Goblin Squad Member
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We are doing on average, around, 2,082.5 damage, to a Caster or around 1,457.75 damage to a Prelate, give or take a few hundred. It doesn't matter at all if they are doing damage, because they die, almost instantly (well they did in 2-3 seconds, sometimes that is enough time for them to get off an attack).
Generally speaking, the ratio of casters/prelates to knights in the Ustalav Hex is low compared to Mordent Spire. I think the most we have seen is 3 casters in 1 group, that is usually 2 reds and 1 purple, or 1 red and 2 purples, the average group usually only has 1-2 casters/prelates. They always die first.
I don't think were playing victim, we are just letting you know exactly what we are doing.
All I'd ask people to compare is the risk to reward ratio, and to judge for themselves (as new arrivals with nothing to hide or be defensive about and with dev permission to exploit-ish) whether they'd have bug reported Ustalavs within minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months of hunting there.As I'm sure you're aware, many of the forum population will judge based on the forums alone, and not bother to go and see for themselves in game. I'm just trying to provide more complete information for comparison on the forums.
There's many AI problems. If mobs get stuck pathing to you, would you just shoot them down from a distance anyway or do you run away to reset them so they behave correctly? If you pull a mob in a big group and it doesn't aggro the rest of them when you know it normally should, do you reset and try again until you get the proper response, or do you just kill the one mob?
Actually, people not bothering to come out to see didn't even cross my mind. Who doesn't want tier 2 recipes, spells, maneuvers, resources, and silver drops? But you may be right.
As far as the AI examples...
Never seen example 1. Example 2 makes me think there are 2 different camps that spawned really close together.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've seen Example 1 several times. For some reason, it seems to happen most often with wolves/goblin dogs/hell hounds. When they get stuck, I stand still and shoot them until they die. For every AI/UI oddity in my favor, I know there's another case where the deck is stacked against me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the real question is: If you knew this happened with regularity in a specific area would you intentionally go back there and take advantage of it?
And if you needed to kill those mobs (and their bigger, meaner spawn-mates) anyways for a quest/specific salvage/achievement/etc, would you put off doing those things, or fight other stuff that's much less efficient/more dangerous, in order to avoid a minority of buggy mobs?
"Taking advantage" is an intent, and there's plenty of other reasons why one might want to fight a particular group of mobs that has nothing to do with AI problems.
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Just to throw some water on my own concerns...
(actually, just in the interest of fairness)
The reply (that I just read) to my bug report was very reassuring and alleviates much of my concern. If they're not freaked out, I'm not going to be freaked out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with that, Karlbob. Enemies running at me not granting opportunity, my attacks failing to work in the middle of combat until I relog, something goes up a tree and starts shooting me and I can't shoot back... with those things happening I'm not going to feel bad when a wolf gets stuck running around in a circle.
I did head out to the Ustalavs, and it is a bit exploitish. Their debuffs make it take a LONG time to kill them, but they do stop doing damage, so if you kill the enemies around them first, it's just a matter of patience and you take them out. It's still somewhat of a challenge in game logic terms to solo farm them because I have to clear out the other enemies, which can be quite difficult (first thing I did was get killed), but I already have one new t2 recipe to show for my efforts and it's definitely a bug. I'll farm it a bit more because the devs said enjoy, but I definitely would have reported it if I had found it. This isn't like the Broken Men casters who seem easier to kill because they're doing relatively low-damage attacks (especially if you have magic resistances), they just stop doing any damage altogether.
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I don't think were playing victim, we are just letting you know exactly what we are doing.
Well I have heard it all now I suppose, if it takes a more than a week to let everybody know that Ustalav Knights are not working as intended and to have this news trickle in from a third party counts as "letting us know exactly what you are doing" then we must have a different definition of transparency.
The crux of this argument is not how much damage 10 people can do to one Ustalav knight every 3 seconds, it is whether or not people were aware of the problems associated with the Ustalav casters, nothing more and nothing less. If this game is to survive we need everyone to be on board constantly providing feedback so that GW can fix any bugs as they arise and not keeping them quiet for a week and then down playing the whole thing because we don't want to lose out on easy silver/recipes/mats.
And as far as playing the victim goes...
It just so happens that your opinion is accusing others of exploiting. Others that have supported this game much longer than you and like you (hopefully) want this game to succeed. Excuse us for taking offense to that opinion which was obviously released here to make some kind of statement and perhaps tarnish reputations. Not a good look.
