It's become increasingly clear that the steps we've taken thus far to curtail massive ganging have not been enough. Generally speaking, its only resulted in you all just bringing bigger gangs. That's not really what we're going for here. With the coming reboot, we're taking a huge step in giving the "ganked" better chances of surviving.

That being said...
(The following may just be my view of something that's really beginning to irritate me, so take it as that - it may or may not be the view of the rest of our staff)
I thought about listing the names of characters who this may affect the most - calling out the biggest offenders and challenging them to actually try fair combat. There's just so many of you, I could spend hours listing the names. I'll just ramble a little bit on what I've seen in the last week or two since I've had some time. When cabal leaders gank-meter is so high we consider expanding the counting, when certain heroes average death is by groups of 3+, something is wrong. Do you not like challenges? If you could have a group of 50 on 1, would you? Is that fun? It certainly doesn't look like it is from my perspective. Is it fun to cower and run and hide when you only have 2 on 1 advantages? Do you like quitting out when a solo guy raids your cabal, so you don't have to fight straight up? Does it turn you on to sit in your shrine/guild and spam eq and look at the gear you're hoarding and never fighting with? Seriously, try fighting on even odds. You don't have to take 8 people to gang one guy down. 4 will be plenty. 2 probably is too. It's surely more fun that way for everyone.

I dont really know what these changes are, but if it its antiganging its good.

About those eq and look gear people, how can you actually stop them?
I have an idea but I think it may be a little unfair to certain chars.

Lets say that evil only swords need to shed blood?! If they dont for a certain amount of time, they warn you...shake or something. If you still dont use it after that warning, the sword "returns to its home in hopes of a better future." Every time you kill someone alone the counter resets. If you kill someone in a gangbang lets say 2vs1 it only resets 50% of the counter. If you kill em 3 vs 1 then it only resets 33% of the counter etc. Anywho...

Maybe instead of the swords returning home, they can begin to slowly use their properties and avg damage if they arent used. The counter is still valid. Eventually they become 0 dam 0 hit and avg 15. But they still look pretty. If however said hoarder is pkd, the item stats reset?

Maybe the counter can only be stopped by imms if your role and actions justify non violence. Or maybe the other way around, if you imms see a guy doing that #### in his guild or wherever, or constantly ganking people down, slap an armor and weapon decay counter like the one above...or below on him/her as punishment?!

"You see your (insert weapon) begin to lose its (insert property) from complete uselessness."

Paladin swords lose their stats slowly if you keep ganking people with em? After you gank 10 people or 20 all your mighty paladin only uber armor become crappy? If you die to pk your armor counter resets.

What about armor that is never used it just rusts and crumbles eventually??

Yeah it pisses me off too when i see the same char with the same uber gear after 300 hours and always with a horde, in the inn or in his guild. Super stacked cabal sitting sissies need to lose that ####.

A lot of typos in that, but i hope you get what im trying to say.

~

Okay, so the anti-ganging code seems alright, but, and no offense, I have yet to see anything work all that well anyhow. Raviri, for example, was ganked a ton, and huge ganks, and I didn't see hardly any battle chaos or anything. Nevermind the fact that he even had ehren soul. I'm more concerned about how the things will actually play out than the concepts behind them. That being said, I don't really understand gang mentality, personally. Another issue I'd like to address is I just found out recently how the gank-o-meter works. I noticed that you said you were basing some changes on the gank-o-meter which do not seem relavent: If a group of 3 takes out another group of 3, that isn't really a gank, but the gank-o-meter says it is? How can you justify a change on something which keeps statistics in a faulty manner? I'd recommend revamping the gank-o-meter, re-evaluating the stats, then perhaps going from there. Seems absurd to repair a building with a screwed up foundation, again, no offense.

