Article Discussion: Redesigning Hamidon
By
AmazingMOO,
Posted on: 2007-03-22 13:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I'm kind of missing the "improvements."
It looks like now it's even longer (have to fight giant monsters to spawn him) and there's a greater possibility of me being cut off from my friends/groups/whatever with a heavy handed zone cap.
Since the spawn can be forced, is the trial difficulty severely reduced to accomodate, say, an 8 man team? It would seriously STINK if you are in "The Hive 5" with 7 other people while there are 4 other Hive instances doing the trial and you are just sitting there waiting for more people to show up (who will, no doubt, be going into earlier instances as space is made).
I'd much rather see an instanced thing. Trying to maintain the "social event" part of it is just looking at a bunch of REALLY bored people trying to pass time... not a socializing mecca. On most raids this past month or so, I see more and more comments from people saying "I can't wait for the changes and the instanced trial" (this includes raid leaders).
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Um, what happens if you are a part of the 50 person raid in 'Hive 2' and everything is going well but then your internet goes out for whatever reason and when you get back online 'Hive 2' is full because some leecher just jumped in and took your spot in the zone? Thats my biggest concern about the small zone population.
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o.O
Some random leecher won't know if your internet went out. And if Hami can be defeated by a smaller group, it would probably be easier to organize a raid. So, in that situation, I'd run in and spawn Hive 3 and start in on a global channel for more raiders.
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Not exactly, it'd be more like someone hearing how a raid is not too far from completion over the Virtue United or whatever channel and going back and forth at the entrance of the Hive to see whether or not any room opens up.
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I'd still use the oppurtunity to spawn a new Hive instance. 
Then send the leecher a thank you /tell for helping open a new instance for 49 more people... after the raid.
It all sounds good. 50 player cap sounds about right. Two lingering questions though:
a) What's the minimum number of players it'll take to bring down Hami?
and b) Are the GMs in the Hive/Abyss going to be reworked so they're easier to kill? I ask that because, unless you have a Rad or two on the team spamming Lingering Radiation, GMs take forever to kill due to their high regen rate. Not many people will wanna beat on the GMs much more than the bare minimum it'll take to spawn Hamidon. Special inspiration be damned.
I, for one, look forward to seeing the CoX community match wits with the leader of the Devouring Earth. It should be fun unlocking the secret to defeating the new and improved Hamidon.
As for the lowered zone cap, I whipped out my little calculator and saw that, measured in teams, that's 6 full teams of eight and a duo. Now, as to what configuration of those 6 teams will work best, and what roles they will perform, or even if we'll need that many, that remains to be seen.
They said that some organelles will be strong against some AT's and weak against others. Perhaps sorting the teams by archetypes, each taking on the organelles the AT is strong against will be the key. Or maybe the opposite, having each team have a mix of archetypes so the teams won't be easily overwhelmed by organelles that will counter a specific AT. Or perhaps the solution will be on an entirely different line of thought. And what role will the Essence of the Earth inspirations play?
It will be exciting solving the puzzle that Hamidon will set before us.
Currently published Mission Architect arcs:
Arc ID# 70466: From the Abyss.
Arc ID# 403174: The Serpent's Revenge.
Arc ID# 534236: The Clockwork Angel.
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... After that, it'll probably be a quick fight and that's all she wrote.
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AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA <deep breath> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Um...No.
<QR to the article>
These seem like good changes...reading the original guides I realized that my main toon, if he ever gets to 50, would be useless in a Hami raid, which was kind of sad. If they can make it so that we can all be useful, that'd be awesome.
Unfortunately, that will probably never happen. Players will always decide that one or two ATs are all that's needed and that everyone else is useless, regardless of how the devs try to balance it.
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Other than that, I hope everyone enjoys the article. I had a lot of fun writing it.
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Definitely. Extremely informative and I appreciate the logic behind the changes. I'm certainly more eager than before to experience the new Hamidon - that's for sure.
More like this in future, please.
Thanks!
*thumbs up*
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Um, what happens if you are a part of the 50 person raid in 'Hive 2' and everything is going well but then your internet goes out for whatever reason and when you get back online 'Hive 2' is full because some leecher just jumped in and took your spot in the zone? Thats my biggest concern about the small zone population.
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o.O
Some random leecher won't know if your internet went out. And if Hami can be defeated by a smaller group, it would probably be easier to organize a raid. So, in that situation, I'd run in and spawn Hive 3 and start in on a global channel for more raiders.
