Concerns: Lost Lands to Become More Dangerous

[Firerose]

Here are some situations that I've dealt with, related to random encounters, and NPCs wandering near other areas.

1. Random encounter: Liberi scout. There is no way at all my chars, any of them, have a chance to fight those things, so I run, and thankfully my horses don't spook. But it's an example of something way too strong attacking something way too weak comparatively. It's a problem.
2. Out near Tarueka. I had my riding horse, and workhorse. Both got spooked thanks to an infested squirrel, an infested vagrant, etc. It was pouring rain. I had to go recover the workhorse--no idea where it ended up, but it's one of those things that makes me not want to travel outside the city now.
3. Similar situation. I went up to get ash branches. One problem: Bristbane's lovely wandering spiders. Again, way, way too strong combat-wise, so now I can't forage those branches in peace.

I understand the point here is to make the game more dystopian, more risky, more combat-oriented for people who thrive on that sort of thing. But not all of us are like that. I feel we're not only in the minority, we'll just be told to suck it up, hire a guard, or not go out, when really all I want is some quiet peaceful wandering, left to my own devices, please.
The game is feeling incredibly stifling right now, and, while i know they say you really shouldn't post when you're angry or upset, I am both, and I want it known. I need it known. This isn't just for me. It's for all the other craft-heavy chars who actually enjoy it, do not thrive on combat, or struggle with reaction time, or can only handle so much combat at a time for other reasons.

I don't expect anyone to say, "Okay, we'll just go back to how it was," but I do hope this can start some kind of discussion.

[artus]

All of the randoms can be run away from and there's a forest east of valeria that I'm pretty sure has the same resources as the one before. But the problems I see here as well as observed for a while, as a casual combatant who never plans to go boom boom boom on anything:
1. Randoms+wandering make for very bad combinations especially around Tarueka. You have vagrants and then you have squirrels on top of randoms which you may not know when will trigger. That makes for a rough fuss for newbies and those with low combat, even though they're relatively easy. Horses and passive mounts suffer the worst given they can run away.
2. Let's get the valeria brisbane situation into account. Not everyone knows where brisbane is and where the spiders will wander. Those are very dangerous mobs and they're all over the forest, even plains. Might I suggest adding reminder for the area command so people don't forget to type it when they get anywhere new and at least don't make those spiders wander outside their own forest or at least past the first room or two past their trail? They're 500 something plus and even the most seasoned combatant can't handle them while bound in their web. It's a bit of an overkill.

I've actually been thinking for a while to compile reminders and tips and add them to my soundpack just for this. Something in game definitely helps. And not sure if it's just me but bandits near the chapterhouse spawn far too often, possibly as often as ravens (which I wish could be toned down due to how annoying they are and seeing 3 corpses of ravens everywhere people don't bother burying is kinda meh).

It's a welcoming dark souls experience for those who seek it. But I personally feel for those who don't. Mounted folks suffer the most here given mounts reduce their traveling time and not everyone is willing to go off the road to explore, (which is sad by the way as those who do that tend to be the ones complaining when resources they want is off the road). Changing how squishy mounts work may help with this, though I have no idea how.

[Firerose]

Clarification in response to Artus:
1. He means that the people who struggle with finding resources are the ones who don't wander off the roads. His post read opposite to me, so just in case to others it does the same...
2. I forgot to explore between Valeria and Morhollow--that's on me. I appreciate the pointer in that direction more than I can say! It's hard not to feel despair sometimes. Over principle issues underlying key concerns I have.

[Jilliana]

Your feelings and experiences are valid and perfectly legit and the great thing about Rias and his staff is that they seem to appreciate feedback. If you don't say something, nothing will happen.

Maybe this could be an opportunity for non-combative characters to get together in-game and talk about it. Discussing different solutions and exchange advice. Topics can include safest places to forage for plants, branches and other things. Also strategies that they can share on traveling safely, which roads are the most dangerous, and so on.

