First off, thanks for the Ustream Estarra, you said you didn't like to do one but it shows you like us enough that you went up and did one anyway. Hurrah!

Now for my part just because I am not sure it came 100% through on the ustream and the 140 character limit (boo hiss!): I would like to see a log for commodity quests showing who handed in what and how much. The reason I ask this is because Magnagora does reward people for doing commodity quests but the only way they can get proof of that is that someone else testifies for you. And having to poke someone every time I hand in a batch of rockeaters is not my idea of fun, nor is it theirs.

Also, my question on the achievements, what I meant was that if a player gets a bunch of achievements at the same time and add lips, karma and what not in that they can have a 600% or so experience bonus. Actual number may be off, but you can stack it pretty high. This means way faster leveling than someone who would get the bonusses one by one. How do you feel about that? I don't say nerf it because it is pretty nice for people who want to alt, and true newbies are unlikely to game the system like that, so it is imo balanced. I just wonder if that was an intended thing, and how you feel about players who do choose to go that fast? I guess my real fear is that if many use this, it may skew data on how fast players level, and pan out negatively against true newbies.

That is one more thing that also kind of scared me about the announcement. On the one hand I am all for the more health but more exp thing, but on the other hand we have Demi's mowing through mobs which may have you think they are damn weak, but those in the level 80-90 bracket who level on the same things may actually be struggling. I for example have a hell of a time handling linked creatures while they are what I could be bashing at my level, while a Demi will not. Sadly, that means it is faster to go and level on "outdated" mobs, meaning that people in level 60-70 may get annoyed the level 88 is hoarding everything. Thoughts on that?

Idea: Since this is for people who were not there, perhaps state what the announcement was (I can guess based on previous discussions and the snippet at the end of your post, but that's not quite the same as posting the details).

Just one minor thing, really... Next Ustream, let's take questions from the chat and not the social stream, please? It scrolls less, and there's no cap on the length of the question.

Here's the Show, for those who missed it.

BTW, thinking about logging commodity quests, I really don't think it's something we can do any time soon. It would require going through every single individual commodity quest to create a log among every org.

Besides, it would make it even more difficult for commercial governments to try and expand their influence into non-owned orgs.

Thanks!

Need to check it out once the festivities are done.

In the meantime, I take it that the announce is something about making mobs stronger but worth more experience? All mobs, only mobs above a certain level (so it doesn't affect newbies / lowboys under level 40ish), anything else that might be interesting?

As a new Demi, I'm not sure how it makes a difference mowing down mobs. The +1 con and a bit of crit still doesn't let me really tank two unless I blow more power than I'm linking. Is it a warrior thing?

They're going to rewrite the underlying code that governs mobs, which will allow them to make mobs hard than they can currently. That is, only the mobs they want to make harder, not all of them across the board.

How so? I'm clueless on the government things.

As for the announcement, it will be hardly noticeable on low level mobs, but high level may take two-three more hits before they do, and many more hits needed on supermobs.

Harder in what way? They already seem to be able to give mobs variable amounts of health, damage, and experience. Astral linked mobs have more health and damage depending on the number of people. Dio mobs can sting even a Demi if there are enough of 'em together, Muud is fun. And we have the event mobs with low damage but high health.

Or is it just that doing this is difficult as-is and moving forward it would be better to have a more comprehensive system?

If I saw someone doing the quest in the logs I might consider enemying them to stop them (especially if they are Hallifaxian).

I assume the latter, more simplifying and better scaling, it was described as a set of under the hood changes.

I still go with city paying for city designs

We don't have bank accounts for a city cartel. And I'm not talking about going to a bank and withdrawing gold for the design. I'm saying. When I do design numberhere submit, for a private design within a city cartel, instead of talking gold from my hands, it deducts gold from either a city bank account (if you were to give city cartels bank accounts now) or just deduct it from a ministry, most likely culture, given it is designs we're talking about.

I am not trying to get free gold from the city, as some have said. This is a major reason why I want it to deduct from an account, then a city trademaster can't just waltz in, ask for the gold, and never use it for designs. It would only get used for designs when being submitted.

I hope that explains better.

Next time I'll figure out how to use the stream--didn't really I tweeted every damn question. (Ouch).

FWIW--that question about Envoys for RP/non-combat stuff, Estarra, was more or less because I know a lot of people say that the Forums is not for official suggestions, I was wondering if you needed 1 or 2 people to make suggestions on improvements for stuff that might not involve combat or skillsets. I was thinking about those official meetings you have between players and admin. But if the forums are the best place to suggest such things, so be it.

I was happy it was good news. Whenever I hear "we are making an announcement", that's scary based on past experiences with vague announcements (at least in my life). I thought you were going to retire and I got scared!

I'll save other questions for an Ask Estarra.

Before giving higher-level mobs in general more health (not counting smobs) more health, I think it's probably prudent to look at bashing speeds across archetypes first. Compared to anecdotal evidence regarding bashing speeds (I'm not about to bash another char to demi just to get numbers myself >.>), monks and knights are far, far faster bashers than the caster archetypes due to their multiple chances at crits. I don't know how non-crit damage really compares, so I won't go into that. However, as a titan/demi guardian, bashing is extremely slow, and even the highest-level bashing I've found is easily outpaced per unit time by influencing. It could be I'm just doing something wrong, but if there is a notable difference in bashing efficacy across archetypes, I personally would really like to see that balanced out before mobs become even harder to kill. This isn't taking tanking ability into account, either, which greatly affect bashing potential. Note that this is just for regular mobs; supernals/spheres/fleshpots and such are a whole different beast entirely.

Suggestion for future Ustream broadcasts: make sure you include the question your answering by reading aloud before discussing. Sometimes you just read silently and then answer, but we have to guess what was asked!


Still not sure I understand the real need for the mob code rewrite, especially if we shouldn't notice much of a difference when it's completed. I'll agree the mob code can be a bit unwieldy, and I wouldn't want to mess with mobs and quests myself from what I know of them, but it seems like there are still so many other things that could be done instead of this.

In the Ustream you mentioned that you don't really support changing druid cudgels/messages, with no underlying reason. One thing that has been thrown around is making in-tert specializations for Crow and Stag, similar to Nihilist/Celestine dedication to DL/Supernals. One of the suggestions that Viynain has put forth was to have slight changes to the damage typing from cudgel attack. I'm not sure that I like it, but would you support changes to cudgels if something related to Aspects go through?

Sounds like the reason for reviewing the mob code is so they can buff spheres and pots without making them hurt like avatars.

Speaking of balancing bashing, what happened to report 436?

My personal theory for all this coding is that they're making it so that certain mobs would fight like players! Just imagine, mob Serenguard and Illuminati running about in the Caoimhe Dell or Skarch!


/conspiracy without watching the ustream