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Not exactly, it'd be more like someone hearing how a raid is not too far from completion over the Virtue United or whatever channel and going back and forth at the entrance of the Hive to see whether or not any room opens up.
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I'd still use the oppurtunity to spawn a new Hive instance. Then send the leecher a thank you /tell for helping open a new instance for 49 more people... after the raid.
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Unfortunately, that really doesn't compensate the people who got bounced out of the zone. Speaking personally, my time in-game is very precious. I have 1 to 3 hours max to do what I want in game, and not every day of the week. I recognize this and work with, planning TFs well in advance and sometimes over multiple days, etc. However, let's say the new Hami takes 90 minues once the basics of how to make it work are done. At 80 minutes, I drop connection. If I come back and someone has filled my spot, I've just lost the reward for those 80 minutes invested. Not to mention that using the SG/VG rez ring instead of waiting for a team member's rez to come back (again) runs the same risk since going to bases is leaving the zone instance.
And, just because this thread has had insufficient doom so far...
I know that they wanted to maintain the "social" aspect of Hamidon raids, but I suspect when all is said and done there will be less socialization, for two reasons: (1) the socialization is in part driven by the amount of mindlessness going on in the existing raid. There are about 5-10 people out of the 50-100 radiers that have to be actively engaged with the raid; the rest around autofiring or button mashing and have the spare cycles to spend on talking about whatever meme has struck the internet recently. In the new raid, if they have met their design objectives, everyone will be more engaged with the raid itself leaving less time for BS. (I know that some will find this an improvement). And (2) as we see with teaming, people prefer to team with people they know in part because they know what to expect both good and bad. With the existing Hami raid, is really is not possible to keep the raid to just "family and friends" (SG and coalition) so it forces people to work with people they might not otherwise because it requires that level of resources to make the raid a success. With the new, smaller, streamlined raid it will be possible to create mostly closed raids and I suspect that many of the larger SGs will do just that. This leaves those that do not belong to the big SGs or have broad coalitions to try pick-up raids, with all the variableness and weirdness of pickup groups only with less ability to say "sayonara" if things don't work well after say, the monster clearing phase.
And finally, combining the previous two points: I don't want to be a leach. However, if I logout (or DC) in the Hive or Abyss, the next time I logon there runs the real possibility of unintentionally blocking a previous raider from being able to zone back into this particular raid.
In any case, I am afraid that for me personally, and others like me, my days of raiding Hami are going to be reduced to a couple of times a year.
Z
(The proceeding written while tired and bummed so I'm taking a more negative view that is probably warrented. I hope I'm wrong.)
"I don't have an angel and a devil on my shoulder, I have Rocky and Bullwinkle." - Lore Sj�berg
i'm not big on the Dev's redesigning Hamidon .... yet again. ...
especially since the main reason (as i perceive it) is because we didn't do it as the Dev's had envisioned.
i wonder though. have the Dev's even done it the way they wanted it to work? have they beaten the hamidon once their way? in any of the incarnations?
the strat i read in the article simplywouldn't work from what i know of the how Hamidon works.
it doesn't matter how far you are from the hamidon, if he pops then theres a mito for you.
and the hamidon & his mitos range has bene steadily increase so that even if you did have all the mitos on one aside they'd still rip the raiders apart if you weren't careful.
all the same though welcome to the fray Brawler.
You'll only be able to get 1 HO and 1 rare recipe in a 24 hour period by raiding Hamidon.
sooooo... we raid twice a day, once for a recipe and once for a HO?!
Member: Mutant Force Five, Chaos Legion & Team Awesome
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Hey gang. Here's what happened. Matt's been swamped with Inventions and I9. He approached me a few days ago about helping him write this article as I was the one who wrote the original design doc on all of the changes we're making to Hamidon in Issue 9. I wrote out the article for curse-gaming and at the very top, I left a blank section to talk a bit about Hamidon's back story, the history of raids over the years, and reveal what Geko's original idea as far as player strategy was.
I'll admit, I was a bit hazy on the back story. I've done the arc myself and I had the vague memory that it had something to do with a mutated scientist named Hamidon, but couldn't remember the details. All I could remember was his creation of the Devouring Earth, and part with Terra and the love letter. I didn't want to mess anything up and get the facts wrong, so I just left that section empty and set it back to Position for him to fill in. When I read over what he'd written, I didn't think that sounded like what I remembered. "But he's Positron," I thought, "Surely he'd know.
