LDoN Raid (Ruj) and an unexpected surprise

[EZ_St HotPants]

Did a LDoN Raid last night, the Ruj Hills. Zoned into the instance and start clearing and moving no problem. Then we got unexpected surprise #1...

The goblin slaves we were fighting, after having some damage done to them, would turn and RUN mid fight towards the nearest unaggro'd mob. When they did this there was a message (goblin slave runs off to find some friends! or something similiar) but the goblins were no where near that low hp turn and run threshold.. They would be like 90%. They ran directly to the nearest unaggro'd mob. We tried rooting, snaring, and stunning but the general consensus was they either didn't hold, didn't work, or didn't last. Because of the anti-pull coding we weren't pulling mobs very far to the raid.. more of a kill and move raid. What I want to know is who the he|| came up with that brainstorm of coding. Mobs that run off at high speed once damaged and train friends on you is VERY frustrating... not to mention hard as he|| to hit because they are constantly moving.

Surprise #2 came from the "Avenger" mob types. The casters were reporting some sort of spell reflection on them. I saw the mage in our group drop about 2k in hitpoints every time he nuked these mobs. This was very frustrating for us because we were low on melee dps and very high on caster dps.

I am not against changes or innovations to the mobs AI or something new that makes you step back and potentially change your tactics but I do know that I was frustrated to no end by the running goblin slaves and the casters were afraid to even use lower level nukes if they weren't full health.

Anybody else have opinions on this type of thing with ldon raids?

[EZ_kaladornus]

Sounds like a ton of fun. More importantly you got to experience it with no spoiler whatsoever.

This might be the finest moment in your gaming career.

Cherish it

[EZ_Riot Sio Zon]

Raids are meant to be a little tricky and give guilds different things to encounter. I can see how that might have been annoying, but I think it is a good thing overall. Variety in what happens in the EQ world can't be that bad, considering many people have been whining for exactly that, forever.

The running mobs seems a bit much, but what were they doing exactly? Running to the nearest mob and grabbing a friend or just running away and sending a train your direction?

If they were only bringing back a friend or two each time then just expect that slaves will run off and get friends. Anytime you fight a slave it is a guaranteed 3 mob pull or such. If they are just running like a normal mob and pulling large trains then that seems a bit out of wack as there really isn't anything that can be done.

[EZ_Legends Horizon]

Heh, that's awesome. Props to SOE.

[EZ_St HotPants]

the running goblin slaves once damaged would run to the nearest unaggro'd mob and stop at that mob. The problem is that it happened regardless of how many were in camp... most of those pulls were 3-5 slaves and each one when damaged would run to get "friends" which would aggro 1-4 more. At points it was a nasty chain train aggro effect.

The other annoying "feature" of this is because the mob turns and runs it is almost impossible for the MT/MA to generate any aggro let alone enough aggro to lock a mob.. the casters try desperately to burn them down before they reach their friends but once they do (and most times they did) they headed back and started beating the snot out of the casters cuz the MT/MA had virtually no aggro generated. I was generally lucky to get 2-3 backstab attempts per mob and many times I had 0 BS chances... I almost broke out my bow and tried to be a pseudo-ranger

[EZ_Orme the Singing Bard]

That rocks. I am really looking forward to doing more of these.

[EZ_patofnaud]

When I did my one MM Raid, what I saw interesting..

I was scouting the first big room, was at the top of some stairs so monk/MA could not see what was in room. I SoS to the top of the stairs, look around, ok standard room, about 8 mobs spread around, all static, nothing unusual.

So I back down the stairs (doing like being near monks when AE's go off ) and tell the monk, ok you are looking at blah blah blah, he gets up, runs to the top aggros and is slain by about 20 mobs... WTF!!??

Drag him down, go back up and watch room while waiting for him to get rezzed.. There are the 8 mobs still standing. Where the heck did the other 12+ come from??

After a few minutes what do I see? About 6 mobs come RUNNING into the room from the right, spread out in the room, play musical chairs, they RUN back out!

I've seen roamers but these were insane! Then I start creepping around the room and what do I find? Cape'd mobs LAYING DOWN inside coffins!

So what looked like a standard room, actually have 8 standing statics, a few prone coffin mobs, and this wave of 6 or 7 roamers on crack concaine that will chain aggro the room.

With 3 good full groups it took us about 30 mins to come up with a clean strat to clear this room and move on.. After that we were able to crawl along. That is until we met this red con (at 65) who lifetaped for 1500 enough to make Venril Sathir go "Gawd damn you proc a lot!".

[EZ_Derrict]

mobs laying in the coffin is the same as mobs on normal mode. it's nothing unique to the raid situation.

