Aug 12, 2013 - Voting & Survival Tweaks

Discussion in 'Empire Updates' started by Aikar, Aug 13, 2013.

  1. Balanced for warrior type players.. Ranged players not so much. :oops: It seems like archery isn't liked all that much in Empire. Sure Marlix's weapon is a bow. But all of the updates seem to severely hinder archers way more than warriors.
  2. I wonder what was the reason for this change ...

    Both Momentus and Marlix were pretty much just waste of time and resources before.
    With Momentus farms nerfed now, I see no use for them at all. (?)

    What options have the people in the outposts?
    Do they have to fight them to get rid of them (for some time)?
  3. I'm not a warrior type, I'm a strategic archer type... if bows won't work then I'll just use my imagination finding ways to outsmart my opponent.
  4. I ran into a marlix and momentus within 3 minutes of each other marlix ran away while I was hiding waiting for my friends and then we ran into a momentous right after its just luck whether u get one spawned I have great luck with them spawning but terrible luck with drops
  5. Archer players are still just as able to kill the bosses. We love archer players just as much as any other players. However, before this patch, it simply made it so you can't kill a boss (again bosses in our definition are meant to provide a fun unique challenge, not a simple instakill like some games) without ANY battle at all.

    It's the opposite really. Prior to our fixes, the warriors were at a huge disadvantage compared to the archers. If you put two of the players at the same time against the Momentus, the warrior had a much more chance of death than the archer (virtually 0% chance). Now both player types have even battles.
    ErikRodhi likes this.
  6. He produces a valid point, if you want to think of it like that, it is strategic for warriors to distract Momentus while the archers can make arrows fly.
  7. I get the adventure part and I know we have been told from the beginning that the new mobs would be tweaked, but I'm curious why so much effort has been put into ensuring that the new entities can't be farmed.

    If something is of value and it can be farmed, it will be farmed. A point I tried to make in my previous post was that I and many other people here receive a lot of enjoyment from building and using farms. We also have the economy which is a strong motivator. Without it, most of us would probably build a few things and move on.

    Wither Skeletons were introduced by Mojang, but they are as much an experience here on EMC as the custom entities. I know millions of Rupees were exchanged over Wither Skulls. I'll also bet someone had a spawner farm up in the first week the server was running, and plenty of Rupees are spent on enchanted items. All without interference except for entity limits. I don't see why someone shouldn't be able to set up an Enraged Zombie farm if they want to put in the effort to build one.

    I don't think there is a limit to participation in the Arena. Yet I'm sure there are players who consistently win there, essentially farming both drops and other player's equipment.

    Why are we trying to limit some things so strictly and not other things?

    I recall a statement someone made that we will be limited in the number of times we can receive a reward from the Dragon Tomb. Remember all the groups that formed after the announcement last year? People were going to let all their friends know when one was spawned so they could form raiding parties. All good. But someone who wants to put the time and effort into playing the game will have to go do something else after they have received their allotment of Eggs.

    Is it because of the drops? Why not make them more rare rather than trying to make it impossible to farm the mobs? What will happen when someone figures out a way to do it even with these changes? More changes? What happens when they find a way around those?

    And no, I haven't bothered to try farming any of the new items, mainly because Aikar said from the start he was going to restrict it(So why bother?). Some people have come up with working farms in spite of the restrictions and I say good for them.

    PS: I like the new voting derelict reset. It should help people who can't or don't log in for long periods of time.
    M4nic_M1ner likes this.
  8. It is because of the drops -- We were pretty generous with the drops with things such as Diamond with the idea that influx into the economy would be limited by respawn timers...

    Now, with a momentus farm, a single player could amass hundreds of Diamonds easily off a single momentus, totally ruining the idea of capping the influx of non mined diamonds, and causing harm to the diamond market.

    Same for the other items.

    Reducing the drops would cause way more harm, as then the 99% of people who dont farm them would be at a disadvantage. We already have some who feel they didn't get really anything good from the bosses - imagine how much worse that would feel if it was rare to even get a diamond?

    Then, farming would be the only way to make the mobs worthwhile. That is the extreme opposite of what we want. We want it to be excitement to find a boss and kill it for some decent loot, not a "oh man, lemme go risk dying to get 3 diamonds".

    As for archer vs warrior - Marlix is actually resistant to melee damage, and it is recommended you fight him with arrows....
    His "draw in from ranged attack" is much higher, as long as your in a respectable range to him that he can still reliably shoot back at you, your not going to get drawn in.

    But sitting 64 back popping arrows into him w/o any arrows being fired back at you is what is not wanted.
    RainbowChin likes this.
  9. Ah, thanks Aikar for the info.
  10. I agree that reducing or eliminating the drops isn't the way to go although I wouldn't complain about lots of cheap Diamonds. I think it would eventually reach an equilibrium without interference as people tire of it.

    I'm feeling a little ambiguous at this point. Not everyone is capable or willing to put the time into building a farm. It seems that the small minority who figure out how to farm these items will profit even more from it. Hopefully you can find a nice balance for us.
  11. im pretty sure me and m4nic are the only ones with a successful farm
    was hard too

    lot of work ruined without warning :( could of atleast gave us a chance to kill the momentuses and try to get toothpicks
  12. Actually, fighting Momentus or Marlix was from economy point of view just waste of time. I did it like 5-6 times and I've lost far, far more then the drops were worth.