Well, he got it mixed up obviously. Between his own hazy memory and more importantly just being really busy fixing things for Issue 9, he came up with something about an ancient god. Brian, one of our mission/story writers, set out an email shortly after the article went up that that basically said "The Hamidon is a what what of what?"
So Brian, who actually knows what's going on in the story and was conveniently ill the day we sent this article out, has rewritten the backstory and we've asked curse-gaming to update the article.
Other than that, I hope everyone enjoys the article. I had a lot of fun writing it.
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Oh my word a new red name. <Hopes he'll be better than most of the other red names>
[IMG]http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2886/coxboardsig.jpg[/IMG][B][SIZE="3"]
The shining world of the seven systems. On the continent of Wild Endeavour. In the mountains of Solace and Solitude there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords. The oldest and most mightiest race in the Universe. Sworn never to interfere. Only watch...[/SIZE][/B]
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i'm not big on the Dev's redesigning Hamidon .... yet again. ...
especially since the main reason (as i perceive it) is because we didn't do it as the Dev's had envisioned.
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They redesigned it because of numerous complaints about the setup, the numerous Griefing Opportunities, and the General "UnFun" for many players.
Not because "we didn't do it the way they planned".
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
The changes to teh Hamidon have been a long time coming. It sucks that only now was the expected strategy revealed, but I like the fact that they give more information as to how and what should be done, without coming out and saying "how to" specifically. However, I think the changes will provide much needed improvement to the big blog!
I, for one, welcome our newly revamped J-ELLO overlord!
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You'll only be able to get 1 HO and 1 rare recipe in a 24 hour period by raiding Hamidon.
sooooo... we raid twice a day, once for a recipe and once for a HO?!
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It would be better IMO if they made it every 20 hours rather than 24 hours or perhaps if they made it one HO per day.
Hear me out before crying doom...
You go to the raid sometime after 7pm. You get done 30 minutes later and have your HO in hand.
You show up the following night around 7pm but get done 25 minutes. Due to the timer, you can't get another HO because it hasn't been 24 hours.
So why not tie HO & recipe rewards to 12am Central? From 0000 to 2359, you can only get one reward of an HO and a recipe. That would mean you could complete a HO raid at 2355 and then start up another HO raid at 0001. But once you completed that, you can't get any more HOs as a reward until you enter the next calendar day.
In other words, base the reward timers on DAYS not hours. It would make it a lot easier to manage from the player perspective and STILL stays true to the reward limits the Devs have set.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
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and b) Are the GMs in the Hive/Abyss going to be reworked so they're easier to kill? I ask that because, unless you have a Rad or two on the team spamming Lingering Radiation, GMs take forever to kill due to their high regen rate. Not many people will wanna beat on the GMs much more than the bare minimum it'll take to spawn Hamidon. Special inspiration be damned.
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Rather than weakening the GMs, I'd like it if the devs spread regen debuffing into more Heroes powersets. The Villains have much more access to regeneration debuffing than the villains do, and it's not even just Corruptor-type sets that can do it.
It would especially be nice if it were the lower frequency Defender sets that got the regen debuff added - I'd like to see like Acid Arrow from Trick Arrow be regen-debuffing, for instance. TA can already do it with EMP Arrow, but 15 seconds of regen debuffing on a nuke-type recharge timer don't cut it.
Similarly, it'd be cool if Freezing Rain debuffed regen, too
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You only need 50+N characters to create N instances. (Leave one character in Hive 1, 50 goes to Hive 2, spawns Hive 3 and so on.)
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I believe that logic is flawed. If you have 50 heroes in Hive 2 and only one hero in Hive 1, any new heroes will be presented with the following screen:
Hive 1
Hive 2 (FULL)
And will therefore have to select Hive 1. Both would have to be full to spawn another Hive.
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I kind of expect a somewhat sizable team size needed to take him on still. Maybe 20-30 characters. So if "they" have 20-30 characters already raiding and "we" have 20-30 characters wanting to raid, we'll get our own instance and spawn our own Hamidon.
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I thought this would be a flaw, but I suppose not. Say team A has 30 heroes and starts raiding at 8pm. Team B has 35 heroes and wants to start raiding at 9:00. So at 8:45 members of team B start filling up Hive 1. Once they spawn a Hive 2, everyone just starts moving over there. It would take coordination, but I think it would be possible.