[EZ_Rinalthelis]

Man these sound like fun, I can't wait to get my guild into this content! Everyone needs to pay attention, no mind numbing chain pulling... a real puzzle with a big motivation not to screw up. Now THAT's a game!

[EZ_patofnaud]

Quote:mobs laying in the coffin is the same as mobs on normal mode. it's nothing unique to the raid situation.I 'know' that. But I had not seen it in such concentration in regular raids, nor had I ever saw that wave of fast running roamers before.

[EZ_Shaethius]

Nothing like zoning into a LDoN Raid where 12 1k hitting mobs are withing aggro range of the zone in.

[EZ_kaladornus]

AE AE AE lol

[EZ_Aaarn Corpse]

Quote:

Mobs that run off at high speed once damaged and train friends on you is VERY frustrating... not to mention hard as he|| to hit because they are constantly moving.



So it's ok for you to do this to the mob, but they cant do it to you?

How do you think fennin feels when some punk ws ranger comes barging into his lair, only to follow him around the corner to see an army of gnomes? I say be a man, your raid vs. their raid. Edited by: Aaarn Corpse at: 10/7/03 1:28 pm

[EZ_Coray]

The goblins don't have some sort of advanced AI just for the raid, the pathing is just horrific on them and if you do the raid in question you'll be able to see and tell.

[EZ_Cily]

"The goblins don't have some sort of advanced AI just for the raid, the pathing is just horrific on them and if you do the raid in question you'll be able to see and tell. "

Then why did he mention there was a very specific emote stating the goblins were running for friends?

Why do they stop when they reach another mob?

You sure you know what you are talking about?

Cily

[EZ_Riot Sio Zon]

One more question for you then on the running goblins. Are they taking off almost immediately? 50%? 25%? Because if they take off immediately (or almost) then the wizards need to back off and let the tank (and melees) knock it down a bit so it runs. Then it comes back with friends and the friends are attacking the tanks.

If it waits till 50% to run then I can't see why the tank has agro problems. The nukers need to realize as soon as it runs it is not a target. Stop nuking and let it get the friends and then you can continue.

Some of this will take a bit of strategy and some learning. It is fresh and new, and some of these puzzles are quite interesting. They are all doable though.

Stop walking into the fight with the same old mentality. These guys might be doing something a bit different. They might actually take a bit of organization and attention. Now all those causal gamers that call us uber guild people skilless, can find out which uber guild people have skill, and which don't. The raids just got harder. Now everyone has to be paying attention, and figuring out what is going on so the raid can progress and succeed. I love it.

I would just say switch your strategy up. Since they go get a friend or two only (even if 4 of them do this) then plan accordingly. Give your off tanks and enchanters something to do. Or I would work on getting less of the goblins back to camp at one time. Or only hurting one at a time where it runs to get friends. Remember mobs that would split on death...these may have to be treated in such a way. Many different possibilities, most different from the main line mentality of straight up slaughter. Edited by: Riot Sio Zon at: 10/7/03 2:40 pm

[EZ_kaladornus]

Edit - nm, not worth it LOL Edited by: kaladornus at: 10/7/03 2:37 pm

[EZ_Yella01]

I think the problem is that you're expecting LDoN raids to be like regular ones, where you go in, kill some named in the usual way, and get your loot. These raids obviously are not that way, and each is different in quirky ways, and you need to work out a strat to deal with the situations you face.

Mobs reflect spells cast on them, forcing nukers to stand down? This isn't so different from a mob AEing slow on melee. Just develop different tactics to circumvent the problem.

The mobs that run off, I seem to remember reading something about that on another thread. It is possibly a behaviour that is triggered once they have been agroed for a certain length of time, if that is the case then you need to kill them quickly. They are probably coded to do that, which means there is a specific tactic that the developers had in mind for you to use to beat them. Just do a bit of experimenting and solve the problem.

[EZ_Werty Sylverblade]

I am SO TOTALLY in agreement with kaladornus...

CHERISH the fact that you got to experience something ALTOGETHER NEW in EQ.

What a gift.

[EZ_Finnseach]

I saw the train-to-friends behaviour during Beta. The idea is to grab X goblins at a time where X depends on the raid difficulty. If you don't aggro X goblins, they will all run back to their friends.

I also think this is ingenious from Verant. MT with CH rotation can only go so far you know.

[EZ_Brodda Thep]

Keep playing with those goblins and you will figure it out. So far no one has been right. But they are fairly easy to deal with and pull once you figure it out.

[EZ_Saric Saric]

they hit for like 300 or somthing and have low hp. let them train ffs keeps @#%$ interesting. As for the mirrior effect anyone with half a brain can fix that.

