The REAL Mabar event collectible drop mechanism, and how to farm efficiently

[dogpig00]

I have found farming for Mabar collectibles very easy. I only actively played total of few hours of the event, I crafted myself 2x epic handwraps and 4x level 16 cloak for my characters. Since I no longer need anything from the event, I have no problem sharing my findings here.

I have found the collectible drop this way:

1. Mobs spawn, they are in neutral state. No one can claim its drop yet. More players will cause more mobs to spawn.
2. Once this mob dies, loot will be divided *evenly* between # of PARTIES that did damage to it in the last ~2 seconds.
3. Within the party, the lower level character will have a higher chance of getting the drop than higher level character.

This means that:
1. If a party consist of 12 player and another party consist myself only beat on a mob, as long as we both did damage to it in the last 2 seconds, I have 50% chance of claiming the loot the mob drops (if it drops), and the other party of 12 also has 50% chance.
2. In side the party of 12, lets say there are players from level 17-20. Then the level 17s will have higher chance of receiving loots than the level 20, even if the level 17s are afk and doing nothing.

With above in mind, the fastest way to farm collectibles, and thus motes, is to:

1. Don't party with anyone. Solo.
2. Look at the lfm, find out which instance big groups are that are similar or higher than your level. For example, if there is an lfm up with 11 players in it at instance 6, you go into instance 6 and find where they are fighting and stay near them.
3. Since all loots are bound to account, use arcane/divine caster and give loots to melee. When a group spawn, do you best at killing them without the other team has a shot at it. Worst case, both you and the other entire team have equal chance of getting the loot.

Some of the best spells to use for farming is:
1. Divine: Mass heal/cure/cometfall. Note when mobs spawn, there is a small time where they won't take any damage. This is perfect for casting mass heal since it got the same amount of casting delay.
2. Arcane: plenty AOE spells.

The critical point here is to kill the mobs before the other have a chance to damage it. If you can do that, then all the drop is yours.

Now, here is another kind of farming which I use for many times: the (almost) complete afk farmer.
Requirement: Range attack, Arcane Archer returning arrows. Imbue acid arrow. Improved precise shot.

How this character farm:
1. Find out which instance has a group near your level go stay near them.
2. Stand on top of some building where most mobs can't reach you. But have a clear view of the fighting area. I like to stand on top of the quest The Keeper's Sanctuary in the near the bottom center of the map.
3. Turn on auto attack, and turn on auto targeting.
4. Afk, but do come back once in a while so that you won't get kicked for afk, or the other party has left the area. If the other party left, find another instance to afk in.

The whole point of this afk farming is to use improved precise shot + acid arrow to damage as many mob as you can. The acid arrow damage over time will allow you always have a claim even if your regular physical damage is 0. Improved precise shot will allow you do hit many mob at once, since they all spawn so closely to each other. If you are using this method, you are likely to outfarm the level 20s in a level 17-20 party in the same amount of time.

[Natashaelle]

This is called "leeching". I would also call it selfish in the extreme, and utterly inappropriate for the generally cooperative nature of this MMO.

It has been THE single most unpleasant aspect of this whole Mabar event.

I do not thank you for coming here to post this as positive advice that people should be following :mad: :mad: :mad:

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

[dogpig00]

Yes, you can call this "leeching". But even in the most cooperative gaming, such as DoTA, last hit the mob for gold and leeching experience is common and necessary.

Since this event is supposed to end now, I feel no remorse for sharing this. If I had shared this earlier, then there might be more leechers than players...

But it looks like Turbine may extend the event longer, which I oppose since it causes major lag in other quests, this post might be of some use to others.

[Krell]

1. Don't party with anyone. Solo.
2. Look at the lfm, find out which instance big groups are that are similar or higher than your level. For example, if there is an lfm up with 11 players in it at instance 6, you go into instance 6 and find where they are fighting and stay near them.

I saw a lot of this over the weekend. I ran a group of 12 and a solo caster would sit with us and go after what we attacked. I tried inviting but they declined. People in the party would complain so all 12 of us would move instances but the person would follow.

I know people in DDO are not used to public spawn camping like many other games. As a result I didn't see much of the spawn etiquette you typically see in other games and people were getting frustrated. I think the question is, is there a difference between what you can do and what you should do? From a DDO perspective, I think private instances for parties may be a better way to go. As much as I liked the event feel of seeing a bunch of other people around, I also saw a lot of bad blood and frustrated people.

Overall I liked the event and most of the mechanics. I just didn't think the DDO culture was ready for public spawn camping.

[Natashaelle]

Yes, you can call this "leeching".

I can't help myself -- similarly when I see a spade, I call it a spade, not anything else.


I feel no remorse for sharing this.

No mate -- _feeling_ remorse means that you don't do it in the first place !!!

Your post demonstrates one thing -- you care about yourself, and nobody else.

[Glenalth]

The solution is simple, coordinate with your group that you aren't going to attack the next spawn, then hit them with Kormor's belt as soon as they throw their first fireball or arrow.

[dogpig00]

The arrow won't automatically fire. Remember that the spawns are not targetable until damaged. Thus, the afk archer will never get into dangerous situation. Unless the mob is attacked by someone else, the archer will not target it. And when the mob is hit, more than likely the mob will agro the first hitting, than the pitiful acid arrow damage from the archer.

This is why the afk archer is the best way of farming, passively.

[NaturalHazard]

This is called "leeching". I would also call it selfish in the extreme, and utterly inappropriate for the generally cooperative nature of this MMO.

It has been THE single most unpleasant aspect of this whole Mabar event.

I do not thank you for coming here to post this as positive advice that people should be following :mad: :mad: :mad:

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

I sort of agree with what you said about people using tecnique to get their colletables. But I dont agree with what you said about leeches, vultures and jackals from a ecological stand point. Jackals and vultures are not parasites they are savengers, and oppotunistic predators. And this plays a vital role in the the ecological cycle. Leeches have played a role in healthcare. All members of the animal kingdom from the smallest to the largest, should be respected equally. So many mistakes have been made because of people not realising the actual value that certain plants and animals have and the roles they play.

[Delt]

I have found the collectible drop this way:

1. Mobs spawn, they are in neutral state. No one can claim its drop yet. More players will cause more mobs to spawn.
2. Once this mob dies, loot will be divided *evenly* between # of PARTIES that did damage to it in the last ~2 seconds.
3. Within the party, the lower level character will have a higher chance of getting the drop than higher level character.

*yawn*

Your findings are incorrect.

[Stormface]

1. Don't party with anyone. Solo.

Tbh this event itself was after a while boring - Killing everspawning undeads and nothing else.
But what made it funny and worthwile was the funn and jokes running in a party of 12 while you where doing it.
If you prefer to play solo and give advice not to party, why bother playing an online game? Just go in your room, lock the door, close all windows and start a normal RPG - no need to group with anyone.

[dogpig00]

*yawn*

Your findings are incorrect.

Thank you for your valuable comment. Would you like a +1 INT tome as a reward?

[dogpig00]

Tbh this event itself was after a while boring - Killing everspawning undeads and nothing else.
But what made it funny and worthwile was the funn and jokes running in a party of 12 while you where doing it.
If you prefer to play solo and give advice not to party, why bother playing an online game? Just go in your room, lock the door, close all windows and start a normal RPG - no need to group with anyone.

This is why I am glad the event is over, and hopefully never restarted. Now I can get back to regular questing with other people. When the event is on, there are rarely any one party, and all divine/arcane casters are out there killing undead.

[stoolcannon]

I had way better success with my barbarian than my level 20 caster.

I stayed in large groups as much as possible, preferably those with casters.

1. Drink draught of midnight
2. Get in large group (swap 1 and 2)
3. jump in the middle of massive spawn swinging double positive maul
4. Collect lots of motes because your glancing blows just killed everything the casters didn't get on the first shot

I collected around 30 motes or more per mob and averaged about 2000 motes per hour that way. I also still got quite a few of the collectibles drops as well to go with the motes.

I had a good drop rate on my caster as well but couldn't stay in as long due to my SP running out. 22+ minutes of rage kept me in the fray much longer than my SP could.

[Darkrok]

This is called "leeching". I would also call it selfish in the extreme, and utterly inappropriate for the generally cooperative nature of this MMO.

It has been THE single most unpleasant aspect of this whole Mabar event.

I do not thank you for coming here to post this as positive advice that people should be following :mad: :mad: :mad:

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

No, the single most unpleasant aspect of the while Mabar event was the leeches that got mad when people complained and started to greater dispel the group that was camping there, get their guildmates to greater dispel the group, etc. :( Tickets to the GM's did no good to halt the behavior because there were none available.

[Delt]

Thank you for your valuable comment. Would you like a +1 INT tome as a reward?

You smacktalk about as well as you puzzle out game mechanics. /highfive

As it is, I just think if you are going to post a big long essay on "How to Leech for Dummies", you should make sure you at least have the basics down. Since you don't... :rolleyes:

For anyone that thinks "leeching" is unfair or in someway rude, you must not play many MMOs. Survival of the fittest and all that. DDO public spawns operate in the same manner as most other games -- first to damage owns the kill. Groups actually have the advantage (numbers and all that) but a skilled/quick ninja can prove stiff competition.

[richieelias27]

I'm pretty sure the AFK farming is probably reportable, and following a group from instance to instance may fall under harrassment.

Not that I care either way.

I had almost 10k motes by casually soloing the graveyard for just 1 or 2 hours on my 20/sorc and employing none of these tactics.

@Delt
(First to damage does not in any way "own" the kill in this isntance by the way. And only the "Last" to damage gets the mote drop from the draught buff.)

[Xalxika]

The solution is simple, coordinate with your group that you aren't going to attack the next spawn, then hit them with Kormor's belt as soon as they throw their first fireball or arrow.

Unfortunately, this won't work. One of my guildies did this to someone who was leeching and promptly got banned for harassment. Thanks Turbine.

[Alavatar]

But it looks like Turbine may extend the event longer, which I oppose since it causes major lag in other quests, this post might be of some use to others.

Where did you get this information? I haven't seen a dev or Turbine rep say anything to this effect...

[dogpig00]

As it is, I just think if you are going to post a big long essay on "How to Leech for Dummies", you should make sure you at least have the basics down. Since you don't... :rolleyes:


there is already some post about how to pike in DDO. Simply die and blame the healer.

[Delt]

(First to damage does not in any way "own" the kill in this isntance by the way. And only the "Last" to damage gets the mote drop from the draught buff.)

