Creature Threat Level Adjustement & Consequences

I already posted a part of those thoughts in the 'Entropia Universe 14.0 Release Notes' RSS Feed. I felt that was maybe the wrong section to get an answer from an ARK official/ someone of the dev team.... so i created an own thread to talk about this issue

I seriously wonder what happened now on Arkadia. I just went on to hunt oro as I am about to complete this IFN mission atm and recognised that oro young eg. went from lvl 13 to lvl 7. It also looks like the creature does now give less experience on average. The recent release notes point on an adjustment of the threat level:

In the release notes of 'Planet Arkadia Update 2012.7' you stated that:

I am very eager to know now, why there was a need to adjust the threat level of Arkadian mobs? As it did sound like everything was OK. Personally, I always thought that threat level of pretty much all Arkadian creatures made a lot of sense. So why was there the need adjust Arkadian creatures again?

According to several posts on PCF you recently stated that:

2013-01-22 13:54:59 [Local] [Arkadia Official Chris] and yes there has been a change in the mob lvl displays
2013-01-22 13:55:41 [Local] [Sutko] Chris, will caraboks still give same skill gains?
2013-01-22 13:56:02 [Local] [Arkadia Official Chris] yes nother changed to the mobs exept the lvl that is displayed

Can you please confirm weather or not this adjustment to a lower thread lvl in the case of oro eg. does lead to a decreased average skillgain when interacting with this mob? I do very much doubt that this threat lvl number is only some sort of visual indicator as it wouldnt make a lot of sense !

Looking forward to an answer!

 

What makes you think Mindark tells the Planet Partners how the skill formulas work?

 

Threat levels have never made much sense. Why start now?

 

I stood and let Carabok hit me for a while and got no skill at all from them. I believe I was out there for almost half an hour letting different mobs hit me, but nothing. I don't think it has anything to do with the threat level, because that display is supposed to just be an indicator of the mob's difficulty and not skill, but something does seem to be different. I've been told by a couple people that they haven't been getting skill from Carabok, either.

I don't know about other mobs, and I'm going to be testing this more in depth tomorrow with Carabok at least to see what happens, unless someone else is able to test it first and post the results.

 

The problem with that is, not only have I not leveled any since the last time I was able to get a lot of skill from the Carabok, but people much much higher than me still skill on them just the same, or rather, that's how it was before this update.

 

Hi Guys,

The information that was shared with Planet partners prior to this change about the LVL changes indicated that this is purely a cosmetic change. I have forwarded this on to MA for investigation to see if there is any bugs caused by this change resulting in any change in skill income.

The reasoning behind the LVL display is that some of the mob stat weights in determining the mob skill LVL had to much weight. For an example one mob can be identical to another mob but be 1m/s faster and result in the mob being 10+ LVLs higher then the slower one. This change should give a more uniform idea of what LVL of mob a hunter can hunt at his current skill LVL and should reduce some nasty surprises sometimes experienced thinking you can take on a mob based on its LVL.

I have done a test on Carabok and can confirm that they do generate skills at least for new players, not having any skills on my avatar I can hoverer not test further then from a new players perspective.

Regards,
Chris

 

Thank you very much for the information

Hey. I am just very busy doing IFN misions on Arkadia since a while. This is going to be the 4th entire IFN mission I am going to complete very soon. I enjoy doing those IFN and Iron missions very much and ofc hunt bigger every now and then. I am certainly not 'grinding oro for skills' and possibly wont hunt them again anytime soon after completing that mission lol (just like jori, feran, halix also daikiba etc). Its quite relaxing thing to hunt small and medium oro without armor atm and to hunt big ones for a challange in between.

I started this thread because I think when doing those missions and killing a lot of those mobs one might recogise if there is any changes deriving from an altered threat lvl eg. I am not sure ofc, thats why I started this thread in order to ask for other players opinions and maybe get an official statement.

regards


p.s. dont know anything about carabok really. only occasionally swunted them when i was noob, so no idea what heppened with them.

 

Halix were definitely nerfed for skill gains. Also when I hunted them last night I had the worst loot I have ever seen on them. Most of them dropped about 1-3 pec. My total return on my hunt was a little less than 20%. I guess I no longer have a reason to hunt these things, dosn't seem worth it to even do the IFN mission on them. Maybe if there was a way to see the reward like the Calypso ironman missions, I would consider it. Sadly, I am not going to dump peds into what is now a "garbage mob" just for a mystery prize I probably don't even need. I think I got some melee skill for one of the stages and I do not melee at all.