[EZ_Remelio Gemweaver]

As far as I know.. mirror only effects DD spells

[EZ_Morgrist]

Not true.

That reflect will bounce slows,DOTs,lifetaps,etc. Not HT's and I don't believe Manaburn either.

Dispels on the casters are indeed the order of the day. Try pulling with pumice stones and that ought to tick it off enough to matter.

As for the gobbies- are they rootables? Pull with a non-damaging effect (like an SK Torrent or Vortex) and then lay into it with the earth pets and keep that little run snared bigtime. Darkness,Darkness,mega snares,whatever.

I delight in hearing about stuff like this. It's out-of-the-box thinking for Sony, and it makes me blink when I actually see Furor ENJOY something. It appears there's something in his twisted blackened heart that finds LDoN raiding fun.

Who'd of thought?

[EZ_Narith]

Avengers are there to slow your raid down. Basically nothing you can do to them cast wise, it has to be a pure melee battle as they have innate 100% reflect (can't dispell)... procs work, and haven't tried AE spells though since reflect with players doesn't touch AEs they might be an option. But this is nothing you can't find about if you run a search.

As for the mobs getting more friends..... I'll give you a very easy hint, watch how long between when they are agroed (pulled) and when they run I think you will find a pattern .

[EZ_skeet]

Might be worth figuring out which mobs are linked together and taking them out in pairs that way. ie. Discover who each goblin slave is "friends" with and get em both at once.

Unless of course they fixed it so the slaves will path to ANY unaggro'd mob close by - but this would be a tricky bit to work out on pathing methinks.

What happens if you pacify the nearest mobs while fighting slaves? Will they still aggro when the slave runs up to them?

Sounds kinda cool actually - would be fun to try one out sometime soon.

[EZ_Nazak1]

I'm almost certain that our raid was able to dispell the mirror effect on at least one occasion. I do not believe this is an innate ability.

[EZ_Myriala]

*spoiler*

What I've seen on beta raids is that if there is less than a certain number of goblins in the room (4 as I recall) AND one of them is aggroed AND the person on top of its aggro list isn't in melee range, the goblin will flee to get some help.

Only ways to avoid this are :
-Keep the goblins mezzed.
or
-Make sure that the guy on top of the aggro list is in melee range with said goblin.

[EZ_MGCROC]

This sounds cool but our guild has taken a rather reluctant approach to LDon because Time is the aim, and I think Ldon rewards so far have not been that much impressive. But ldon have a large potential according to this info, and it sounds fun rather than made into a routine farming job. I guess this is novelty.

[EZ_patofnaud]

From todays patch:
Quote:- There was a misconception about the behavior of goblins in some Rujarkian Hills adventures. Goblins that are fleeing because they are unwilling to die or are seeking help will make it clear that they are doing so. We also corrected an issue that could cause these goblins to "ping pong" in some cases.So this definately was intended behavior.

[EZ_Hexxal]

Quote:What I've seen on beta raids is that if there is less than a certain number of goblins in the room (4 as I recall) AND one of them is aggroed AND the person on top of its aggro list isn't in melee range, the goblin will flee to get some help.

so basically they behave like they're blinded?

[EZ_patofnaud]

Basically. Except blinded mobs just flee, these flee to a friend and stop to ask for help.

[EZ_eqsunil]

We tried a Rujarkian raid one time. The Avengers' bounce effect isn't any spell listed in Lucy. When I cast DD at them, it hit for like 1/3 dmg at best (lots of full resists). Every time I hit them with DD, I took at least 1k dmg and got NO message about being hit by anything, so it wasn't aggro or rampage that just happened to hit at the same time. Smells like a poorly coded innate effect to me.

We only tried the raid once, and it's a little tough to try and figure out the correlation between the damage of the spell you cast, the damage that actually landed, and the damage you took, in the middle of a raid. Especially when the damage you take isn't reported.

[EZ_Soomesepp1]

Anyone who's saying to CHERISH the fact that you got to experience something ALTOGETHER NEW in EQ...

...probably doesn't realize that those goblins come in packs, are extremely magic resistant (need all debuffs for slow, root or snare to land), and do up to 1000 DPS each.

It mightn't be a big thing for any melee classes, but paired with the #@$%ed-up aggro, it's a huge, huge pain in the ass for debuffers and healers.

[EZ_Panamah]

I'm with Kaladornus, sounds utterly like fun. Always have wanted to see more stuff added to the game like that. I wish they'd add some to the regular group adventures.

But, I think you should be able to snare those tattle-tale mobs.