Drought buff may be different, I never did bother with it. Actually, I did once and found it averaged about 500 mote return above investment after 30 mins.

But I was drowning in motes anyway, so I didn't bother. I can see how the grouped farmers would chug the pot though if that's the case, as they see less drops. Either way, I have no idea how the mote/kill mechanics work, only the drops.

[stoolcannon]

I had no patience for the event anyway. It was fun at first, but standing in place killing the same **** over and over gets old.

I epiced my cloak and then waited till the prices dropped and epiced my wizard robes for 40k plat all-in. Well worth not having to stand around in there doing the same thing for hours on end.

[dogpig00]

I had no patience for the event anyway. It was fun at first, but standing in place killing the same **** over and over gets old.

I epiced my cloak and then waited till the prices dropped and epiced my wizard robes for 40k plat all-in. Well worth not having to stand around in there doing the same thing for hours on end.

that is why i used my archer to its maximum effectiveness.

[NUDS]

If you prefer to play solo and give advice not to party, why bother playing an online game? Just go in your room, lock the door, close all windows and start a normal RPG - no need to group with anyone.

To be honest, the "This is a MMO, go play an single player game if you like to solo." augment is way over-used and extremely flawed.

Yes, MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online (Game). It doesn't say anywhere that you HAVE to actually play with or otherwise interact with the other players. It just means that it is a game and there are many players playing the game online.

If it's a game and you enjoy playing it, it makes no difference if it's a MMO, a RPG, strategy, whatever.

[Postumus]

I saw some archers using these 'tactics' this weekend. We'd be in a big lowbie group and a couple archers who kept refusing to group with us just sat up on a building picking stuff off.


I would stand there with them - it was a good spot - using my caster to blast stuff. I kept drawing aggro to our position, but if I had realized exactly what they were doing, I would have aggro'd every mummy soldier and black bone I saw until I flushed them out.


As for the alternate 'tactic' of afk piking, we were booting folks if we suspected them of that.


As for soloing, it didn't seem like I was gathering collectibles at a faster rate when soloing. The groups that spawn for one person are much smaller, and you do a lot of running around to find them. The groups that spawned for large concentrations of players were massive. 20-30 undead sometimes. Fireball+melee cleanup = drops for the whole group.

[dogpig00]

As for soloing, it didn't seem like I was gathering collectibles at a faster rate when soloing.

You will only be able to get them faster in solo if you can KILL the mobs before other party touch them. This can be only done by your solo divine/arcane caster.

My tactic is to farm efficiently, such as able to farm while afk.

[richieelias27]

Drought buff may be different, I never did bother with it. Actually, I did once and found it averaged about 500 mote return above investment after 30 mins.

But I was drowning in motes anyway, so I didn't bother. I can see how the grouped farmers would chug the pot though if that's the case, as they see less drops. Either way, I have no idea how the mote/kill mechanics work, only the drops.

Either way, the first to damage doesnt own anything. Anyone can come in and assist for a chance at drops as well. Best returns are done solo and away from other parties. I did this and recieved 2 vampire fangs for every single vampire kill, 1 finger bone for every 2 to 4 mummies, and random other drops extremely frequently. Whenever another group "assisted" or when I attacked a group after someone else aoe'd it first, my drop rates were reduced significantly (but I still got drops, which would mean they did not "own" them). I also experienced a very much reduced drop rate while in a party as well.

I never did see one single Lich dust drop in the very short time I spent in the graveyard. For some reason Liches would always disappear before I had a chance to finish them off.

[dogpig00]

Either way, the first to damage doesnt own anything.

I agree first damage doesn't own the drop. It is whether you have done any damage from the last ~2 second that counts. If there are more than 1 source of damage, then the loot is split between the two parties.

[Kaldais]

I have found farming for Mabar collectibles very easy. I only actively played total of few hours of the event, I crafted myself 2x epic handwraps and 4x level 16 cloak for my characters. Since I no longer need anything from the event, I have no problem sharing my findings here.

I have found the collectible drop this way:

1. Mobs spawn, they are in neutral state. No one can claim its drop yet. More players will cause more mobs to spawn.
2. Once this mob dies, loot will be divided *evenly* between # of PARTIES that did damage to it in the last ~2 seconds.
3. Within the party, the lower level character will have a higher chance of getting the drop than higher level character.

This means that:
1. If a party consist of 12 player and another party consist myself only beat on a mob, as long as we both did damage to it in the last 2 seconds, I have 50% chance of claiming the loot the mob drops (if it drops), and the other party of 12 also has 50% chance.
2. In side the party of 12, lets say there are players from level 17-20. Then the level 17s will have higher chance of receiving loots than the level 20, even if the level 17s are afk and doing nothing.

With above in mind, the fastest way to farm collectibles, and thus motes, is to:

1. Don't party with anyone. Solo.
2. Look at the lfm, find out which instance big groups are that are similar or higher than your level. For example, if there is an lfm up with 11 players in it at instance 6, you go into instance 6 and find where they are fighting and stay near them.
3. Since all loots are bound to account, use arcane/divine caster and give loots to melee. When a group spawn, do you best at killing them without the other team has a shot at it. Worst case, both you and the other entire team have equal chance of getting the loot.

Some of the best spells to use for farming is:
1. Divine: Mass heal/cure/cometfall. Note when mobs spawn, there is a small time where they won't take any damage. This is perfect for casting mass heal since it got the same amount of casting delay.
2. Arcane: plenty AOE spells.

The critical point here is to kill the mobs before the other have a chance to damage it. If you can do that, then all the drop is yours.

Now, here is another kind of farming which I use for many times: the (almost) complete afk farmer.
Requirement: Range attack, Arcane Archer returning arrows. Imbue acid arrow. Improved precise shot.

How this character farm:
1. Find out which instance has a group near your level go stay near them.
2. Stand on top of some building where most mobs can't reach you. But have a clear view of the fighting area. I like to stand on top of the quest The Keeper's Sanctuary in the near the bottom center of the map.
3. Turn on auto attack, and turn on auto targeting.
4. Afk, but do come back once in a while so that you won't get kicked for afk, or the other party has left the area. If the other party left, find another instance to afk in.

The whole point of this afk farming is to use improved precise shot + acid arrow to damage as many mob as you can. The acid arrow damage over time will allow you always have a claim even if your regular physical damage is 0. Improved precise shot will allow you do hit many mob at once, since they all spawn so closely to each other. If you are using this method, you are likely to outfarm the level 20s in a level 17-20 party in the same amount of time.

I will not comment on your methods, but I will question your ethics.

[Delt]

Either way, the first to damage doesnt own anything. Anyone can come in and assist for a chance at drops as well. Best returns are done solo and away from other parties. I did this and recieved 2 vampire fangs for every single vampire kill, 1 finger bone for every 2 to 4 mummies, and random other drops extremely frequently. Whenever another group "assisted" or when I attacked a group after someone else aoe'd it first, my drop rates were reduced significantly (but I still got drops, which would mean they did not "own" them). I also experienced a very much reduced drop rate while in a party as well.

I never did see one single Lich dust drop in the very short time I spent in the graveyard. For some reason Liches would always disappear before I had a chance to finish them off.

You are incorrect. If you doubt me, go actually test your nonsense first hand when they bring the event back. For example, Liches (and other red names) are a 100% drop rate. Go and punch a lich for 1 dmg and then let others kill it...go read facebook or something while they work. You will get a dust. Alternatively, let a caster lightly damage a group with a mass, then kill it. Tell me what collectables you get.


I agree first damage doesn't own the drop. It is whether you have done any damage from the last ~2 second that counts. If there are more than 1 source of damage, then the loot is split between the two parties.

Your agreement doesn't make either of you less wrong.

[Bradik_Losdar]

This is called "leeching". I would also call it selfish in the extreme, and utterly inappropriate for the generally cooperative nature of this MMO.

It has been THE single most unpleasant aspect of this whole Mabar event.

I do not thank you for coming here to post this as positive advice that people should be following :mad: :mad: :mad:

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

Couldn't agree more.

DDO has (had?) one of the best looting systems of any MMO out there. Really not sure why the devs decided that they would use the standard model (spawn camping) from other MMO's that is widely detested for this event.

I sure hope this wasn't a test/preview of an upcoming giant wilderness/outdoor environment (as in the rest of Xen'drik) planned for DDO....:(

[dogpig00]

I will not comment on your methods, but I will question your ethics.

You don't have any ethics. If you do, show me.

[sirdanile]

See, y'all wouldnt be complaining about leeching if everyone was solo.

Heres how the event went for me.

Day 1: Party of 12 w/ some guildies and some pugs on my barbarian, 6 hours for epic handwraps for my monk.
Day 2: Solo farm for 2 hours on my sorc for 1 level 16 cloaks and 8k motes.
Day 3: Check with my sorc every hour or so for dragon, minor farming to get all my characters (20 of them) the level 8 robes and 3 more the level 16 cloak, total about 4 hours.
Rest of the days: Keeping an eye out for the dragon just in case I wanted to actually get my level 4 characters the cloaks/nightshield clickies/wands next event.

In short: Solo farming was much more effective regardless whether I was "leeching" off of a big group of people or by myself...

Also I did hear of the passive archer thing but instead of doing it the cheap way I active farmed with my sorc instead of passive with my AA ^_^

[Riggs]

It is nice to see a post about the mechanics, for several reasons.

It highlights a somewhat unclear mechanism for one, so people can be better prepared the next time, and;

it shows how the mechanism goes against what DDO was supposed to be - something other than some other games with griefing, spawn camping, kill stealing etc.

Not sure if there is an easy fix - but the fact that most people I am sure saw a ton of leechers, kill stealers etc highlights that an otherwise cool system brings up all the negative parts of other games, and caused a lot of hate over the weekend as a result.

Single instance quests was always the fix for these kinds of things - but the event would be way different if there was a single instance for every party, and take away from the scenes of dozens, or hundreds of people running around an area.

A better way of assigning collectable drops really needs to be found though - or there will be a lot more hate next time as more people will say follow the advice from the OP - and a lot more people are going to get very angry having a single person follow them around and 'steal their kills' and collectables - which already happened a lot this weekend.

Either find a way to change it - or a lot more people are going to be asking for it to be made a pvp zone - and then leechers wont force a large group to run away - it will be the other way around. Which is also bad social mechanisms and will cause a lot of hate.

[Riggs]

As for soloing, it didn't seem like I was gathering collectibles at a faster rate when soloing. The groups that spawn for one person are much smaller, and you do a lot of running around to find them. The groups that spawned for large concentrations of players were massive. 20-30 undead sometimes. Fireball+melee cleanup = drops for the whole group.

