Griefing Arkfalls (Revolting Hellbugs and AoE Attacks)

[JxSiN]

I don't think you guys understand. I find it funny the people who take the time to type out huge sentences at arkfalls because people are killing skitterlings. Use that time to shoot stuff. To complain that someone is making it take longer when you yourself are spending minutes to type is kind of ironic. But, just in case you didn't know, it is either noobs or pros killing the skitterlings. The people in the middle are the ones complaining.

Reasons to kill skitterlings:
1) The arkfall pursuit (arkhunting as a way of life III)
2) The combat pursuit (living to kill V)
3) Ammo (the skitterlings drop it. If you run out of ammo, you can't shoot anything anyway)
4) More rewards (namely ark salvage, either in the form of ark salvage or weapons to be broken down. I make about 11-15 or more keys per arkfall because of ark salvage. That's a mod box right there)
5) If 40+ players can't clear all the crystals in the given time, that's kind of sad
6) Instant grenade refreshes! Not revealing the perk/nade combo, but I can throw 3-4 sometimes more grenades in a row, which not only damages the skitterlings but all other baddies caught in the blast, crystal too about half the time for some weird reason)

Hints:
1) Wait til a skitterling bites a hole, then destroy everything (timing is key more than complaining that people are killing skitterlings).
2) Stop skitterlings from going cocoon. If a skitterling has been on the screen for a bit, it could go cocoon and pop out a warrior or an archer
3) Spread the heck out on crystals! This game scales difficulty based on how many people are in an area. There are 4-5 crystals up, why should 40 people just be on the same one. Spread out, makes the mobs easier, makes the crystals easier, makes the arkfall quicker.

An example. Me and another person (just the 2 of us) were breezing through a scrapper arkfall. Taking out all the crystals or whatever those are was swift. We get to the Progenitor. The first time it went to repair, the 2 of us knocked it down to half-life. The arms were a breeze, and the mobs barely scratched us. 2 more people showed up, and the difficulty more than doubled. Now 4 people didn't even do half the dmg me and the other guy did, and the repair took longer cuz it repaired 4 arms instead of 3. The mobs didn't go down in one clip, it more than doubled the difficulty.

I've been playing since day 1, I grind ark salvage, I'm going to kill the skitterlings, and I'm also going to go to a crystal where no-one is. If I don't place first I am in top 3 as long as I am trying and I get there within 3-5 minutes of it starting.

Don't call people noobs when you aren't exactly pro, man. Just sayin'

[Nyako]

I don't think you guys understand. I find it funny the people who take the time to type out huge sentences at arkfalls because people are killing skitterlings. Use that time to shoot stuff. To complain that someone is making it take longer when you yourself are spending minutes to type is kind of ironic. But, just in case you didn't know, it is either noobs or pros killing the skitterlings. The people in the middle are the ones complaining.

Reasons to kill skitterlings:
1) The arkfall pursuit (arkhunting as a way of life III)
2) The combat pursuit (living to kill V)
3) Ammo (the skitterlings drop it. If you run out of ammo, you can't shoot anything anyway)
4) More rewards (namely ark salvage, either in the form of ark salvage or weapons to be broken down. I make about 11-15 or more keys per arkfall because of ark salvage. That's a mod box right there)
5) If 40+ players can't clear all the crystals in the given time, that's kind of sad
6) Instant grenade refreshes! Not revealing the perk/nade combo, but I can throw 3-4 sometimes more grenades in a row, which not only damages the skitterlings but all other baddies caught in the blast, crystal too about half the time for some weird reason)

Hints:
1) Wait til a skitterling bites a hole, then destroy everything (timing is key more than complaining that people are killing skitterlings).
2) Stop skitterlings from going cocoon. If a skitterling has been on the screen for a bit, it could go cocoon and pop out a warrior or an archer
3) Spread the heck out on crystals! This game scales difficulty based on how many people are in an area. There are 4-5 crystals up, why should 40 people just be on the same one. Spread out, makes the mobs easier, makes the crystals easier, makes the arkfall quicker.

An example. Me and another person (just the 2 of us) were breezing through a scrapper arkfall. Taking out all the crystals or whatever those are was swift. We get to the Progenitor. The first time it went to repair, the 2 of us knocked it down to half-life. The arms were a breeze, and the mobs barely scratched us. 2 more people showed up, and the difficulty more than doubled. Now 4 people didn't even do half the dmg me and the other guy did, and the repair took longer cuz it repaired 4 arms instead of 3. The mobs didn't go down in one clip, it more than doubled the difficulty.

I've been playing since day 1, I grind ark salvage, I'm going to kill the skitterlings, and I'm also going to go to a crystal where no-one is. If I don't place first I am in top 3 as long as I am trying and I get there within 3-5 minutes of it starting.

Don't call people noobs when you aren't exactly pro, man. Just sayin'

Well said man, thank you for that very informative post. Hope people actually read it because it is full of very useful information and reasons.

And like you I've notice that killing skitterlings and getting to the ark falls within the first five mins leads me to being in the top 3 at times. The longer it takes me to get to the ark falls the lower on the list it puts me though, but still I can almost always be within the top 10 and miss a whole arkfall crystal area. Just don't go healer in that case.

[Conceit]

Maybe if players aren't moving as fast or doing what you want them to do then public MMO games might not be the best of choice. I always found it odd in that other game I play that instead of using the solo option for a mission the person specifically chooses to play with public players that may inconvenience them by being slower.