Lastly, I noted something along the lines of someone suggesting that gankers start hitting their own group, rather than the target they want to hit. Personally, I like that idea alot more, but in terms of role play and such, I can see some serious issues: Acolyte conjurer's angel tracking and killing a paladin being the first that pops to mind. It is a problem, and I do not pretend to have the answers. My personal problem has always been more with the gankers who full loot afterwards. I mean, it isn't bad enough that you ganked me 5v1, but you have to leave me naked on top of it? But then, I'd hate to see looting changed. So in short, do whatever the hell you want. I love the game, and it is far more fun to bitch than do anything about it. Thanks for all the work! I'm tired, going to bed. ;P

So, I hate ganks too. I've died to them historically a lot. I'm one of those players who doesn't really bitch when it happens - I basically expect the full lewt every time I die.

That said, I have been a part of the "gang mentality" and large gangs in the past. In all cases, it has been very much like the "mob mentality" that is so often discussed among sociologists and psychologists in everyday society. We have numbers, they do not. We have a pretext under which we can attack them, and so we attack. Looting at that stage becomes a purely personal decision, but when everyone in your 5 on 1 gank decides that they can "loot two items because that's their fair share", you can see where that leads.

You sound like you haven't played for that long, so here's a suggestion for you to try to at least understand - I find that in understanding the mentality and the motivation there is generally less resentment when I play the other side. Play an Imperial Blade. Sometimes the odds will be stacked in your favor. You will have priests and mages to run around with. You will also log in sometimes and have nothing but outlanders and paladin squads ganking you down. It's a fact of life in hero range. To be honest, this game is not about equipment. I used to think it was. Granted, it's nice to have equipment, but this isn't WoW. I think it was when I began to only have 3-5 hours per week to play that the game began to take a different cast to me.

How your character deals with these situations will define him or her. How do you handle a situation where you are in a "gank squad". How much power do you have in that situation? Is it a "team"? Or is it a principal-constituent type of relationship? Do you form loose coalitions? Are you a loner?

The Immortals do a better job these days than ever before in trying to genuinely understand your character and his/her motivations. Use that to your advantage. When you get full looted, it sucks. Every loss, however, is an opportunity. It's an opportunity for you to understand and develop how your character responds to such a situation, and to leave your mark upon the realm.

Characters can live a long time in CF. Even the shortest-lived races have several hundred hours, and few people age die. Frustration and boredom are the two primary reasons people delete.

With the right attitude and approach, both frustration and boredom can be overcome. I think if you can accomplish that, you will find yourself having more fun and getting the most out of your characters.

Your fun shouldn't come from bitching - it should come from overcoming adversity and developing your character in spite of it.

Reward yourself through your character development, and you will be rewarded for it. And good luck.

T

Coming along next reboot or so, the anti-gang code will have a similar effect upon area skills/spells/powers/communes. Your allies can provide cover and generally get in the way of you being able to clock someone with a tsunami or what have you.

Are area effects now useless for ganging? No, but they're in the same boat as directed effects.

Are area effects now useless for group vs. group battles? This would be my biggest question if I read this announcement, and again the answer is no. It will work something like this: Let's say you are a conjurer and your four groupmates are fighting an enemy group of five and you're all focusing on the same one guy out of the enemy group. If you cast flash, four of your enemies are affected as normal. The fifth dude you're all wailing on, however, has a good chance to be safe from the spell because he has the cover of five characters wailing on him. Area effects are thus slightly diminished for group vs. group action, but they're still the best game in town for these situations by a wide margin.

If possible, I'd make none of this applicable to orcs at least from the ganging side. Orcs should be able to gang at their leisure without being hindered by this line of code.

.

Talk about bringing a topic back from the dead . . .

Bard songs had been omitted from the same anti-gang stuff as other area spells, etc., mostly because they would have been a huge pain in the ass to include.

I realized today that reworking some of that infrastructure for bard edges neatly solved that problem, so now songs will work (next crash/reboot or so) the same as anything else with respect to the anti-ganging code.

Sweet ass.. anti-gang and edges are the best changes since... uh, legacies.

nt

Sweet change, hope it works.