 

As far as melee skills are concerned, they're very useful because they raise Strength and HP fastest. Strength makes you run a little bit faster and lets you carry more weight in your inventory. Any skill gain is good skill gain; it's just a matter of whether you feel it's worth the cost.

As for the loot, that's going to go up and down on its own. It doesn't mean the mob is now garbage. Most people I talk to usually get that low amount of loot from that mob already. You've been very lucky so far, if you have been getting enough to make a big difference. It's just luck, friend.

 

I suspect the skill bonus for a kill is based on level personally The higher level mobs I hunt which did not get a level adjustment seem exactly the same skill

 

Mystery, look here:
Front Page Mission Rewards Pictures(rightclick > view image),

IFN Missions and Their Rewards
Rewards values thread by Sam Robet, with help of the rest of the community so do your part

This is not directed to you David so dont be offended.

But I seen this statement more then once, not everyone want the same skills I for one want melee skills and am happy A-team dont value those at half or less value then ranged skills like they do on Calypso (or more, anyway why should I get less LB skill the Rifle skill)

 

Just goes to show once again that MA don't understand how their own game works. The L number is not only linked to skill gain but also heavily influences the type of loot that mobs can drop, especially oils and components.

I haven't noticed any significant change in skill gain on the mobs I've hunted since the VU (I need to cycle around 1000 PED to get one point in my top skills so a small difference wouldn't be obvious) but the type of items in loot has certainly changed, which I find extremely annoying as it makes all the effort I put into data collection worthless. For some mobs this is the 4th time loot tables have changed in just over a year.

I haven't been on Arkadia btw, the changes I have seen are on Calypso mobs, but the same will apply to Arkadia mobs.

L numbers are one of the worst things that ever happened in EU, they've always been totally stupid and I wish they'd never been added.

 

I'm not seeing any difference in loot amount between now and before the lvl display change. I've also never seen a difference in loot amount between the lvl 10 puny mobs on Arkadia and the lower puny mobs on Calypso. They have similar stats. That's what makes the difference in the loot, not their displayed lvl.

There's no need to be rude to Chris. He is passing along information given to him by someone else, and he doesn't work for MA. Chris is a member of Arkadia Studios. They don't control that sort of thing, as it is determined by MA.

If that comment was directed at whoever gave them that information, I'd still say there's no need to be rude. Loot and skill gains have changed many times without the lvl changing at all. I've seen nothing but inconsistency in lvl and skill/loot when testing those theories. If it were true that they heavily influence it, why is there no consistency?

The number is just meant to show the mob's difficulty and give a basic idea of how easy or hard it is to take down. That's what it's always been meant to signify.

EDIT: I'm getting more word from more players that the skills on all mobs with a significant lvl change DO in fact give a noticeably smaller amount of skill than before. I'm going to test this myself now, but it's looking like the number DOES have something to do with skill gain, contrary to what MA themselves have stated.

Update: I tested a bit with about 15 Carabok hitting me while healing a little until I was satisfied with the amount of times I was hit by them. That was a lot of hits and only 2 very very tiny skill gaines from being hit. I then used the same weapon I had been using on them before the update and got very little skill from that by killing them, compared to the massive amounts of skill I got before the update. I also never had to be hit by that many or that many times to get skill from them.

The most important thing to note here, for anyone thinking I'm just a higher level now, is that I have not gained a single level in anything but vehicle repairing since then, and that was only a little experience just to top off that level. I'll post screenshots taken just after the test to show how low my combat levels are, especially my evader, so no one thinks I'm some high level avatar going out trying to skill on low level mobs.

http://i.imgur.com/lFzBod2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZNyqOZl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/25IqE7Z.jpg

 

How many did you kill?

How many did they kill?

 

I'm talking staying out and spending a hundred or more PED on them. I don't keep track of the amount of mobs other people kill. I don't even count the ones I kill.

 

Not all mobs are nerfed.

but its very obvious that the lower level mobs are nerfed huge.

prove is given in some threads on calypso forum.

The reaction of arkadia dev team is actually a bit sad because arkadia will get the biggest punch of all planets. And i dont say they are lying but they have wrong information or cant tell the real thing.

