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dark mares

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Sidious
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dark mares

Post by Sidious »

I think it was apparent from the first incursions that the dark mares were up against some serious amounts of abjure/para and makes it difficult to really inspire terror.

I'm not sure I like the solution which can seem to be hotkeying out of the para, invuln, or hotkey fa. I think a better solution is a higher plat reflect to make it really dangerous. Or if you really want to play dirty, create a mare or make all of them simply immune to para. Force us to figure that out and use other fatesender arts instead, ones that don't just kill the fight right away.

Not calling any controllers out, either, some of that is guesses based on ic word of mouth. I just think we default to para too often and kill some of the fights before they get fun.
Sidas
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidas »

At the same time it's important to not over-compensate. Things like back-to-the-wall razor winding is lame and shouldn't happen.

I like the idea of bringing back "Dark Mare Wednesday" or some other day where there is an expected FULL ASSAULT of mares. This day would be the regular attack day with limited instances in between to give time to recover. That alone will make it more difficult for dreamers to just smack down on a mare and will make it more fun than individual dreamers being randomly cornered by a mare that's only in-game for 15 minutes and logs out.
Zed Lagoon
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Re: dark mares

Post by Zed Lagoon »

Dark Mare Wednesdays is great.. Simple and straight to the point.. But i think a story should be behind it as to who and what is making them attack on this day so much.
Koi-Alastar

Re: dark mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

We've discussed DarkMare Wednesdays :)

On Abjure>Para, DMs do not/cannot use Invulnerability. If our DM has picked up an FA Alteror, it's totally reasonable they would use it to try and outlast a lucky Para. We shouldn't have to collapse just because we got Para'd once. I can guarantee all of us go down pretty quick if the Para is reapplied before we can get to our Alteror! To my knowledge, no DM has stood against a wall to Razorwind.

And we do agree DMs should find a way to not be so vulnerable to this, but don't want to make them OP. Especially since many seem to refuse to fight unless they can guarantee the use of this tactic.
Pickman
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Re: dark mares

Post by Pickman »

Really wish I'd known about Dark Mare Wednesday before I went and organized an event on that day.
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Lunk
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Re: dark mares

Post by Lunk »

Pickman wrote:Really wish I'd known about Dark Mare Wednesday before I went and organized an event on that day.
just makes for more fun to be had in that day is all. thats a good thing not a bad thing
Tobyz Friend
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Re: dark mares

Post by Tobyz Friend »

I'm not against the idea of a Dark Mare assault day, but make it fun for everyone. The idea of dark mares with Razorwind and Firestorm on such fast casts that they can chain 4-5 before you can hit a dreamsoul elemen is beyond retarded. If Dark Mares are just going to put their backs to walls/portals while they chain cast those two arts, might as well skip dreaming on Wednesday nights all together.
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Sidious
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidious »

Eh, I had a good time, there were a few cheap tactics I would tone down, but overall it was a hell of a fight.
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Starfall
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Re: dark mares

Post by Starfall »

Tobyz Friend wrote:I'm not against the idea of a Dark Mare assault day, but make it fun for everyone. The idea of dark mares with Razorwind and Firestorm on such fast casts that they can chain 4-5 before you can hit a dreamsoul elemen is beyond retarded. If Dark Mares are just going to put their backs to walls/portals while they chain cast those two arts, might as well skip dreaming on Wednesday nights all together.
If this is accurate, I'm glad I missed it...
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Sidious
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidious »

The only time I thought it was lame was entering the portal, razor. Your back is completely protected. The ability to come in and shatter before we can even see your avatar is a game limitation and not sure anything can be done about that.
Briggs
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Re: dark mares

Post by Briggs »

Sorry guys, I usually have a lot of fun fighting darkmaes, but last night I didn't. Looking over my logs from last night over the course of about hour I was Razorwinded 33 times and Firestormed 7 times. Razorwind was consistently hitting for 40 full damage nearly every evoke. I was collapsed 8 times, losing about 88k xp. I collapsed Bhegwir once for 20k xp and ViiRiis once for 40k xp. Overall, I lost 28k xp and probably 80% of the items I had in my pack. At one point at the end, Kruugaar was able to keep 15+ of us confined in the sanctuary because of his razorwinding.

If there's already 4 darkmares, it seems like over kill to be razorwinding, especially that much and that close together. Below are the logs of all the razorwinds from last night, take a look at how far apart some of those are, and keep in mind, each one is hitting for 40 full damage.

21:41:30: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:41:42: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!
21:41:49: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:41:53: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:41:56: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:42:00: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:42:16: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!

21:46:30: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!

21:48:21: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!
21:48:22: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!
21:48:30: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:48:32: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:48:34: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!
21:48:37: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

21:51:53: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:51:59: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:04: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:15: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:19: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:21: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:24: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:52:26: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

21:53:47: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:54:08: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
21:54:14: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

22:17:51: A Firestorm rages upon and around you!