Only if your drinking pots for motes from every kill. The drop rate of collectables solo was way higher than in a group - 1 collectable for 20 monsters vs 1 for 3 monsters means you only have to kill 3 to get one - but if your getting motes from the kills yes the larger groups is better - if you are the fastest caster and can beat the other 10 casters beside you all trying to do the same thing and steal the kills.

[ThatLukeGuy]

::Edit: I just realized I actually got negative rep for this post. lol, talk about /nerdrage::

As best that I could tell, rewards dropped in this fashion:

1. Somebody (anybody) kills something.
2. Anyone that the MOB was *aware* of (i.e. you could see its red HP bar over its head) has a random chance at getting a reward.
3. If you are grouped with somebody that kills something, even if the MOB is not *aware* of you, you still have a chance at the reward because any rewards that drop for a group (raid or otherwise) are randomly asigned to someone in the group.

What this means is, if you are in a group farming let us say the central lake/puddle in the graveyard, and someone shows up solo'ing, they only help you get more rewards. You lose nothing to them being there, as long as they actually dont afk, and pull their own weight. Come to think of it, THEY lose out on being in a group and the company and conversation that provides.

I actually did this on my cleric b/c I had to constantly be AFK while I was farming motes and I didn't want to pike a bigger raid group. Everytime I did it, I would ask a member of the group if it was ok if I'm in their area also hunting, and I would heal, remove curse, etc to their members. Using quickened Mass Heal worked great b/c it would hurt the undead alot but wouldn't kill them so I wouldn't end up stealing any kills from people in the incubent group using potions of midnight.

Had I grouped up, everytime I went AFK because of stuff in the house, I would have been piking the groups reward *lotto* automatically. But instead, as a solo hunter I would get my own roll on the possibility of rewards, not affecting their group reward chances.

My2coppers.

[Riggs]

You will only be able to get them faster in solo if you can KILL the mobs before other party touch them. This can be only done by your solo divine/arcane caster.

My tactic is to farm efficiently, such as able to farm while afk.

Or a melee that is good...and not camping other people.

There was two types of 'soloing' going on, one leechers and campers like your OP - and the actual solo way - you run off on your own and get your own kills, away from other people so no one is stealing them - like my monk did for several hours, which was still about 3x more effective than being in a group of 12 people.

I might have been able to get more as a leeching aa archer 'solo', and afk - but then I would be noticed by everyone as someone to put on a blacklist - as that type of behavior would not be accepted for most groups. And since on Ghallanda most of the high level players tend to know each other after a while - it is certainly not worth a few more motes for the sake of becoming known as a loot stealing leecher.

Keep in mind that while it is nice to see how the tactics used highlight the issues of the whole event mechanic, the negative issues - any good player that actually cares about their reputation in the game...well if everyone is a stranger to you you wont care if they call you all sorts of bad names that would get filtered if I wrote them - because no one would do this garbage to their friends - and while effective as a tactic - it is garbage ethics yes.

Enjoy.

[Glenalth]

I was getting around 2000 an hour including turn-ins after I found a quiet instance to solo with my ranger. Got less motes from kills than I did when I was in a large group, but way more collectibles and oddly, more liches.

[dogpig00]

The drop rate in a given time frame for true solo, i.e. goes off to an unpopular area and spawn 1-3 mob every time, is the same farming speed compared to in a party where no leechers are present. The reason is that your spawn rate is too low.

To increase spawn rate, you should stand where people are more commonly tread. To increase drop rate, you need to kill the multiple spawns before other people can touch it. This is where a melee can't do easily compared to casters. Now, if you are monk with disruption or better, the epic wraps, your kill rate will be faster than average melee. This is where you might want to consider solo, and kill mobs spawned by other people.

[richieelias27]

You are incorrect. If you doubt me, go actually test your nonsense first hand when they bring the event back. For example, Liches (and other red names) are a 100% drop rate. Go and punch a lich for 1 dmg and then let others kill it...go read facebook or something while they work. You will get a dust. Alternatively, let a caster lightly damage a group with a mass, then kill it. Tell me what collectables you get.

Read my post more carefully. I stated that the reason I did not see lich dust drop was that the lich for some odd reason disappeared before I could kill it.

I do not need to test this in a further event because I have already done so in the event that just transpired.

Vampires are the easiest to test with as they have a 100% drop rate of 2 fangs.

I get first hit, and am the only one to ever damage the vampire: 2 fangs for me.
Someone else gets first hit and I assist: sometimes I get fangs, sometimes I do not.
I get the first hit and someone else assists: sometimes I get fangs, sometimes I do not.

I have come across groups of mobs that have already been hit by a mass cure, I'll blast them and still get a drop. You stated that this was impossible, I'm here telling you that you are wrong. Maybe you just got unlucky with your rolls and every time you assisted someone you got nothing. The awesome thing about your theory is that it only takes one instance to prove it wrong.

I figured this out in less than 2 hours in the graveyard. Honestly, it could not be any more clear than that.

[dogpig00]

Lich and Vampires do have 100% drop rate. But that drop isn't necessary going to you. If you are in a party of 12 and with no one else around you, the drop is randomly given to anyone in your party, even if the member is afk. Also the lower levels tends to have higher chance of getting the loot than higher level characters.

If there are other parties, such as solo leechers, who did damage to the lich or vampire, then first the loot will be randomly given to one of the parties, and then the loot divides inside the party.

[Natashaelle]

See, y'all wouldnt be complaining about leeching if everyone was solo.

No, we'd be complaining about hating the whole PvP business, instead...

[dogpig00]

Vampires are the easiest to test with as they have a 100% drop rate of 2 fangs.

I get first hit, and am the only one to ever damage the vampire: 2 fangs for me.
Someone else gets first hit and I assist: sometimes I get fangs, sometimes I do not.
I get the first hit and someone else assists: sometimes I get fangs, sometimes I do not.



This is correct and consistent with what I have been saying about the drop mechanism-- the loot is distributed evenly first amongst the parties who hit the mob [in the last few seconds], and then distributed not evenly within the party which awarded the loot, with character level adjustment.

[Kintro]

Thanks OP for summarizing everything that sucked about this event.


This is called "leeching". I would also call it selfish in the extreme, and utterly inappropriate for the generally cooperative nature of this MMO.

It has been THE single most unpleasant aspect of this whole Mabar event.

I do not thank you for coming here to post this as positive advice that people should be following :mad: :mad: :mad:

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

+1, glad the first reply was such a good one.

[MeliCat]

If you were doing this passively rather than actively it wouldn't fuss me. If you are near our level then you are assisting in generating extra mobs as I understand the mechanic.

I was regularly creating lfms with:"mote farming. 10 pikers required. idc if you afk" and they would fill in 2mins. And I genuinely didn't care if people afked. It was fun only because of the people, mob killing was kinda mindless.

And I also can't blame the caster coming back from filling up their sp bar who saw a huge mob we spawned and couldn't resist tossing that meteor storm. :) :D

The occasional lowbie hanging near us wasnt' that bad - I think I only got the Mabar warnings once. And if they were just off to one side of us then you knew that a few of the mobs over that way wouldn't get you much and just avoided those. They often didn't hang around for long becuase they new that the mobs we generated were nastily overpowered.

I really didn't see much griefing. So many nicker twists over this issue. :P

[Delt]

I figured this out in less than 2 hours in the graveyard. Honestly, it could not be any more clear than that.

Next time, spend more than 2 hours figuring stuff out. That said, believe what you like. As you can see from other posts in this thread, people have varying theories -- but theories are not opinions. There is a right answer and then only wrong answers.

And just fyi, all red names were 100% drop (for the owner).

[richieelias27]

Next time, spend more than 2 hours figuring stuff out. That said, believe what you like. As you can see from other posts in this thread, people have varying theories -- but theories are not opinions. There is a right answer and then only wrong answers.

And just fyi, all red names were 100% drop (for the owner).

I do not need more than 2 hours of testing. You say that only the first person to damage something can ever get a collectible from it. I only need one collectible drop from something that I did not get initial damage to to disprove this. I did so, so no further testing is needed.

[Rumbaar]

I neither condone or not condone the actions described here or the greifing tactics that took place.

But don't hate the player, hate the game.

Everything from the forced grouping in dragon instances 16+ [12 max per raid group] to scales that 1 Mote out of purchasing. Turbine failed here.

At least with the Risian games, you didn't have to purchase DDO store items to get coins via kills. Also the coins were player specific in the jumps, so it didn't mater if a person got theirs you still got yours.

20,000 item handed in to spawn a dragon meant that those out of the most busiest hours [halloween] were left waiting a long time to spawn. Which meant you came into a possible instance of 'warning this is meant to be 16+ players, blah blah'.

[jortann]

You are all crazy!

First, the drops are affected by some sort of randomizing, so there is no true way to figure out how it works, so quit trying. No one knows unless you have the formula with you. I could do basically the same thing in (2) 10 minute blocks (about the time it took me to drain my sp's) sometimes I could get like 150 motes other times 50. Random, random, random. Sometimes I would walk in the graveyard and kill the first monster in my level group and get a fingerbone. Hmmm - that doesn't seem right. Kill the next two guys and get drops from them. 3 guys = 3 drops. Hmmm - that doesn't seem right. Then I would kill a mummy warrior and 2 of the armored skeleton dudes and get nothing. Random, random, random.

Second, soloing was much more productive if you stayed AWAY from the groups and large spawns. Was averaging a drop for every 3-5 dudes I killed. Main reason for this is I was only killing stuff in my level that spawned for me (See #3) Competing for kills on the large spawns was a waste of time. There were a lot of spawns spots off in the trees and on the ledges. I had a large loop I would run to several spots and it was a lot more fun than sitting on the rock trying to launch your fireball before everyone else did.

Third, there seemed to be a penalty for killing stuff below your level. 'this creature was to weak to give rewards' seemed to affect future drops for a while. Also a drawback to killing large mobs as usually there was a lower level toon nearby generating the weaker stuff. Not for sure on this since I don't have the formula - It was just my experience and also the same for others I talked with.

Fourth, dogpig00's ideas of what gets you a drop is flawed. While in a group I went afk and got drops for doing nothing. (just a bathroom break or to get a drink - dont send me the anti-piking mail, please) Also, there were times that I would use my last spell and wait for someone else to kill the monster to see if I got a drop - sometimes yes. I even got drops when I was dead. And I got drops 2 seconds after I had damaged stuff.