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As it is now, Holding Hami only keeps him from spawning mitos, but he continues firing his attack.
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Are you sure? Having never been on the taunter's team, and given that I lose Hami at the end of raids, I'm not sure, however I thought the Taunter's countdown timer for "Hami Held" was started when Hami stopped attacking. No?
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Um, what happens if you are a part of the 50 person raid in 'Hive 2' and everything is going well but then your internet goes out for whatever reason and when you get back online 'Hive 2' is full because some leecher just jumped in and took your spot in the zone? Thats my biggest concern about the small zone population.
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Fair concern! Though it may not be "some leecher" - it may be some random person who happens to stumble into the zone, or perhaps part of another group that is trying to get another raid started.
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Suggestion: The Hive always has at least (say) 5 instances open. That way a group can choose an instance without having to muck around trying to open a new one.
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Totally seconding this!
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They redesigned it because of numerous complaints about the setup, the numerous Griefing Opportunities, and the General "UnFun" for many players. Not because "we didn't do it the way they planned".
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I was going to say that too. So /agreed.
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So why not tie HO & recipe rewards to 12am Central? From 0000 to 2359, you can only get one reward of an HO and a recipe. That would mean you could complete a HO raid at 2355 and then start up another HO raid at 0001. But once you completed that, you can't get any more HOs as a reward until you enter the next calendar day.
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I can see your point, but then many raids will be scheduled so that they complete just before midnight, and can then be repeated just after midnight. I do like the 20-hour time limit though, I think that would work!
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Wait, Hamidon is a god?
I thought he was a science experiment gone somewhat wrong by a crazed scientist injecting himself with the Will of Earth?
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You can't say GOD.....it's censored!
Great....they just ruined the Hamidon.
50 player cap? Don't like it. I love big groups and the lag does not bother me at all. I really don't know what you guys are thinking but I'm starting to have doubts. Ever take into consideration that other people do like the giant raid groups and all the stuff that goes on during the raid? Wonder how many people they actually interviewed to get that pole count on changing Hamidon.....
Dev points in my book: -34
-Demilion
Hopefully, MUO will come out later in the year.
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In other words, base the reward timers on DAYS not hours. It would make it a lot easier to manage from the player perspective and STILL stays true to the reward limits the Devs have set.
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I agree, but the same comment was made with the RSF, which was ignored.
1 a day makes sense, 1 in a 24 hour period causes problems unless there is a hardcoded timer telling you "OK your good to raid and be rewarded again"
without something in game being visually responsible for keeping track of time for us, it will be us... and I'm not particularly happy about recording the exact time I received a HO, if I want to get another one tomorrow... Also, say I raid REALLY late one night, but I can only raid late afternoon the next day... well, I'm screwed.
I wont put much hope in the 1 a day because of how it was handled in the past, but it makes much more sense in the long run.
Member: Mutant Force Five, Chaos Legion & Team Awesome
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Unfortunately, that really doesn't compensate the people who got bounced out of the zone. Speaking personally, my time in-game is very precious. I have 1 to 3 hours max to do what I want in game, and not every day of the week. I recognize this and work with, planning TFs well in advance and sometimes over multiple days, etc. However, let's say the new Hami takes 90 minues once the basics of how to make it work are done. At 80 minutes, I drop connection. If I come back and someone has filled my spot, I've just lost the reward for those 80 minutes invested. Not to mention that using the SG/VG rez ring instead of waiting for a team member's rez to come back (again) runs the same risk since going to bases is leaving the zone instance.
And, just because this thread has had insufficient doom so far...
I know that they wanted to maintain the "social" aspect of Hamidon raids, but I suspect when all is said and done there will be less socialization, for two reasons: (1) the socialization is in part driven by the amount of mindlessness going on in the existing raid. There are about 5-10 people out of the 50-100 radiers that have to be actively engaged with the raid; the rest around autofiring or button mashing and have the spare cycles to spend on talking about whatever meme has struck the internet recently. In the new raid, if they have met their design objectives, everyone will be more engaged with the raid itself leaving less time for BS. (I know that some will find this an improvement). And (2) as we see with teaming, people prefer to team with people they know in part because they know what to expect both good and bad. With the existing Hami raid, is really is not possible to keep the raid to just "family and friends" (SG and coalition) so it forces people to work with people they might not otherwise because it requires that level of resources to make the raid a success. With the new, smaller, streamlined raid it will be possible to create mostly closed raids and I suspect that many of the larger SGs will do just that. This leaves those that do not belong to the big SGs or have broad coalitions to try pick-up raids, with all the variableness and weirdness of pickup groups only with less ability to say "sayonara" if things don't work well after say, the monster clearing phase.
