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Waste Facility Zombies
I saw the posts in tweets, and decided to turn it into it's own thread instead of dragging tweets out further over the matter.
Anyone who's talked to me about it knows I hate this area and the concept behind it, along with the basis for how it works. I think there's two things that can be done to make the whole thing a lot more acceptable, though.
1. Make killing zombies in the Waste Facility dramatically reduce the spawn rate of the Highway zombies.
I think it is safe to say that most people who do the quest do it to have more things to bash/make more gold. These people tend to go only into the Waste Facility. Why? Probably because fewer people have access to it, and there are fewer that can handle the additional mobs alone. It doesn't make sense to cut them down at the source only to have more appear mysteriously on the roads. This would also provide some incentive for clearing out the highways before the Facility, instead of vice-versa.
2. Reduce the amount of gold carried/generated by zombies in the Facility proper. Let it remain the same for zombies outside of the facility.
This one is bound to be a lot less popular, but I feel like the Facility as a whole adds a lot of extra gold to the game, which makes it into a rather select number of hands. I think that, at the least, zombies that have made it onto the highways -should- have more gold, because they've had time to go marauding about the countryside and such. Zombies that have been stuffed away in trash for centuries should not.
The quest currently gives incentives for inconveniencing other people. I think these two things would at least give incentive on keeping the highways cleared first, which is generally better for everyone on the whole instead of the people with enough DMP or the right damage types in their attacks.
2
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
I really have similar feelings regarding every sort of extremely high level thing that's aggressive and gets to places that people who can't handle them are quite likely to go. I know that when the roads and mountains were recently full of wraiths and so forth I was essentially locked down in Hallifax and couldn't do much of anything except wait for the event to run its course. This was highly annoying.
I do understand that demigods need things that are based around them, but I think that the things that are balanced around demigods should be kept where they can't render large parts of the game unplayable for the rest of us. Discrete areas are fine and dandy, since if nothing else we can go in once, die, and realize not to go there again. But transit areas like the highways and the mountains are, in my opinion, a bad idea.
Again, the problems and thus annoyance I've been having with this lately might come down to my own incompetence rather than being inherent to the design, but that strikes me as unlikely if other people have problems with it as well.
Changing the gold carried by zombies isn't really a possibility because it is based on their level and how long since they have last been killed. I'm open to looking into other solutions if this is perceived to be a large problem. Zombies probably aren't going to be made non-agressive or be removed from the highway, though.
Is it possible to contain them to certain sections of the highway? South of the Shallach river, for example. The big problem right now is that people who are not prepared for zombies end up walking down Avechna's Peak or the Emerald Road and walk face first into a group of 3+ zombies that are each individually too much for them to handle.
(Most of what I had to say is in the other topic. So I will not post it here as to avoid from repeating myself.)
Another thing I would like to see done is... when vaults are closed, reduce the maximum number of zombies that can spawn by a fifth. The time I closed it, there were tons of zombies upon the road, but all the vaults (except the last one) were already closed.
PS, I fully agree with the assertion that the counter quest is way more frustrating than it should be. The only real reward: no more zombies on the road. Since I personally can tank them, it means that I am grinding hundreds of zombies for hours (bleep those cogs) for no gain except to help out squishier people.
That's fine every now and then, but not when they are released this frequently. I too plan to just not bother.
In all seriousness, they are good as offerings, good for coins, and good for experience, thus I am quite the fan of them when they are about, but as Ragniliff said, I may be a bit strong for my level or whatever... Which is good! Because that is exactly what I wanted when I made the character, Someone who would be a bit stupid, but could hit stuff hard. But even if I could not fight them alone I would still be supportive of it, since it adds the "Risk" element to the game. If you start removing them elements, then it becomes a bit... well, it might as well be Peace-ternia.
EDIT: As a side note, they do not attack me, and I am level 70, and I read elsewhere they do not attack novices, so really I see no issue with them.
