IDEAS FOR RYZOM

I think theres two issues here:

1. That boss spawns (or some boss spawns) are not random (in the exact meaning of the word) but that there may be a pattern to these spawns which some players have possibly identified enabling them to be able to detect when said bosses may spawn to a much smaller time window. You can likely further this hypothesis by arguing that the more frequently these players kill a particular boss the more data they have on it and the more exact they can be with their scouting.

2. The second issue I see here is quite delicate and inclines towards the concept of "it's not what you know it's who you know". It is common knowledge that there are "circles" in game of players who scout and hunt with eachother. In addition, many Q270 bosses can be killed in relatively small teams. It can be argued that this can be quite an arcane activity reserved for those who are in said circle thereby arguably excluding those not involved from prized information and ultimately sup Q270 mats.

That is, at the very least, how I interpreted the discussion that Pappasmurf initiated.

In my humble opinion, this is a tough issue to conclude on. On the one hand, those players have actively sought the secrets of Atys and earned them. Indeed, what is to stop someone else from attempting to achieve this aslo? Nothing really. You are free to roam Atys just like those other players and if you so wish to sit by a known boss spot for hours  on your main toon and sacrifice that time in order to obtain information which you feel could prosper you in the future then why not do it? 

On the other hand, this issue is something which I feel is part of a bigger picture regarding information sharing in Ryzom. Whilst there is a great deal of information sharing in the forums along with guides and other posts, there will always be some secrets that players will covet and keep to themselves. The question I pose is mainly with regards to point 1, if the hypothesis is true, should this not be fixed? If the timer is intended to be random (within the exact definition of the word) then shouldn't this be assessed by the Dev (if this is possible) and fixed? I believe so.

Until then, the only thing I would say is, if you WANT to beat them and you feel that you cannot, then join them! Because, despite the abundance of posts with clever ideas of how things can be fixed in different ways (and I quite liked the idea of Q270 bosses requiring more DPS and therefore more players in team) I don't thing we can hold our breath on the Dev's considering or even implementing them.

Happy hunting! :)

I would not equate the NPC bosses with a simple boss, not by far.

One curious thing I've noticed over time is that very few people ask about supremes / bosses. Not in Universe, not in guild chat, not in friendly tells. Very many guilds try to make their members aware of bosses, many go as far as to teach people how to make macros for bosses in order to find them more easily.

Yet, at the end of the day, scouting remains an activity mostly done by people who don't have much else to do. I suspect no change will really affect that, considering the dapper sink and the risk of DP for non-masters :)

some short remarks before I leave the topic:
Pappa: I never intended to flame you. Yet I wanted to remind that your suspicion goes towards an accusation of cheating. I know about the efforts boss hunters put into their business so I found that offensive and injust.
Elvanae: Some very wise points. While I doubt into the pattern I don't rule out the possibility but do not miswant those who found it to have better success. Still, a boss won't fold on sight. And knowing or finding it at 4pm raises problems no matter which method. I have been called at such opportunities sometimes.
Lacuna: I like your bellicose tune, I am bad, too ;). Yet it might be better to moderate it a bit.

The problem of unequal opportunities to take on bosses always existed. People working as employees always complained that those with more flexible time schedule outperformed them, people with more playtime always performed better than casuals, those dedicated to hunting better than those not. I fail to see a solution other than tolerance.

If one wants to join the hunting business, even with limited time, it is recommendable to contact those who are already hunting. Even if you can't afford the time to regularly scout, friends, guildies, fellow faction or organization members may be willing to invite you if you contact them. Among the regular patrollers I encounter are players of all factions. It should be possible to contact those from the appropriate side. Boss encounters may be announced on faction channels sometimes as I heard.

The number of bosses in the 220/270 range spawning every day is around 12-14 (40 bosses ca. each spawning every 3 days on average). It should not be impossible to get one or more. But don't expect to kill the rabbit twice a week.

I never intended to accuse anyone directly, i said "rumored" never said it excisted, never blamed anyone directly. If i did offend anyone im sorry, i understand now that there are many intence hunters out there, and i will only take a grip of myself, i will ofc leave my idea open as i think a spawn moderated by activity on server would be a good thing, and maby a higher difficulty. but thats me and my one cent.
Lacuna, i dont know what i did to deserve such a post, if you feel that i intented to offend you directly i am truly sorry for that.
Thank you for all the good inputs from everyone and again, im truly sorry if i hurt anyones feelings.
Sincerly
Pappasmurf

For god sakes Daomei not this again. We can all read on the previous topics- you don't think camping exists by either alts or people time camping. We get it. However many people (myself including) will know many many guilds and players who have done both in the past and most likely the present. The fixes proposed (truly random timer + more spawns) would completely remove both types of camping and then no more need to worry if people even camp- they wouldn't be able to!