From a combat character's perspective I have always felt and seen the unbalanced nature of my dealings with crafters. I especially feel it these days as she builds her stamina and finds her place within the Cogg world. Everything goes back to the crafter...from the armor, the weapons and also the hillant unguent. Very seldomly do we ever hear of a crafter seeking guarding or aid from a combat type. It's like the crafters feel they have to do it all alone. Communication/seeking aid probably happens, but seldom compared to the interractions heard over the network about folks looking for someone to make this, fix that...and so on.

I see the random encounters as an opportunity to rebalance things a bit between these two types. I also see what an uncomfortable adjustment it is. I believe that some of that balance will have to be driven forward by the player characters themselves. There is only so much Rias can do to make adjustments to the random encounters, and the player characters will have to take it a step further if they want to be at least okay with the change.

With the above said though, I do feel like sometimes the random encounters can be a bit much at times, even for me. I prefer when they happen a bit down the road from the MOB's usual area because coming out of a combat area to heal and running into vagrant after vagrant gets old real quick.

Thanks for bringing your perspective to the table. I for one appreciate it.

[artus]

esp Anyone need assistiance to obtain resources anywhere?
esp Anyone looking for a guide ro guard out of town?

Actually That was my complete randomness. I don't even have a capable guard character anymore. But I did see that. It's a communication that may need further steps from two sides, not just one. I have never seen combat chars ask along the aline of any I mentioned above as much as I've never seen crafters asking the same.

But I do feel for idle foragers. Sometimes it's really what we want to do. Though it can be run away from easily, something like spiders definitely don't give you that chance. Stealth? Check. Web? Check. It spots you, binds you, chips on your energy and you're dead before you can even free yourself, especially when you're alone and forget where you are until you run into that outside the forest.

The other problem I just thought of now, which I think I mentioned vaguely in my previous post, is that let's say you get a horse to drop you off somewhere to train, only for the darn horse to run the heck away, scared of a random mad squirrel. This is when I see there's something that may need to be done with non-warmounts if we want to keep lost lands lost and dangerous. You can't stealth on horse back and stealth is the only way to avoid randoms.

[Karjus]

I'm in two minds about some of these complaints, and as to whether they're actually issues or not.

As Jilliana pointed out, combat characters basically have to rely on non-combat/specialists for nearly everything in terms of day to day life. They even have to rely on them for some of their loot. It's fine, and how the game is intended. Hopefully along with more mechanical reasons to avoid 1-skill point dips as well beyond simply that thread a while back, we'll see more and more including crafters having to join together to accomplish things.

I get it isn't how everyone wants to play, but that is how the game is meant to be.

At the same time, does that mean some things could be tweaked and definitely some other things put into place to help the situation especially if people aren't immediately around to help/interact with. For example, the PC patrol example of reducing the danger in certain areas if they've been patrolled recently, or if the nearby "zones" happen to have a character active in them, meaning they're less likely to wander out to cause trouble for example, etc.

Also, you can avoid encounters by just running. Stealth means they won't spawn currently it seems, though might be nice if we had some more perceptive encounters that stop that. Wolves anyway?

[Teri]

I think I'm not a fan of it being on a travel league by league basis where it is just rng here ya go an enemy vs an overall zone risk or threat level that patrols can reduce and characters can judge how high the risk is. I like the idea of something with warning levels of how dangerous the roads are (Because a player might not know if things have been patrolled if out and about) Things that increase the threat level could be how many characters are traveling around, distance traveled to be spotted by anyone, noisy activities. I don't envision the threat level being displayed as high or low, but rather you might notice an unusual chatter of ravens or tracks near Shadgard, the woods are suspiciously quiet, you have a feeling, the trees are strung with spider webs, unusual grouping of tracks, something howled, bits of resen spores, etc.
There could also be a notice stuck in certain locations to check threat levels if things haven't been patrolled of recent combined with characters have a feeling they are going to be attacked soon, it could possibly give rise to more asking for guards in those moments without it feeling like they need to hire for every single bit of travel for that "I want to be independent sometimes, or if I'm feeling anti-social just do my thing." If part of high risk eventually becomes activity related like cutting or logging a tree attracts more enemies, that feeling could also lead to a guard being asked for, or a patrol. Then as the threat goes higher maybe there is an overall zone response where any character out and about as it hits that tipping point could be attacked randomly. This could also be linked to perception in some manner where characters have a chance figuring out something isn't right. Random attacks on the road don't really give me a feeling of danger or menace, more this is inconvenient for my traveling or annoying if I lose my horse. I'd love to read a notice or get a feeling something isn't right so I have that anticipation/dread of running into something similar to when we spot stacks of enemies in the wild and it becomes a combo of warning others, avoiding or tracking them.
For horse related fleeing, I'd love some mechanic to find or call the horse over. Maybe whistling will get my horse over from some leagues away, or you hear a horse neigh in the distance. When treasure hunting a lot it is a balance of well I'm encumbered and if attacked out of luck if a group of staggering enemies, vs babying a workhorse with contents that I may have to hunt down if some mob is chasing it from roaming spawns. (I also am not a fan of the workhorse because I've forgotten to remove it from my group going into the canim camp and Tanglewood, oops sorry horse)

