Aakas Instances - Why god why these changes?

Hello dear forum, this thread is mostly for the ARK and MA dev teams.

The question of the title of this thread:

Why god why these changes?

You have more or less completely ruined most of what was fun with the instances, i LOVED the way they were set up before. Here's what i loved:

1. The excitement of not getting loot untill the very end, this made the whole run such a thrill and regardless if i was alone in team, or with 1-2 close friends, we or I ran our hearts out, shooting everything as fast as we possibly could, to finally reaching the chests, to stand at a chest and do a respect emote or whatever, and then see what was inside. Every key-run was like christmas and opening the chests was always exciting, Would there be a golden key part? would there be armor? would it global? hof? all these questions ran inside the heads of anyone in the treasure room.

2. Now there is no point in bringind less fortunate (i.e broke) friends to the instance in the same way anymore, partly because team-loot settings don't work AT ALL (more on that in point #3) and also before when there were chests, i could bring people that normally can't afford to hunt at all, i tossed them some guns and ammo and off we went for the crusade, knowing well that at the end i would just pay for their decay and get all the loot in the EXCITING MANNER as described in point #1.

3. You have to have a TEAM to enter, but you have to DISPAND the team when you enter to get the most basic things to work (such as lootpills), so now if you still have a team you are HINDERED and can't run as fast as you can because you have to stop in every god forsaken room to try and click a mob that has fallen through the floor making the key runs long and tedious.

4. This applies to all the above, the Aakas instances are suffering from a HUGE blow of "anti-climactic", all the different ways that made it very interesting, exciting and fun have been removed in one single hit.

So I ask, WHY would you do this? Is there some deep argument between ARK-devs and MA-devs that resultet in this abomination? I'm sure that there is a perfectly sane reason, atleast that is my trust in the ARK-devs.

Right now I am so disapointed, saddened, and frankly a little pissed off, I came to arkadia early to do some recon and prepare for the hunters gold-rush with my best friend from calypso, only to find out that it is all ruined, nothing works like we had planned, and now he's thinking of going back to caly and i will be left alone on this planet i love so much, all because of these changes.

So my choises are, take my peds elsewhere and hunt there where the social aspect remains and grouping can be done, or stay on Arkadia and be solo for the forseeable future.

Why.. just why...

 

Excellent post exsalvo. I haven't run a key since these changes, and most likely will not. Having no chest at the end turns an instance into a simple mob grind that you have to pay to access. I cannot fathom why changes like this were made either.

They haven't ruined the Sal'diresh Vaults as of yet, you may want to try those short runs in the Underground. Obviously far smaller loots, but they are quick to go through.

Good luck during the Gold Rush, and I hope your friend stays with you.

 

If they needed to take away the boxes to make them loot properly, I guess I can see that... It is nice to get a big HOF from a normal mob...
But I think the problem is the redundant "Shared" loot mobs, If the instances are team based, then there is no need for shared loot. With the boxes at the end, It was easy to keep track of your runs, now you cannot even log a global. The Thrill of opening 10 keys in a week, and having it shown on your EL account, could be replaced by 40 globals to help your hunting record. It's not really the same, but close enough. Tracking your globals, and your progress is one of the fun things to do in this game. If your the #1 hunter, you want to know it.

one thing is... maybe they had to remove the boxes for mobs to loot the event coins.... and the normal mobs would not, so they needed "shared loot" mobs to make it work... hard to say whats going on here.

 

Have you read this thread? David answered some questions about this change, starting from posts #17.

 

Yeah i did read that thread, however (after reading again just to be sure) it doesn't cover any (valid) reasoning as to WHY these horrible changes were made.

One short mentioning was some form of defence on "If you crash inside the instance <insert empty stuff here>" but that response is invalid in its entirety as anybody entering would be just as, or more, pissed off for a crash if you are unable to re-enter now than before, getting a few counts of animal oil residue for your 200 ped key doesn't help whatsoever, a support case would need to be filed just the same as before, it does however (as described in my OP) ruin most of the fun of the instances, and also the variety of vays it can be completed.

So i'm hoping that someone within the arkadia team could take the time to explain this in detail still

 

I did not know this. Have to try it once before aming for the points run then. This sounds teadious and boring now.

 

The Aakas instances are still good, they just give credit on your record... and make golden parts almost impossible to farm or find what you need. I have killed a 1700 ped, and a 700 ped warden... However I have not gotten over 15 ped from any Aakas boss. It is just a matter of time. Im only 89 Sentinels, and 101 Magurg Females into stage 2, that is not too far i guess.

 

I completely agree with every point you made.

On point 2...I went through an 8 yesterday with a soc mate and again I was having to continually adjust my damage to match his and log every global to make sure it split evenly(on the fly-cant check 'shared' mobs on tracker later-this is do-able with 2 people but anymore than that and I have no clue how the mob was split.*explained in the edit at the end*).
This is a basic team hunt not an 'Instance'.If I want go through all that I'll just team on something and not pay the 'entry fee'.

