Suggestions for Improvements to Oratan Red Alert Events

This thread is being opened for US, the users to voice what we think will help to improve future Arkadian Oratan Red Alerts.

This thread will be restricted to suggesting improvments and even new event types of Red Alerts like attacking outposts instead of Main Firebases for example.

Please keep the thread clean and be constructive. This is to help the A Team see what we see, as there are many of us and few of them

I will start with a few things that I have thought of or have heard suggested in other threads.


1. Forcefield around base that makes it a no shoot zone.
2. Enable non lootable pvp inside the base an on the walls
3. Non Vehicle spawning ground for the bases while under attack
4. Limit number of bosses spawned at same time to 2, thus reducing their going unreachable by blocking each other
5. Change where the bosses spawn (currently they spawn too close, maybe 200m or 100m away they should spawn) and currently if a boss say Titan is spawned and we start to shoot if the Dev immediately spawns next boss it spawns on or IN the Titan, causing Both mobs to be stuck and unreachable.
6. Reducing the number of overall Red Dots on the screen at a given time (I don't know about everyone else but I know for certain the fewer red dots on screen the less lag I have and increased FPS with fewer red dots) (reclogging only helps so much)
7. Some way that gives Devs the ability to make participants follow the rules whether its tp them to another location or shoot them with uber dev gun or instan-death button them or something.

8. Some kind of point counter for Kills would be cool very cool. Doesn't have to give skill reward or anything but at an event like that, having a screen I can look at or minimize with a counter for the number of oratan massacred throughout the event would be fairly cool I think.

9. Maybe some type of Community Recognition Award for an Avatar that goes above and beyond during the event. Like Kitten Acting as messanger during the first War, or a person who acted like Base Police on rules such as Taco, or the person who gets summoned to go Start up a new base camp and bring in shooters etc.


LB

 

As much as I would love pvp inside the fort and on the walls, I have a feeling it would make the sprint out of the fort extremely difficult, given the amount of cheaters I have angered.

I am sure some would like nothing more than to camp the Taco Police.

It just needs to be done in an area designed for it, like solfais, or Ashi, or any of the desert tp's on Ark...a big flat area, with a revive, and NO walls.

 

Rather than disable shooting from the walls I think the ideal solution would be to make it so that shooting from the walls doesn't make them fly or go unreachable. If that's not possible then I like the idea of an invisible force field that you can't shoot thru. But it would be really cool to be able to shoot from the walls (and still get agro and take damage).

 

Excellent news all around, methinks!

Very nice! Please make sure they are transferred to a place full of lvl 5k mobs, where tp-ing won't work, there are no teleporters and vehicles won't spawn...

Not in the least interesting, 100% annoying. Birdwatching is best done irl imho, so tyvm for fixing it. Great as well not to have 5 mobs spawn at once!

The event went on for ~50 hours nonstop - hope you guys had time to get some sleep in between healing sessions - surely we must have killed *way* more than 6k mobs which only comes to some 2 mobs/minute if my math is correct?

 

So.. Lunchie and I were talking ingame, and I promised him, so say what i said there, here too..

I were deffo NOT one of the big spenders in this event.. Friday afternoon i depoed a whole wooping 18 Dollars for the event which lasted all weekend - No armor and a (many) PBP-27's was what I was equipped with.. at times only my Opalo..

I wanna tell you how _I_ experienced the event.. Giving you an idea how it is for "us on the floor"..

I think Lunchbox sums it up pretty well.. A big reason for the boss mobs to go "unreachable" was because there were too many of them in one tiny spot - it was especially a problem at courageous where the landscape is built so that the boss mobs would spawn right between 2 steep hills.. When 2 or more bossmobs spawned at the same time there, they would be "squashed in" between these 2 hills, blocking for each others' ability to hit or move..

So.. My biggest Issue was that.. The "unreachable" and the multiple bosses at a time.. As a low-end player I am very dependant of being "in on" the mob from beginning to end, and with a reasonable overall dmg-flow to the mob, to be able to get anything out of my ped spent.. If i start shooting at a half-dead mob, I will get nothing..

When there is 2 or more boss mobs, ppl cant "unite" on 1 mob at a time, which gives an uneven share of the loot (too bad - you were hitting on the wrong boss that DIDNT hof).. It is also a question of economy.. If I start shooting at the wrong mob, and it just doesnt go down, because apparently ppl switched to the other one, I loose ped too.. throw too much into the mob at the beginning for no use, but when the big guns come..

I have been told that as it is, every boss mob is spawned manually.. My thought is.. It should be 1 boss mob spawned at a time, but consistently and "all the time" .. Maybe do it semi time-based and semi manually.. make them spawn with a certain time-rate, but with the ability to adjust the timer accordning to amount of players present..