Good work Sebeok
Sleep well
I'll most likely kill you in the morning

f

n/t

Sit in guilds spamming Eq?

I can believe it. It's one of my biggest pet peeves, bigger thn even punctuation and caps, when people glance at me first thing. I just refuse to travel with them.

Anyway, just wondering if you were serious.

Some of the folks with the nicest gear in the game never ever use it. It makes baby jesus cry.

I am, generally, in favor of less gangs. But I can't say anything about this change specifically, because no specifics were given (and I sorta understand why).

However. There are logs of certain very powered characters, facing these large gangs solo...and not only surviving, but kicking ass.

Logs of Paladins, and Liches, mostly. If a 4 on one against a paladin with ubber gear and some nice virtues not only gets 2 of the attackers dead, but leaves the paladin nearly untouched, why should that paladin get a boost from this new anti-ganging code?

Maybe some people die to massive gangs, because bringing anything less than a massive gang is insufficient and will most likely result in the death of the attackers?

Maybe there can be something in the code that allows any anti-ganging code to be relaxed for those characters who are acknowledged as UBBER.

I'm not necessarilly saying use pk stats, because often those who kill the most also die alot, I'm saying about those characters who have found a magic combination of race/class/skill/eq/imm benefite that make them near impossible to take down completely without a numbers advantage (unless they do something stupid).

There's nothing to stop you from bringing 15 of your friends to gankzor someone. Your skills may not be all that successful when you do so, but you're still 15 on 1 and that's still pretty good.

Ironically both examples I could think of simple ways to kill them with two people that would pretty much be sure death. If they are that difficult then its only fitting that you have to spend some THOUGHT on how to take them down, rather than just bringing 15 people to their cabal inner and making them choose to either RP and die or not RP and live.

As someone that likes to take on gangs because of how easy it is to pick off the weaker members of the herd I like this change a lot. Sebeok, you just climbed up on my favorite imms list. Gracias.

However. There are logs of certain very powered characters, facing these large gangs solo...and not only surviving, but kicking ass.

They can do that because they're skilled players, often times with the right race/class for the right situation, with the ability to exploit their advantages and minimize their weaknesses. Believe me, there are plenty of times where a paladin or a lich has been slaughtered by one guy, let alone a group of four.

The reason you hear about (and see logs posted about) the ones that can do what you're talking about, is because it's extrodinary and rare. We definitely don't want to handicap that.

Aarn

There are reasons why paladins at least can wade into groups like that. Most of what I saw, was my enemies fighting like idiots. I wish I could sugar coat it, but that's the gist of it. There were several folks that just reamed me one on one, with little effort. One example I think you're speaking of, is the imperial log on dio's with Forsk? Dorn ran into the same thing, and I'll explain right now why Forsk came out on top. You don't just keep bashing someone in a champion's stand.

I cannot count the number of fights I would have lost with Dorn, if folks would have just used their warrior skills. Between offensive communes, high power warrior attacks, and offensive bard songs, no one should come out unscathed. Actually people should rarely live when facing that. But instead you have three or four people going bash bash bash bash. I don't care how big the damn group is, if you fight stupid, you deserve to get beat even if you are in a group.

Correction. It sounds very promising.

~

OK ok I am going to do my best not to turn this into a flame because I know you are working hard but the reason people gang is because they actually like to accomplish something. I don't know the last time I saw someone so proud that they made 80 people run away and had zero kills. If you want less gangs start removing preps from the game and nerfing lagging moves. you said it yourself you made it harder to lag in a gang so instead of less gangs you see more bigger ones. people are going to continue to create strategies that work to get kills.

why don't you make fly potions very limited, change cranial and bearcharge back, make lash more reliable for non warrior whip specs. while fighting one v one. why would I want to fight one on one when unless you make a decision to let yourself die you are not very likely too.

