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Rethinking the whole thing I believe that a changed respawn scheme for choice loot creatures may be considered, but not in the way that every of these creatures should appear every hour like nameds.

There are roughly two types of choice mobs: mini nameds, and mini bosses. The further are running around alone, the latter have a pack of minions accompanying them: gruesome kirostas with the Death Kirosta in Loria, great cuttlers with the Slayer Frahar in SC, huge torbaks with the Death Torbak in EI and so on.

While it would appear acceptable and sensible to let choice nameds spawn similarly to exc nameds, the choice bosses should at least not spawn more frequently than sup bosses as they are constituting a hardship for lower level players, and treks. Different from sup bosses, they are wandering around their region therefore being more of a nuisance than a boss.

Originally, the Slayers were intended to respawn every 50 minutes (like the named), and the named to respawn every season (which from what i've heard slayers should do too but a bug make them respawn only at server reboot).

By the time the bug could be resolved and slayers / named spawn swapped, too much time had passed so they stayed with the current model

i can't recall a choice mob with guards that i've ever found (yet), but the prospect sounds interesting (next question would be the number of mats a choice mob with guards drops, given the added challenge they should drop more then a normal choice mob / named)
if they are guards of said choice mobs, they would die when the choice mob dies (like boss guards) given i've not found one of these i can't report on this, but if the guards don't die when the choice mob does, it's more likely that the choice mob happens to spawn in a group of similar mobs (and not with guards).

i'll see out the frahar in SCo, given that not many people care much for the dropped jewels of mobs (even the bosses of these types are often left standing for days).

i'll report more once i've found the answer to the "guards" question.

talk

Regarding usefulness of these mobs:

I heard the Destroyer Gubani in Void gets taken down almost immediately after a server reset, some people choosing it over supernodes; the reason is that its eyes are highly useful in pvp jewels.

Sadly this is my only example, and only hearsay.

exactly MJ, they do have their uses, but given only one spawn per reset makes them overly rare. it'd be nice if they'd fix the timers, at least to match a excellent named (or even shorter given that choice is below excellent in the scheme of grades).

I'd like to see them given a 12-16 day respawn, but let them have a random chance of dropping all grade types of loot. Say:

80% chance of choice
7% chance of basic
7% chance of fine
5% chance of xl
1% chance of supreme.

well no fix in sight, this is called Normal. so i guess that dug mats are broke because choice is so freely diggable, but that's normal too.

i'll not bother to report anything else, clearly broken is "normal".

(thank you CSR for putting this up the line to the dev and then letting me know their response.)

talk.

ps. choice loot is clearly the rarest in game now.

Would this post get better notice under "Technical support?" I don't know :/

What the heck are you talking about? Yes, the choice MOBs are rare, but they are also anomalous since they break the usual pattern and not all mobs have them. That isn't *broken*, that is how it is.

Choice diggable mats were part of the first release, there is no way they are "broken".

As for choice mobs with "guards", all you have to do is go to Loria Ponds to dig and watch the gruesome kiros precede and follow the Death Kiro. They aren't guards in the same way that the guards of the king bosses are, but they are clearly associated with the mini-boss.

spin it any way you like bittty, choice mat's should NOT be more rare then excellent or supreme, so yes i say broken. as for "not all mob's have them" not all mob's have a boss or named either (frippo is the perfect example) but i'm not claiming that every mob type should have choice mob's just that the one's we do have currently are broken in terms of respawn. (i'd like to also note that i didn't complain about the choice mob's that NEVER spawn, only the one's that spawn once per reset.) this was not a request for something new, it was a request to fix something that's bugged.

as for guards, i've just went on a little hunt yesterday in fact to check some of these "guarded" mobs, if they are indeed guards, then they're broke too because the "guards" don't die with the mob. i did however discover that several of the mobs that are "guarded" happen to spawn and roam a small area WITHIN a unrelated spawn of lesser mob's of the same type.

bottom line is simple, choice loot is rendered nearly impossible to get because the mob's only respawn once per reset. so you get 11 randomly dropped mats per server reset (and reset are roughly every 30 days give or take a few days.) so if you need 20 mat's for a set of items (eg 2 eyes per jewel) you might have to wait years for those 20 eyes.

i'm sorry to say this but the truth needs to be said: calling a bug normal is just a lazy way to say one of two things: we don't know how to fix it (i could accept this truth) or worse: we're lazy and don't want to put in the effort to correct this strange bug.

at this point i'm done discussing the fact that they're a useful part of the game, but broken in the view that somehow someone thinks choice should be more rare then excellent and supreme. there's just no LOGICAL excuse for having a choice mat that's more rare then excellent and supreme. to argue they should be more rare is like saying that super nodes should be for choice mats not excellent and supreme, it just sounds stupid.

none the less the discussion is over because the OFFICIAL answer has already came (which was part of the post you quoted me on bittty.) so any further discussion is mute.

talk

ps
naema, i sent a ticket in as well as making this post, and within just a few days i had an official answer, and i am grateful for the efforts of the CSR that handled the ticket so quickly and efficiently within the limits of their ability. so again thank you CSR (GM Graciela) for your prompt work and help in this matter.

i consider this discussion closed (again) given the official answer given.