Fifth, quit bashing the event. This was an awesome event. I loved the frenzy of it. And I was able to get stuff that would have taken weeks and months of grinding to get. The DEVs did a great job!

With lots of love...

ox

[Kintro]

I really didn't see much griefing. So many nicker twists over this issue. :P

You must've been very lucky. I did all my mote farming in groups with guildies. Not because I didn't know the OPs technique was faster but because I'm not selfish.

I got enough to make 4 epic items before I got completely sick of it and had at least one leech around most of the time. Often the same people/guilds who are now blacklisted. Sometimes we could drop them by swapping to an empty instance but that didn't always work.

[voodoogroves]

I had way better success with my barbarian than my level 20 caster.

I stayed in large groups as much as possible, preferably those with casters.

1. Drink draught of midnight
2. Get in large group (swap 1 and 2)
3. jump in the middle of massive spawn swinging double positive maul
4. Collect lots of motes because your glancing blows just killed everything the casters didn't get on the first shot

I collected around 30 motes or more per mob and averaged about 2000 motes per hour that way. I also still got quite a few of the collectibles drops as well to go with the motes.

I had a good drop rate on my caster as well but couldn't stay in as long due to my SP running out. 22+ minutes of rage kept me in the fray much longer than my SP could.

Land-o-clerics. Solo it was simply mass heal, burst or mass cure. That took care of anything but a red named. Period. If you're running a draught, go in 2nd w/ the burst. I tried to communicate w/ the others in the the groups I was with as to who was on-draught and wasn't so we weren't running over each other. If I wasn't on draught, I just mass-healed and someone else got the kill-motes.


I made a mess of stuff and I'm still swimming in the dang things.

Best part of the weekend though was the picture of a dog I bought with my motes.

[dogpig00]

Fourth, dogpig00's ideas of what gets you a drop is flawed. While in a group I went afk and got drops for doing nothing. (just a bathroom break or to get a drink - dont send me the anti-piking mail, please) Also, there were times that I would use my last spell and wait for someone else to kill the monster to see if I got a drop - sometimes yes. I even got drops when I was dead. And I got drops 2 seconds after I had damaged stuff.



If you have any reading ability, you will realized I said the exactly the same thing in my first post. Once the loot is awarded to your party, everyone in the party will have a chance to get it, with adjustment to character level, even if you are afk and doing nothing. Whether you kill the mob or not has no difference.

If you are afk not in a party, then you will never get any loot. This we all know.

[Tat2Freak]

...leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.


Yet the role they play is just as important as that of any other link in the chain...

[Kintro]

I just didn't think the DDO culture was ready for public spawn camping.

That mechanic (or lack of it) is exactly why I (and plenty of others I know) love this game so much. It's why I maintained a subscription to what was a dying game for two years and why I continue to play.

I really really hope this event isn't a sign of things to come.

[FlyingTurtle]

My observations agree with the original post, except for a few points.

I'm somewhat unsure about whether the drop is evenly DIVIDED among parties who damaged the mob (my loss=your gain), or just everyone who damaged the mob gets an independent chance at a drop.

I do agree that being in a party is always not a good thing. If you can coordinate via a separate channel (e.g., guild chat, or a custom channel), it's better to not be in the same party. A guildy and I deliberately decided to co-locate but not group. We saw the bigger spawns and both got higher drops than solo.

[jortann]

If you have any reading ability, you will realized I said the exactly the same thing in my first post. Once the loot is awarded to your party, everyone in the party will have a chance to get it, with adjustment to character level, even if you are afk and doing nothing. Whether you kill the mob or not has no difference.


2. Once this mob dies, loot will be divided *evenly* between # of PARTIES that did damage to it in the last ~2 seconds.


maybe the confusion is that these two statements cant be true at the same time....

maybe the problem isn't in my reading ability but in your wirting/logic ability

and maybe you were just bored today and decided to post some random garbage on the forum to get everyone whipped up into a frenzy - you succeeded - congrats!

hope to see you online

BFFs always

ox

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Yes, you can call this "leeching". But even in the most cooperative gaming, such as DoTA, last hit the mob for gold and leeching experience is common and necessary.

Since this event is supposed to end now, I feel no remorse for sharing this. If I had shared this earlier, then there might be more leechers than players...

But it looks like Turbine may extend the event longer, which I oppose since it causes major lag in other quests, this post might be of some use to others.

If you have "no remorse" for leeching and going AFK in an attempt to steal the work of others, then I have no remorse about -rep for the anti-community spirit.

[donfilibuster]

Leeching is EPIC FAIL -- leeches, vultures, jackals, and other such parasites are hardly the most respected members of the Animal Kingdom.

Analogy fail. The definition of parasite is not entirely wrong, just out of context.
Lions gotta love their sanitary system.

[melkor1702]

I'm surprised no one has asked yet, as I'm sure with an attitude like yours people would like to know. :)

OP, can you list your server and character names?

[MartinusWyllt]

I sort of agree with what you said about people using tecnique to get their colletables. But I dont agree with what you said about leeches, vultures and jackals from a ecological stand point. Jackals and vultures are not parasites they are savengers, and oppotunistic predators. And this plays a vital role in the the ecological cycle. Leeches have played a role in healthcare. All members of the animal kingdom from the smallest to the largest, should be respected equally. So many mistakes have been made because of people not realising the actual value that certain plants and animals have and the roles they play.

While you're certainly correct about the ecological value of scavenging species...I favor those prokaryotes involved in ammonia/nitrite cycling...there's no virtual niche in DDO for this role. We can probably postulate even further, though arguable, benefit to vertebrate evolution as contributed to by parasites...might even have them to thank for our method of recombinatorial reproduction (Red Queen).

Leeching in the DDO context serves no function, only harming the host....definitely doesn't approach even a commensalistic relationship.

[dogpig00]

I'm somewhat unsure about whether the drop is evenly DIVIDED among parties who damaged the mob (my loss=your gain), or just everyone who damaged the mob gets an independent chance at a drop.



There only argument that can have is the word "evenly". For example, if i am hitting a mob with 2 other guys in the same party hitting it, do I have 50% chance of getting the loot (if there is loot), or do i have 33% chance of getting the loot? I believe its 50%, because I see plenty of times that when a large # of people (in the same party) attacking the mob I am hitting, I have the similar chance of getting the loot compared to when only a couple people were attacking the mob.

[Faerbaste]

Yes, you can call this "leeching". But even in the most cooperative gaming, such as DoTA, last hit the mob for gold and leeching experience is common and necessary.

Since this event is supposed to end now, I feel no remorse for sharing this. If I had shared this earlier, then there might be more leechers than players...

But it looks like Turbine may extend the event longer, which I oppose since it causes major lag in other quests, this post might be of some use to others.

So, in this post you admit to leeching collectables while afk and taking the benefit of other peoples work and in your other "masterpiece" thread you advocate Turbine just giving the loot from this event away free or possibly selling it in the DDO store now the event has ended.

WOW, you sound like the most lazy person ever. Why do you bother to play if you can't be bothered to play?

[FlyingTurtle]

There only argument that can have is the word "evenly". For example, if i am hitting a mob with 2 other guys in the same party hitting it, do I have 50% chance of getting the loot (if there is loot), or do i have 33% chance of getting the loot? I believe its 50%, because I see plenty of times that when a large # of people (in the same party) attacking the mob I am hitting, I have the similar chance of getting the loot compared to when only a couple people were attacking the mob.

I mean, 3 random guys (not in party) whack at a mob, vs one guy whack at a mob, does it affect your chances of a drop?

My experience indicates, no. I've been in plenty of situations where my melee and another melee are going at the same group. I jump around and touch everything at least once, they do too. Then the mobs die, and I get a number of drops just like if there wasn't a second person helping, i.e., it's not divided among us, it's given to each of us (like, e.g., quest XP).

[dogpig00]

So, in this post you admit to leeching collectables while afk and taking the benefit of other peoples work and in your other "masterpiece" thread you advocate Turbine just giving the loot from this event away free or possibly selling it in the DDO store now the event has ended.

WOW, you sound like the most lazy person ever. Why do you bother to play if you can't be bothered to play?

Is it taking benefit from other people? No. Turbine implemented this way. Whoever is the smartest and strongest wins the game.

Now since Turbine has a DDO store, I will add to it that whoever is the richest, will certainly win the game.

[Faerbaste]

Is it taking benefit from other people? No. Turbine implemented this way. Whoever is the smartest and strongest wins the game.

Now since Turbine has a DDO store, I will add to it that whoever is the richest, will certainly win the game.

"Win" the game - LMAO, oh thats funny!

Perhaps you could explain how someone "wins" DDO

Most amusing thing I've read all night, lol

[richieelias27]

"Win" the game - LMAO, oh thats funny!

Perhaps you could exlain how someone "wins" DDO

Most amusing thing I've read all night, lol

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Feat:Completionist

You're welcome ;)

[Faerbaste]

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Feat:Completionist

You're welcome ;)

I'm not sure that Dogbreath was thinking of the completionist feat when he said the smartest, strongest and richest would "win" DDO.

Completionist is about the most perseverence to complete the longest grind known to man. I think Dogbreath was thinking of another sort of "win".

Still, thanks for your smug little input.

[AyumiAmakusa]

Yes, thank you for telling us a way to grief other players. I'm sure a lot of people will thank you for that. :)

[richieelias27]

Hey, you asked for it to be explained how one wins at DDO. There it is, take it or leave it ;)

[Faerbaste]

Hey, you asked how one wins at DDO. There it is, take it or leave it ;)

No, I asked Dogpig for his definition, not you.

[richieelias27]

No, I asked Dogpig for his definition, not you.

Oooooh, someones punchy tonight.

It amazes me sometimes how little it takes for some people to get all riled up about inconsequential things.

[Faerbaste]

Oooooh, someones punchy tonight.

It amazes me sometimes how little it takes for some people to get all riled up about inconsequential things.

It amazes me how quickly some people stick their smug little comments in and then get all upset when its merely pointed out to them that the question wasn't directed to them.

[dogpig00]

By "win", I mean achieving your own goal, in short term and in long term. In short term, for example, I would "win" if I were to craft everything I wanted from the Mabar event before it is over, while not playing it 24 hours a day. In the long term, I could shoot for completionist, but I know I won't do that, and if I did, I would instantly quit DDO, as obviously, there is nothing else for you to do.

