Devs: Can we talk about removing Dungeon Alert

[GentlemanAndAScholar]

This has a been a pain point since it was first announced and tested for Mod9. While I understand the motivation of not wanting players to zerg through a dungeon without killing stuff on the way, there are quests that DA just doesn't make any sense because these quests have mechanics that cannot be avoided. Coalescence Chamber being the number one in the list, IMO. It's already an aggravating quest with all the Mario-jumpy required, add DA that goes from nothing to red several times in the quest with no player interaction, like waves of bats, the ambush, etc. You can literally kill every single mob as you go along and then out of nowhere: Red skull, Harried, enemies buffed, etc. I've seen it happening on "kill x number of such" type of quests. Supposedly was an anti-zerg measure, but when the system fails when there's literally no zerging involved but by the quest mechanics/design, I think it's time to take another look at the system. Yes I'm sure "we're all uber and we running on red skulls is the only way to roll", but that doesn't justify, IMO, the fact that we need to put up with a flawed anti-zerg system that actually penalizes the players for doing what they're supposed to (killing mobs as they go, etc.).

[Tunst]

needless to say..

bats cant talk.

[Captain_Wizbang]

/signed

Keeping scaling I can see, but the DA thing could go bye-bye asap.

[bruha118]

/signed

Down with DA!!

[Qzipoun]

Remove grazing hits too while you're at it. Both abominations were added together...

[AmatsukaIncarnate]

I don't like DA in situations like that where its unavoidable.

I get that Turbine doesn't want people simply just running through a quest (which I still think should NOT be allowed...) but when DA is unavoidable for no good reason, it is very annoying...

[noinfo]

Remove grazing hits too while you're at it. Both abominations were added together...

Now that is the perfect word for both Abomination

[SupTyr]

imo the da system should take the cr of the mobs into account. so a swarm of bats which have a lower cr doesn't raise the da to red suddenly.

[Qzipoun]

imo the da system should take the cr of the mobs into account. so a swarm of bats which have a lower cr doesn't raise the da to red suddenly.

CR isn't the issue. Dungeon Alert is a 'blanket system' applied to all quests equally. Quests are individually 'hand-designed'... why should a game-wide system be implemented over them I have no idea :/

(And that's without discussing the actual issues with the system itself...)

[dkyle]

Eh... outside of the places where it's blatantly broken (Bastion, Coal Chamber), it's just one more challenge to overcome that makes the game more interesting. I wouldn't say it's ideal as it is, but I think it's better than not having it. Ideal would be better AI and hit detection on moving targets, but that's a tall order to fill.

[Missing_Minds]

Eh... outside of the places where it's blatantly broken (Bastion, Coal Chamber), it's just one more challenge to overcome that makes the game more interesting. I wouldn't say it's ideal as it is, but I think it's better than not having it. Ideal would be better AI and hit detection on moving targets, but that's a tall order to fill.

Add in Reaver raid to that list. One large room. sure, lets have DA there. Right.

[morticianjohn]

Eh... outside of the places where it's blatantly broken (Bastion, Coal Chamber), it's just one more challenge to overcome that makes the game more interesting. I wouldn't say it's ideal as it is, but I think it's better than not having it. Ideal would be better AI and hit detection on moving targets, but that's a tall order to fill.

I totally agree with you. So /signed to fixing the DA in quests where it's broken however, in 90%+ of all quests I do this is not the case.

[Xionanx]

Considering the level of outcry that occurred when it was added and the distinct LACK of a dev response to it then, I rate the likelyhood of DA being removed slim to none.

You will be hard pressed to find anyone who plays the game at the "vet" level who thinks it was a good addition or added anything worthwhile to the experience. I would love to see it removed, just not gonna hold my breathe for it.

[Sirea]

Considering the level of outcry that occurred when it was added and the distinct LACK of a dev response to it then, I rate the likelyhood of DA being removed slim to none.

You will be hard pressed to find anyone who plays the game at the "vet" level who thinks it was a good addition or added anything worthwhile to the experience. I would love to see it removed, just not gonna hold my breathe for it.

^this

They didn't listen then, they probably won't listen now. They think DA fixed the servers, so we're stuck with it.

[Baahb3]

Considering the level of outcry that occurred when it was added and the distinct LACK of a dev response to it then, I rate the likelyhood of DA being removed as zero in never.