22:20:02: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:20:11: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

22:32:35: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:32:43: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:32:50: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:32:55: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:32:58: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:33:14: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

22:34:16: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:34:47: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:35:03: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!
22:35:03: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

22:41:22: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

22:44:04: A Razorwind rages upon and around you!

Take a look at how close some of those are together. The last grouping there is the worst when we were fighting only Kruugaar by himself. He evokes it at 22:34:47: then double evokes it at 22:35:03 casting it twice in the same second. That did a full 80 damage to everyone in the room, collapsing pretty much everyone.

If the goal of last night was to make DMs feared, you succeeded. IF that continues though, most people will see that the possible xp gained is not worth the xp and items you lose to fight them and will choose instead to stay in sanctuary when they are around.
Koi-Alastar

Re: dark mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

Above concern is definitely noted.

However, our goal is in no way to make sure people come out of a DM fight with more xp than they started with, and certainly not everyone in a room of 20 dreamers. You also must remember that many players did not collapse at all due to various reasons. It's difficult to be a challenge for 7th Spheres w Restorers in Sanc who are also portal hopping while still being fair to lower chars.
Zed Lagoon
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Re: dark mares

Post by Zed Lagoon »

Sorry but... They are Darkmares and they are here to collapse you by any means.. If you stay in the sanctuary then I believe that the DMs have succeeded in the end. Razorwinding over and over again definitely sucks though but in the end.. Think about how many dreamers and how many arts the mares have evoked on them especially from 20 dreamers in a room..


Look at it from both sides, if I was too fight majority of our population I would use any and everything possible to succeed.

-Lu Chaos
Sidas
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidas »

Zed Lagoon wrote:Sorry but... They are Darkmares and they are here to collapse you by any means.. If you stay in the sanctuary then I believe that the DMs have succeeded in the end. Razorwinding over and over again definitely sucks though but in the end.. Think about how many dreamers and how many arts the mares have evoked on them especially from 20 dreamers in a room..


Look at it from both sides, if I was too fight majority of our population I would use any and everything possible to succeed.

-Lu Chaos
Except Dark Mares aren't there to collapse dreamers. They're there to entertain the players. Razorwind spam is not entertaining, particularly when it involves back-to-wall stuff. It's obviously generally an accident but it shouldn't happen. It might be a good idea to just have the DM controllers practice on the test server until they know how to avoid the walls, and keep them out of the game until then. Otherwise you risk making people just log out when the mares show up and that isn't fun for anyone.
Sidious
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidious »

You have to look at xp as part of ul's economy. There are xp sinks out there and the dark mares are one of them. So yes, partially they are there to collapse dreamers. For that and for fear factor and challenge.

If you only want to win, sanctuary is a fine place to be during attacks.

The razor spam was easy enough to keep up with for a low orbit 5th sphere except for that one double that had to have been lag related. Otherwise, all of my collapses were from not cancelling abjure to hit dreamsoul, hoping to get the art off first.

It's a matter of preparation and quick thinking. I was there for the entire ordeal and my pack is still fine, and no one can say I wasn't in the middle of it the whole time because I was. Dreamsoul took the biggest hit, chakrams are fine since Sid is mainly trying to abjure and then lead the mare into exposing their backs.

My only note would be to Kru for the occasional razor just inside the portal, probably not thinking about it. And the ic chatter to kru was just that. He's one of my favorite mares
Sidas
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidas »

Yes but you have to remember that you're in the top 5% of UL Fighting ability. There's another 95% that is going to hate fighting those odds.

As Alastar said it's a slippery slope to worry about but it's probably better to end up on the side of too easy than so hard that people quit.
Zed Lagoon
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Re: dark mares

Post by Zed Lagoon »

If you feel that your combat skills are not up to par then stay in the sanctuary. It's that simple Sidas bro. The Darkmares are mean't for the big leagues anyways. For people that love the combat aspect of the game. It cannot be made easy. These beings are the sworn enemy of the dreamers. If you want easy XP then they put the mares in place just for that. Emphants, Bogroms, Agoknights. All easy XP.

I apologize if my words are a bit to frank but it's honest.

Now the occasional razorwinds and things like that are fine. If a horron is wall hugging then it's obviously because it's casting an art or something like that. Other than that I see the darkmares running around trying to collapse with their fire power.
Tobyz Friend
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Re: dark mares

Post by Tobyz Friend »

I have no problem fighting dark mares, or getting collapsed. My problem comes from the fact that the dark mares were purposefully chain casting razorwind and firestorm instead of actually fighting. Yes there are "rooms full" of dreamers wanting to attack the dark mares, there always have been. The thing that has changed now is that we have a handfull of really high sphere dreamers, and now the dark mares are geared towards being able to stand up to them, so everyone else is f'd out of the fun of dark mare attacks. The vulnerable spot of a dark mare is not very big, so it can be quite difficult for dreamers to hit. When you have a DM driver who is really good at it, that just makes the mare last longer in fights. But when the DM driver resorts to wall hugging, or portal hugging/hoping it's just as bad as dreamers doing it, with the exception that the dark mares are invulnerable from the front when they are doing their chain casting while hugging the portal or wall. Yes, I know Dark Mares are supposed to be a big bad menace to the dream, but it is also supposed to be fun when trying to engage them (has nothing to do with XP loss or being collapsed), if that part is lost, then they just become something to avoid at all costs.
Sidas
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidas »

Zed Lagoon wrote:If you feel that your combat skills are not up to par then stay in the sanctuary. It's that simple Sidas bro. The Darkmares are mean't for the big leagues anyways. For people that love the combat aspect of the game. It cannot be made easy. These beings are the sworn enemy of the dreamers. If you want easy XP then they put the mares in place just for that. Emphants, Bogroms, Agoknights. All easy XP.