Have you tried joining a different phase to relieve this issue of other players impeding you?

For me, it really has noting to do with players not being "fast enough," but rather having other players turn something that is moderately fun into a tedious chore. Chewing down a crystal without weakspots is like watching grass groww. When it is done just so they can prove that no one can make them play in a cooperative manner it is quite frustating.

Then there are the Arkfalls that wipe because of AoE spam. I am pretty sure no one enjoys slugging through 3 or 4 crystals that have been made to take as long as possible only to get nothing in the end. This has honestly happened to me more in the last week than the "missing crystal" glitch, but you can't really ask Trion to "fix" basic thoughtlessness.

[Newsin]

Nobody is saying DONT KILL SKITTERLINGS AT ALL! Just give it two seconds to let them do what their INTENDED purpose is and let them nomnom the crystal once that done shoot away. Its not that difficult.

[Nyako]

Or just find a crystal no one is at and do it your way until people come? That is always a solution to this as well.

I kind of like one of the other posts on the other thread though, just do away with the destroy crystal ark falls period. We'd still have ark falls and people wouldn't be whining about people not letting skitterlings live long enough to bite the crystals. So a win/win all the way around.

[Sanguinesun]

Im happy to see the griefers responding in the thread since it helps support what people have been complaining about in regards to this.

The issue at this point isnt the griefers, its the devs for making the decision(as far back as ignoring the concern in alpha) to not change the mechanics of the weak points in the crystals being tied into the skitterling biting them. There are more than a few options they could do to change this but simply refuse to and I believe it to be a stubborn sticking point for them.

1. They could create timed skitterlings that cannot be targeted or killed that chew the crystals then die after doing so(and do not bug the arkfall).

2. They could simply time the weak spots to appear automatically(using a similar code they used on the sieges with the capture points that would get puss balls on them that randomly would appear/disappear based on damaging. -This- would be one of the easiest of changes to implement since some of the base code is there. EGO could simply be revised to say "target the weak points on the crystal" or something to similar effect.

3. Remove the weakspots altogether, make the crystal's damage scale different and let all the nade-***** go to.

4. Make arkfall skitterlings immune to aoe weapons(impractical design change but there you go).

5. Replace hellbug red crystal arkfalls permanently with blue ones instead.

6. Make hellbugs randomly drop a goo type item that the player has to melee attack the crystal with(1 shot) that creates a weak spot made by the player(similar to the other red crystal arkfalls of other enemy types using weapons.

And I could go on. Again at this point its not the griefers that are the issue, its the developers having groomed a segment of the player base to be griefers with a poor game mechanic.

[Nyako]

Thank you Sanguinesun, that would work any one of those 6 options would work. I'd favor no. 5 in the removing the red crystals permanently for the blue ones. But I've played games in the past that had bugs in it where characters could strip everything off their characters except an unmodified weapon and attack a boss. The boss would do all his moves and do zero damage to the player. They could make skitterlings immune to everything. However, then that would also mean that skitterlings would be forever becoming warriors.

And by the way, I'm in no way a griefer. If I was a griefer, you can bet the servers would be permanently down just to stop the whining. I'm no average developer either, but I do not grief others for I've a reputation to keep not just in this game, but in others as well. I've had to hunt down griefers before and I've had to expose cheaters and secure systems from those types of people, so...

[JxSiN]

Seriously, you're calling me a griefer because I give rational reasons as to why you should kill skitterlings? Man, my reputation backs me up as a decent player (I wouldn't call myself the grand pu-bah or whatever), but I am far from a griefer. But I tell you what, if we are ever at the same arkfall, I'll give you some cheese to go with that whine.

[Conceit]

So. "pros kill skitterlings" to spam instanly refeshing nades that sometimes damage the crystal (at a huge penalty). You know, warriors, archers and blastpods drop plenty of ammo and you don't find yourself needing as much ammo when the crystal has week spots.

I am sure "pros" know that arkfals are ranked on damage and thanks to the bounus for hitting the weak spot you can do way more dps slamming them for crits.

When "pro" behavior is hard to tell from "noob" behaviour it might mean something. Just sayin'.

[Sanguinesun]

Seriously, you're calling me a griefer because I give rational reasons as to why you should kill skitterlings? Man, my reputation backs me up as a decent player (I wouldn't call myself the grand pu-bah or whatever), but I am far from a griefer. But I tell you what, if we are ever at the same arkfall, I'll give you some cheese to go with that whine.

Not sure how speaking intentionally ambiguously of how there have been comments by some who most readers would recognize as being "griefers" to be specifically a targeted response to you. It wasn't. It was collectively to the whole of people posting in effect "Im going to do as I please and screw the rest of you" sort of sentiment conveyed and how that helps to support a more important premise as a whole: a bad game mechanic.

The point of stating that was not to essentially call out the griefers but to use it as proof that players have been groomed by the mechanic in a counter intuitive way to the game features cooperative design. That is the core point that is desiring change: change the mechanic of a cooperative game design so that it actually is wholly cooperative and not us versus them.

The feeling by me due to the sheer length of time and lack of transparency of response with change to the mechanic even from alpha days reflects that the devs dont see it as a problem. The thread showing folks who are conflicting with each other and showing that a segment of the players intend to keep going counter to the mechanic on purpose for their varied reasons that they feel justified with is a good thing because it helps show the devs more proof on the flaw of their design.

Thus Jxsin if you feel you fell into that category for what ever reason it matters not to me. It wasn't a specific targeting to you. Im targeting the devs.