Changes to Battle System (8/25/2011)

[Cichy]

[dev1026] Changes to Claiming and Engaging Enemies

* This feature, planned for patch 1.19, is still in development, and therefore subject to change.

Patch 1.19 will see changes to both the claiming and engaging of enemies.

Currently, when a player claims and engages an enemy, they can earn experience points and loot, as well as credit for quest objectives, upon defeating the enemy. However, a player can only engage and hold claim over one enemy (or group of enemies) at a time as the system does not allow players to engage multiple enemy groups simultaneously.

In order to address the above issue, as well as several others, the following changes will be made.

Claiming and Engaging Enemies

Players will be able to attack any enemy*. However, only the player (or party that the player is in) that initiates the first attack on the enemy will earn the rewards.

* Only players that are participating in levequests, or in behests, can engage enemies that are specific to those battles.

The color of an enemy’s name will indicate whether or not you will be granted the rewards upon defeating it.
If the name of the enemy is red, you or your party will earn the rewards.
If the name of the enemy is purple, another player or party will earn the rewards.

An enemy’s name will appear in orange if it is unclaimed, but is attacking another player.
* Once you have engaged the enemy, you or your party will earn its reward.
Claim on an enemy will be lost under the following conditions:
If the party that initially claimed the enemy is defeated.
If a claimed enemy returns to its territory.

[dev1131] The Enemy Link System

* This feature, planned for patch 1.19, is still in development, and therefore subject to change.

Patch 1.19 will see the introduction of the enemy link system.

The enemy link system allows an enemy to call for reinforcements based on the strength of the party that initiated contact with it.

Enemies will call for reinforcements under the following conditions:
When an enemy detects a player and initiates an attack.
When a player initiates an attack on an enemy.

* Enemies can only call for reinforcements once.
* If enemies have already formed a group, they will not call for reinforcements, nor will they react to a call from other enemies.

How an enemy will call for reinforcements
The number of enemies that will be called upon will be based on the comparison of the strength of the party that initiated the attack (or was detected by the enemy) and the strength of the enemy itself.
All types of enemies in the vicinity will be called upon regardless of whether or not they are the same type of enemy that made the call.

* Certain powerful enemies will not react to the call.
* Only enemies present within a certain distance will be called.

[dev1132] Addition and Adjustments to Bonuses on Experience Points

* This feature, planned for patch 1.19, is still in development, and therefore subject to change.

Patch 1.19 will see the introduction of two new systems, along with adjustments to the amount of obtainable experience points and how they are distributed.

We plan to introduce new systems which will allow players to receive more experience points by tactically defeating enemies. We will also be implementing adjustments to overall experience point rewards and the current party bonus algorithm.

Link Bonuses

Link bonuses will be granted based on how many enemies are linked to the current target. The more enemies that are linked, the larger the amount of bonus experience points will be granted.

Peruse the details of the enemy link system.

Chain Bonuses

Chain bonuses will be granted when players consecutively defeat enemies that have levels equal to or higher than their own, within a specific amount of time*.

As the number of chains increase, the experience bonus will increase, but the amount of time* granted to maintain the chain will shorten.

* A time limit within which players are required to defeat an enemy to maintain the chain after defeating another.

meh

[Nama]

Odd they post todays update so late in the day~ Good changes albeit not exactly exciting.

[Draylo]

So anybody can attack any mob with this? Sounds dumb, what was wrong with x person claims mob with initiating attack and nobody else can touch it after.

[Lucavi]

Too similar to the game they're already making money on? I dunno. I like the way GW2 is handling it, where anyone that beats on any mob gets their own share of the goods. These games always try to build up this "band of brothers" lore mentality where everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, yet they rarely design systems that support the theme (SE is notorious for this) and the player-base just loves to funnel off into their own small cliques and work essentially alone. The proposed changes do little to curb that mentality, but at least others can come and help kill a mob if someone is struggling now. No matter how you slice it, it made absolutely no sense to disallow a fellow character with a pig-sticker in their hands to help another character kill a monster. You're blowing any concept of immersion out the window when you do that.

At least I'll be able to help a random passerby now instead of ignoring everyone around me while heading to my next solo event.

[Waraji]

It's gonna cause a lot of butthurt amongst griefers. Some else claims a mob, you get hate, run it out of territory range, and have your party claim it when it gets back.

[Lucavi]

There isn't a perfect system out there, and yeah, greifers can abuse this, just like they could abuse everything else. There's no better time, though, to try shit like this out than when the game is still in super-beta mode.

[Draylo]

It's gonna cause a lot of butthurt amongst griefers. Some else claims a mob, you get hate, run it out of territory range, and have your party claim it when it gets back.

This would be my main concern, especially if it applies to Nms lol, I don't want someone coming up and "helping" me with my mob anyway.

[Toth]

On the plus side, exp chains at last!

[Cichy]

Would be great if they adopted something like Rift has for rift battles where bunch of people can participate and all get variety of rewards.

[Corrderio]

Kind of mixed feelings about this.

On the plus side, I don't see big world spawns happening (Thank !@#$ god), however can still be exploited beyond belief with the current NMs.

[Vuitton]

Who cares if you don't get rewards. It's not like the respawn on anything is all that long. This won't matter for the FNM Leves or Instanced Dungeons either. At most it will currently create some interesting situations for the handful of R50 open world NMs. It will most likely get tweaked because of that, but they probably don't know how to tweak it until the see some of the situations it creates.

If you're not getting rewards, and you're not wanting to help someone with claim, nothing says you have to intervene on the claimed mob. You're not getting a reward so you shouldn't feel the need to assist unless you feel like it. They might also make it so outside participants remain off the aggro table to prevent griefing.

Let's see how it all works out.

[Hiroishime]

Finally i can stop telling people to focus on one mob Q_Q

[Rocl]

They might also make it so outside participants remain off the aggro table to prevent griefing.

Even more potential exploiting there! Summoners, move asi-- oh.

[Vuitton]

I don't understand. If outside participants can't affect the aggro table, then how will they grief? Nothing they can do will risk the mob reseting and losing it's claimed status.

[Rocl]

I more or less saw it as: outside participant isn't on aggro table, therefore it would make the most sense for groups to split up. (Especially for the R50 mobs, where the spoils are tradable craftables). Party that claim tanks/holds the mob, a second party does all the damage-- and the tanks never have to worry about losing hate. (I have no idea if this an actual problem, tbh) But you're setting up for a hate-less damage source that way, which isn't the best thing for balance, I'd imagine.

So that effort to stave off griefers, creates a nice loophole/exploit for linkshells to take advantage of.

[Vuitton]

Oh, I see what you mean. I wouldn't consider that griefing though, but I agree it would be a problem for any NM that drops tradeable items.

[Fievel]

I just started playing this, interested to see how it all works.

It sounds awful, but it may be something thats pretty great.

[Charismatic]

I wouldn't consider that griefing though.

He never said it was ^^

[Rocl]

Oh, I see what you mean. I wouldn't consider that griefing though, but I agree it would be a problem for any NM that drops tradeable items.

That's why I chose the word "exploit" and not "griefing"

As it stands, it will be interesting to see how this all works out.

[Hyan]

Yawn, why so early today...

They can make NM's have the same status as levequests mobs if it becomes a problem I guess.

I hope the link system doesn't end up being a gimmick.