My concern-

Making regular bashing more arduous is just going to drive people further into aetherspace. If people feel like they have to jump through more hoops to bash effectively, they'll be all the more likely to say, "Well, I could do that, or I could hop on a turret, plug in, tune out, and pew my way up WAAAAAAAAAAAY faster and with less cost/risk than playing with normal hunting."

Am I just doing something wrong? I can see buffing spheres and fleshpots, maybe, but do high level mobs across the board really need a health boost? Who is it that's bashing fast enough to warrant that? Even with increased reward commensurate with increased difficulty, I'm not a fan of upping their health.

I'm an omnitrans demigod with several tradeskills and plenty of artifacts, and either I'm doing something fundamentally wrong or bashing is balanced such that there are two quite distinct tiers of it at top end.

Minus the omnitrans + arties, this is basically my boat.

I feel like this is more a part of The Vision than any perception that bashing needs to be harder than it already is.

Having said that much, I'm not particularly looking forward to undead fishers, globules, and garuls becoming tougher than they already are, nevermind obnoxious health-leechers like garshades, and I'm about as tricked out as a basher can come.

I went TK just so I could get forcefield and even have a chance against those things. And globules are like..."ohgodohgod I'm gonna DIE eeeeee"

In its own way, such changes may actually make bashing a more viable alternative.

From what I remember, even at the lowest levels (where you won't notice a change in difficulty) mobs were rewarding more experience than they do now (not much of an increase, but still). It eventually scaled, so the % increase in xp from then to now was growing as well. Meaning that while an old globule (the toughest non-'boss' mob in the game) may be much harder to kill, they'll probably be quite a bit more rewarding.

Of course, let's be realistic - globules are late Muud creatures, and I've never really thought of globules and such as solo material. It speaks more to the limitations of the system than anything - these changes'll open it up. To put it into comparison, you compare garghuls/garshades etc to globules - while the latter is actually twice the level (and worth three times the experience) the former. Its value will also increase more than garstuff.

And while some mobs will be harder to kill, I'm certain we'll see some damage-type weaknesses coming out alongside that. Even in the realm of endgame bashing! Kind of win-win, in my opinion. It'll take a bit longer to kill things, but you'll do more damage and get more experience. The only area you'll probably see a big increase in mob health is Muud, which, like I said, is much higher on average than even Astral - and I wouldn't personally suggest going there without a group to clear it out! Considering the benefit of the quests (and I suspect not many are aware of all the potential quests/benefits/etc there), it seems pretty reasonable to me.

If the quest was worth the time, sure.

Asylum is easier and faster to do, and worth double Muud's gain.

You know, some reason I thought the power values were the other way around.

Still, that's an extra chunk of power for bashing something that's giving big XP anyways.

(And of course, there's the Soulforge, too - which shouldn't be easy!)

Someone asked it on the Ustream, can't remember if it was answered though, how about showing how much damage a skill does to a mob?

Also slightly off-topic yet related but what would really make me happy is GMCP returning decimals of experience too rather than just the whole value, allowing for a nice little exp calculator. Or I guess this could also be fixed by releasing a table with mob name + their experience value.

Garshades have been compared to globules here because they will both become much more annoying, but for different reasons. Garshades are a lifeleeching mob so any increases in hp will mean more than one or two extra hits.

Mobs just shouldn't leech, period. Leeches are not worth the time until you can reliably crit them, and you're never going to crit enough to keep garshades from being annoying. Unless the rewards for lifeleech mobs are increased noticeably, I don't think it's worth it.

What Rika and Sylphas said, in regard to leechers. You might think garshades aren't comparable to globules (don't even think of lumping in garghouls in there), but when the health leeching starts kicking in every other hit (which is exasperatingly common), then the only way to reliably kill them is with an OHKO. So if you need an obliterating critical hit to handily finish one instantly, and you suddenly don't, you now may need an annihilating hit. Not cool.

The other reason the comparison is there is because garshades are a lot more common than globules. Globules are minor due to their small number - garshades encompass about half of the available mobs in the catacombs. I once bothered to hack through every last thing there and it was something like sixty garshades, and ate up a ridiculous amount of curatives in addition to being completely time-inefficient.