One one hand you're saying "nerf lagging moves" and then you say "change cranial and bearcharge back, make lash more reliable". You can't have it both ways. That being said...

Bearcharge hasn't been changed other than the same sort of antigang stuff like bash,trip,etc have, so I don't know what you're talking about. Cranial is still a quite viable option, it's just not the greatest spec-skill ever like it was before. And if you're using lash as a non-warrior whip spec, you're probably better off running away - very rarely is it the right thing to do.

We'll see how the rest of it plays out. It may drastically change the dynamics of group on group pk or raid situations. Take a 4 on 2 situation, it may be better for the foursome to split their attacks. In turn, the 2 have more of a fighting chance to do some damage to the 4. That's far more interesting and FUN! to me than a 4 on 1 raping.

The bigger you're gang, the more likely you incorrectly target either a different opponent or a groupmate. Instead of making it harder to lag the gangee, make it harder to coordinate the attacks of a large group.

Or apply progressivly more lag against the gangers when they execute their moves.

Most people gang not because they don't want a one on one fight but because the outcome of a one on one fight is more often then not somebody dieing. People don't play this game to make people run away. By making it more viable to actually kill somebody one on one by improving lag techniques one on one, removing easy to get preps like teleport and fly and word, and putting say a penalty on teleport or something then you will take away the need to gang after all who really wants to split loot and credit.

if you make it harder to seal a kill then people will go to further lengths to do it, until you make the penalty forganging so severe that it does not hold an advantage over solo killing people will use it. if you actually achieve that this game will be no fun because no vets would ever really die unless they choose to.

We're choosing to address it differently, and we'll see how that plays out.

What difference does it make if the guy runs off convulsing, or even unscathed. What in your psyche prevents you from seeing that for what it is, a victory.

I read this and it translates into lets make warriors even better than they already are. Considering they're the most popular class and bash/trip is often a good idea for them as it is I'm not keen on making them have an even easier time of things.

The fault is in you, not the game. Plenty of people go out and land tons of kills without being 5-man-gang-happy.

>OK ok I am going to do my best not to turn this into a flame
>because I know you are working hard but the reason people gang
>is because they actually like to accomplish something. I
>don't know the last time I saw someone so proud that they made
>80 people run away and had zero kills. If you want less gangs
>start removing preps from the game and nerfing lagging moves.
>you said it yourself you made it harder to lag in a gang so
>instead of less gangs you see more bigger ones. people are
>going to continue to create strategies that work to get
>kills.

I'm perplexed, why does removing preps reduce the ganging? If anything gangs don't use preps.

...that gangs are required to kill people that prep.

You could argue that you can take advantage of a lack of a gang to reduce the effectiveness of preps, by drawing out the combat so the person burns through them.

Huh? As a shaman I killed 74 people in under 200 hours with a 1.6 gank-o-meter. A shaman, largely thought to be sucky at solo kill landing. I had 68 PKs with a sphere honor paladin titled Bastion of Honor.

The problem is its easier to gang. Because you feel that way, you will never learn the alternatives and tactics that allow you to kill without bash spamming. But to say its the only way you can accomplish something is silly. Look at what Jinroh was able to do.

They need to make lagging moves less and less effective the bigger the gang gets.

Like mountain storm should work/hit 99% of the time in 1v1 fights. 75% of the time in 2v1, 40% in 3v1 and 20% from then on, or something like that. I dont want them to lag less if they hit, i want them to miss completely when ganking. I think thats how it is now actually.

I really wouldnt want lagging moves nerfed, period, except have them work less when ganking someone.

nt

Excellent! The other idea would have been fun just to see how much of a hypocrite i am.

I think spending those hours would be a good use of time. Think for a minute about how long certain facts about characters from 1997 are brought up. Fast forward a couple of years. Someone is mouthing off about how they've always killed solo, blah blah blah. Up pops this list.

What a great idea. I beg you to please reconsider.

Regards,

Nivek

Sniff....

Almost makes me wanna play CF again....