Removing camping benefits those who scout regularly without camping and this, in my opinion, is a good thing. It rewards those putting the effort in. It also means anyone has a chance to stumble across a boss whenever they enter a region- I believe this is also a good thing adding more variability.

Virg, and others.

It is possible for the timing to be random and still be semi predictable. One is if the programmers wanted to make it so. It is possible to make it random and yet have it so that the randomness has a pattern. Consider the 24 or 36 hour down time of the boss mob. For the example below I am going to assume that it's 24. This is not knowledge on my part, but makes it easier to write the equations.

T(0) ==> time the boss dies
T(1) = T(0) + 24 ==> least amount of time until respawn. No need to check for boss.
T(2) ==> The time the boss respawns. If Daomei is right, that is an additional 36-48 hours. Therefore we have a new definition of T(1).
T(1) = T(0) + 60 ==> least amount of time until respawn. No need to check for boss.

Now, consider the next 12 hours. And different ways to calculating spawn time "randomly".

T(2) = T(1) + RAN(0|12) ==> It will spawn on one of 13 random hours from 0 - 12, but each of which is an integer number of hours from the time of death. Only need to check spawns once an hour.

T(2) = T(1) + RAN(0|720)/60 ==> It could spawn at any minute in the 12 hours of the spawning period. Need to check continuously.

I suspect that the first or something like it is the algorithm. Individual numbers might vary (it might be on the half hour for instance). I don't know them. The calculation is still random, though.

Speedy scouts vs. campers? What's the difference? Effectively they give the same results. ( I have a lot more admiration for the scouters, of course.)

You still have to assemble a team and get it to the spot despite KP (in Prime Roots) and other aggro before you can kill it. That isn't necessarily easy, especially if it spawns at a time when you are asleep. (You have to sleep sometime.)

Yes, the programming could be changed. What would be the consequences of changing it, and changing it in what way? We already have several spawn spots for many of the boss mobs, would adding more spawn spots be more equitable or not than increasing the random time window or converting to minutes? I don't know.

-- Bittty

P.S. I guess I'm a part of those "circles" that Elvanae mentions, since I get invitations to join a boss team three or four times a week. It's not always the same people inviting me so I must be in several "circles". I suspect I got there (and so did a few other of my friends) because I'm on at an odd hour and because various people know that if I come to help I will follow the orders of the leader and blast, heal or hit as needed. (Or maybe they just love seeing me run across Nexus and Wastelands to get to SC because I don't have any tp's in PR. )

I don't doubt that there are guilds who wouldn't ask anyone but guildies, or faction cohorts. That's their right and I won't know if it's true because I won't be invited. That's all OK with me.

Thanks for your comments, Bittty. My personal guess, though, rather is that bosses spawn according to the second equation. Granted, I am not sure about, as not me, but the player I was hunting with held the records (it was Darlarian who, sadly, does not play Ryzom anymore) during my daily boss hunt times. But as far as I understood, Boss spawn had to be expected anytime after the end of grace period, not just hourly. My own far more limited observations corroborate that. I still believe that the minimum respawn is 36hrs rather than 24, but the available data do not allow me to decide about.

Ok, I feared that. So, not again, Virg.

I never said that there is no camping, but two things:

First, there is and was no camping epidemic. Camping did occur all times, even when it was forbidden, and it did not spread excessively after the ban on it was lifted. I corroborated my point by my patrolling experiences.

Second, some camping may have occurred, and friends pointed me to, in wastelands in particular during times when KP had not yet returned. I always advocated return of KP, less because of boss camping rather than because of sup and exc spot camping and tracking spamming. Many of my sup mat I owe to the return of KP.

I followed the proposals for changes in boss spots, number of bosses etc., and commented on. One may reread my comments.

The point of removing camping is that when someone goes on a boss scout they have an equal chance of finding a boss as anyone else. I have not been active recently due to work but when I was in Asylum I knew of at least 6 guilds that time camped- all in varying degrees. The point is it gives an advantage. Instead of checking all bosses regularly, check the ones you know are going to spawn within the time window more frequently. As for alt camping I did see a camping alt very recently.

As I have already said- I like the thought of increasing the chance of anyone finding a boss whilst doing any activity. Increasing boss spawns to 10 would give (partially) the same affect of a boss spawning anywhere. This also means more chance of a boss spawning in an aggro area- which I think is a good thing. Bosses are far too easy to kill these days. Yeh sure there are KPs but they can be handled by relatively small teams with easy.