In general, all games can be "won" using 4 ways:

1. Time grinders -- this person spend 24/7 in the game. For DDO, you can think something like those grind 100 favor for 25 TP , or grind something like devout handwraps -- they have a lot of time to waste, doing things repeatedly. Obviously this way will undoubtedly consume your real life.

2. Ultimate power -- this type is trying to achieve maximum something. For DDO, you can think of them as making a screenshot of 100 strength or critical hit of 1000 damage. Consider this, if you have an aura that will make everything hostile to you instantly drop dead, how long will you be playing this game? Perhaps for a couple of days where you tread everywhere and see everything die before your laughter, but it gets boring really fast. And very soon, we won't see you in the game.

3. The exploiter -- this guy attempts to find out all little bitty about the game and tries out various unorthodox things in the game. For DDO, you can think of it as trying to figure out how the drop mechanism works. Once you figured it out, especially with a Dev's confirmation, it will be very satisfying.

4. The banker -- most of the today's online games ' content can be obtained quicker if you pay for them. When you have bought everything in the game, tried out every quest possible, then you are finished with this game and move on to the next. For DDO, you can think of this as something who buys all the store buffs, using 5 hirelings from the store, eat spirit cakes when you die, and soloed every quest that can be soloed. From a Turbine interview a few month ago, I read that consumables such as spirit cakes are the best selling items in the DDO store. I then realized how some rich dude is able to enjoy this game in far different manner than, let's say, myself.

In the context of the Mabar event:

1. The grinder -- someone joins a party (with leechers around them) and play many many hours to get the motes they need for their items. A lot of time wasted really, but in the end, you got what you wanted and thus "won" with your hard work...
2. Ultimate power -- if you can somehow kill a pack of spawns very quickly and regenerate your spell points (drink coffee), then you certainly will be able to farm what you need rather quickly.
3. The exploiter -- like my self, many chose the way of leeching after unable to achieve the first 2. This path, may be dark, but is certainly a viable solution. My afk archer bring it to the next level.
4. The banker path is what we lack right now. These Mabar event items are not purchasable. Thus, in my other thread, I would like to see these items available for sale. Both benefiting these rich dudes and also reduce the lag for us all.

[Faerbaste]

By "win", I mean achieving your own goal, in short term and in long term. In short term, for example, I would "win" if I were to craft everything I wanted from the Mabar event before it is over, while not playing it 24 hours a day. In the long term, I could shoot for completionist, but I know I won't do that, and if I did, I would instantly quit DDO, as obviously, there is nothing else for you to do.

In general, all games can be "won" using 4 ways:

1. Time grinders -- this person spend 24/7 in the game. For DDO, you can think something like those grind 100 favor for 25 TP , or grind something like devout handwraps -- they have a lot of time to waste, doing things repeatedly. Obviously this way will undoubtedly consume your real life.

2. Ultimate power -- this type is trying to achieve maximum something. For DDO, you can think of them as making a screenshot of 100 strength or critical hit of 1000 damage. Consider this, if you have an aura that will make everything hostile to you instantly drop dead, how long will you be playing this game? Perhaps for a couple of days where you tread everywhere and see everything die before your laughter, but it gets boring really fast. And very soon, we won't see you in the game.

3. The exploiter -- this guy attempts to find out all little bitty about the game and tries out various unorthodox things in the game. For DDO, you can think of it as trying to figure out how the drop mechanism works. Once you figured it out, especially with a Dev's confirmation, it will be very satisfying.

4. The banker -- most of the today's online games ' content can be obtained quicker if you pay for them. When you have bought everything in the game, tried out every quest possible, then you are finished with this game and move on to the next. For DDO, you can think of this as something who buys all the store buffs, using 5 hirelings from the store, eat spirit cakes when you die, and soloed every quest that can be soloed. From a Turbine interview a few month ago, I read that consumables such as spirit cakes are the best selling items in the DDO store. I then realized how some rich dude is able to enjoy this game in far different manner than, let's say, myself.

Well thank you for your reply, it doesn't really explain your earlier statement that the strongest, smartest and richest would win DDO. Although thats probably because your earlier statement was a total load of rubbish which can't be explained logically. Furthermore the above explanation also doesn't explain how your behaviour in the Mabar event contributes to a win in any of the above catagories. In fact, this reply also seems to be a total load of rubbish. Nevertheless its quite amusing in its own way. Good luck on achieving your "win"

[dogpig00]

Well thank you for your reply, it doesn't really explain your earlier statement that the strongest, smartest and richest would win DDO. Although thats probably because your earlier statement was a total load of rubbish which can't be explained logically. Furthermore the above explanation also doesn't explain how your behaviour in the Mabar event contributes to a win in any of the above catagories. In fact, this reply also seems to be a total load of rubbish. Nevertheless its quite amusing in its own way. Good luck on achieving your "win"

it appears that I hit submit before I finished typing... i intended to put "win" in the context of the event.

[samthedagger]

If ever there was a way to shrink your greenis to nonexistent sizes, digpog00 has found it.

Mad negative props for your post, bro.

[Krell]

Hey, you asked for it to be explained how one wins at DDO. There it is, take it or leave it ;)

Well, I saw the humor in it ;). +1

[Junts]

No, the single most unpleasant aspect of the while Mabar event was the leeches that got mad when people complained and started to greater dispel the group that was camping there, get their guildmates to greater dispel the group, etc. :( Tickets to the GM's did no good to halt the behavior because there were none available.

I had people spam me with trade windows and other such nonsense (conveniently garnering themselves harrassment reports) because I was killing mobs while not grouped with them.

[FluffyCalico]

I saw a lot of this over the weekend. I ran a group of 12 and a solo caster would sit with us and go after what we attacked. I tried inviting but they declined. People in the party would complain so all 12 of us would move instances but the person would follow.

.

I saw this too and must say there are going to be alot of casters that start hitting lfms that want a caster that auto declined because they got themselves squelched by 100s of people because they wanted their motes a tiny bit faster. So it all evens out in the end. They got their motes alittle faster and now for life they will get raids alittle slower.

[Junts]

I saw this too and must say there are going to be alot of casters that start hitting lfms that want a caster that auto declined because they got themselves squelched by 100s of people because they wanted their motes a tiny bit faster. So it all evens out in the end. They got their motes alittle faster and now for life they will get raids alittle slower.

In my experience its going to be more that there's a few guilds full of people who will have a really hard time filling hte last 1-2 spots in my guild epic raids that happen to need one becuase they're on ignore after harrassing me with trade windows.

[FluffyCalico]

they're on ignore after harrassing me with trade windows.

You do know there is a check box to turn trade window off lol
And I'm pretty sure if you leech harased them enough to make them do the trade window thing that you not being will to join their groups will have no effect on them as I am sure they have already squelched the leecher meaning the leecher could not join if they tried.

[Junts]

You do know there is a check box to turn trade window off lol

As someone who trades frequently, turning off the trade window repeatedly is a significant hassle in a situation where the economy was in full gear and motes were being bought and traded at significant rates.

[FluffyCalico]

As someone who trades frequently, turning off the trade window repeatedly is a significant hassle in a situation where the economy was in full gear and motes were being bought and traded at significant rates.

Then don't leech harass people to the point where large groups of people feel the need to pester you back? :eek:

Seriously I mean if you intentionally tick off 100 people farming motes don't get upset with they return the favor and make you mad while you are farming them.

[Junts]

Then don't leech harass people to the point where large groups of people feel the need to pester you back? :eek:

I was in the same instance as these folks for roughly 5m; I was also grouped with others (in my guild). Being a larger group does not entitle individuals to everything that spawns in their immediate vicinity; said spawns are also larger due to the presence of the smaller group (or the individual, for that matter).

A group with 5 casters in it has no business complaining if they're losing a majority of their kills to any other single player. When those casters decide that spamming their Kormor's belts and trade windows is more profitable than simply killing the monsters first, well..

[Delt]

As full of misinformation as this thread is, I like the topic of "kill stealing".

You don't own spawns. If someone is stealing your kills, either grouped or solo, adapt or get better than them at killing.

DDO players are sheltered from the competitive aspects of MMOs, so the whining and ticket filing didn't surprise me. But if open world mechanics make you upset instead of prompting you to improve then, like pvp, simply avoid it and let the rest of us enjoy it.

[Riggs]

As full of misinformation as this thread is, I like the topic of "kill stealing".

You don't own spawns. If someone is stealing your kills, either grouped or solo, adapt or get better than them at killing.

DDO players are sheltered from the competitive aspects of MMOs, so the whining and ticket filing didn't surprise me. But if open world mechanics make you upset instead of prompting you to improve then, like pvp, simply avoid it and let the rest of us enjoy it.

Doublespeak at its ...well not best, but a good try.

More people = more spawns. Therefore if a raid group of 12 people is sitting in one area, and a solo leech comes along and kills a spawn .25 seconds faster than the group - they get more collectables AND the motes from the spawns that the party sitting there waiting for the spawns caused by THEIR presence generates not YOURS by being solo - then in fact - it really is THEIR spawns since THEY generated the spawns and NOT the leecher.

So doublespeak - check.
Logic/truth/reality - fail.

I would say try again, but really - dont.

[Delt]

Doublespeak at its ...well not best, but a good try.

More people = more spawns. Therefore if a raid group of 12 people is sitting in one area, and a solo leech comes along and kills a spawn .25 seconds faster than the group - they get more collectables AND the motes from the spawns that the party sitting there waiting for the spawns caused by THEIR presence generates not YOURS by being solo - then in fact - it really is THEIR spawns since THEY generated the spawns and NOT the leecher.

So doublespeak - check.
Logic/truth/reality - fail.

I would say try again, but really - dont.

If 12 people can't out draw the solo player, then the "fail" certainly isn't my logic. Whining may be your first line of defense, but me, I'd look at shaving .26 seconds off my time.

But I guess that's just the difference between us :rolleyes:

And the simple spawn mechanic, which is based on players/level in the direct vacinity, isn't a measure of ownership. That one player stealing kills contributed to the spawn as well.

For people like you that don't agree with my point of view, thats fine, the ice games are just around the corner...no one can "steal" your coins (but they can lag your jumps, OH NOOOOO~! :p)

[Junts]

Doublespeak at its ...well not best, but a good try.

More people = more spawns. Therefore if a raid group of 12 people is sitting in one area, and a solo leech comes along and kills a spawn .25 seconds faster than the group - they get more collectables AND the motes from the spawns that the party sitting there waiting for the spawns caused by THEIR presence generates not YOURS by being solo - then in fact - it really is THEIR spawns since THEY generated the spawns and NOT the leecher.

