Graveyard Mob Resets

[Techron]

I'm curious, are the mob resets that are happening regularly in the graveyard a permanent change, an accidental change, or what? Personally I don't like fighint a mob and it dying just before I kill it with no rise in EXP. I just won't fight in the graveyard if this is the way things will be from now on.

Techron

[o11c]

The reset is not supposed to happen when there's anyone fighting.

The graveyard is supposed to be harder than it is, but the mob AI is too dumb. Forcibly resetting monsters to their spawn point when there is no combat helps.

[straelyn]

just for the record, I think that approach is a really bad idea
chess engines are fun and all for programmers to toy around with, but nobody likes to feel like they're fighting an equation. It ceases to be a game. Everytime someone develops a strategy, you call it an exploit and change the rules.

[Techron]

The reset is not supposed to happen when there's anyone fighting.

Well, there is definately a bug.

Techron

[o11c]

I cannot reproduce - when I use @hide to make the script ignore me, they reset after the delay; when I don't use @hide, they chase me for much longer than the delay

[Cassy]

Can't you please revert this completely?

I mean... where should archers level now?
Yetis are too strong (too high defense), Candor only happens every now and then and is too expensive to do it all the time to level.
There's only the graveyard and with all the skulls around this place will suck now.

I can only point at my and ChefChelios' posts.
This is also an awesome feature but not for the graveyard as it is now.
Maybe after the Crypt release.

[Techron]

A character named madcamel was in the graveyard while I was fighting mobs and resets occured with him there. He was not fighting so I assumed he was causing the resets.

Techron

[tux9th]

can this mob reset be disabled with a map flag?

[Kazenawa]

I've also noticed a strange behaviour in graveyard these days.

Seriously, if the aim is to make graveyard more difficult, that's really annyoning...

This way you're pretty sure to find this particular monster near this particular spot, and so on... This really looks like fighting always the same way. At least when monsters could be stored, there were differences. For example, a bunch of fallens/zombies in a single spot, which caused disaster among low levels !

In my opinion, it would be better to keep it how it is, but to make harder maps for higher leveled players. After all, players are used to graveyard with the possibility to store those really annyoning skulls. They like it this way, why would you change this ? Remember it's currently the only way to level up efficiently...

[Techron]

I have figured out why the mobs are resetting while I'm killing them: I am not taking damage.
If I take damage at regular intervals, the reset does not occur.

Techron

[AnonDuck]

That's really weird and sounds like a bug. No I wasn't resetting the mobs. They should only do that when there's nobody around! Does it happen when you are in a specific location of the graveyard only? If so what are the coordinates?(Press F10). The more information you can give me on this the better! Maybe @wgm next time it's happening and a dev or GM can come take a look? Does it happen only when you are alone or when nobody at all is taking damage?

This reset thing is considered experimental stop-gap measure and to be learned from. I am glad to hear players thoughts on this! It should be temporary and is part of the process of developing a better solution to mob-penning. This is why you'll see me in the GY watching, I'm observing player behavior to look for ways of making the mob AI a little smarter in a much more subtle way, without having to rewrite large portions of it. Anyone want to help?

Yes, unpenning the skulls makes the GY less of a grind-spot for archers if they are alone. They can team-play with warriors or go to a more archer-friendly spot. There are plenty of them.. Even if it's not what you are used to or the exp isn't quite as good. I realize this is probably going to be unpopular as it makes TMW more difficult, but it's the proper thing to do moving forward to a better game balance.

I was involved (on the sidelines) in the creation of the graveyard and I can assure you it was never intended to be such an easy exp farm as it degraded in to. The mob layout/stats of this map(including the skulls) was created after a careful two-week long examination of game balance and the map's effect on such. There was much testing involved. This is also the case with many other maps. The map developers cannot maintain balance if the players keep doing surprising things to their maps! Surely you can see a solution needs to be found? Preferably one that seems less... robotic than the resets.

If you have a problem with balance please take it up with the map designers. I am just trying to ensure things work as they intend.

[Cassy]

Yes, unpenning the skulls makes the GY less of a grind-spot for archers if they are alone. They can team-play with warriors or go to a more archer-friendly spot. There are plenty of them.. Even if it's not what you are used to or the exp isn't quite as good. I realize this is probably going to be unpopular as it makes TMW more difficult, but it's the proper thing to do moving forward to a better game balance.