Daomei your statement of "there is no camping epidemic" is entirely based on you running around PR whilst not looking for bosses. Camping alts log in and out within 10-30seconds. You go work out the maths of the chance of you running into them but please don't post on here. I am not continuing with this discussion with you- stopping right now.

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What I want to know is would it really take that much effort to add new spawns for the boss? Would it be that much effort to change the equation of the spawning time? If not just do it- removing camping completely- then we can be done with this. I gave up arguing this point ages ago as people wanted proper scientific methods to prove my statements and frankly that is just way too much effort.

Make bosses truly random. It will benefit everyone except campers. Job done.

I won't discuss the whole stuff again and again. Yet some comments about the
I measured the time it takes to start a character from the character selection screen, on a fairly strong box for Ryzom needs, with no other task running. Before, I measured the time for startup and typing password until char selection screen becomes available.

Startup of the client took about 7 seconds, from typing password to character selection screen other 7-15 seconds depending on typing speed etc. - let us assume 15s as a reasonable minimum.

Startup of the client took 42s from clicking at the selected character to full appearance of the inventory. The character appeared 18s ca. after startup (would be visible to others, now), 5-7s later, the whole environment, buildings, mobs etc. were completely loaded, only now one would be able to spot a boss, the KP, or whatever. Further 5-8s later, one would be able to enter commands such as a search macro. And it took further 10-12s for the login sequence to finish (all values can be assumed to significantly increase on a weaker or highly loaded box).

Logout time calculation is easy: it is 30 seconds no matter which method is chosen, hitting alt-F4, clicking, or killing the client from the OS. Only after this period, the character would become invisible. Noteworthy, the person steering the character would have an advantage when aborting the client only when logging on a different account, afterwards.

So every character, even if logged in and out in utter hurry, will be visible during a period of 45s at minimum. Taking in account human imperfection, all will take much longer on average, surely a few minutes. Such elusive logins would be visible to a patroller as a blue dot at a boss spawn. Me, as a curious person, would hit my "/who [newline]/who gm" macro key to look who is around.

I cannot rule out that the mysterious in-out camping alts have been used here and then, as nonexistance is nothing provable, logically. But I roamed the areas in question so long and so often that evidence of absence cannot be discarded as absence of evidence.

So I ask myself why I never saw such a camping alt. Sure I saw characters, here and then, who may or may not have been camping. Yet I recall a fellow player who was waiting for the night at the exc moon spot and got aggro dragged onto him by a passing character on mountback, who later apologized to have believed he would be camping. Such misconduct demonstrates the harmfulness of camping hysteria.

Yes "log in" campers exist...but camping is not the reason you find it hard to find Bosses....We find many Boss without use of camper and beat many that do. An "equal opportunity for finding" cannot be created for Homins unless they apply an equal effort. Regions are scouted very regularly with occasional lapping times from competitive groups. Increasing Boss spawns/time with not change much as most regions require a full trek anyway to see 4 -5 spot. . I like the idea of Bosses spawning in different racial regions....would be fun for crafting^^ Perhaps have the Boss and guards be a mobile unit like KP...hate to admit how any times i die trying to catch a named simply because it is fast and dance through aggro....

just get the devs to get a more complex spawn time whatever for all the bosses, more spawn locations and problem solved. also gets the hunters who track the bosses more fun to actually look for the bosses.

Also liked talks idea of making them mats for sale.
t

dao: i personally can log in 4 accounts at ONE time, hit my boss macro on each one, and log them back out in less then 3 minutes.
as for how long it takes to load and all that, it really doesn't matter about load times, with a powerful computer you can have clients waiting for the click in the background (have 32 clients running waiting for the "log-in" click), and if each client is a different account, the 30 seconds we're forced to be online even after a "quit now" doesn't apply to the speed that we can connect the next set of accounts. (note i tested this with 4 freshly made silan accounts that i made in less then 3 min, and it only took me about 5 minutes to get them to the mainland. they don't have to level skills, there's a real toon someone's playing waiting to escort them to the correct spot.)

it's likely that someone that's truely dedicated to camping would have an account for each one of the campers. and those are things your not accounting for. there are far to many unknowns to prove much of anything about camping or what campers think of as the best way (it's my hope that i didn't just give any of them a new idea).

however, as i've said, more spawn locations, perhaps a more random system of selecting the random time before respawn. (the merchant idea is still valid as well, since that would be the only true way to give everyone an equal chance at the best gears)

Block F2p from PR and q250?