I apologize if my words are a bit to frank but it's honest.

Now the occasional razorwinds and things like that are fine. If a horron is wall hugging then it's obviously because it's casting an art or something like that. Other than that I see the darkmares running around trying to collapse with their fire power.
I'm not talking about myself "bro".
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Fistandantilis
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Re: dark mares

Post by Fistandantilis »

DMs are supposed to be overwhelming and require excellent teamwork. I lean toward making them to hard to beat than to easy. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.
Koi-Alastar

Re: dark mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

The concerns about spamming Razorwind are definitely noted.

I will say that 99% of the time, none of us have had our backs to the wall for the exact reasons stated here. Yes, there have been accidents. But none of us have ever stood against a wall on purpose and chained Razorwind just to "win". We also avoid portal hopping unless we are chasing a specific dreamer who is doing it.

Ideally, we could have mares that are geared towards the lower Spheres, but then the higher ones would just own them. Our only recourse really is to reduce the number of mares present, which we did do over the course of the night as we realized it was a bit heavy handed.
Noidea
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Re: dark mares

Post by Noidea »

Would more player mares help? They could be the less powerful equivalent of GM darkmares and the GM darkmares could be the big ones?
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Sidious
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Re: dark mares

Post by Sidious »

I understand what you're saying, sidas I just think that everyone can have their chance when single dark mares are in. We don't need tman, kage, or Sid on the floor for single mares and maybe in game those fighter characters could let others have a chance, sort of training and we take a back seat and help with arts.

On Wednesday or any other big push day, I think I speak for at least a few others, we want a challenge to overcome and others may need to take their turn partied and providing arts. So, next single mare incursion, I'm going to take my own advice.
Dina

Re: dark mares

Post by Dina »

Well, you all did want Wednesday Mare Night....

The razorwinds and firestorms could be left out, they are already strong enough as it is, being able to use elemens and etc.

This teaches the dreamers to come up with plans and not just run out there with just a few shooting at them. Gotta plan and strategize!

BRING IT! (as long as I can stand in sanc and heal)
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Koi-Wish
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Re: dark mares

Post by Koi-Wish »

Briggs/Toby'z its real easy guys. You don't like the RWing then get out of the room and go to Thresh Pits. I was driving Kruu Wednesday nite. I chain Razorwinded many times - but there was a point to it. When I first entered a room yes, I would RW - scatter the masses, and then engage in hand to hand in the middle of the room or chase someone down. Then when left an opening I would RW and rinse repeat as players scattered like roaches in different directions. To maintain King of the Hill in a room, when an assault came at me I would RW chain again, trying to break their spirits. Sometimes it was effective, sometimes not so much. When I RW thru a portal I would ALWAYS step forward before I popped it - ask TMans controller, a number of times when I popped thru he was on my tail and hitting me in the back before I could get a RW or two off. Just because YOU couldn't reach my back doesn't mean I was backed UP to the portal/wall - I would appreciated the accusations of such things to stop, because it simply didn't occur end of story and there's no reason to cause turmoil on the forums because it keeps getting thrown at me.

My additional points are these: 1) Folks were saying the DMs were too easy. Well, we stepped up our game a bit. Wasn't that easy this time. And there were 4 DMs dreaming - that's NOT going to end well for dreamers. But you all stuck around to try anyways. No one said you had to. 2) When your up on ledges of Ambuscade your doing it to protect yourselves, right? So RW/FS is a very effective way to remove that safety net. Otherwise you can stay up there and do what you please and WE have to like that. Because I did something that made that security blanket in jeopardy, folks cry foul. Sorry I just don't see it. Chained or not. 3) You didn't have to be out there to restore and art your fellow combatants down below - Like Dina said, she was in Sanc and restoring and arting her group mates and being extremely effective not to mention more helpful to them since she didn't have to run/scatter. NO DarkMare has an answer for you IN a sanc, its your version of backing against a wall and being invulnerable. 4) And finally TACTICS, figure out a way to win! At the end of the nite, Kage, Kailoth, Sid, Briggs, Tman, a number of combatants all got it together and beat Kruu down like he was an emphant in the Pits. We aren't unstoppable. I was beaten soundly once the right elements were put into play - Multiple times. The sit and wait and just WIN tactice against DMs might just not work anymore... The game is about having fun... I had fun winning and losing - and was quite proud of the players when they figured out how to beat me down. Good job.
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