Hello Emc, recently I've been living with a BlizzArd addiction. It started shortly before xmas, and has only gotten worse. After thorough review, I'd like to suggest a few improvements to keep feeding the addiction. Blizz is nearly perfect, but he targets other mobs, which ends up costing precious tokens and drops when another mob deals him too much damage. So I suggest find g a way to make him neutral to all other mobs. Next, I would suggest making him deal a bit more damage to players, and SLIGHTLY increasing the rare drop rate. Lastly, I would REALLY like to see a permanent Blizz spawn in any frozen biome. He is an awesome addition to EMC, and I would love to continue my pursuit. Please share your thoughts.
I actually was pissed about this and may or may not have ranted about this to Aikar in a PM after losing a little more than an hour on Blizz Ards that gave me nothing.
I agree with making it non hostile to all others except players. IMO the drop rates and damage are fine as is. I disagree with the always spawning. Yes it would be cool but they it will eventually loose it's appeal. Just like the turkey is fun when it's a limited event. Plus if it was always spawning, the drops would eventually become worthless. Just look at Marlix & Momentus items. All of them used to be over 100k+ now at times less than half of that.
I have had two of the four I have had spawn near me die from mobs before I could get to them. I think that Aikar said that he had a timer to control how often one will spawn near you. I think making him neutral would be preferable, but if this cannot be done, maybe he could track how they die and not reset the spawn timer unless we kill him. Another thing that might help us find him faster before he dies and make less of a mess would be to tell us whether he is above or below us. It didn't seem so bad last year, because we could run around until we saw his name then dig to his location. This year, I have had to wait for several messages to locate the chunk he is in then mine at different levels until I find him or hear fighting. He also always seems to spawn below ground even if I am on the surface, so it sometimes takes a while and I tear up the chunk looking for him. One of these places was a settlement so I was hesitant to be too ambitious, plus I spent a lot of time repairing things I mined through and putting down torches or filling where I mined. We had a rule against mining under the settlement, but it evidently was ignored by one or more people and I added some more to the mess underneath it, at least until the messages stopped.
I agree with your market concerns, but what if the drop rate of blizzard parts was reduced to 5 % or so for the year, other than the holiday season? He is simply a fun, original mob that should be available all year, whether he drops parts or not
I do agree that blizz ards should not target other mobs. I don't think it should spawn all year, that's what enraged mobs are for.
I like the non-targetting idea. I've had numerous Blizzies get their damage lowered by skeletons, and that can't be good for drop rates. However, I do think the current attack damage and drop rates are both fine. I usually get one of his body parts if I use Looting III (though not always), and he seems pretty strong as is. As for the cold biome thing, if he were here year-round, he wouldn't be nearly as special. As others said, he would be just like Marlix or Momentus.
I think that Blizz Ard is totally fine. I got 4 blizz kills, and I got an avalauncher off one, a nose off of another, and an arm of a third. My last one was just after I found 2 super turkeys underground, havin' a lava bath.
I had another thought.... maybe just a snowman that spawns in "cold" biomes that attack like blizz but no speical drops and no messages also..... so maybe a a hostile snowman in the end