How the level is made is not really known but its probably a mix of mob stats. This means a danger level and skill gain can go down while the hp stays the same. You will notice especially on caraboks that the attack hit rate and attack hp is way lower as before. Also regen is gone.

Thats why the skillgain and level is lower, hp has nothing to do with it in most cases.

People can say, prove it, but unfortunally those are mostly to addicted to see whats really goin on.

If you can really see you dont have to argue but you know what happens.

Good luck to arkadia. Im not coming anymore to hunt because i came for the markup and skillgain, and both sux now.

 

I still prefer Arkadia over the other planets for many reasons, but if the skill gain has gone down much more than the other planets, I can understand a lot of people leaving, and that's going to be a problem. Many people do come here for skill gains, and without that, they prefer Calypso. The reason for that is because that's where the most people are and it has the biggest market. Because not enough people would agree to migrate here, that cannot change, at least until they do. It's just how it works, in real life and in game. I just brought a disciple here for better skill, and now it may not work out that way because of MA making this big change and disguising it as showing the "proper level" for the mobs, just like they did when they "balanced" the big mobs on all planets. It just seems like they're doing more and more to make Arkadia less popular.

I'm not moving back to Calypso for many reasons; mainly because of the horrible lag there, the less friendly community, and all the mass crashing and disconnecting that seem to happen there more than anywhere else. I know many of us are not going to give up on Arkadia, but it seems there are still many others who are already after this update. The graphics bugs and lag are nothing compared to the decreased skill gain that came with the level changes. They're not purely cosmetic, like they'd like us to believe. I'm not really sure why they've done this, but it's not a good change at all. The folks at Arkadia Studios try their best to give us an amazing experience here and MA continues to do things against that, it seems.

If I'm wrong about any of this, feel free to correct me. These are my observations about this change.

 

I noticed something this morning going over mobs in the test environment and in game that seems to be overlooked.

This leads me to believe that the information we have regarding the LVL displayed on mobs is correct. I would also further like to clarify that NO STATS on mobs have physically been modified.

I noticed a significant decrease in misses (EVADES) on mobs compared to the test environment that is still on the old VU and the live server. My money would be on the change in miss rate being the cause of the lower skill gains and have absolutely nothing to do with the changes in LVL displayed.

This change in skill gains just happens to coincide with a visual change that likely has no impact on it but is a convenient suspect to blame because its the easiest change to notice while other more likely candidates like the changes to miss rate seems to be overlooked completely.

Further as mentioned already it is not uncommon for skill gains to change in Entropia and has happened many times in the past and will happen many times in the future.

On a Further note any change Arkadia is subject to all other planets is subject to and the other way around. All planets use the same systems and algorithms so saying that skill gains on Arkadia has gone down more then the rest is absolutely incorrect. All mobs with simular stats would be affected in a similar way with any change regardless of what planet that mob is on. If we exactly clone another planets mob stats wise on Arkadia it would give exactly the same skills on both planets.

Regards,

Chris

 

Are we talking about the same carabok? I didn't notice any change in attack rate or attack hp or change in regen (though I wasn't specifically looking at regen). You aren't comparing them to ancient carabok are you? I could be wrong and like Chris said, it's good to check with MA and make sure nothing has been changed.

I'm a bit fed up with those complaining about the "carabok nerf". So let me rant here a little bit. I chatted today with someone who went from level 0 to more than 30 weapon prof level in just a few weeks of carabok hunting. I went from ~lvl 7 to ~lvl 24 swordsman in a few days hunting carabok. I've had disciples who have gone from level 0 to level 10 hunting carabok in JUST ONE DAY. Now, I love fast skilling as much as anyone, but if you take the time to look at it objectively, much of the experience of the game is lost if you skill up this fast and with such a very small ped investment. Progression through EU is meant to be experienced over months and years, not days.

Carabok were an anomaly. So when people say that there's no reason to be on Arkadia anymore because of the Carabok nerf, I just can't take that seriously. At least be honest and say that you were only here to take advantage of an extraordinary skilling opportunity, just as many have in the past with afk fapping and all the other cheap and fast ways people have found to skill. And just like those instances, it comes to an end when Mindark says enough is enough. Carabok still skill at a high rate, just not an insanely high rate anymore. Complain too much and they might drop it even further to be in line with other mobs.

There's a lot more to Arkadia than endlessly grinding carabok for free skills. Maybe now is a good time for some of you to move on and experience some of the other great things the planet has to offer.