I was involved (on the sidelines) in the creation of the graveyard and I can assure you it was never intended to be such an easy exp farm as it degraded in to.

I can totally understand that.
But... there is a huge, huge hole between places for mid level players and the graveyard as it's suppossed to be with the skulls.
I don't see other places to level up or other archer-friendly spots.
E.g. my archer is level 73 now and there is no place with good exp gain for her except for the graveyard (as mentioned above Yetis and Candor don't count).
Imagine this going until level 90 (when you finally can do Illia to have effective equipment against skulls)...

As long as we don't have the crypt released which will fill this huge hole this change is a big step backwards for balance.
The players used the lure away tactic to fill this hole.

In a nutshell:

• For an short-term experiment this is okay.
• For the feature when the crypt is released it's more than okay, it's even awesome.
• At the moment it makes the hole between mid and high level places even bigger.

Anyone want to help?

I'll try around with it and let you know if I find out more.


Edit:

Like you can see players are not so happy about the new change to gy, archers and speed warriors below 90 got hard time hitting skulls which really makes the gy not as friendly for leveling like it was before. (without the banshee bow archers at all levels got hard time hitting skulls, unless focused on m. eye at level 99). i think like cassy that this change needed to be pushed after the release of the crypt.

Source
Just to show you that there are more people unhappy, not only me and Kaze

[pclouds]

Can't you please revert this completely?

I mean... where should archers level now?
Yetis are too strong (too high defense), Candor only happens every now and then and is too expensive to do it all the time to level.
There's only the graveyard and with all the skulls around this place will suck now.

Not sure if it helps but when I was a mid level I hunted lone lady skeletons in Terranite Cave. Just drag them out of the spiders (and wish other players dont kill you . There's also the inn outside graveyard that is quite safe for mid levels.

[SriNitayanda]

I liked the idea of changes to mob AI, like you presented it in previous posts. what i pictured was something completely different though. i imagined this picture: someone is storing the mob in the freezer, when i already come to the freezer to start killing the mob there, the monsters are already on their way back to their spawning point making me make the smiley i do on my profile picture. I couldn't care less for myself since i am pretty much done leveling in gy, last time i went there was to test the slingshot with my main character. i am just posting it reading some feedback around in game.

Yes i understand this behavior is harder to implement i have no idea about coding so i appreciate the efforts to find some other ways to do it. however when you do the test you have to take into account few things. i have seen you play MadCamel you are a skilled archer not everyone is as skilled as you dodging mobs. people still died even occasionally in gy the way it was before. even when hunting with other players. and unlike you who got 0 ping, tmw is hosted in only one place though people around the world play it (260ms-300ms ping here on good days, and 300ms with spikes on bad days).

The link Cassy posted here about some other post i wrote, is about update procedure i think if you could call the testing group for few hours of testing the new mob AI on testing the current bug could be avoided. and you could start your observation from more advanced stage. preventing some inconvenience.

[Dyna]

But... there is a huge, huge hole between places for mid level players and the graveyard as it's suppossed to be with the skulls.
I don't see other places to level up or other archer-friendly spots.
E.g. my archer is level 73 now and there is no place with good exp gain for her except for the graveyard (as mentioned above Yetis and Candor don't count).
Imagine this going until level 90 (when you finally can do Illia to have effective equipment against skulls)...

God, I am going to sound like I am saying 'Get off my lawns kids!' but I leveled to 80 off mountain snakes and snakes alone, back when the GY was just a distant pixelated dream in someones head. Got to 95 off the two skulls in the Northern Mines when it was 'the spot' to grind and skulls weren't such a pain in the ass. So, your argument that the GY should be an easy spot to mindless grind away to get to 99 the fastest in sort of invalid. I *hate* the GY with a seething hatred because to me, it has ruined this game. We weren't meant to have a whole bunch of us 'testers/players' getting to max level. It's the journey of playing the game...not getting cruise control to 150 miles an hour to get to 99 the fastest.

Hell, I remember a few old players who got to 96 off snakes alone. Try leveling a character the old way and come back to this argument You newer players have it good, even with the skulls chasing you around a map.

I will admit, the resetting on a good archer or mage would be annoying...shouldn't implement huge changes to AI like that until the bugs have been worked out. For reals yo!