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This has been discussed to death, and usually I am on the counterpoint.
Okay well, I just had a looting bounty that took 32 attempts. It's not insane but, it's pretty far out there on the spectrum. It's also a case of up-hunting by 4 levels. With a creature that only spawns in the proper location, so no questions there.
Is there a reason these probabilities don't just hit 1 (i.e. 100%) after some number of kills. We know that culling bounties have maximums which are level-based. I mean, I guess the counter-argument is that for culling, you must kill the creatures, where as with probability, you can (and sometimes do) get the heirloom on the first try.
I'd be fine if this got weighted differently, though. Overhunting non-corporeal undead, over 6 treks out there, and successfully slaying 31 creatures and looting them was not enough. It's just...pretty infuriating you know?
I think the game design overall is quite good, and this is just a minor thing that happens to players once in awhile. But man, when it happens, it's really infuriating. It's not the kind of "my record is" that you'd like to track. What, the record before I stabbed myself in the eye with a pencil?
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
>>Okay well, I just had a looting bounty that took 32 attempts. It's not insane but, it's pretty far out there on the spectrum. It's also a case of up-hunting by 4 levels. With a creature that only spawns in the proper location, so no questions there.<<
Looting heirloom bounties almost always take me over 30 kills.
A SEARCH heirloom bounty I can finish before my first cast of Haste is up.
If they didn't balance out, I'd be grumbly. But I do seem to get looting bounties more than Search ones.
>grumble
-E
I tend to recall a GM had said if it took more than 30 to post or whatever, so they could check for bugs. (This was years ago.) My assumption is that the probability to get past 30 is low. I also understand that the probability to find increases with kills, although this may be false. It definitely stops increasing at some point though, which is my point.
I was thinking more about other randomized parts of bounties, for instance as you noted search heirlooms, or say foraging. My claim would be that these two examples take generally less time (even if you can one-shot creatures, you will likely be waiting for the spawn).
If it was firmly truncated at some value (say, 30 loots), then I think it would be reasonable to make it such that the first X searchs cannot find the heirloom. This might be a much more complicated change, however (since it would then need to track your loots first).
I've definitely had more than just this instance of taking more than 30 loots, but it is rare for me. Usually I get it in about 15 or so I'd guess. Sometimes in the first 5, and sometimes I get annoyed and check and find it took 24.
I also think the "fading" undead should be searching and not looting. It's possible to loot them but it is significantly more difficult. Then again, not all bounties are created equal for each character, which is a type of flavor I generally like. That one still seems sadistic to me, though. I know I've never finished a looting bounty on a fading undead, I don't think. I've tried sometimes with various tricks but, it just annoys me and I turn them in.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
I was thinking more about other randomized parts of bounties, for instance as you noted search heirlooms, or say foraging. My claim would be that these two examples take generally less time (even if you can one-shot creatures, you will likely be waiting for the spawn).
If it was firmly truncated at some value (say, 30 loots), then I think it would be reasonable to make it such that the first X searchs cannot find the heirloom. This might be a much more complicated change, however (since it would then need to track your loots first).
I've definitely had more than just this instance of taking more than 30 loots, but it is rare for me. Usually I get it in about 15 or so I'd guess. Sometimes in the first 5, and sometimes I get annoyed and check and find it took 24.
I also think the "fading" undead should be searching and not looting. It's possible to loot them but it is significantly more difficult. Then again, not all bounties are created equal for each character, which is a type of flavor I generally like. That one still seems sadistic to me, though. I know I've never finished a looting bounty on a fading undead, I don't think. I've tried sometimes with various tricks but, it just annoys me and I turn them in.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
Another unrelated change that should be implemented is that for searching heirlooms, it should give a message appropriately when an heirloom CANNOT be found. That is to say, you must cycle a minimum of three rooms, and cannot find an heirloom by searching the same room twice in a row.
When I came back in 2006 and had my first experience with the searching heirloom, I searched for a half hour or more and gave up. I'd try doing searching heirlooms again once or twice a year, and had not completed a single one until the last year or so when I finally found out how the system works. I find it very very very easy to imagine with F2P and new players, they will be in a similar situation to me. I wasn't even a new player and I found this very frustrating and confusing.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
When I came back in 2006 and had my first experience with the searching heirloom, I searched for a half hour or more and gave up. I'd try doing searching heirlooms again once or twice a year, and had not completed a single one until the last year or so when I finally found out how the system works. I find it very very very easy to imagine with F2P and new players, they will be in a similar situation to me. I wasn't even a new player and I found this very frustrating and confusing.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
>Another unrelated change that should be implemented is that for searching heirlooms, it should give a message appropriately when an heirloom CANNOT be found.
Can you suggest a suitable phrasing that isn't immersion breaking instruction on how to game the quest and wouldn't promote the opposite problem when someone searches the entire area once and thinks it can't be found? New people do that too.
Can you suggest a suitable phrasing that isn't immersion breaking instruction on how to game the quest and wouldn't promote the opposite problem when someone searches the entire area once and thinks it can't be found? New people do that too.
>I know I've never finished a looting bounty on a fading undead, I don't think. I've tried sometimes with various tricks but, it just annoys me and I turn them in.