Quote:Mobs reflect spells cast on them, forcing nukers to stand down? This isn't so different from a mob AEing slow on melee. Just develop different tactics to circumvent the problem.

Obviously your wizzies need to get their reflect spells too. Then they can reflect the reflect... it'd be like shooting a laser beam at a disco ball! Edited by: Panamah at: 10/12/03 10:28 am

[DarthEnder]

aye, the fact that the goblins run for help makes total sense and is a sign of programing the mobs to act smarter.

But if you can't snare or root em...then things get complicated fast.

[EZ_Joaram]

Another thing I noticed is that the mob fleeing to get help won't hold agro if you don't follow or do something to keep agro. So don't chase or dot until he comes back.

[EZ_rani]

Hehe nice bump on a 3 month old thread

I wonder if anyone actually does LDON raids anymore? It was hard to get people to go even when they were the only thing in town, with GoD out I think I would have to hold a gun to my guildies head to get them to do a LDON raid

[EZ_kinu]

Heheh, its too bad people never did ldon because those are probably the best designed raids in all EQ. Completed them all and had a blast with them, especially learning them.

Gobs aren't bugged they are smart, in miragul too ! if they are too low in number they flee to get more After that the fun is to figure out how to deal with them

[EZ_EllessarBardofBB]

Quote:Heheh, its too bad people never did ldon because those are probably the best designed raids in all EQ. Completed them all and had a blast with them, especially learning them.

Hmmm. We talking about the same LDoN raids?

These sucked.

Hours of mindnumbling boring clearing. An entire evening wasted if a single person is afk at the wrong time. Difficulty levels definately post-Time... loot, well, pre-Time to be sure.

The limited numbers: its extremely disruptive to a guild. You are never going to have the right people on to fit the number exactly; people will always be 'left out'. and if people can't stay the whole time: you're screwed. People have to do things in the middle: you're screwed.

If you haven't done these: you didn't miss anything... you avoided something.

If you are pre-Time... start working on the Kod'Taz raids. These are simple... really, really easy. Can take up to 54 but doable with 36. Drop loot thats an upgrade to Time gear.

[EZ_Belanar]

They took too long, they were untuned and most of the loot sucked badly.

However, the designs and scripts were innovative and clever.

If they bother to revamp them I think they could be great, especially if they move them to the GoD expedition system with lockout timers and the ability to add and remove players.

I hope they do, I'd love to be able go back and do the LDoN raids again if they sucked less. They have great potential.

[EZ_eandail]

While I think the Idea of the LDoN raids was a good idea I think like they often do the first implimentation had some problems.

TOOOOOO Much trash- Every ldon raid I ever tried always seems to start off with kill these 20 billion mobs. Sure they don't respawn but you end up spending so damm much time clearing the trash that makes the whole thing take too long.

Fixed limited people- The inability to add people later, replace people who have to leave, go ld etc becomes a major problem when you combine it with the previous issue. This is even worse when you've got people who want to contribute but can't because they weren't in the raid to start off with.

Tricks in the fight- I enjoy fights that are something different and new rather than mob x hits for y and has z hps and mob x +1 hits for y+1 and has z+1 hps. Different fights do make things more interesting. Combine that with the previous 2 issues tho and your pretty much going to fail your first attempt and waste alot of time in the process and always fighting having the right people in there.

unable to retry- This really goes hand in hand with the previous issue. Due to death limits among other factors odds are if you fail you can't retry. Some trials where you split three ways your pretty much sol if one set fails even if the other 2 don't. Then you can't even retry a failed raid till the timer passes so you can't even come back the next day and try again.

No Partial reward- If you fail a ldon raid you pretty much get nothing. No mini's killed part way threw with ok drops. Random augment drops are worthless really. No you won with 2 out of 3 groups so you get 2 out of 3 chests.

From what i've seen GoD is alot better. Can invite new people to the expedition, can leave and retry raid with in a reasonable time, less pointless trash.

If they went back and made the raids expeditions so you could add people later that would be a very good first step. Redo the raids to add random drops, ldon hard drops maybe, and maybe some mini bosses along the way. Allow people to retry failed raids right away. That would significantly improve things.

[EZ_Zymurg]

Speaking of LDON Raids...

is this raid Loot?
lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=68132

Takish-Hiz Ring of Vengeance
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: FINGER
AC: 18
STA: +15 WIS: +10 INT: +10 AGI: +10 HP: +110 MANA: +80
SV FIRE: +10 SV DISEASE: +10 SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +10 SV POISON: +10
Required level of 60.
Effect: Vengeance III (Worn)
WT: 0.9 Size: SMALL
Class: WAR PAL RNG SHD MNK BRD ROG BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 2
Slot 2, Type 3