So doublespeak - check.
Logic/truth/reality - fail.

I would say try again, but really - dont.

In fact, the raid group is still getting more spawns from the other people - when we were running raid groups, the cap seemed something like 15ish toons in the area before the spawns stopped growing.

The people who seem most angry about this were the ones standing around afk on noncasters while other people got them motes, in general.

[Dulcimerist]

On the bright side, perhaps Turbine will read this thread that the Asperger's guy started, and will adjust and improve things for future events. :)

[Yellfor]

Then U have ppl like me...

After I got all the equipment that I needed for the 4 toons that I play, I did the following.

1. I would take my 17 lvl cleric and find a low lvl group camping in an area for spawns.
2. Then watch for those spawns and jump in the middle - throw Mass Heal and run back to the low lvl group and turtle up. :eek:

This would give the low lvls a good chance of taking out higher lvl mobs (ones that where spawning for me). I ALMOST :rolleyes: never received any collectible when I was doing and that was fine by me.
I also would watch for anyone having a tuff time (i.e. low on heath or just plain DIED) and give them whatever help they needed. AND NOT STEAL ANY KILLS IF I COULD HELP IT!
I was thanked more than once by others for the help, both in healing/raising them and bringing higher lvl mobs down to a manageable (lower HPs) lvl.

[FlyingTurtle]

The people who seem most angry about this were the ones standing around afk on noncasters while other people got them motes, in general.

Precisely.

A rational, active player would think "well, this is clearly not working, we're getting lots of spawns but not enough drops", break group, and try something else. That's what I did. I ran in quite a few groups because I liked the dynamic, but had to drop because it just wasn't even comparing to hiding in a corner and quiety munching on my own spawns. Its not the other players' fault that Turbine didn't set up the rules to reflect the perfect ruleset in some peoples' heads. They're just playing the game as it's set up. Wander around, find undead stuff, kill them. It seems people get way too proprietary about everything in the game.

Omigod you killed MY spawns!
Omigod scales is MINE I got cheated out of it by noobs and lag!
Omigod you're in MY area, get lost!

Really, who's the real people with a problem here?

[Brother_Solar]

If they could make it so that players could only see/affect the spawns that they and/or their group triggered, that would prevent the blatantly self-interested folks from ruining the experience for other people.

Not that I condemn a little self-interest, but taking it to the point of transgressing on the enjoyment of others is something that should be actionable in a cooperative video game.

Since DDO is almost solely a cooperative game, it has developed a comparatively relaxed and helpful community. It would be nice if the community were to remain that way.

[Junts]

Precisely.

A rational, active player would think "well, this is clearly not working, we're getting lots of spawns but not enough drops", break group, and try something else. That's what I did. I ran in quite a few groups because I liked the dynamic, but had to drop because it just wasn't even comparing to hiding in a corner and quiety munching on my own spawns. Its not the other players' fault that Turbine didn't set up the rules to reflect the perfect ruleset in some peoples' heads. They're just playing the game as it's set up. Wander around, find undead stuff, kill them. It seems people get way too proprietary about everything in the game.

Omigod you killed MY spawns!
Omigod scales is MINE I got cheated out of it by noobs and lag!
Omigod you're in MY area, get lost!

Really, who's the real people with a problem here?

Basically everything in the OP of this thread is true, on the other hand; after one night of farming in parties, I never again farmed in a group larger than 3, and would hop instances until I found a decent amount of people. I didn't proactively look for the largest raid groups, I just started at 1 and moved my way down the line until I found 6-7 level 20s in the area I wanted to farm, and if they left I'd continue down the list until I found another such group. It took roughly 5 or so other people in my vicinity for spawns to be large enough to be worth my time waiting for respawns instead of roaming, so that's what I looked for. Finding full raids was just a bonus, and not even always that if they had a skilled caster among them instead of someone who was just spamming spells. Having any kind of real competition for the kills made it more effective to go find another small group to farm with instead of competing with multiple people who knew what they were doing.

A fwe times that meant I followed people, since they switched to the next instance in numerical order and that was the next one I checked.

I stood in one specific spot in mouselook mode with my sound effects turned up enough to hear the sound of mobs spawning (and with the headset, to know the direction of their spawn). After some practice you get to know exactly when to throw your attack at a pack of mobs (they're invulnerable to aoes for about a second unless you're moving towards them or something else has alreayd hit them), so a lot of people woudl throw the second stuff spawned, have their fireball do nothing, and my fireball would then kill everything. Another thing that bypassed the momentary immunity was bouncing fireballs off geography instead of targetting directly; epxloding them off of the ground or nearby structures allowed me to damage monsters before other people did, and with sup comb 7, that meant I was either killing things or taking them to 5% health. When I used inferno clickies, I'd simply one shot kill everything this way.

A note: People who did more damage had a higher chance to get rewards. If someone fireballs everything to 5% hp and you kill it, they get most of the collectibles. This made the timing in the previous paragraph particularly important, becasue the first person to damage a pack with a dbf or meteor swarm almost always claimed the collectibles for themselves or their group. There's also no timer on it - I was once killed by a lich after I got it to 25% hp, stood dead at it until smoeone else ran up and killed it (about 3 minutes later) and got the lich dust for the kill while dead. For this reason, I'd activate my eardweller and spam dbf/disintegrate any time a lich spawned to ensure I'd done over 50% of the damage to it. I got well over 50% of the lich dusts in my vicinity doing this.

I was glad to pike my guildmates and friends through this process, but I wasn't joining otherp eople's groups to do it, and was particularly entertained when guilds would 'apologise' to me because their group was full and there was no room for me: and I'd then clean up around 75% of hte kills in our vicinity because my technique and timing were better than theirs.

I'll note that I should not have used combustion clickies for guaranteed kills, since letting people kill stuff at 5% actually generally let them feel like I wasn't stealing their mobs (even though in practice there wasn't any difference) and it required me to spend more time recharging those clickies in deleras. I should have foregone the ego trip of 3500 pt delayed blast and just used my red dragonscale robe for damage. If I had been near-kililing insteado f killing everything, most of the groups I was around probably woulud never have noticed I was gaining over 50% of the collectibles in their vicinity.

[FlyingTurtle]

ruining the experience for other people

There is no way someone could ruin the experience for someone else.

The experience these people who got "ruined" are desiring, is to group in a bunch, and stand there passively enjoying a lot of spawns, exclusively, to be spread among the party. Well that is nice. I wish turbine had coded the rules to support that. But they didn't. So it doesn't exist.

Consider this: a dealer sets up a poker table, two guys sit down and start playing bridge, because it's the better game which encourages cooperation. The other two guys play poker like its set up and dealer gives them the chips. Poker players get accused of griefing the bridge game. What? It doesn't even make any sense.

[Junts]

There is no way someone could ruin the experience for someone else.

The experience these people who got "ruined" are desiring, is to group in a bunch, and stand there passively enjoying a lot of spawns, exclusively, to be spread among the party. Well that is nice. I wish turbine had coded the rules to support that. But they didn't. So it doesn't exist.

Consider this: a dealer sets up a poker table, two guys sit down and start playing bridge, because it's the better game which encourages cooperation. The other two guys play poker like its set up and dealer gives them the chips. Poker players get accused of griefing the bridge game. What? It doesn't even make any sense.

Pretty much this. This event was intended to be a different experience than most of DDO, and it succeeded in that despite having some flaws. Specifically, it would have been nice if the instances segregated by level the way that the dragon instancces did, so that there were no cases of high levels incidently stealing from lowbies (i stole lots of lowbie kills simply because their mobs spanwed nxt to my mobs and fireballs don't discriminate), and no instances of lowbies standing around inadvertantly griefing high levels (by causing less high level mobs to spawn - lv 20 groups frequently had to move because someone would park a lv 15 in their vicinity and cause tons of lowbie **** to spawn for which they couldn't get rewards).

The interplay between characters of different levels in the graveyard wasn't productive for the event. I'm not sure you can make the same statement about the competition for mob kills - they were readily available, the instances were huge, and it was easy to gain large areas for yourself or to run around as a group and spawn things, whcih would have made killstealing much harder. The only thing that made it profitable to take advantage of other's spawns is that frequently 1/2 to 2/3 of those parties would be entirely afk piking the caster's mote collection, which meant they couldn't easily move and you had far less competition for their mobs than 12 vs 1 suggested.

Those players don't need my sympathy or Turbine's, and I will freely admit that I personally engaged in the practice. That it wasn't optimal is fine, becuase you could go afk for 90minutes and get tons of free **** without any effort whatsoever. The tradeoff for doing it in a way that allowed 2-4 peopel to get motes for 12 people is that it allowed competition. If those 12 people ran as a group aroudn their instance, they'd both kill far more mobs (because they wouldnt be waiting for respawns, but hitting more spawn points) and have next to no comeptition for them.

[mystafyi]

Camping spawns and 'killstealing' ..... LOL nice /Fail Turbine
just change the games name to EQ or WOW ;)

[Entelech]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if the event came back every Halloween...for one week each time. Some of the gear is nice, and it's one of the ways long-term players have an advantage or reward over the new-but-high-intensity players.

But honestly, after a week of it, I'm glad to see the back of it. It brings out some of the worst in our player-base:

(1) Sleazy behavior ranging from parisitism of your groupmates, killstealing, and griefing, to the sort of whiny entitlement mentality that makes me want to puke.

(2) Illiterate, uncommunicative morons who are either too arrogant to cooperate with others, or too stupid to. The Spectral Dragon is NOT rocket surgery, people. There's no excuse for some of the idiocy I saw in there.

But, perhaps this is appropriate for Halloween, after all. It made me realize how scary some of our players really are.

[Brother_Solar]

Edit to add for clarity: The following statements are directed to comments recently made by FlyingTurtle and Junts.

I don't disagree with your evaluation of the mechanics. I noticed that I would not get nearly as many collectables while in a group as I did while solo running around, so I opted not to group but did all of my own spawning and killing in my own little corner of the graveyard. If someone else came along, I moved to a different channel, no big deal.

However, if I had wanted to play with a group of friends or guild members simply for the social aspect of it, having someone follow us around to throw fireballs at all of the spawns that popped up nearby would have annoyed me to death.

Even if the majority of groups were doing as you say, that doesn't mean they all were. You might well have been making the game less fun for someone who was just trying to enjoy the event with their friends.

Regardless, there isn't much point in having this argument, so I'll stop thinking about it now and get some sleep instead. G'night!

