input and less sarcasm.

[Kamilar]

I need to stress this: To have a single place with a single monster that is utterly underpowered but drops loot like a big boy and gives skill to the very end with no real risk is not a goody for players who know this but just an exploit of an obvious inbalance. If you say learning is too slow generally, we can change that (for all actions). If monsters are too strong, we can also change that. But please, do not propose to add a bugged monster because you are not satisfied with other game aspects. We need to a find a good balance between effort and benefit, because without challenge, no fun is generated and without proper reward, the same holds.

All in all, I must say that I would prefer some more constructive input and less sarcasm.

Here's the thing. You have players crowding around a feature and can analyze that behavior a couple of ways.

1. Those players are having too much fun. Something must be wrong there. Let's put a stop to that at once.

2. Those players are having a lot of fun. What's going on there and how can we recreate that to generate more fun and get more people to play?

You can see problems or you can see opportunities. It's all a matter of perception.

[Banduk]

I wouldn’t say we don’t have a well working money sink. There is one next to each town leader.
Sure you can put as much money as possible into your chest and if anybody likes to see a pile of 6k gold coins, let him/her be. This person plays Illarion a lot and need to interact with RP. Sure it is not the high sophisticated RP but who we are to judge it? Should we force him/her to ‘good’ RP as we believe and force him/her finally out of the game?
Some start to collect money and find after a wile there is no fun anymore to have so much coins. But there might be a dream. It could be the level 7 gemmed magic broad sword maybe? But it requires 4374 latent magic gems. And these you cannot buy. You have to buy for your community always.

And look for Galmair at the moment: After a player of Cadomyr decides to donate an unbelievable amount of soulpain loots to the wealth of his community he waken the ambitions in Galmair. Some chars produce together what they can just to throw it the next moment into the treasury. Same I think I’ve seen in Runewick as well.
I’d say it is a well working money sink and a well working RP setting. And the weapons are well working gem sinks.

And the best thing is that a gemmed weapon has no real feel able advantage. I measured a level 5 gemmed weapon (+60%) to the same non gemmed weapon and found over a sample of 40 a time relation (time to kill) of 0.92 that not even has been statistical relevant (sigma 3) due to the variance. But it doesn’t matter I like the gemmed weapon and I want that level 7 gemmed weapon as a status symbol (maybe Christmas 2018?).

As longer I think about the magic gem thing as more I’m sure whoever invented the magic gem system, he/she had one of the best ideas ever.

And what is with the low budget items? Have you ever seen how people could bargain about a 10 silver bag if they want to do? Both know they can get the money back in minutes 3 steps away from the town gate but have fun with an economical totally ineffective RP.
It is with us, the player with longer experience balance it IG and show younger how to have fun our way.

I’ll stop here even if I have much more in mind at the moment.
Finally I want to state: Taking the fun away because of any missing realism is not the right way. We need to take care about fun prior to realism. If I want realism I can stop playing and switch off my PC.

[Banduk]

You can see problems or you can see opportunities. It's all a matter of perception.

signed!

[Mephistopheles]

I think everyone understands the need for not only for medium level dungeons but for more dungeons with lore, from what I've seen in mantis theres alot of projects geared toward exactly that.

And I have to agree with the developers that the economy is in shambles, not just from that dungeon. I think from the brainstorming and talks going on the devs know theres an issue with player involvement and are working on it. As a player im tired of getting so worked up about the development and i just want to play the game. My suggestion for players who want to see change is ask your gm, community manager, or developer of choice to hold a poll and see if you can get support for the desired feature. Then the development team will be more likely to consider the proposal, or you can write your own very detailed proposal yourself (very detailed).

[Uhuru]

I would just like to go back to the first few posts, which said that the spider dungeon was a meeting ground that encouraged RP. It was/is a place where people could work on skills while waiting for people to pass through. So they could do something, knowing that many people pass through there everyday.

Changing the spawns will help/improve the ability to do so again.

[Ragorn]

From the players point of view, the spider dungeon was a nice place to
- skill
- loot
- rp
- adventure (was still quite dangerous for not powergamed chars)

From a players view, I do not care about monster levels and what ever.

As it was before it was quite good.

Changing the spawns is not what I as a player would like. The amount of soulpains was okay. The spawn points also.

The only necessary change I see here is the amount of silver in the loot. Reducing the silver coins to somewhere between 1/5 and 1/10 would fit.

It's clear, that the spider dungeon after the above suggested change still would not be perfect. But the whole game is not perfect.

[Kamilar]

From a players view, I do not care about monster levels and what ever.

This.

[Nitram]

The monsters are currently getting a do over.

Many monsters that are supposed to have special effects or cast or something like this just don't do that right now. As I am fixing the scripts right now this issues will change.
I hope that this will improve the balancing of the dungeons even before we have to alter the spawnpoints.

Nitram

[Kamilar]

So, I waited for the update to go check on the spiders again. I really believed developers and players were meeting halfway and that the spider cave was going to be tweaked in a way that made it playable again. I was surprised to discover that the spiders are even more overpowered than before this update.

The first spider I encountered was a spider queen who could reduce my hit points by half from eight paces away. She was around the first turn from the entrance so it looks like even the spawn points are still unbalanced.

I know that mid level dungeons are in the works but removing the one that we had before a replacement was ready was really putting the cart before the horse. From my perspective as a player, it looks like the goal of development is to discourage gamers from playing here. At the very least it shows lack of vision and organization. I'm really disappointed.

[Uhuru]

I'm sorry that you feel this way. However, the spider dungeon is not a mid level dungeon. It was meant to be a higher level dungeon, between mid and high. I wouldn't take my maxed out character there alone, with her top level armor and gemmed weapons. Do be careful there.

As to the spiders, we did remove the high level spiders. However, at the same time, monster magic was fixed. This is a step on the path to improving the game and making it what it is supposed to be. Some of this magic is quite spectacular. I had the good fortune to test it and see it. Quite fun!

As to mid level dungeons, we have them, they are out there. And we are developing more to add a bit of variety. If you don't know where they are, please ask in game. People can direct you or even take you to them.