Mob training to take a spot IS NOT GRIEFING! Everyone should do it.

OK super controversial take here. Big discussions going around the town.

My take: Mob training on a team to take a spot is completely valid PVX gameplay.

Here is the logic.

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

But of course you may say, "Won't they just mob train on you back and everyone loses?" That's why people consider it griefing. It seems like a no win situation.

Here is where Ashes of Creation BRILLIANT game design comes to save the day. And most people are completely sleeping on this, because they just haven't thought through the whole situation in the context of the Ashes game design. Or haven't experienced it... Since I have, let me share with you the juicy and glorious details.

The longer an existing team sits in a spot the more glint and materials they accumulate. Also, the more equipment damage they build up, depending on how successful they have been there. The fresh team is fully repaired with no glint, nothing to lose, and a spot to win.

If the existing team wants to keep their spot, they need to be able to handle the mob train, or they need to get ready and jet ASAP or risk losing half the glint they made. Either way, if they are equally matched to the new team, whoever starts the process with the most equipment damage will have to repair first anyways. In many cases, it's in the existing teams best interest to leave, stash glint, repair, and then come back and try to retake the spot.

In this way, Ashes of Creation has a very strong method for allowing good spots in the game to cycle between teams. The longer your team is there, the more the advantage goes to the fresh team. THIS IS A GOOD THING. This means that you don't have just "let" some team sit in a great spot all day, you have the power to do something about it.

Not only that, but the chaos of trying to handle regular mob pulls, some PVP and mob trains is so much more fun than just sitting in one spot grinding the same stupid shit for hours on end. In fact, some of my favourite moments this phase have been successfully defending trains on us in high octane huge adrenaline rush gameplay. That buzz made the next few hours of grinding the spot pass in seconds. Felt soo good.

Lets have some fun game time here folks and loosen up a bit. Mob training is fun to use and fun to defend from successfully, which is why i want people to do it to me too. Adds a ton of spice to the otherwise monotonous gameplay.

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Comments

Azherae

Eh, one more week until it's fixed.

The current build is mostly just for passing time over the holidays for those who enjoy such chaos, so even if we discuss this now as a whole, we'll just have to do it again when Phase 2 'actually starts'.

Ludullu

CROW3 wrote: »

How meta… let’s train groups of players onto other groups of players and bask in the chaos.

Yo dawg, we put trains in your trains, so you can train your trains while you're training

CROW3

Ludullu wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

How meta… let’s train groups of players onto other groups of players and bask in the chaos.

Yo dawg, we put trains in your trains, so you can train your trains while you're training

Ha! 🤣

Sathrago

This is basically how it works in old school games. Mobs will add your ass to their aggro list if you get too close, and being in melee will increase it significantly, most of the time enough to break aggro from the person running the train. I am fine with this being in the game as long as the mechanics for it are spelled out properly and if you allow players to root/slow non-combatant players. Otherwise training mobs onto each other with no real way to force the trainers to deal with the mobs will be quite difficult to deal with.

Unless ai gets better so that mobs are dealing damage constantly to the training player, they get off pretty free when doing this as other players have two crappy choices. kill them and go red, or run from the mobs/kill the mobs and leave the area to avoid the train.

Graill

Xeeg wrote: »

OK super controversial take here. Big discussions going around the town.

My take: Mob training on a team to take a spot is completely valid PVX gameplay.

Here is the logic.

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

But of course you may say, "Won't they just mob train on you back and everyone loses?" That's why people consider it griefing. It seems like a no win situation.

Here is where Ashes of Creation BRILLIANT game design comes to save the day. And most people are completely sleeping on this, because they just haven't thought through the whole situation in the context of the Ashes game design. Or haven't experienced it... Since I have, let me share with you the juicy and glorious details.

The longer an existing team sits in a spot the more glint and materials they accumulate. Also, the more equipment damage they build up, depending on how successful they have been there. The fresh team is fully repaired with no glint, nothing to lose, and a spot to win.

If the existing team wants to keep their spot, they need to be able to handle the mob train, or they need to get ready and jet ASAP or risk losing half the glint they made. Either way, if they are equally matched to the new team, whoever starts the process with the most equipment damage will have to repair first anyways. In many cases, it's in the existing teams best interest to leave, stash glint, repair, and then come back and try to retake the spot.