As long as you continue to try and defend the farming of Ustalavs you will be criticized it is as simple as that. Your reputation is your own and it is reflective of your actions. So are you willing to push the limits on rules despite the implications it has on peoples opinion of you as a whole?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think were playing victim, we are just letting you know exactly what we are doing.Well I have heard it all now I suppose, if it takes a more than a week to let everybody know that Ustalav Knights are not working as intended and to have this news trickle in from a third party counts as "letting us know exactly what you are doing" then we must have a different definition of transparency.
The crux of this argument is not how much damage 10 people can do to one Ustalav knight every 3 seconds, it is whether or not people were aware of the problems associated with the Ustalav casters, nothing more and nothing less. If this game is to survive we need everyone to be on board constantly providing feedback so that GW can fix any bugs as they arise and not keeping them quiet for a week and then down playing the whole thing because we don't want to lose out on easy silver/recipes/mats.
And as far as playing the victim goes...
It just so happens that your opinion is accusing others of exploiting. Others that have supported this game much longer than you and like you (hopefully) want this game to succeed. Excuse us for taking offense to that opinion which was obviously released here to make some kind of statement and perhaps tarnish reputations. Not a good look.
As long as you continue to try and defend the farming of Ustalavs you will be criticized it is as simple as that. Your reputation is your own and it is reflective of your actions. So are you willing to push the limits on rules despite the implications it has on peoples opinion of you as a whole?
I'm honestly not following, what rule am I pushing the limit to?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was specifically talking about this thread, Flynn, letting you know how were we farming the Ustalavs. We have had already contacted GW about the Casters not doing enough damage/AI issues, but they were debuffing, you go out and fight them after you have been hit with a debuff and then a knight hits you.
Also, that damage was against Casters/Prelates, not Knights, those guys don't go down fast at all.
People are going to have negative opinions about TEO no matter what we do, there is no avoiding that. We have reported everything that we consider an exploit, bug, or bad AI, with the Usties they are still hard, and the casters still do something, they just seemed under powered, we let GW know. If you don't like how we are playing the game, that is your opinion.
Now, whose next on your list? Stoneroot Glades been farming them longer than us, oh, and how about your Coalition brothers? Aragon, they have been farming them too, or perhaps yourselves, seen you guys out there a lot. Everyone has been farming the Usties, because the Usties have a better drop rate than Ogres, and they don't have nearly as many casters as MS. Even after the fix that isn't going to change, its still going to be the most sought after escalation/mobs.
The current way the AI works, even after they change casters, unless they decide to do an overhaul to their defenses, or on the entire AI system, the current way to farm them isn't going to change.
Bottom Line is this, we didn't consider it an exploit, because we didn't know they weren't acting as intended, we suggested that they were buffed to GW.
I'm honestly not following, what rule am I pushing the limit to?
Dont cheat.
If you find some condition, combination of actions, location, or feature that is broken or provides you an ADVANTAGE you should not have due to a bug, don't do that thing. Report it.This farming has been happening for well over a week and people failed to report it. This in itself is unacceptable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Flynn, an exploit involves taking advantage of something you should not have. If longbow exploit were adding 150 damage on opportunity, that's a bug because it states it should be adding less.
The casters respond to agro by hitting you with attack debuffs. This is their normal response. There is no way to know what else they could or should be doing. There is no magic trick to get them stuck or to bug them out. Regardless, we mentioned to both Goblinworks and Paizo staff that the casters felt too easy.
It feels like the problem isn't what was done, it was who did it.
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Dont cheat.
If you find some condition, combination of actions, location, or feature that is broken or provides you an advantage you should not have due to a bug, don't do that thing. Report it.
"Being attacked" by a monster is not a combination of actions. Nothing about Ustalav Casters or Prelates gives any player an advantage over any other player.
Many of us have told Goblinworks of the issues with mobs using the same attack repeatedly (bandit archers as well as Ustalav casters), but this is an issue with (presumably) every mob in the game. The only difference is which attacks an individual mob has access to, and which it chooses to spam. This has been discussed on the Paizo forums as well as the GW forums. Need I make a separate thread to tell everyone "Hey, you remember that bug affecting all mobs? It affects this mob, just so everyone knows."
Essentially, this has been reported as a potential exploit because:
1. Mobs that fill support roles in their groups and don't just pew pew pew all day are inconceivable.
2. Players that get hit by Enervation repeatedly instead of being bandit archer-interrupted repeatedly are giving themselves an advantage.