While the sparse availability of choice animal loot may be considered an irregularity (nobody says that everything on Atys has to be symmetrical), I fail to see it as a bug. It may have evolved erroneously, as the contribution of Bisounicus suggests - I assume his information is based on insider knowledge rather than on speculation.

That means that the decision to let choice mobs spawn the way they are spawning now, and to let exc mobs spawn the way choice mobs were originally planned to spawn, has been taken over 10 years ago, at a time when the developers themselves were merely speculating about the outcome of such a respawn model for game balance and players' actions.

Since then, the world of Atys and its community have evolved, and got used to the mats as available nowadays.

If there would be a change, it would probably not a "gimme more" just implementing frequent choice mob respawn. And I would hate if the exc mob respawn would be restricted in exchange for.

I fail to see dramatic benefits with more choice mobs around, in certain cases rather the contrary.

A last word to the "mini bosses": Sup bosses are assumed to be not only stronger, but also smarter than other creatures, thus they managed not only to gather a crowd of minions, but also make them defend not just follow, with even some of the herbivores acting aggressively (Timkya's guards).

The "mini bosses" are even weaker than their named counterparts (Nymton is stronger than Death Kirosta, not to speak about Wikkah). So it is fairly sensible that they are less intelligent, too. They at least managed to gather minions around themselves, accompagnying them on their patrolway. But they did not develop far enough to train them as guards. That would sound plausible to me.

Let's use proper terms.

Do we have reason to believe these mobs are intended to respawn faster than they currently do? As in, do we believe that the game's architects intended different timers? If so, then yes Winch Gate should work on fixing what is currently a bug. And, if this indeed a bug, then a ticket has much more chance to be read by the people in charge - as opposed to a forum post.

We all know how seldom this forum is considered a valid venue for raising complaints that require WG intervetion. Rushing to decry that no WG representative has answered yet is .. disingenuous; there is almost no prior history for such expectation.

However, if we only believe that these mobs' timers are badly picked - then this is a balance problem, a deliberate but ultimately wrong choice; notably, it is not an error against the developer's intentions. Nevertheless, it may still require adjusting, if the community believes it's a bad mechanic.

In that case, WG may require more input from players - are these mobs used and useful? Does anyone bother killing them? Would the community want their respawn time decreased?

Personally, I believe the situation is better described by the latter scenario. The choice mobs are not useful to the crafters - as shown by the fact that most of the live for days after a reset; I can hardly imagine that Nevrax or Winch Gate designed these materials to be crucial in any particular recipe. Even if the respawn time is stupidly long, it does not actually affect anyone. In short, they would require tweaking in other aspects (e.g. mat quality) before their respawn time was of concern. Don't get me wrong, I would like to see them spawning more often simply because they add variety in crafter options - but I fail to see why this is of any priority over other dev tasks (unless this is an easy 5-minutes fix).

Just my 2 dappers.

just to clarify again:

a ticket WAS filed, and answered officially, and that answer is "this is considered normal at this time". (which is why i keep saying over and over that the discussion is mute and pointless, clearly if they call it normal, no changes will be made)

i believe that the usefulness of these mat's is generally unknown because they are so hard to get. i have several recipes that mix these choice mats with excellent and supreme mats to get results that are otherwise impossible to match without the choice mats. (the only way to use non choice loot is to use kitin larva, but when those only spawn a handful of mats {i've been told getting more then 3 is considered a great dig} and the amount of effort and players needed to get them is high {hard to split 3 mat's 9 ways} so this doesn't offer much of an alternative)

regardless i'll consider these mats pointless for normal use, and will just use different recipes that don't have as good stats. (not to say i won't continue to try to obtain the mats i need for my recipes, and if i'm lucky ryzom will not shut down before i can produce the set of items i'm working towards (a full armor and jewel set, which requires lot's of mats {all HQ recipes})

talk

(again feeling that this discussion is over given an official reply has already been received via the ticket system, once more thanks GM Graciela for your quick responses and doing your part to get an answer from the dev)

I do not see that the discussion was pointless, only because the CSR confirmed what I said from the beginning, namely that the scheme of choice mobs' respawn is a feature or evolved property of Ryzom and not considered a bug.

I agree to Mjollren that such a feature or property may well be questioned, challenged, and alternatives be supposed as done in this thread. Still I think that such alternatives may be considered some day. For such a purpose, the discussions and reflections in this thread may prove useful.

fair enough daomei, i could only hope that it happens, and if it does i'll be the most surprised homin on atys. :)