The only thing I will say is that I completely forgot I was still in team soloing a few lower rooms and loot pills and looting worked fine even though I was the only one in team so I'm not sure what happened for you there.

For me the biggest issue with these is that in the lower rooms its either all or nothing due to the fact you need to global to get anywhere near breaking even and with the size of mobs in 1-5 Doors thats a big ask most of the time.Dave has said that the key value is factored in to the loot and I have no doubt MA have told him that but unfortunately the limited tests I've done don't really back that up.


EDIT: Oh and one more thing....If they are supposed to be teamed then how about having the loot showing in chat like with normal teams.As it is now if someone loots a 50ped ESI no one is going to know and that brings trust back into it. Thats fine for those with a good circle of friends but not so for a loner or newer player.

 

I know what Dave had said about the value of the keys being factored into the loot.... I think MA told him a little white lie... All of my keys, and talking with others have pointed to the Ammo TT value being returned, and having to fight to run ECO for your decay. The cost of the key was considered lost unless you got something with MU to sell.
You can flip the numbers a bit, and make the key TT value fit in, however it seemed best explained my way to first timers who wanted to hunt in Aakas. It is how I have always spelled it out, and seemed to work out
With the shared loot in effect, and each mob given the ability for a no loot or a Hof, The swings are bigger, and harder to get a good average. I just want the ability to track my results better, so I can determine for my self, what the best course of action is.

 

I didn't have time to make many runs of the "new aakas", but what it's sure is that loot isn't what it was with the chests.

An exemple, for a run in first room, didn't hit any globals just shitty loot all way long, and the boss looted me Nova fragments, i don't have the total loot of the run in head but it was under 10 ped for sure.

So there would be the key cost in consideration ? 20 ped key + 25 ped ammo = 45 ped cost

Return on that run = under 10 ped

So we talk about less then 20% return.. Ok it can be big unluck, but last run i did on room one with chest i hited 105 ped global on it. Is that someone who did a such good run for first room since the new system implant ?

Aakas for me was the funiest thing to do on ark, and now (in my opinion) it's sux, anyway as i need arkoins, i'm gonna keep doing runs in them, it would be good that we all write our total returns from the runs.

I have choose arkadia as main planet a few time ago, and aakas was one of the reason for that choice.

As i see we are many to complain about that change, (forums, on game talks.. ect), i hope the staff will take our opinions in consideration, and restore back the system how it was, or at least make the actual one more interisting..

I don't want to upsed anyone by writing my opinion about all that, when it's something good i know to say it, but sometimes is need to say what is wrong also...

 

Looking at that it feels like they in usual manner "forgot" to add key value in the mobs. But would prolly need more testing.

 

I tryed another run with key 1 :

Cost = 65.50 ped (key,ammo,decay)

T.T loot = 32.03 ped (nothing big let's say it would be about 35ped with M.U)

First boss = no loot ; second boss = 0.80 ped shrapnel , 1.41 ped of arkoin

Total loose = 33.47 ped so almost 50%.

If you all can take notes of your runs to see the average, i still fell like the key cost isn't take in calcul.

 

in my opinion it was a big mistake to change the instances just before the event starts. seeing all the bugs and not knowing if mindark is unable to do the maths again, it will piss off many people who participate

 

The big reason I see for the change is to stop teaming from being require to win the event. Since shared loot overrides all team settings you cant hire 100 noobs to come in and shoot for you, and collect all the event points for yourself.

Honestly I think ark needs to reduce the key tt to about 10% of its current value and this will all sort itself out. In all likelihood tt%s are still capped at ~75% but with a lower tt cost it will mean the new variability hurts less.

 

65 ped for a level 1 key sounds very high?

 

One can still bring 11 OJs to a Sal'diresh's vault (one can't have 100 people on their team but I guess that was a hyperbole ), although bringing more than one heli load probably isn't practical. The thing is, chest overrides any team settings, too, and anyone who shoots has a chance to loot anything from the chest.

(Now that I think of it, bringing some meatshield to underground vaults might help with defensive cost)

I also fail to see how bringing OJs to instances would be bad for anyone. Said OJs have fun, Ark has people hooked, and everyone is happy (well, apart from people who have trouble hiring, perhaps).

I also happen to think that the root of many issues is doing instances solo. We for one always did Aakas in a duo and never had any problem getting back in after a crash or dc.

 

I'm curious, did i post this thread in the wrong section? Never would i have thought it takes this long to get an official response on such a simple matter when it comes to the wellbeing of Arkadia :/

 

I took more ammo then need, but the rest of them is in the lootpool anyway.

 

I made another run now in room 1, the 2 boss didn't carry any loot ! return it's less then 15%, never saw that.

 

Still no official respons from Arkadia staff?