In this way, Ashes of Creation has a very strong method for allowing good spots in the game to cycle between teams. The longer your team is there, the more the advantage goes to the fresh team. THIS IS A GOOD THING. This means that you don't have just "let" some team sit in a great spot all day, you have the power to do something about it.

Not only that, but the chaos of trying to handle regular mob pulls, some PVP and mob trains is so much more fun than just sitting in one spot grinding the same stupid shit for hours on end. In fact, some of my favourite moments this phase have been successfully defending trains on us in high octane huge adrenaline rush gameplay. That buzz made the next few hours of grinding the spot pass in seconds. Felt soo good.

Lets have some fun game time here folks and loosen up a bit. Mob training is fun to use and fun to defend from successfully, which is why i want people to do it to me too. Adds a ton of spice to the otherwise monotonous gameplay.

This will be fixed.

Those that pull, singly or in group will generate the hate and after contact is broken, if it can be broken with the new iteration, the mobs will simply move back or teleport back to their start points.

I feel the mobs should chase the pullers down until they or the mobs are dead. If it is a group and they disband then all get the same hate generation and will attract other mobs onto themselves until one side is dead. Kind of a self made punishment if grabbing a mob and running it by other players instead of fighting it or directing it away.

It is obtuse comments like the OP's that try to turn games like AshesofCreation into games like New World or eve online.

Ludullu

Sathrago wrote: »

This is basically how it works in old school games. Mobs will add your ass to their aggro list if you get too close, and being in melee will increase it significantly, most of the time enough to break aggro from the person running the train. I am fine with this being in the game as long as the mechanics for it are spelled out properly and if you allow players to root/slow non-combatant players. Otherwise training mobs onto each other with no real way to force the trainers to deal with the mobs will be quite difficult to deal with.

Green players are supposed to be undebuffable, so all those trainers will be literally invulnerable to anything the victims would wanna do to them.

Sathrago wrote: »

Unless ai gets better so that mobs are dealing damage constantly to the training player, they get off pretty free when doing this as other players have two crappy choices. kill them and go red, or run from the mobs/kill the mobs and leave the area to avoid the train.

Yep, I suggested stuff like this a few years back. Mobs should have additional behavioral patterns for long leashing, both in solo mobs and especially in group mob behavior.

Solvryn

Xeeg wrote: »

OK super controversial take here. Big discussions going around the town.

My take: Mob training on a team to take a spot is completely valid PVX gameplay.

Here is the logic.

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

But of course you may say, "Won't they just mob train on you back and everyone loses?" That's why people consider it griefing. It seems like a no win situation.

Here is where Ashes of Creation BRILLIANT game design comes to save the day. And most people are completely sleeping on this, because they just haven't thought through the whole situation in the context of the Ashes game design. Or haven't experienced it... Since I have, let me share with you the juicy and glorious details.

The longer an existing team sits in a spot the more glint and materials they accumulate. Also, the more equipment damage they build up, depending on how successful they have been there. The fresh team is fully repaired with no glint, nothing to lose, and a spot to win.

If the existing team wants to keep their spot, they need to be able to handle the mob train, or they need to get ready and jet ASAP or risk losing half the glint they made. Either way, if they are equally matched to the new team, whoever starts the process with the most equipment damage will have to repair first anyways. In many cases, it's in the existing teams best interest to leave, stash glint, repair, and then come back and try to retake the spot.

In this way, Ashes of Creation has a very strong method for allowing good spots in the game to cycle between teams. The longer your team is there, the more the advantage goes to the fresh team. THIS IS A GOOD THING. This means that you don't have just "let" some team sit in a great spot all day, you have the power to do something about it.

Not only that, but the chaos of trying to handle regular mob pulls, some PVP and mob trains is so much more fun than just sitting in one spot grinding the same stupid shit for hours on end. In fact, some of my favourite moments this phase have been successfully defending trains on us in high octane huge adrenaline rush gameplay. That buzz made the next few hours of grinding the spot pass in seconds. Felt soo good.