    Not really. It took two quite skilled players few days of building, dieing and losing armor and equipment to get a working farm. Try bringing 3, 4 or 5 giants together and try to build around them and you will understand.

    Don't forget that you still have to deal more than 50% of damage to enraged zombies to get diamonds. So even with a farm it needs time and effort. We've used all of XP and a significant part of the diamonds we've got to repair armor and swords.

    The loot we've got didn't yet make up for the investment.
    If we would have been mining all that time, we would have made much higher earnings.

    Why would you do that?

    Why do you think diamonds from the loot would harm the market?
    What is the difference to diamonds collected in Wastelands?

    Besides the fun fighting a giant or a crazy flying archer, which you do few times and then it's not really that interesting any more, farming really was the only way to make Momentus and/or Marlix worthwhile, and it was all but too easy. Now I see only a nuisance for the people making outposts in the wild, because they will likely be forced to fight them over and over again.

    Like 20 diamonds for like 1/2 hour of fighting with a good chance to lose equipment worth 10k?
    Well, take a good shovel and collect sand. In 1/2 hour you can buy more than 50 diamonds.

    But why to even "want" how people shall play and have fun? Isn't it better to just provide the sandbox and let people find their ways of play and fun? (Within the basic rules which are IMO very good.)

    After building the Momentus farm, the next obvious challenge would be a Marlix farm, which I guess would provide for days if not weeks of challenging gameplay and fun.

    So, who wants to join me and build a Marlix farm? :)
    Kephras likes this.
  13. So we still have a Momentus in our area that one-shots in full diamond prot gear. And he won't despawn... We've lost TONS of equipment because the second you get near he one-shots the group. Can we get someone to despawn him for us? He's been up for like 5 days now :(

    I'll PM coords to someone if that's possible. (Though I'll be at work all day so it'll be 9 hours or so until I can reply ;)

    Nevermind, apparently one of them wants to build a shrine around him and keep him "as a pet" for as long as he'll last.
  14. The overall summary to your reply is - We are thinking long term. Sure you're spending a lot of effort into it to start - but what about in 3 months? Look at iron farms - people sit AFK at farms with alts.

    What would stop someone from using auto clicker to do this on enraged with a momentus farm?

    Killing a zombie and getting 3 diamonds, and repeat non stop for an hour? It would be very simple to reach 20+ diamonds a minute.

    If we allowed this - Diamond prices would crash, and it would no longer be worth mining diamonds - Farming them off Momentus Enraged spawns would be the only way to effeciently get them.

    Mining for Diamonds is a staple of Minecraft. You're insinuating that we should willfully allow that staple to be destroyed and encourage more people to build farms. We strongly disagree with that idea. Farming is a fringe of Minecraft, and can never be "supported" if it brings harm to the traditional and standard gameplay.

    Momentus and Marlix are not Vanilla mobs, it is our job to control the impact these additions have on the long term stability of the server.

    and FYI: Marlix also received the same anti farming changes.
  15. Just make Diamonds dropping rates like 5% or something
  16. That goes back to the previous point that it harms 99% of the players just to satisfy the 1%
    trent948 likes this.
  17. alls im saying is there was alot of work and effort put into that farm it wasnt easy by any means to construct. the update specifically targeted us and deathtomb i think its name should be changed to the boss farm deathtomb update :p
  18. We understand you're a bit upset, and that's fine to feel that way. Just understand, it's not as if we sat around with little horns on our heads saying: "How can we make biteme and manic angry today?" Anything we do is thinking for long term stability of the game and farms like this, while fun to make, aren't the best at all when you have them on a server with an active economy with lots of players.

    Almost every single game that I've ever played has made updates that upset ME personally, but I got over when I realized that, it wasn't just about ME but for everyone who plays it.
    trent948 and bitemenow15 like this.
  19. like iron farms did to the iron market? sure, it reached an equilibrium... where iron is basically worthless now and no one buys it because it's so simple to get a massive amount.
  20. The wrath of Chickeneer likely would stop most of us:
    I really don't see the harm in these farms, which is why I've questioned why so much effort has been put into applying anti-farming patches to a farm which nearly all of us weren't willing to bother with in the first place.

    If people were getting chests and chests of Diamonds from these things, I think I would have heard about it by now. The "economy" certainly isn't and never has been ruined, even the many documented times(I say lovingly) that you've ruined it, Aikar.

    We're talking about a minority of people grinding mobs while eating up swords and consequently a lot of the Diamond drops in the process. As Miner pointed out, going out and mining Diamonds would bring more Diamonds into Town than these farms. Yet us all going out and mining won't happen any more than us all going out and building Momentus farms. Most of the players here won't build this or any type of farm, and of those players that do, most won't use one for more than a few weeks before tiring of it and moving on to other things.

    I've heard we have more interesting Villagers, tameable Red Dragons, an Indestructible enchantment, Biomes full of Clay, and new animals on their way. Surely people will forget and move on to other things rather than wearing out their Swords and Armor grinding Diamonds and Zombie Flesh.

    The worst that can happen is a growing popularity, a fluctuation in supply and prices, lots of sky is falling talk on the Forums, then we all forget because we are running Dragon Tombs, mining new blocks like maniacs, or whatever. This has happened to Wither farms, Iron farms, Ender farms, Gold farms, and it will happen in this case also.
    cddm95ace and M4nic_M1ner like this.