Mobiles that cause lots of afflictions in general should be worth significantly more. There's a reason that the parasites on Pisces aren't bothered with at all unless pretty much all other options on Astral are thoroughly drained. There's a world of difference in dealing with and handling four linked parasites that prone, paralyze, entangle, and power leech, as opposed to four linked urns that do more damage but just prone.

Another point to note is that good bashing spots tend to be bashed out because, well, they're good. Unless respawn rates are fast enough that you can stay in one bashing area forever, you're going to need to cycle through at least a few bashing areas. So having just one good bashing spot for your damage type means little if you're still going to have to go through other bashing areas.

Vendetta's point raises up another issue, which is that not all bashing areas are equal, even if they give the same amount of XP. My personal worry is that something like Astral will be divided up into different damage types, and everyone will be wanting the bulls and urns, while whoever gets stuck with the parasites or scorpions will not be very happy.

Of course, if this means we get a whole lot more bashing areas, then I'll be happy.

One thing that made me stick with Lusternia is that I don't HAVE to pile in to a group with other people. Its a social game, without the social part being jammed down your throat in every last aspect while screaming "omg stop complaining, its a multiplayer game so it makes sense that you have to do with other people!", which has always struck me as a misguided and illogical point of view.

I would hate for changes to make it so all the best stuff bashing wise is group dependent. I mean, that's already the case with Aetherships, and to a degree, astral. I'd rather limit it to that.

Furthermore, since this isn't a huge game where faction population isn't an issue (it is), making things "group required" runs the constant risk of making things that much harder for smaller orgs, relative to populous orgs. If I want to bash in Bashyland, where I can go right now as things are to let off steam and earn some essense or gold or whatever, but suddenly Bashyland becomes group dependent? Now lets say I'm in Los Emptyopolis, and its hard for me to pull any group together, let alone demigods. Let alone worth the huge pain in the butt it is to pull a group together.

And if I DO pull the group together? Screw it! Lets go to aetherspace. We can earn way more essense, probably not be jumped/harassed, aren't nearly as dependent on group member guild/level, won't have to worry about burning through curatives, and if someone DOES die, its not a big, flashing neon sign saying "WE AM HERE COME BUG US."

Ultimately? We already have the "best alternative" for groups in the game. Unless we're going to make aetherspace not the best alternative given time/gain/ease/risk, which almost certainly means "nerfing" aetherspace (which would mean creating a pretty version of the statement "we made regular bashing harder so that you'd have to do it in groups, but because we want you to do it, we made aetherspace harder too! *eyepoke*"), lets please not force more "must have a group" situations on those of us who prefer to do stuff on their own when they can.

I am all for afflictions = more XP, or at least let the mobs drop enough gold to compensate for the cures.

This too.

When I go to Muud, you know why I go? Because some "somewhat" more likely to be left alone, it's relatively long compared to other areas, it's relatively straight forward without any goofy-butt puzzle jammed in my face half way through, and the denizen fights can be interesting/challenging without being beyond the pale obnoxious.

Any gains from it are secondary to me.

A significant increase in experience, especially on mobs that forcibly delay the speed you can kill them with afflictions that require writhing, focus body, cause stupidity, or otherwise greatly extend how long they take to kill (like garshades), would greatly expand the places 'worth bashing'. I know a lot of areas I -could- hunt, but they're just too irritating to be worthwhile. I'd rather just mow down an area of entirely boring mobs than waste the time on something not worth hunting.

The suggestion of significantly increasing the likelihood and value of gold drops from mobs that afflict with consumable afflictions would also go a long way. If you want bashing to be more interesting to your players, give us a reason to bash somewhere other than the small number of total locations that are currently worth hunting. More than adding new bashing areas, etc., simply compensating for the annoyance that makes many areas 'worthless', and essentially unhunted currently, would drastically expand both the enjoyment and engagement inherent in bashing.

Give me a reason to love bashing parasites or garshades, please!

Don't increase gold drops unless you want credit prices to rise accordingly.

Mmm, true enough. What about redistributing the gold pool as a whole? Take some from non-aff easy mobs and add more to aff dealing ones? Kinda the same principle as HP -> XP, but then annoyance / cost to fight -> payout.

But then you have to consider, the people who can bash the super tough high-end mobs are the ones who are all tricked out in artifacts and skills to handle them, which means the people who already have tons of stuff and credits are the ones who can get the gold to buy more credits.