There's prolly more, but I dont think any of you can take more of that ADHD-brain of mine..

 

Thank you for post, and especially this part. Please let there be a message that shows up in chat when this is done...it will make the grind so much more interesting.

 

OK, that's the good old A Team.
Cheers!

 

Location events that have loads of players in a single area are unplayable for people with low end PC's and/or poor connections. It would be nice to have a few spawns of normal size lancers out of radar range of the base so us poor wretches could join in some way.

 

Since you are reading the replies. I would like to see a storyline around or more after the event. You know something like the attacks have stopped for now, big thanks to all for helping out, and IFN is trying to search out what caused the oratan to attack.

 

That's about all the story I need

Ok, ready to shoot.

 

Thanks, that's great news!


- Community recognition items are a nice idea, but unfortunately likely prone to give drama in one way or another.
But how about something like a participation reward program?

• Every player who participates in an Oratan event receives 1 token/voucher per event.
• You save those tokens, and at a certain amount gathered, exchange them for an Oratan related gift at a broker.
• Gifts can be a non-combat item, like Oratan glasses, an Oratan 'knife-through-the-head' hat, Oratan leather pouch (container), etc.
• Or gifts that publicly signify achievement: different colored armbands/medals that you can wear on top of your clothes. Where different colors are worth a different amount of tokens. E.g. if the scale is white<grey<black, then the person wearing a black armband/medal has participated in the most events.
• Or reward multiple tokens/vouchers per event, based on the amount of mobs killed: for example: for every 500 mobs killed, you receive 1 token (at least, if it is technically possible to see how many mobs a person kills, and then reward it, since it is a shared mob, and not in an instance).
• Tokens/vouchers and armbands/medals are up-tradable/tt-able through the broker only, and remain soul-bound in any other case, because otherwise they would have no significance whatsoever.

- And I'd like to add to the point of view from lower level players.
That's what I really liked about the first event: the different mob levels on separate bases. Even as a newbie I was able to shoot and loot well. The next event had everyone starting at the same firebase, and the mobs were therefore of a higher level. Although you could shoot along with the big guns; if the timing was a bit off, you received none of the loot. And even if you did, it was a lot less than the first event.
I don't know if that was coincidence, but it felt like it was simply because not enough damage was done (because the mobs were too far out of my league). Which is logical of course, and not a complaint about loot. But it would be nice if lower leveled players could get mobs a bit more geared towards their level.

I've heard from other newbies that they really liked the event itself, but it was too costly to participate, and they felt like the puny damage their guns did was totally neglect-able. So different levels of mobs could create more of a feeling of actually participating. (And get starters hooked to these kind of events early on)

I had to refrain from attending the last event for this reason (plus the flying mobs were making me nauseous), so I don't know if this point has already been addressed or not. If it has: please disregard this paragraph.

(Btw, I know there were a bit lowered level Oratans further away from the base, but I'm not skilled enough yet to take those on by myself: besides, solo-ing is not the reason why you participate in a shared event. Since nobody went out to shoot those mobs, presumably because there were no healers away from the base entrance, it was not really an option to go after them solo.)


- I'm also curious about the progress in obtaining the 'global announcement in chat' function. Is that also becoming available in the next VU update? Hopefully MA will give the go-ahead for that.
It would be great to have IFN call up to arms in chat, or even better: an Oratan challenging/daring the Arkadians just before the event starts. That could make you grab your gun and come running: "They said what???"
Plus it could give a nice closure to the event: the IFN can send out a message that the battle has been won, and can even announce things like the total amount of Oratan casualties.

Of course it would also help to inform people who do not frequent the forum, about the event in the first place.
Or, until that function arrives; maybe an announcement like the reminders for the regular events could help? They warn you when an event is starting and give the location. Perhaps that can be utilized as a temporary measure?


- And please no PvP for anyone besides the devs; it could be carnage... the wrong kind.


- Lastly, about the closure of the event: after hours and hours of shooting, maybe it would be nice to go out with a 'Bang'. And have one single last Uber Boss attacking? So when he dies: all the other Oratans die automatically, and the event is over?



Thanks for keeping the communication going, and continue to making an effort to improve this planet.
The results show, because despite some problems, the events are quite successful: last weekend provided clear figures.
Arkadia on the first place, made about double the turnover than the number two! View attachment 8729

 

Just picking up on something May wrote, I thought that we stopped catering to lower level players after the first couple of events and that was unfortunate. I'm not sure how popular they were but I think it would still be good to have one base where the attackers are lower level, to give less skilled, or lower budget players the option of participating for a greater share of lower amounts of loot.