Let me change that for ya.

They have mentioned this before, according to their perf counters, performance has been better since its inception. Because of this it will never get removed.

While I dislike it in quests the biggest pain to me is in wilderness zones when you are just trying to run to a quest like Chains of Flame or Inferno.

[Ugumagre]

I will wait until Memnir or Mr. Cow say something to agree with them

I just have no idea if DA is good or bad. Really, no joking.

[NaturalHazard]

I will wait until Memnir or Mr. Cow say something to agree with them

I just have no idea if DA is good or bad. Really, no joking.

/facepalm!!

This is one reason why the world is so messed up.

[Ugumagre]

/facepalm!!

This is one reason why the world is so messed up.

Sorry! From now on I will only agree with you!

But seriously... I dont know about DA. Never did coal chamber.

[Autechre]

I just find the harried effect extremely annoying. Perhaps quests get more challenging this way but that harried effect is SOOOOOOO annoying.
Maybe a different approach would be better something like monsters deal 5% more damage per alert.

[Ungood]

After reading much of this. It gave me some things to think about.

First being Col Chamber: Personally, I have not gone above a yellow in this dungeon, and that was with running past the bats/scorp(Trash) from time to time, So I have no idea how people are pulling Red DA in this place.

Now. DA is not contingent on how fast you do a dungeon, it is contingent on how many mobs you agro and do not kill (remove agro from). Which makes sense as a Lag reduction mechanic. Which I will try to explain:

First we need to group player types. And there seems to be a bit of ambiguity as to what Zerger means. So I am going to use the following groups:

Blitz Runners: These are the players that just amp up their striding, and run though the zone, trying to get to the end fight (and kill the end boss) as fast as humanly possible.

Rambo's: These players move though a dungeon as fast as they can while annihilating everything in their path in a stampede of destruction and mayhem. They may or may not do the traps, typically just for exp if they do. Typically experienced/geared players.

Crawlers: These people work their way though the Dungeon. doing pretty much what a Rambo's does, just a lot a slower. Normally do all the optional and stop for all the traps. May be very new to the quest, or have several new players in the group.

So. If we say that Turbine has 60K people willing to "Like" them on Facebook. Lets just assume that is 50% of their population. So. a base of 120K players in their game.

This, if we guess that 25% are Blitz Runners, 50% are Rambo and 25% are Crawlers for a nominal breakdown of figures (Which I just am making up as I am going along).

That would mean 30K players are Blitz, 60 K are Rambo and 30K are Crawlers. Which are all arbitrary numbers, that I am opting to work with, because I think they make some sense, and hopefully somewhat accurately describe the situation as simple as I can roll it down into a ho-ho cake snack.

Now lets be Honest, most Blitz Runners do not need or want a group, at best they may two man it, for efficiency, but a larger group just slows them down and makes the dungeon harder for no gain . So when they hit a dungeon, they Hit it in tight teams or solo. This they take up anywhere from 15 - 30K instances. if they agro 50 Mobs per instance (red alert) the server needs to handle anywhere from 750,000 mobs to 1,500,000 Mobs.

Rambo's can easily rampage a dungeon in a team or short man groups, Normally tight friends, or even some pugs. So. We just guess that they will run with a group from 2 - 5 players. So this group of players making up 50% of the game base, will take up anywhere from 15-25K instances, and because they slaughter and destroy as they go, normally never seeing more then 10 mobs alive at any time, and if they do, they fix that little problem in a jiffy. So they take up 150,000 - 250,000 Mob AI's at most.

Now Crawlers, like to wait for full groups, otherwise they are dead. So, they normally run with 4 - 6 person teams. If they short man it with 4, then Hires will be called up to save the day. So this group takes up anywhere from 5 - 7.5 K Instances. And really can't handle more then 8 mobs at a time. So they weigh in at agro-ing somewhere between 40,000 - 60,000 mobs.

So., we look at this, and the Crawlers are taking up less then 25% of the system resouces that the Blitz Runners are, for the same number players.

DA is designed not to stop players from Rushing though a zone, by all means. Rush! But DA is designed to stop players from pulling system resources when they do not have to.

So. Personally. Anyone should have the freedom to play as they want, more power to them. But, at the same time, if they are pulling resources and that is causing lag on the server as a a whole, I can respect a means to find a way to stop that, as it hurts everyone's game.