One step forward, two steps back.

Alright, I've got some Clan Lord bitching to get off my chest. Those of you who come here for the SM have been getting a lot of Clan Lord related entries lately, but what can I say? I've been playing more Clan Lord. When I can't do SM play, I play Clan Lord. A guy like me has gotta play, one way or another...

So here's the problem. Players in Clan Lord get stronger and stronger. What used to be a challenging hunting ground for the top 10% of players, becomes easy. Now it's challenging for the top 20%, but easy for the top 10%. Then it becomes easy for the top 30%...

You see where this all goes.

Now, with slaughter in place, there's no real gain to be had for a strong player to hunt an easy area, except in some clever arrangment where the strong player helps weaker players. I thought Clan Lord was supposed to encourage that type of play. It's not an exploit when a strong player helps weaker players. It's a design feature, or that's my understanding.

Now for me personally, super-challenging areas like Orga Outback and Umbrion's Island, which require coordinated, organized assualts of large masses of players are not fun at all. I know I lot of people love those place, and it's good we have them. But they don't offer me, and people like me, any fun. That's okay, though, because we've got a few areas good for smaller groups. A small few, but a few.

Though, now, I have one less.

Delta Tao looks at the advancing player strength, and sees they need to periodically "rebalance" things. Rebalancing in and of itself isn't unreasonable, and there are lots of ways to do it.

The laziest way to do it is simply take a creature and make it stronger. Just boost it's stats. What a player once could kill, now they can't even hit.

Fun fun fun!

That's what happened to Tree Giants. So the Tree Giant Breeding Grounds, a place I used to be able to engage in fun, challenging hunts (though only occasionally, since the spawns are so dodgy, because that's another way to "rebalance" and slow players down, but that's a different rant) is no longer available to me. What I once could hit I can't hit.

Did they add a new type of Tree Giant? No. Is there any in-game reason for the Tree Giants now walking around in Teflon suits? No. Just a GM turns a knob, and viola, "extra challenge."

All I know is I have one less place to go and have fun. I'm not even looking to get any experience or any other type of gain here, I just am dying for some variety, and few choices of places to hunt with my friends. Less choices are always bad.

Never mind the poor bastard who just signed up with Clan Lord last month. With the way the difficulty knob gets turned up to keep pace with the strongest 10%, that poor bugger will never reach the lofty goal of being able to solo a feral. Large vermine will soon require 300 atkus just to hit them.

Can someone at DT swear on a stack of bibles that with the exception of AI tweaks, and initial corrections, they will stop screwing around with critter stats? That's the most lame ass, lazy, disrespectful way to add to challenge to the game that I can think of. What's next? Making the weapons weaker? Lowering everyones stats across the board?

Add new creatures, add new areas, that's how you add challenge. We need more options, not less.

Yes, I'm cranky as hell about this. And the usual disclaimers apply: Yes, I enjoy a lot of the game, so don't tell me to quit. I'm not saying the people at Delta Tao are stupid, I respect them. But that doesn't mean I agree with the policy of upping critter stats. No, I'm not looking for easy gains with no effort. Just stop screwing with existing creatures!

Ok, now I'll wipe the froth off my chin and go have a drink.
posted 6:12 PM | link |