 

Nice idea but you only need one higher level player taking advantage of the lower levels to spoil it.

tbh I've felt the days when events catered for low level players were well and truly over a long time ago. I switched to the tt melee weapons a few years ago and it's probably why my highest level is still in the 30's even though I've been in EU for 7-8 years. I know that the only way to get into these events is to spend on equipment which I'm not willing to do, not without a 100% guaranteed certainty that I'll get something worth having out of it. If all I'm likely to get are more 101% crap stackables there's no incentive which lets face it on low level mobs is what they mostly drop thanks to new and improved loot system.

I do remember getting fired up by events but that was back in vu8-9 when events were just for the hell of it and mostly consisted of bigger robot spawns and we could solo them. If I can't solo a mob quickly and efficiently then I don't hunt it and actively avoid it.

 

Good to see the A-team is on top of the issues, working with the limited tools at their disposal for a solution.

Thumbs up and I'll just add my vote on the importance of a secondary low level attack to get new players invested in the story of the planet and get something out of the event too.

 

I agree with you, at the first event there was a player who came down to the new player spawn...

I was wondering why she had moved to the low spawn, i knew the answer was to cherry pick the mobs, since the asi-ten would take 30% + of the boss mobs loot. The reason that i was given, was the "Dev's" had asked her to go.

Told to go, or not.... I did hear alot of the new players instantly complaining about it, both inside my Society and outside.
I had encountered the same thing last event... I went to a base that was just added into the fray, there were not many players, the loot was good for the ammo used. All of a sudden the mobs were getting killed faster than the old spawn with the same few people around me, and the loot was dead again. I looked around and saw an Ancient mod Merc, Mod Merc, and X-1... It is hard to find a good balance in the spawns. Players will always have different equipment, and will be at different levels. When you add them into the same area, someone will always be on top cherry picking the loot. It is hard to avoid without an instance system. Maybe thats what these attacks need to evolve into

So.... picture this.... A whole server instance that can carry a few 100 players at the same time. It has lag only associated with what is going on inside, and nothing else. And maybe can have certain levels associated with it, so its more based on proper level and equipment matching.

The level restriction would give more players an opportunity to take part, instead of shooting an opallo at a mob that takes 1000 ped in ammo to kill. However players do like to have the chance to get a high value drop at any level. Leaving the ability to go into an instance higher than your level range would be ideal for that situation.

Instances would allow the Dev team more power to control players if their behavior is out of line also. It may also be easier to adjust the spawns, and maybe automatic heal equipment installed? making it easier on the Dev team to go out and explore how things are working. It is great to have a real person healing us, but it is costly, and probably taxing on the Ark staff. If they had the option to move around more, we could see more heals for smaller strike groups apart from the big group. Or letting them see where things can be improved.

Overall the events are quite fun, and with some continued communication with the Dev team, these should stay great events for a long time to come.

 

From my point of view the only way to stop that would be to have mobs lower level players can solo or take in 2-3 player teams with no shared loot like it used to be in the Caly migrations.

But then I have a thing about huge HP mobs and feel that when they were allowed EU began a slow death. Nice idea but crap for new players which are what Ark and EU need right now. Those mobs screwed the loot distribution and made EU boring at low levels and trust me it's bloody tedious seeing the usual stackables appearing in the loot window. That's part of why we have the shared loot mobs but it was only covering the cracks.

I'm not trying to put a downer on the event but trying to explain why someone in my position doesn't take part.

 

When we are looking at ways to improve things or fix issues, it's important to me that we don't sacrifice the story aspect. One of the things I dislike about the various Caly Mayhem events is that there really is no link to the planet's story.

And it's not enough to work out an event and then try to make up a narrative to justify it. The story should come first and then look for event design that meets that need. That's why, even though centering the attack on a base presents some issues, it makes sense to do so. Why would we go out into the desert to kill oratan who aren't attacking us? That's just mean. But if they are attacking our settlements then there is good reason to band together and defend ourselves.

For players who are discouraged that their loot share from the boss mobs was miniscule I would suggest considering the other mobs. I found the miners to be quite lucrative. My single biggest loot came from 25% of a 4k hof on a miner. Maybe it's worth informally teaming up with a few other players to take out the non boss mobs.

 

I would agree that the better loot was in the smaller mobs <Ducks as a Soc member threw something>.... We would group up and kill most of the mobs around the base, but the lvl 62 miners, plus the villain's and the 55's are too tough for a few mid grades to play with... and by mid grade i mean lvl 50-60 players with equiv gear. If there was more lower level miners and more lower lvl lancers, or more slashers and less shooters, any of those combo's would get players to hunt the rings more. As is there is only a small % that can be hunted by the mid to lower lvl players.
If i cant kill it with a tier 7 dmg enh / HF 30 LAW-30 smuggler wearing Perseus its a bit big, and I could not kill a good portion of the rings due to the lvl and dmg. There needs to be more lower lvl mobs, and not mix in high aggro lvl 55's with the 10's.