Ryzom

tonycow wrote: Its the fact that the options not there that makes it so frustrating

The option is there tho. Its not a "hidden" feature, as you posted previously, and im also not referring to the "lame AI" method of jumping in water.
SHOCK ! An MMORPG in which you actually have to think about things ? It'll never catch on

ozric wrote:The option is there tho. Its not a "hidden" feature, as you posted previously, and im also not referring to the "lame AI" method of jumping in water.
SHOCK ! An MMORPG in which you actually have to think about things ? It'll never catch on

If you are referring to the speed up stanza then I find that hardly ever works when running to the guards - yes you outpace the mobs for a bit but once its timer is up those same mobs magically seem to be on your ass again giving you a sound thrashing. Actually making it out of aggro range is something that just doesnt seem to happen.

I have tried various ways to maximise use of this method to escape - zig-zagging through herds to try to get the mobs trapped, nipping around obstacles etc but time and time again the mobs are there chrewing on me.

As I have already stated I am NOT the only person ingame during conversations on this problem who also hates the way fleeing is handled on Ryzom - you may well find it acceptable but a lot of players seem not to and tbh this game needs to keep its playerbase satisfied to stand even a slim chance of survival - at times the server pops are pathetic, many times I can run through a town with barely a soul passing through. I would like Ryzom to be a staggering success but watching players die time and time again to situations well out of their control can get frustrating and cause loss of subscriptions

As for thinking about things, yes i like a challenge in my games, I have gained gm in most skills on UO and killed/died to pks, levelled up powerful characters on EQ and been present in raids against its supermobs, pvped on DAOC, run guilds of my own on various games, etc, etc. I am not stating the game should be dumbed down but fleeing should be a viable tactic - the fact escape is virtually impossible is the frustrating part not the actual death penalties. I will most likely die almost as often taking on bigger things due to the perception that I can flee if things go badly wrong but judging my situation badly. I have made plenty of mistakes on these games in the past

I want to die in the game because I made a mistake, not because some random spawning at my position in the game creates a situation where I must die without the chance to haul ass out of there - at least on some occasions

Just noticed another disturbing trend in the mobs actions on Ryzom which gives me yet another reason to gripe about the lack of a sprint option:

I am walking past a gringo fighting a yubo and have moved well out of aggro range and started another fight - I have not hit the gringo once to aggro it.

Now here comes the odd behaviour - the gringo runs across a large distance and now attacks me, just because at some point i must have passed the aggro threshold whilst watching the fight.

Now considering I have started another fight thinking I am ok and miles off the gringo I die again as I now have 2 mobs on me taking me well past what I can handle - this wasnt the gringo just wandering over as it made a mad dash for me after winning the yubo fight.

Please explain how combat tactics rather than having an option to flee would have helped in this situation

I have to admit that the situation described above does irritate me at times too. It seems that aggro mobs do have this built in tendency to drop what they're doing and attack a player even when plenty of other lesser 'prey' animals are around.

I have had aggro mobs run right through a herd of prey animals to attack me, and had them leave fights with prey animals to do the same, although in those situations you can end up with an unexpected ally as the animal it was attacking will sometimes come to your aid. I've been attacked by Gingos for example and had Raspals that were no way involved suddenly attack the Gingo (although I believe this may be because they are still in 'aggro mode' from a previous unwitnessed fight with a different Gingo).

It seems that aggro mobs have a kind of built in kill switch that is activated whenever a player comes within range that forces them to attack the player whatever it may have been doing previously, which to me seems somewhat unrealistic and detracts from the otherwise very lifelike AI mobs generally follow.

Maybe I'm being too fussy though...

Dont run within 25m of a gingo then...

Part of the skill of playing the game is to avoid mobs. To help you do this you have a radar screen, this is VERY useful. When running from Avalae to fleetign gardens you now have to pass a line a javings and gingos, lately I have been doing this entirely by watching the radar screen and moving to keep mobs out of 25m.

Note however that other mobs have an agro range of more than 25m so dont use this till you adjust....

You can outrun some mobs, I have out run a Spritely Bodoc - the same one 3 times, as I tried to wear it down. Carnivores however seem to never give up.

I also dont agree with you (just my opinion, nothing special) that you should compare games. I stopped playing other games because I didnt like them, why would I be pining for features from those games to be brought into SOR. SOR works the way it works, you have worked this out, you know how it works... some things I dont like either, but I get on with it.

None of the things I dont like are bugs, they are as the game seems to be intended, and whether I like or dislike them is irrelevant. I can only hope that some of them may be changed... and certainly you posting here to air your dislikes is a valid way to try to gain the GMs attention... you might get lucky

As for the con system, yes it is confusing, so I ignore it mostly. Bitter experience has told me what I can fight and cant fight... I dont need no stinky colour code to tell me that (hehe). Get rid of the damn thing.

I fight, I die, I learn, I adjust... the saga continues...

I am learning some of the mobs aggro ranges and this does help in avoiding fights and judging what to pull better.

However, it still occurs on occasion where an aggro mob spawns nearby as I am fighting - in this case there is no way to avoid aggro range. Again this brings into play the problem of not being able to flee *sigh*.