[FluffyCalico]

Just make it a pvp weeked in that zone. There will be no kill stealing arguments. Just the ones that this raid I pestered has killed me 10000 times in the past hr...

[Junts]

Edit to add for clarity: The following statements are directed to comments recently made by FlyingTurtle and Junts.

I don't disagree with your evaluation of the mechanics. I noticed that I would not get nearly as many collectables while in a group as I did while solo running around, so I opted not to group but did all of my own spawning and killing in my own little corner of the graveyard. If someone else came along, I moved to a different channel, no big deal.

However, if I had wanted to play with a group of friends or guild members simply for the social aspect of it, having someone follow us around to throw fireballs at all of the spawns that popped up nearby would have annoyed me to death.

Even if the majority of groups were doing as you say, that doesn't mean they all were. You might well have been making the game less fun for someone who was just trying to enjoy the event with their friends.

Regardless, there isn't much point in having this argument, so I'll stop thinking about it now and get some sleep instead. G'night!

They were free to move, since I operated only standing from one exact point no matter what instance I was in. If it wasn't in fireball range of that one spot, I did not kill it.

The kind of players you mention might have been inconvenienced for am oment or two; and all they had to do was go 'anywhere else' in any instance and they never saw me again (unless they saw me going over to turn in or on my way to a spectral dragon door).

The people who were inconvenienced by me long-term were the ones who's groups couldn't move - sometimes not even move instances - becuse most of the players weren't paying attention at all to the game.

I don't have a problem with those people (as i mentioned, I probably did 6-8 hours of that kind of piking from my friends myself), but they don't deserve special protection.

[Natashaelle]

They were free to move...

I see -- so when a group of people find themselves a nice empty instance where they can farm cooperatively for each others' benefit, but then you zone in and ruin this plan for them, it's up to **them** to move somewhere else to avoid your self-interested leeching ?

... riiiiiiiight ... :rolleyes:

[Junts]

I see -- so when a group of people find themselves a nice empty instance where they can farm cooperatively for each others' benefit, and they encounter another group of people doing the same thing, increasing the spawns for everyone, and they determine they aren't getting as many of those kills as they like, its up to them to move instances?

I hate being the guy who quotes a post and edits the quote to make his point, but I felt this was an excellent opporunity.

If you have 8 people and I have 5, we're both potentially profitting from the presence of the other (because there are a lot more mobs for 13 people than for 8, and it cares only about proximity, not groupedness). If the 5 kill faster than the 8, its incumbent on the 8 to do it better or decide to go somewhere else. The 5 are not doing anything wrong. In fact, there's more mobs for 15 people than for 12, so even a full raid party can be benefitting from the presence of others!

Its the 6 of those 8 people who are afk doing nothing while the other 2 get them motes who are self-interested leeches, which is -why- the group of 8 doesn't move if they feel they're not getting enough of hte kills for it to be worth their time.

[Natashaelle]

I hate being the guy who quotes a post and edits the quote to make his point, but I felt this was an excellent opporunity.

Perhaps you may think so, nevertheless that's *utterly* different to the intent of what I posted, but what the hey, it's teh free interwebz... :p


If you have 8 people and I have 5, we're both potentially profitting from the presence of the other (because there are a lot more mobs for 13 people than for 8, and it cares only about proximity, not groupedness). If the 5 kill faster than the 8, its incumbent on the 8 to do it better or decide to go somewhere else. The 5 are not doing anything wrong. In fact, there's more mobs for 15 people than for 12, so even a full raid party can be benefitting from the presence of others!

I have no _real_ issue with that sort of scenario, except that some groups, including more than one that I belonged to, can have a collective desire to be left alone in their own little corner of the graveyard, gatecrashers not welcome.


Its the 6 of those 8 people who are afk doing nothing while the other 2 get them motes who are self-interested leeches, which is -why- the group of 8 doesn't move if they feel they're not getting enough of hte kills for it to be worth their time.

I didn't see very many afk leeches during the festival -- 2 or 3 tops. Maybe things are different on your server :(

What I *did* see was quite a few people following our groups from instance to instance, location to location, despite our clear and present attempts to escape their unwanted and unwelcome presence. :mad:

[FluffyCalico]

What I *did* see was quite a few people following our groups from instance to instance, location to location, despite our clear and present attempts to escape their unwanted and unwelcome presence. :mad:

Have every guild represented in the group squelch said stalker on every character.

[Gauthaag]

solution is simple....take out the draught. there is no kill stealing where theres no need to deal killing blow.

[y0himba.net]

Solution to the selfish leeches who do not see how that what they are doing is low?

Be in a group that kills mobs instantly. Our 12 person would step into a mob, they died and did not leave any time for the vultures that were trying to jack our kills.

[Gauthaag]

Stop the false morality

I killed some mobs solo from big spawns in vicinity of big group and i am the leech. They dont mind blasting off any spawns i popped and they are the dudes.

i ran around solo and activelly engaged any enemies equal my level and they pike at their parties and geting drops. So i am a leech and they are dudes.

i work on my own and dont exploit no one. They form big parties to be efficient and get steady income of motes from draughts, while their team mates get only slight chance of drops from big spawns they help to pop. but i am a leech and they are the dudes.

I toss for free to nearbz party leader or dude that spawn them any lich dust from lich i kill. they tried to trade it for harsh prices. and i am called leech and they call themselves dudes.

i give excess motes free to people in need they farm their plat from it, cause i am the leech and those are the dudes.

and i got blacklisted cause i am the leech by several people cause they are the dudes.


Panchos Anvilla of Argonnessen, proud member of Cult of Random Encounter

[melkor1702]

What I *did* see was quite a few people following our groups from instance to instance, location to location, despite our clear and present attempts to escape their unwanted and unwelcome presence. :mad:

I saw quite a bit of this too and this is by definition harassment and against Turbine's code of conduct.

A number of characters got added to squelch lists, especially a couple of level 12 characters, who even after polite tells, wouldn't stop following a raid group of 18 - 20 characters across the instances and spawning low level mobs that the higher levels weren't getting anything for because they where too high a level and the level 12 wasn't getting anything because the mobs weren't surviving the first set of spells cast by the level 20s.

[richieelias27]

I personally had zero problems with anyones behavior in the graveyard, but I felt that this needed commenting on:

I have no _real_ issue with that sort of scenario, except that some groups, including more than one that I belonged to, can have a collective desire to be left alone in their own little corner of the graveyard, gatecrashers not welcome.
Too bad? It's a public instance. You do not own it. Anyone may go where they please. Anyone who somehow got it into their head that they deserve their own private little playground is in the wrong event and has the wrong mindset.

Granted someone following you from instance to instance is extreme, but I have my own doubts as to the validity of such statements. There were 20+ instances when I was out there at non-peak hours, and over 30 when I was out there during peak hours. Someone following your group would have to have been a deliberate and isolated act far, FAR from the norm of the event.

[Wurmheart]

Stop the false morality

this mostly,

how can it be called leeching if the other group still gets full drops as long as 1 person in their group did dmg in the last 2 seconds or so?
how can something be called killstealing if your group stands there but doesnt atk them?


on the contrary however,

isn't it leeching if you're in a party and doing nothing yet still getting collectables?
isn't it taking advantage of others by standing near the turn ins (where alot of afk people stand) so they get higher spawns and then claiming they're all yours?



but tbh thing that mostly anoyed me was the lvl ranges of mobs, only 1 lowbie had to walk past and big chance the 2-3 spawning mobs would have only 1 in your level range.....
or vica versa for lowbies, inlcuding the fact that higher cr mobs easily can kill them..

[FlyingTurtle]

What I *did* see was quite a few people following our groups from instance to instance, location to location, despite our clear and present attempts to escape their unwanted and unwelcome presence. :mad:

I'm failing to see how to do that. Granted I've never tried to stalk a party, but it seems to me that random instance and position selection (there are always at least 15 to choose from, and there are probably about 4-5 positions with dense spawn points in each graveyard) every few minutes, and, if really needed, judicious application of Camoflage, or even just Blur, would make it extremely hard and annoying for a griefer to track a specific party.

The only thing I can think of is that you probably had a mole in the party if the griefers were able to track you reliably.

[painindaguild]

i personally found 4-6 players the ideal number to farm. u can spawn ur own set of larger number of mobs. also more fun to play together. also afk-friendly.
im just not a fan of soloing at all. if u can party with friends, why wouldn't u?

after all its not the way u farm it, its the one that farms it. (i mean class)

clerics finally had their shine point. arcanes were nice also melees had no use at all.

[Gauthaag]

bah, with my lvl 17 light monk tempest ranger i ve farm at 3000motes per hour rate and u say melees are of no use?

[zealous]

this mostly,

how can it be called leeching if the other group still gets full drops as long as 1 person in their group did dmg in the last 2 seconds or so?
how can something be called killstealing if your group stands there but doesnt atk them?

Because if the solo char is a caster the other group will get less drops unless they all are casters actively spamming.

If they all are casters, they would increase their gain by getting 11 pikers and going someplace else due to getting a proportionally higher amount of kill shots.

It's leeching because they didn't themselves go through the minor trouble of collecting 11 pikers ;)



on the contrary however,

isn't it leeching if you're in a party and doing nothing yet still getting collectables?

You are providing a benefit by increasing spawns, one caster is sufficient to ~one shot all of the mobs.


Granted, as far as I could tell, drops from killshots were higher for melee than from casting so mass healing a crowd down to 1 hp and finishing off with 2h glancing blows seemed to be somewhat more efficient than nuking mobs from orbit.

It is somewhat interesting that the event was constructed in such a way as to promote piking for group play, and to more strongly promote not being in a group at all.

[FlyingTurtle]

It is somewhat interesting that the event was constructed in such a way as to promote piking for group play, and to more strongly promote not being in a group at all.

This.

Turbine needs to remove the freaking penalty for being in a party.

EDIT: What do I mean, well I mean the drop mechanic shouldn't consider whether or not you're in the party. It should be the same for everyone regardless of party status.

[dogpig00]

On the bright side, perhaps Turbine will read this thread that the Asperger's guy started, and will adjust and improve things for future events. :)

that is the hidden objective of me starting the thread.

[Beethoven]

Whoever is the smartest and strongest wins the game.

I'd argue the smartest and strongest are the kind of groups running regular epics and end game, constantly working on ways to reduce completion time to get the most benefit for time invested (for reference of smart and strong - as far as DDO is concerned - see the list of Legions accomplishments).