[Serity]

I think I'm not a fan of it being on a travel league by league basis where it is just rng here ya go an enemy vs an overall zone risk or threat level that patrols can reduce and characters can judge how high the risk is. I like the idea of something with warning levels of how dangerous the roads are (Because a player might not know if things have been patrolled if out and about) Things that increase the threat level could be how many characters are traveling around, distance traveled to be spotted by anyone, noisy activities. I don't envision the threat level being displayed as high or low, but rather you might notice an unusual chatter of ravens or tracks near Shadgard, the woods are suspiciously quiet, you have a feeling, the trees are strung with spider webs, unusual grouping of tracks, something howled, bits of resen spores, etc.

I do like the idea of warning levels (it gives me Etrian Odyssey vibes) but how does that get conveyed? Travel is already notoriously spammy (especially for screen readers, I'd imagine) and catching lines of text here and there in the midst of it is... hmm. Maybe a prompt thing? Although I think readers have prompts off...

[Teri]

I think I'm not a fan of it being on a travel league by league basis where it is just rng here ya go an enemy vs an overall zone risk or threat level that patrols can reduce and characters can judge how high the risk is. I like the idea of something with warning levels of how dangerous the roads are (Because a player might not know if things have been patrolled if out and about) Things that increase the threat level could be how many characters are traveling around, distance traveled to be spotted by anyone, noisy activities. I don't envision the threat level being displayed as high or low, but rather you might notice an unusual chatter of ravens or tracks near Shadgard, the woods are suspiciously quiet, you have a feeling, the trees are strung with spider webs, unusual grouping of tracks, something howled, bits of resen spores, etc.

I do like the idea of warning levels (it gives me Etrian Odyssey vibes) but how does that get conveyed? Travel is already notoriously spammy (especially for screen readers, I'd imagine) and catching lines of text here and there in the midst of it is... hmm. Maybe a prompt thing? Although I think readers have prompts off...

Yeah I agree the travel spam would make it hard to catch the messages. I thought about it being at transition points, a notice on signs, or as one enters a zone along with other randomly occuring flavour texts.

[Firerose]

Moving around is incredibly spammy. As far as I know, most--if not all of us--probably keep prompt off (if they know they can do that).
I like the idea of signs, though what might be helpful is something actually stopping us, then a message or two coming up two or three seconds after we stop moving. I'm just thinking here, I don't know if it's something most people would like. The reason I'm suggesting a pause is for screen reader users. If we get hit with a room's info, waiting a couple seconds to give us time to react and actually read the message could be helpful--that is unless/until Artus puts a sound into his pack for whatever, or the rest of us who use another mud client do the same.
FYI: Artus's pack has sounds for "also here:" and "You also notice..." messages. I have them on mine. I don't know about others, since so many seem to use his MUSH pack.

Please understand. I'm not suggesting blind people in particular need to be treated with kid gloves, but something to clue us in. I like the feel/sense/notice ideas Teri suggested--I'm just not sure how to fit them in while someone is actively using the travel command. And that's anyone, sighted or blind.