It has been noted before on the NA forums that maybe when a mob becomes aggro to you the icon where an eye appears could indicate this - at least if that got implemented then accidentally aggroing a mob thats fighting something else could act as an alert - in this case picking another fight could be avoided until this aggroed mob is dealt with rather than having it as an unwanted add.

Overall there are some ways to avoid getting into unwanted bother but its the unavoidable situations that become unescapable in many cases.

Who knows maybe the devs will change the way fleeing is handled, one can only hope

I can also see what you are saying about avoiding the con system and learning what to fight by experience, however based on the fact theres a con box and the mechanics in the game for con to be displayed I feel this should be fixed - surely the devs put it there for us to make use of ? One thing I have noticed is the mismatch of the box around the mob and the box in the target display - fixing this minor bug may also alleviate some problems.

I can live without a con system (UO had no means to know how hard a creature was other than to belt it and see if you survived - the whole fighting system was trial and error in that respect - though you could leg it if things went sour) but if its already there then it should become a meaningful tool.

Again it is noted I have made comparisons to other games, but I feel some of these comparisons can be necessary - these titles have had many years of development and some have been highly successful, I dont want Ryzom to become either UO or EQ, I may as well return to one of those if it does, but there are always some things another game can do better and taking note of how its done and adapting some of those ideas can produce results that make a new game more fun to play - after all fun is the main factor in choosing a game to play in the long-term. It is the content, balance, story and fun factor in the elements of combat/casting/crafting and interaction with other players that tend to make or break a game.

I am quite sure that during the development cycle that the devs themselves took note of the other titles in this genre

tonycow wrote:If you are referring to the speed up stanza...

Nope.....but it could figure as part of a solution

tonycow wrote: Please explain how combat tactics rather than having an option to flee would have helped in this situation

But there IS an option (or variations of a similar idea), its just not a big flashing button with the word FLEE on it. But im done posting on this thread now, feel free to continue banging on about "no option" all you like.

One thing about my character - he was aiming to become a pure fighter/tank so up to now blind, fear or root are three options i havent taken. In fact I only gained a few levels in magery - the majority of my work was in fight. I have played the tank role on several games in the past and quite enjoy the role of meat-shield in high end groups and keeping the more brittle group members safe. The only reason I took speed up was hopefully as a sprint replacement and so that higher levels might allow me to get from A to B faster.

By my guessing its making use of the above spells to assist in escape, seeing as Ozric doesnt actually post any helpful advice but continues to say an option is there and I am not thinking hard enough (yes i had considered these as possible options but that makes my character what he should not become a fighter/mage hybrid). This all makes me wonder about the games actual design - if specific skills are obviously far better than others ( the use of ID rather than bleed for example and having to take particular options rather than having a simple sprint facility as mentioned ) wont this make for a lot of cookie-cutter characters in Ryzom thus taking away from the diversity found in many other mmorpgs ?

Many players already have balanced a number of levels in fighting/magic/harvesting/crafting as they see a need to do so, however this is removing a lot of diversity from the game, at least from the low to middle levels. Couple this with problems with ranged combat and I have seen a lot of players running around with a 2hand weapon because this seems to be the way to go for many - range is borked and 1hand does less damage for more stamina - I seem to be living in a world of clones.

The combat in game so far is actually pretty bland with a limited number of options to use in most fights (I know that most mmorpgs you simply click attack and use skills during a fight but Ryzoms subset of usable skills in combat is limited to say the least), if the game actually pushes towards several skills being 'needed' as well, how many players will be playing this game far into the future ? Taking Asherons Call as an example - how many people on there went og mage or life archer ? I dont want Ryzom to becoma a game of cookie cutter characters.

It has been interesting to read on other threads how some players simply stick increased damage on autoattack to fight then use self heal when its up, or how mages use acid acid fear acid acid fear... it looks to me like the tactical aspects of fighting just aren't present.

Yes, I have complained about the poor con system and lack of a sprint option but just adding these to the problems above makes me think that Ryzom will become a very boring game as a fighter - pick fight you know you can handle (you will have died many times finding out which mobs are suitable) and cant lose from a mob wandering on its own, run up and click autoattack increase damage, rinse, repeat.

Compare this to a fight with my enforcer on AO who has brawl, fastattack, bioshield, trollform, layers, mongo, colossus damage buffs, perk specials etc, etc to use in a fight and can handle an add by either legging it or by careful use of timed specials in a fight and couple this with the far wider arrangement of equipment and skill options and you can see where I am going with this argument... In 100 levels time I will still be using increased damage X, still looking for a mob i can handle on its own. Looking further down the skill tree for fight I cant see any diverse combat options opening up.

Yes, you can train up in all skill areas in Ryzom and maybe most people will - this does sound good at first - everyone can be everything - but where is the diversity in the game WHEN everyone IS everything ?

I am beginning to get that feeling that Ryzom just isn't for me. I want my character to be an individual who lends his expertise to a group with his specialised skills or who can use good tactics in solo combat without becoming a mage

Sorry for the long rant