And finally, combining the previous two points: I don't want to be a leach. However, if I logout (or DC) in the Hive or Abyss, the next time I logon there runs the real possibility of unintentionally blocking a previous raider from being able to zone back into this particular raid.
In any case, I am afraid that for me personally, and others like me, my days of raiding Hami are going to be reduced to a couple of times a year.
Z
(The proceeding written while tired and bummed so I'm taking a more negative view that is probably warrented. I hope I'm wrong.)
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I'm in the opposite position, kinda. My in-game time is so limitied, I haven't done a TF since I2. I haven't done a single SF. I haven't gone to a Hammi Raid in over a year. This re-design, I might go to. It looks interesting.
Griefers and leechers? As far as I'm concerned, griefers sole wish is to cause grief. If I don't get upset, they don't cause grief.
You DC - Moocher pops in, takes your spot - You come back.
*****New zone instance*****
START OVER!
Sounds like Space Invaders, with the twist that the moocher gets your reward and you get screwed.
Edit: I can see teams of "invited" groups of 50 players trying to get their own instanced raid, I might try that with 49 other good players I know if we can arrange it in secret minus moochers. NOT on an open server raiding channel or other global channel. I seriously plan on doing the Statesman TF for my real rewards.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
<QR>
Sapphire7 said
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Are you sure? Having never been on the taunter's team, and given that I lose Hami at the end of raids, I'm not sure, however I thought the Taunter's countdown timer for "Hami Held" was started when Hami stopped attacking. No?
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confirmed. This was changed.. what, I6? maybe I7. An extra random element now, as this pretty much stopped us from trully knowing when Hami was held. Before, we knew b/c he stopped firing period. Now, it's a guess, and i think based on hami ONLY firing at the taunter, not the hold spammers, and maybe some hold graphics on him.
Demilion: you enjoy listening (so to speak) to worthless spam for 1-3 hours (depending on server, day, lag load, whatever) at a raid?
I'm happy it's going to this format. I'd be thrilled if it went to instance, but this is better than nothing. At least this way, you HOPE that all 50 will focus on the task, and people won't have to put up with people copy/pasting poems/songs/spanish nonsense in request, or broadcasting "Marry me X (where X is the name of a character)" over and over.
@Death Conqueror
-Goal for 2011: Survive, stay alive, and continue to thrive.
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It would be better IMO if they made it every 20 hours rather than 24 hours or perhaps if they made it one HO per day.
.
You go to the raid sometime after 7pm. You get done 30 minutes later and have your HO in hand.
.
You show up the following night around 7pm but get done 25 minutes. Due to the timer, you can't get another HO because it hasn't been 24 hours.
.
So why not tie HO & recipe rewards to 12am Central? From 0000 to 2359, you can only get one reward of an HO and a recipe. That would mean you could complete a HO raid at 2355 and then start up another HO raid at 0001. But once you completed that, you can't get any more HOs as a reward until you enter the next calendar day.
.
In other words, base the reward timers on DAYS not hours. It would make it a lot easier to manage from the player perspective and STILL stays true to the reward limits the Devs have set.
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/agreed
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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The only awkward situation I foresee is an optimal strategy that requires a certain AT and no more of that AT being allowed into that Hive till a less optimal player leaves the zone... talk about awkward.
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I hate "optimal". I think people need to stop thinking "optimal" and start thinking "doable". "Optimal" is what gets the LRSF a bad name.
Dec out.
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Um, what happens if you are a part of the 50 person raid in 'Hive 2' and everything is going well but then your internet goes out for whatever reason and when you get back online 'Hive 2' is full because some leecher just jumped in and took your spot in the zone? Thats my biggest concern about the small zone population.
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o.O
Some random leecher won't know if your internet went out. And if Hami can be defeated by a smaller group, it would probably be easier to organize a raid. So, in that situation, I'd run in and spawn Hive 3 and start in on a global channel for more raiders.
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Not exactly, it'd be more like someone hearing how a raid is not too far from completion over the Virtue United or whatever channel and going back and forth at the entrance of the Hive to see whether or not any room opens up.