3. Every submitted bug report must be accompanied by a Paizo thread to alert the players.
This is silly. I feel like I'm making up the Kobold's rules for him.
Dont cheat.
If you find some condition, combination of actions, location, or feature that is broken or provides you an advantage you should not have due to a bug, don't do that thing. Report it."Being attacked" by a monster is not a combination of actions. Nothing about Ustalav Casters or Prelates gives any player an advantage over any other player.
Many of us have told Goblinworks of the issues with mobs using the same attack repeatedly (bandit archers as well as Ustalav casters), but this is an issue with (presumably) every mob in the game. The only difference is which attacks an individual mob has access to, and which it chooses to spam. This has been discussed on the Paizo forums as well as the GW forums. Need I make a separate thread to tell everyone "Hey, you remember that bug affecting all mobs? It affects this mob, just so everyone knows."
Essentially, this has been reported as a potential exploit because:
1. Mobs that fill support roles in their groups and don't just pew pew pew all day are inconceivable.
2. Players that get hit by Enervation repeatedly instead of being bandit archer-interrupted repeatedly are giving themselves an advantage.
3. Every submitted bug report must be accompanied by a Paizo thread to alert the players.
This is silly.
Every player is going to interpret the TOS. Obviously, GW gets the final word once they become aware.
Maybe it's just miraculously insightful play and incredible communication skills that allowed our guys to report it in a manner that finally got the developers' attention.
Or maybe it was (to use someone else's word)... candor.
While I had serious concerns about all this at the start of this thread, the response I read from my bug report (mid-thread) reassures me and allays many of my concerns. As I said, if they aren't freaking out...
So let's get exploit-ish-ing, folks, and judge for yourselves!
@Savage Grace,
I think when someone accuses others of exploiting, it provokes GW into giving that topic immediate attention, even if the issue had been brought up less urgently before.
I'm glad your concerns have been addressed. I believe the conclusion we can all take away from this is that we didn't freak out about it because we don't consider it an exploit, and neither does Goblinworks.
Now, let's all just lower the pitchforks nice and slow.
I'm keeping the torch though... until the devs tell me you didn't make them cry into their pillows last night. :-)
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Shouldn't that be something you'd look favorably upon?
a) it's a joke.
b) PLAYER tears are just an occasional collateral benefit to the meaningful PvP I crave. And frankly I haven't seen ANY tears in PFO. The people I encounter are all very adult and reasonable, and thus haven't generated the chats that Eve players would repost as (what I've heard referred to as) tears-porn.
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Just checking. After all, I recall something about touching and a doll..
aww, you remembered! :-)
Sigh... That thread was truly regrettable.
I can't believe how badly it devolved.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Savage Grace - I don't disagree with your view of the problem. I do disagree with the way you expressed it. If you were any more deliberately provocative I think we would have to conscript you into Kabal ;)
So, on your invitation, 5 of us went over to the Ustalavs again last night. Yes, once you know about it, it is easier. But, as a group I can't say it made the difference between being able to kill a group or not. It's difficult to tell until they fix it and we know the proper behaviour of the casters (Note: Seeing the behaviour of the Ustalav casters, I have a feeling that this does not effect only Ustalavs. Other casters in the game may also have the same problem, but since they don't give T2 recipes, no-one seems to care about those.) The other reds and purples still hit hard. The only good bits were on 2 occasions when we found small groups that were only casters and we could charge in and act like idiots with impunity. Those groups are the most exploitable to soloers, but they are few and far between.
Cheatle - I'm not aware that Stoneroot has been "farming Ustalavs" but I might be wrong, I play UK times so I don't keep up to date on what is happening US times. I've only been in the hex twice before, and one of those times we only killed 2 groups of mobs before deciding that it took too long to kill the purples to make it effective.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kradlum,
When I came to chat the other day, I was told that is where you got some of your recipes from. Specifically, the home hex that is near your location.
Where else would we go preferentially? We also farm in the crater hex to the east, and sometimes join Azure's team South of Rotter's hole?
When I was with a group there last weekend, I had no inkling that anyone considered the casters an exploit. Yes, we were told to focus fire on the certain roles first, because the casters were not as dangerous as some things, but I presumed we simply haven't encountered the conditions where their strengths made the difference. And there were plenty of other things that were dangerous, I died three times before we left the hex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kradlum,
When I came to chat the other day, I was told that is where you got some of your recipes from. Specifically, the home hex that is near your location.