Lets have some fun game time here folks and loosen up a bit. Mob training is fun to use and fun to defend from successfully, which is why i want people to do it to me too. Adds a ton of spice to the otherwise monotonous gameplay.

Problem isn't the training of the mobs.

Problem is the corruption design by way of retaliation.

That leads to more problems, the games designs are so interwoven you cannot change one thing in the game without changing many other things to accommodate that design.

Otr

Solvryn wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

OK super controversial take here. Big discussions going around the town.

My take: Mob training on a team to take a spot is completely valid PVX gameplay.

Here is the logic.

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

But of course you may say, "Won't they just mob train on you back and everyone loses?" That's why people consider it griefing. It seems like a no win situation.

Here is where Ashes of Creation BRILLIANT game design comes to save the day. And most people are completely sleeping on this, because they just haven't thought through the whole situation in the context of the Ashes game design. Or haven't experienced it... Since I have, let me share with you the juicy and glorious details.

The longer an existing team sits in a spot the more glint and materials they accumulate. Also, the more equipment damage they build up, depending on how successful they have been there. The fresh team is fully repaired with no glint, nothing to lose, and a spot to win.

If the existing team wants to keep their spot, they need to be able to handle the mob train, or they need to get ready and jet ASAP or risk losing half the glint they made. Either way, if they are equally matched to the new team, whoever starts the process with the most equipment damage will have to repair first anyways. In many cases, it's in the existing teams best interest to leave, stash glint, repair, and then come back and try to retake the spot.

In this way, Ashes of Creation has a very strong method for allowing good spots in the game to cycle between teams. The longer your team is there, the more the advantage goes to the fresh team. THIS IS A GOOD THING. This means that you don't have just "let" some team sit in a great spot all day, you have the power to do something about it.

Not only that, but the chaos of trying to handle regular mob pulls, some PVP and mob trains is so much more fun than just sitting in one spot grinding the same stupid shit for hours on end. In fact, some of my favourite moments this phase have been successfully defending trains on us in high octane huge adrenaline rush gameplay. That buzz made the next few hours of grinding the spot pass in seconds. Felt soo good.

Lets have some fun game time here folks and loosen up a bit. Mob training is fun to use and fun to defend from successfully, which is why i want people to do it to me too. Adds a ton of spice to the otherwise monotonous gameplay.

Problem isn't the training of the mobs.

Problem is the corruption design by way of retaliation.

That leads to more problems, the games designs are so interwoven you cannot change one thing in the game without changing many other things to accommodate that design.

People used to solo and team up with randoms don't typically coordinate to fight back.
Fighting back when leveling is somewhat complicated as the one which pulls the dangerous NPCs is a very high level and the one which loots is a different one waiting to see players die, to loot them and then runs away fast.
Eventually people will learn that guilds protect and will join them.
Maybe citizens should protect each-other too.

Volgaris

The power of cheese in this one is strong.

Xeeg

Volgaris wrote: »

The power of cheese in this one is strong.

Be the stinky blue cheese that makes the kids hide in the bedroom.

Sathrago

Ludullu wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

This is basically how it works in old school games. Mobs will add your ass to their aggro list if you get too close, and being in melee will increase it significantly, most of the time enough to break aggro from the person running the train. I am fine with this being in the game as long as the mechanics for it are spelled out properly and if you allow players to root/slow non-combatant players. Otherwise training mobs onto each other with no real way to force the trainers to deal with the mobs will be quite difficult to deal with.

Green players are supposed to be undebuffable, so all those trainers will be literally invulnerable to anything the victims would wanna do to them.

Well that decision was a relatively recent one. If they made it just hard cc immunity and let roots/slows work I think that would fix the problem entirely.

Training would still happen but players could combat it somewhat without being forced to go red.

Its_Me

I do not have a huge issue with mob training as it exists in many games. One of the best times I had in test was outsmarting and out-skilling a large group of 3 teams and a dragon trying to do this for well over an hour where not only did our small team not die, we grabbed the mobs they would tag and prevented them from gaining xp so they wasted a lot of time until they finally gave up and retreated in defeat.

Steven has mentioned that he will will be implementing changes on how aggro/leashing works and someone asked today in discord if after this implementation if players that pulled mobs and ended up getting people killed would be considered griefing and his answer was no.