I keep telling myself to go seal the quest if I get the requisite items from killing the zombies, but I never seem to get enough cogs and to be honest, I like having the zombies around just for ease of easy somewhat high-level bashing, gold, and essence. My cynicism tells me this statement (and statements like it) will probably work more towards getting the quest changed than anything concerning the actual balance of the quest. I suspect others feel the same, else they wouldn't keep releasing the zombies.
I just kill Afmecia. Apparently someone had set the quest up earlier and not the last step. So I didn't technically do the any of the quest. Just bashed the place out for the gold pile (darn you Rag for releasing the secret) and bam, honors line.
As far as gold goes, taking gold from certain areas won't really fix any problems with the gold market right now. Unless we can predict a drop in credit prices after the fact, it won't really serve any purpose.
Give Horacle something fun to do! :-)
Personally, I think that if they are wandering around one of the "circles" (Seas, Highways, Mountains) they should not be too deadly. By design these are how we access a large number of the areas in this game and so we can expect players as low as level 21-30 to be using them.
Especially given that bards/scholars/pilgrims are fairly decent xp at lower levels, maybe the levels of the highway zombies could be looked into? Maybe based on how far from the facility they have wandered, further away means weaker or just every step they take lowers their level? Maybe the last time they got a kill, might help with clots as only the one who manages to kill ?
8-X
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
While I agree that danger is a good thing in many cases, if the zombies started attacking everyone (it currently only attacks high-levelled people; I'm not sure where it starts, but last I heard level 60 were not in danger from the zombies) it would mean that the entire highway from Magnagora to the Peak would be shut down. This would also include the junction between the highway through Serenwilde and the Peak. This is a highway that have bards and pilgrims on it, which many newbies go after (since it's a very good way to get XP early on). In addition, Estelbar is only accessible through this highway; if the zombies started attacking everyone, Estelbar would be unreachable to many (not everyone can fly).
If this were isolated to a single area (say, the wasteland east of Mag) I wouldn't say anything at all about it. But a highway? No.
You might not think that if they gathered right outside of your city. If they aggroed on everyone we might as well just shut the northern gate down because it would be a virtual newbie death trap.
Not everyone plays Lusternia to bash or fight. The game has chosen to include many different elements that can be engaging and interesting to various people. Some like to play a game where the only purpose is to watch numbers increase as they beat upon other creatures. Some like to play a game where the mechanics are set up to encourage you beating the other players through the game mechanics. Some like to play a game where they challenge others in a game of skill and creativity. And some just want to stay in an immersive story and explore the vast reaches of the game world. Lusternia has a lot that is designed more for the benefit of the latter two groupings. They should not be forced to play the game of mechanics. Setting up arbitrary "you must be this tall to use one of the most commonly travelled areas in the game" sign is not a good thing.
The reality is that being butchered by swarms of aggressive mobs can be exceptionally demoralizing for newbies. As such, generally such mobs won't attack people below level 30 or so, events or otherwise (though sometimes there are exceptions to that). Especially when they're in areas newbies might reasonably end up. For older players/non-newbies, they'll always be dangerous things, because Lusternia is a dangerous place.
They do not.
Celest has gone out of its way to make sure this place stays open. I know because I have had to stop Paladins bashing the Waste Facility viscanti and explain to them why. Some listened. Some did not. In fact, no players from any other org have interfered with me more than Celest players. I even went out of my way to explain to the CL, explicitly, how it is done. There's no reason for Celest as a whole not to know yet, unless key players are purposely withholding information.
OOCly, I completely understand. You guys have divinus attacks. You have little reason to like the viscanti. You get basically nothing for sealing the zombies.
But not sealing the zombies at all is extremely poor form ICly, especially given Celest's stated missions and objectives. It has become blatantly obvious that Celest doesn't mind loads of tainted, angry undead ravaging the highways outside of one of their own villages.
Yes, it is a dangerous world. There are also supposed to be people who care in this world. Isn't it a bit silly that Gloms had been the most proactive in stuffing them away up until recently?