We get some of our recipes from there. And the Molloch monster home. None from the Skullcrusher Ogre monster home. Most of our drops come from escalations spawning near the lion hexes by Tavernhold, Alderwag, Talonguard and Guardheim.
Do we know when special events will be turned on? The home hexes are currently at a weaker monster state than their escalations. For example the Skullcrusher is only white goblins and wolves with a few yellows. Even the Ustalav hex only has a few groups scattered far between.
Stoneroot is the closest settlement to three of the game's twelve home hexes and not far from half a dozen lion hexes. It's a great place to enjoy a variety of reliable PvE if anyone wants to join in.
and yet the devs are going to fix what they called (in the thread linked in the O.P.) an "imbalance".
As I said lots of times before, new arrivals can judge for themselves how quickly that imbalance should have been noticed, and reported, including how much urgency they would have used in communicating the brokenness to GW and how much they'd choose frank honest candor with the devs over quietly benefiting off the brokenness.
I'm hoping for a lot more opinions from objective people after the weekend feeding frenzy is over.
and yet the devs are going to fix what they called (in the thread linked in the O.P.) an "imbalance".
As I said lots of times before, new arrivals can judge for themselves how quickly that imbalance should have been noticed, and reported, including how much urgency they would have used in communicating the brokenness to GW and how much they'd choose frank honest candor with the devs over quietly benefiting off the brokenness.
I'm hoping for a lot more opinions from objective people after the weekend feeding frenzy is over.
We've raised concerns numerous times in the past when something seemed imbalanced to us (starter town goblin drops, anyone?). Goblinworks responded as they saw fit, and we made use of it while it existed.
I'd thank you to not imply the lack of the imbalance being corrected was due to any organization seeking to "quietly benefit" off of it.
Also, the escalation is not "broken." The caster-types are less effective than they should be, but the Sergeants, Knight-Errants, Captains, Generals, Heroes, Strike Force Commanders, Legends, and Tairina herself would like to have a word with anyone who doubts their lethality.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Savage Grace (aka Midnight), it seems like you're really trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. It is my understanding that Cheatle has already had a long talk with Lisa Stevens, Ryan Dancey, and some of the devs about this, who said "no harm, no foul".
Goblinworks didn't even say something along the lines of "We're not going to make you stop, but we want to you consider the repercussions and use your own judgment". They said "have at".
Maybe you should just let it go.
Nihimon, do you think Lisa and Ryan would have liked a report like ours a lot sooner?
I do, and I am very disappointed that they didn't get it.
I started out feeling like this thread was going to influence players towards more candor with the devs by painting observing the TOS as good, and "exploit-ish (emphasis on the ish!)" behavior as something to be avoided.
But instead it has resulted in a crowd of people rubbing their hands in Montgomery Burns style glee while surveying their rooms full of t2 recipes and proclaiming things like "to the victor go the spoils".
If I let it go, it absolutely won't be because I think Ryan and Lisa PREFERRED the way this was reported earlier to the way WE reported it.
If I let it go it will be because I may be realizing that getting people to do anything besides what they already want to do, and have already decided is in their own best interest, is futile.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stoneroot hasn't been farming these. I get out to over 80% of our eacalation hunts. Of those, I've fought them once at the start of EE, had our asses kicked by captains, got no drops. The last 4 weeks we've been farming other escalations hard. Within hours of this thread, we went to a Ustalav hex and had more T2 recipes drop in 2 hrs then we've seen in 2 weeks.
I'm glad we didn't know about this because I don't know what we would have done.
Stoneroot hasn't been farming these. I get out to over 80% of our eacalation hunts. Of those, I've fought them once at the start of EE, had our asses kicked by captains, got no drops. The last 4 weeks we've been farming other escalations hard. Within hours of this thread, we went to a Ustalav hex and had more T2 recipes drop in 2 hrs then we've seen in 2 weeks.
I'm glad we didn't know about this because I don't know what we would have done.
Ahh, it was early enough that I have edited out that reference. I'm happy to accept that the recruiting thread was, instead, totally in jest at current events.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@DeciusBrutus,
The drama is unnecessary and distracting, caused by bad blood/history between some groups, rabble rousers and agent provocateurs, people who have popcorn and like to be entertained, misunderstandings and assumptions, and delibert lies and slanders. In other words, just another Forum PVP day. :)