Thoughts on this month's loot pinata.

[kinlock]

Necro pets suck.
I have ALL particles turned off and I STILL see green heals around people's feet. I'm so happy to know the 200+ necro pets have heals!

And that does it for my once-a-month AOC log-on. Back to other games that contain regular content updates.

[Raeil]

Mid range computer here. Can't say I've had any issues.

My only complaint would be that it's too easy with not enough strategy required. Or basically the same as every other world boss. But on the other hand I'm probably over geared and aa'd compared to the target audience and there's plenty of other non-trivial things that I could be doing that would result in better loot.

[Artemisia]

Limiting the people per instance more and reducing health is the way to go. Not punishment for the players like autokick or no rewards etc..

You do not know, why they act like that. They might have a very good reason and as it is, not hurting others.
With reduced players in instance you will have less crashes, people can form organized raids and actually communicate and benefit from each other. So the boss does not have to go down a lot slower.
Also the afk crowd would reconsider and might get more motivated to help, when facing the choice to afk a lot longer (and miss next boss) or help as well as seeing their actions actually matter.

Some people who probably are standing still not hitting at all are frozen or perhaps had a bio, but in many instances I'm in I see them hit the boss until they get that defender buff and then RUN away out of aoe range and out of hitting range to sit AFK. THOSE are the people who I have a problem with. In THREE of the instances I did yesterday over 30% of the people in the instances were doing this, or they would stay out of range until 10% and then come in and start hitting. Why should I hit the boss the entire time for half an instance full of people who stand afk and let them get loot?

As for limiting person cap, when the Executioner was up last month before they hotfixed it we had issues with half of the 24-25 people standing afk because they grew bored/disgusted hitting the boss.


This is why we need autokicks to rezpads for people who go AFK. Rewarding people for being carried is wrong, even IF its a loot pinata. You wouldn't allow half a raid to stand afk in t3 boss fights, you shouldn't allow it here.


I have no issues with lower level players not hitting the boss as much or running out of aoe to be safe.

[Anubium]

Its better than it was when not only could they hit the boss and go afk, but then they could sit on the ress pad far away from the boss and 'steal' spots to afk in the next instance.

The ones I saw hiding in los spots were lowbies for the most part though the last couple of days.

[Kurt2013]

Yes, i do that too. And i also explained why. With this boss i usually crashed with minimum settings when joining a fight. In the rare occasions i do not crash, i freeze the whole fight and am dead, when boss is dead and people leave. So the tactic is to be there before the boss spawns so i can do some damage at all.
So, if i do want a kill and quest update even once, i have to avoid dying at all cost (risk of crashing, risk of freezing, risk of stupid players moving the boss too far away etc.).
Here come current boss mechanic into play...at other population intensive bosses i had similar problems, but there it was easier to avoid dying and be active and contributing (this also depends a lot on class).
The massive aoe is very bad in this regard and makes it impossible to stay near the boss. THe fact that on Crom people are not grouping or forming raids to distribute heals better does not help as well.
I can only speak for myself here, but without these punitive recent changes (70m rule) i would play more aggressive and take risks with this boss as well, because i would knew once i do damage and the buff, i can die and ress to at least try and come back...even if i crash then. Not so now.

I agree with the executioner cap, 25 people was too few definitely. But 50 was also a tad too much already. How many do we have in fotd or eiglo...100? Even the 50 from last month would be better than what we have now (and i guess fotd and eiglo have a higher cap, because of raid instances there).

And no...the reward should be mainly for people SHOWING UP...the scale of rewards can then increase with how active or participating they are. But keep advocating the penalties and a lot of people will stop bothering.

I also don't understand why under this logic, you have no problem with lower levels.

About why you should let them hit once and you do all the work...well, how do they hurt you? By increasing the kill time from 10 minutes to 12 minutes per boss? Again, it is part of the pop cap per instance problem, imo. Experience with last boss showed, that the less people in instance, the more active numbers you have. The afkers were unable to hide in the masses and most of them DO have a conscience. But why should they focus on hitting one key over and over, when their individual actions do not seem to matter? This is a problem of encounter design and target group.

The solution again would lie in the pop cap and probably in quest and loot design to keep you happy. I do agree that these people are annoying when they are out to farm the boss (as anubium mentions too), but i find it totally fair they do it to get quest update once. again, the more interesting and stable the fight is, the less of these people you will have. And in a mob, where the individual does not matter, it is enough to spam one key...especially if the alternative of playing at max will not yield a significantly different result in boss health reduction, reward or risk. As they are, the bosses now are per DESIGN afk content more or less.

Comparing to t3 is not valid...simply because half the raid afk will not work and those afk risk loosing the loot completely. But even there...if there has been free space in raid and you manage to do with 12 people and only those 12 people get loot, the afk 12 only the minimum...where is the problem?

Even the problem anubium mentions will be addressed with lesser numbers per instance. Simply because there will be more open instances and those staying on ress will be more likely to join an existing fight than "steal" spots in a waiting queue (as you could see when the executioner instance pop was limited to 25).

[Anubium]

Soul barrier can be losed. Hard to avoid if you are a melee character but I've dodged behind the pillar or other items with ranged chars and avoided that big aoe.

Definitely a fight where you need more dps but then get more lag.