They impress. Feeding off of someone else scrabs (which this strategy essentially is) to acquire some items easy to get for everyone with some patiance (or plat) does not. So, while the OP is correct in that it is very effective, it's an utterly selfish, uncooperative and rude way of farming something that's ridiculously easy to farm using any other strategy as well.

Side effects include:
* Leech long enough and people will take down your name. Hence its best done on a toon you don't plan to pug with in the near future.
* It's as easy to get rid of a leech. Using the Wildmage belt repeatedly on another toon is technically grieving. It's also not necessary. Simply activate a large group of mobs (Vampire Lords and Liches work great). Switch instance. It leaves the leech behind as sole target. Wait a couple minutes. Return to the original instance. Ain't no rocket science here.

Your benefit:
You manage to get your hands on something nearly everyone else on the game has too. You just did at the loss of the reputation of whatever toon you used. Can't agree it makes someone look stronger or smarter than those who used more cooperative approaches.

[Khanyth]

A lot of you have made some great points, but most of you are forgetting something important:

Unless you were doing it wrong, motes and collectables were not that hard to get. Really. Honestly. It wasn't hard to get.

Yes, there were leechers, kill stealers, dooooshbagz, whatever.
Yes, there were people who just wanted to be in their little corner and left alone.
Yes, there were people who ran amuk.

So what? You lost... what.... 1 or 2 collectables per hour? 6 - 12 tops?

Some of you are howling like you were screwed out of +5 tomes and + 8 stat gear.

The only problems that people should complain about are 1) the 9999/10,000 snafu, 2) that you couldn't buy scales from the DDO store, and 3) the lag in the raid.

Complaining that someone leeched away your precious fingerbone or black opal is complaining about stuff that really shouldn't be complained about.

[Angelus_dead]

I saw quite a bit of this too and this is by definition harassment and against Turbine's code of conduct.
No. Completely untrue: it does not match or resemble the definition of harassment in any way.

The people are hunting loot; and because of the way that Turbine designed the event, a good way to do that is to go around with a big group without joining it.


A number of characters got added to squelch lists, especially a couple of level 12 characters, who even after polite tells, wouldn't stop following a raid group of 18 - 20 characters across the instances and spawning low level mobs
That right there is actually closer to being harassment: getting mad at how someone else decided to profit from the event, and punishing them for it with social ostracism.

[Angelus_dead]

* It's as easy to get rid of a leech. Using the Wildmage belt repeatedly on another toon is technically grieving. It's also not necessary. Simply activate a large group of mobs (Vampire Lords and Liches work great). Switch instance. It leaves the leech behind as sole target. Wait a couple minutes. Return to the original instance. Ain't no rocket science here.
No, that would not work at all. Even a mediorce Cleric could take down as big a group as you give him without worry. All you'd be doing is handing him more items.

[Angelus_dead]

EDIT: What do I mean, well I mean the drop mechanic shouldn't consider whether or not you're in the party. It should be the same for everyone regardless of party status.
This was a deliberate change so that characters who have trouble killing things can still get rewards.

[elraido]

I will say, as a melee in there, it was a rough time getting motes. Basically, it took me about 10 hours to get enough motes on my main. I know I could have gone in as my fvs, but I didn't want to. I will say that this event was very obviously geared towards casters, big time.

[Forzah]

What I find messed up is that one person attacking a spawn gets 50% of all collectibles and a full raid group gets 50/12% per person. It should be 100/(total number of persons in the groups attacking)% for every person, so that there is no incentive to leech.

Casters better? Maybe.. but I could leech just as good on my barbarian as on my cleric, by using cleave.

[Angelus_dead]

What I find messed up is that one person attacking a spawn gets 50% of all collectibles and a full raid group gets 50/12% per person. It should be 100/(total number of persons in the groups attacking)% for every person, so that there is no incentive to leech.
What they should really try to do is remove the incentive to gather in a big mass of players to encourage more spawns.

12 players spread out around the graveyard in pairs should not be earning less than if they were all together as a clump.

[Beethoven]

No, that would not work at all. Even a mediorce Cleric could take down as big a group as you give him without worry. All you'd be doing is handing him more items.

Three things:
* the OP's example was an afk archer with auto-attack/target on. So, while I agree a mediocre cleric could, an afk archer probably will find himself back to where ever his/her soulstone is bound.
* a mediocre cleric manages to "steal" a sufficient amount of kills from a raid group - they sort of deserve kills getting stolen because ... seriously.
* my final point was: I know a lot of people (myself included) that will freely assume someone using tactics like these in an event as simple as Mabar, they won't contribute to a group effort any more in other cases either and probably will just stalk behind a group to ninja epic scrolls while everyone else is busy killing stuff.

Don't get me wrong, not everyone who took advantage of other people being around to increase spawn rates fits the category. There were certainly people taking it to a level, I personally would not trust them to act any different in epics. After all, by design people aren't prevented from focusing on ninja'ing scrolls instead of trying to contribute and you could similarly argue it is a "good way to get what you want."

Now, I am not accusing you or anyone on this thread of anything. What I guess what I am trying to say is that a certain behavior can (and did) reach a point where it became blatantly obvious a person couldn't care less about anyone but themselves and they will lie, cheat and steal to get their way. So, here is where I disagreed on it is a "good" way. It's effective. It's cutting in front of the line at the movies effective. I am not sure if I would use the phrases "good", "strong" or "smart" to describe that type of behavior.


That right there is actually closer to being harassment: getting mad at how someone else decided to profit from the event, and punishing them for it with social ostracism.

There is no policy stating "I have to be your friend". I decide I rather not play with a certain person because of the actions they have shown on the game, it's my choice. There is no harassment involved. It's no different than if I am at a party but rather no socialize with Jim because I don't like that guys attitude.

[Faerbaste]

That right there is actually closer to being harassment: getting mad at how someone else decided to profit from the event, and punishing them for it with social ostracism.

Since does adding an anti-social or disruptive or rude player to a squlch list constitute harrassment? In fact it is the behaviour of that player which is causing harrassment to the person who adds them to a squelch list to be able to play in peace in future.

If squelch lists were harrassment then Turbine would never have added the feature in the first place.

[Khanyth]

I will say, as a melee in there, it was a rough time getting motes. Basically, it took me about 10 hours to get enough motes on my main. I know I could have gone in as my fvs, but I didn't want to. I will say that this event was very obviously geared towards casters, big time.

Incorrect. Very incorrect.

I will say, as a 28pt capstoned barb, it was easy to get motes. Basically, it took me about 2 hours to get enough motes on my main.

[Angelus_dead]

Since does adding an anti-social or disruptive or rude player to a squlch list constitute harrassment?
That is not the situation under consideration.


In fact it is the behaviour of that player which is causing harrassment
No, it isn't. That's the point. Going around fighting monsters for which the game rewards you is not harassment. The word "harassment" is something else.

[Faerbaste]

That is not the situation under consideration.


No, it isn't. That's the point. Going around fighting monsters for which the game rewards you is not harassment. The word "harassment" is something else.

Yes true, fighting monsters is the whole point of the game, but in a large number of posts now people have been complaining about behaviour which goes beyond that. Its this anti-social behaviour towards other people that i was referring to, not the act of fighting monsters itself.

[Tendare]

Is it taking benefit from other people? No. Turbine implemented this way. Whoever is the smartest and strongest wins the game.

Now since Turbine has a DDO store, I will add to it that whoever is the richest, will certainly win the game.

You certainly have a warped thought process.

This event for most was a win, I guess you got out of it what you put into it.

I farmed the whole event with guildies. We always had a group formed. We switched in and out picked up pugs to run with us and reformed after each dragon. It was a great guild event for us from beginning to end. We hung out for the week having a blast. There were guildies in the group who went afk for a bit and always a few farming, at all times day and night, we ate, did laundry, tucked the kids in bed and went about our RL while playing and farming the graveyard. Noone in the guild crabbed about it, we told our guildies to pike, we were having fun, joking, killing ect. We even had our guildies park their toons near our farming spot when they logged so they would get extra collectables before the game logged them out. If we had new guildies log in we would bump the guildies who had logged out already and refill the group. It was a guild effort and it paid off well.

I even saw another guild bring on all their mules park them huddled under a rock where we were farming for a bit and pike it, whats wrong with that? I even got a cool pic.

We were even going into the same dragon runs together all 8-12 of us until Friday when something changed. On Friday we were being spread out through multiple instances, usually 2 guildies from our raid group in each instance. Thats when some guildies were experiencing failures on the dragon runs which really bummed us out. Some of the guild would get into a good dragon instance and complete and others in the group would get stuck in one that was totally siorganized and fail.

I hope next year if turbine runs this event they will let groups of 12 go into the same instance together. This was the only fail I saw in this event.

[Dulcimerist]

I did notice something odd with drops during the Mabar event, which doesn't really make sense to me:

About half of the undead in the Mabar event could be intimidated, so out of boredom or insanity I began to intimidate smaller mobs that nobody was actively farming. Then instead of attacking/damaging any of the undead, I would run just to see how far they could travel before they disappeared with the gold "stop sign" thingie above their heads.

Quite a few times while doing this, a caster would bomb the mob I intimi-aggroed with AoE, and I would receive a collectible item from it. This happened when I was running solo, so that collectible could've only come from the mob I had intimidated but had not physically damaged in any way.

[Junts]

I did notice something odd with drops during the Mabar event, which doesn't really make sense to me:

About half of the undead in the Mabar event could be intimidated, so out of boredom or insanity I began to intimidate smaller mobs that nobody was actively farming. Then instead of attacking/damaging any of the undead, I would run just to see how far they could travel before they disappeared with the gold "stop sign" thingie above their heads.

Quite a few times while doing this, a caster would bomb the mob I intimi-aggroed with AoE, and I would receive a collectible item from it. This happened when I was running solo, so that collectible could've only come from the mob I had intimidated but had not physically damaged in any way.

It makes total sense if they were using the mob's aggro table to determine the identities of players who could recieve rewards in addition to the killer; intimidating the mob places you on said table, even after intimidate has worn off.

[Delt]

So now that the event is back...maybe a few of you want to actually *test* your theories as to the mechanics behind the drop/tagged mechanics :rolleyes:

[Backley]

Here's a test I just ran:
12-man raid split into 12 single members (all dropped group)
Lich spawned, we all attacked it.
Only 1 person got a Lich Dust.

So, 1 Lich = 1 Luch Dust drop to anyone, regardless of grouping.

This may or may not be a change since last event. And this may or may not apply to other drops.