If after the changes someone drags mobs over you and you hit them with your aoe or other damage pulling that aggro, you will need to deal with that and this is where exercising good situational awareness, which I have mentioned repeatedly, will come into play.

Ludullu

Sathrago wrote: »

Well that decision was a relatively recent one. If they made it just hard cc immunity and let roots/slows work I think that would fix the problem entirely.

Training would still happen but players could combat it somewhat without being forced to go red.

This then has the direct mirror of "a player at low hp running away from a strong mob can now be slowed/rooted for his loot".

I'd prefer if mobs themselves had a behavioral pattern, where if several mobs are being pulled away from their preferred location - they start throwing out roots and slows.

The core principal is the same, but it doesn't require the potential victims to go purple (which could be a bait in itself) and also prevents the abuse I mentioned above.

Theyss

No. Not at all to OP's post.
Sorry, but the suggestion is quite ridiculous and I believe you, yourself, know why.

Xeeg

Theyss wrote: »

No. Not at all to OP's post.
Sorry, but the suggestion is quite ridiculous and I believe you, yourself, know why.

Nope.. I just hear people say "no" without any arguments. I made a great argument as to why its a good thing. It is clearly part of the game design.

Stop being lazy, make your argument or STFU.

Xeeg

Ludullu wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Well that decision was a relatively recent one. If they made it just hard cc immunity and let roots/slows work I think that would fix the problem entirely.

Training would still happen but players could combat it somewhat without being forced to go red.

This then has the direct mirror of "a player at low hp running away from a strong mob can now be slowed/rooted for his loot".

I'd prefer if mobs themselves had a behavioral pattern, where if several mobs are being pulled away from their preferred location - they start throwing out roots and slows.

The core principal is the same, but it doesn't require the potential victims to go purple (which could be a bait in itself) and also prevents the abuse I mentioned above.

Even attacking purples is a risk. They can change white right before your last hit and suddenly you are corrupted. Happened to me early in this phase. Now I'm scared to even attack purples... Pretty lame imo.

Ludullu

Xeeg wrote: »

Even attacking purples is a risk. They can change white right before your last hit and suddenly you are corrupted. Happened to me early in this phase. Now I'm scared to even attack purples... Pretty lame imo.

I haven't checked, have they changed the "you can just toggle off your flag" thing? I thiiiink I've heard that there's a timer on it now, but not sure.

If they have removed that and it is a timer, L2 had a solution for this too. In the last ~10s ofthe timer the purple color would start blinking, signifying to both the attacker and the target that the target's flag is about to drop. I fully expect something similar in Ashes, and if it's not there - IT FUCKING BETTER BE, STEVEN!

Vhaeyne

Xeeg wrote: »

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

Seems more like this:
You can mob train on em and win the spot.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.

I do like your point about the occupying party having more to lose and a weaker position. That is true with or without mob training.

I just want it fixed because the conflict is so much better when its diplomacy ,DPS race, or PvP.
Training is the lease fun option to me.

Endowed

Mob training is rampant right now.
Only answer, currently, is an active GM.

Xeeg

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

You can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can mob train on em and win the spot.

Seems more like this:
You can mob train on em and win the spot.
You can try and out dps/tag a team to win a spot.
You can PVP challenge a team to win a spot.
OR all else fails, you can ask a team to move from a spot nicely.

I do like your point about the occupying party having more to lose and a weaker position. That is true with or without mob training.

I just want it fixed because the conflict is so much better when its diplomacy ,DPS race, or PvP.
Training is the lease fun option to me.

Big problem right now is that even purple are a risk to attack because they can turn white at any moment and suddenly you go corrupt by accident. Already happened to me.

PVP fighting over spots is non-existent from what i've seen. Too much coordination for both teams to be able to pull it off with half flagging and half not, etc. Or if the dps flags, and the healer heals him and then flags, and then cant heal the tank... Its just a disaster, so most times I don't see direct 8v8 teams fighting over spots. Maybe some tank walls.

So really the only method left is hoping to mob train them out of the spot. This is probably why it is the most popular right now. Doesn't require communication and is effective on teams that aren't experienced enough to know when to run and when to stay.

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