I've never not finished one. If my success rate on looting was low, my death rate would be high and I'm not taking it on in the first place. To mid level thats all of them, past banshees and post Voln changes thats about half of them.
If I have the critter under control so that its not getting actions on me while I am in swing RT, then I can always loot it. Sometimes control slips and it gets an action when I don't kill it or it fades when I do but normally it gets looted. If casting you just put loot in your macro and never miss.
I've never not finished one. If my success rate on looting was low, my death rate would be high and I'm not taking it on in the first place. To mid level thats all of them, past banshees and post Voln changes thats about half of them.
If I have the critter under control so that its not getting actions on me while I am in swing RT, then I can always loot it. Sometimes control slips and it gets an action when I don't kill it or it fades when I do but normally it gets looted. If casting you just put loot in your macro and never miss.
>>Another unrelated change that should be implemented is that for searching heirlooms, it should give a message appropriately when an heirloom CANNOT be found.
>Can you suggest a suitable phrasing that isn't immersion breaking instruction on how to game the quest and wouldn't promote the opposite problem when someone searches the entire area once and thinks it can't be found? New people do that too.
There's already some basic messaging if you search the wrong area.
Also if you forage around and the room is empty of herbs, it has a message.
Probably something as simple as, "You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new." More flourish perhaps but, that doesn't seem to break immersion at all.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
>Can you suggest a suitable phrasing that isn't immersion breaking instruction on how to game the quest and wouldn't promote the opposite problem when someone searches the entire area once and thinks it can't be found? New people do that too.
There's already some basic messaging if you search the wrong area.
Also if you forage around and the room is empty of herbs, it has a message.
Probably something as simple as, "You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new." More flourish perhaps but, that doesn't seem to break immersion at all.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
>Probably something as simple as, "You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new."
Some new people already assume that once they've searched a room the heirloom can never be found there. I come across more that are stuck because they've searched every room in the area for no result than I do who are stuck because they've searched just one room endlessly for no result. That tells you to move on, but it reinforces their idea that they shouldn't come back.
I'd say the natural thing to do was to search every room once, and then start over and people that do that won't get stuck but people get stuck because they think its a dumb game and that means they just have to search in the right room as well as its a dumb game and they just have to search somewhere enough times. And its actually a sophisticated game and those who think its dumber than it is while trying to game it, get stuck.
>There's already some basic messaging if you search the wrong area.
If you are in the right area you do an heirloom search with task related messaging. If you aren't you do a standard search. That has messaging, but not task related.
People searching the same room twice is mechanically useless.
People searching each room in the area and giving up isn't crazy or wrong, only the assumption that it cannot be found is.
If we make a message to help out the first part, at least we've resolved some of the issue. People who are going to search each room once and give up will do this whether or not the messaging is changed. People who think they can search only one or two rooms will be significantly affected by a new messaging.
Even if we cannot resolve every problem with one proposed change (particularly when it is a totally different problem) does not mean the proposed change would not be beneficial to accomplish the stated goal.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
People searching each room in the area and giving up isn't crazy or wrong, only the assumption that it cannot be found is.
If we make a message to help out the first part, at least we've resolved some of the issue. People who are going to search each room once and give up will do this whether or not the messaging is changed. People who think they can search only one or two rooms will be significantly affected by a new messaging.
Even if we cannot resolve every problem with one proposed change (particularly when it is a totally different problem) does not mean the proposed change would not be beneficial to accomplish the stated goal.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
>"You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new."
Maybe it could be:
"You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new at this time." or similar.
If a person wants to search each room once and only once and give up, they will never see this message. If they search a room twice in a row, they will get this message, ideally a much smaller RT (in my vision), and not waste time doing something utterly futile. Because my proposal aims to separate the messaging of "useful searches" and "useless searches" I fail to see how it cannot improve the situation. It might not fix every possible issue, but it does address on issue.
The suggested wording could be improved even further if it is really believed this would add to an existing (yet unrelated) problem. Like "perhaps you should look around somewhere else first and then come back" to be really explicit, but you worried about ruining immersion so I tried to keep it a little vague on purpose. Is there a way to satisfy both your criteria (does not reinforce the unrelated incorrect assumption the problem aims to resolve, but does not ruin immersion)>
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
Maybe it could be:
"You glance around, and realize you just searched this room carefully, and discover nothing new at this time." or similar.
If a person wants to search each room once and only once and give up, they will never see this message. If they search a room twice in a row, they will get this message, ideally a much smaller RT (in my vision), and not waste time doing something utterly futile. Because my proposal aims to separate the messaging of "useful searches" and "useless searches" I fail to see how it cannot improve the situation. It might not fix every possible issue, but it does address on issue.
The suggested wording could be improved even further if it is really believed this would add to an existing (yet unrelated) problem. Like "perhaps you should look around somewhere else first and then come back" to be really explicit, but you worried about ruining immersion so I tried to keep it a little vague on purpose. Is there a way to satisfy both your criteria (does not reinforce the unrelated incorrect assumption the problem aims to resolve, but does not ruin immersion)>
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
