Suggestion: Privatize the Brood Cave Instance - Suggestion With Solutions!

Should Aurli Brood Cave Be Privatized?


  • Total voters
    58

Captain Jack

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Background: While hunting in the Aurli Brood cave today I was pleased to see one of my favorite community members hunting a nearby spawn. Another favorable community member came in and expressed dismay at the first one's presence. It wasn't that there's any bad blood between the two - on the contrary they seem to be normally very amiable with each other. But it sparked a discussion throughout the cave wherein we all agreed upon the same problem; the "holding capacity" of the cave in the face of today's firepower.
You see, when the cave was introduced in 2013 (1) there were far fewer players who had access to the cave, as well as far less firepower in the game available. Indeed, it was not until 2017 (2) that the Terminator's fire superiority was seriously challenged, and then in 2018 with the FEN Event there was a massive increase in the community's firepower potential.


Currently: Today the number of active players operating weapon systems with significant firepower is substantially higher than it was in 2013, and consequently it only takes a few to overwhelm the effective hunting capacity of the Aurli Brood cave. If even two players of high caliber are hunting the same spawn, great care must be taken to avoid KSing the other and it becomes necessary to wait for respawns rather than efficiently transitioning from one mob to the next (as is possible when in a spawn solo). This results in frustration between players and ultimately a reduction in the enjoyment of the Entropia Universe experience.

Amplifying Information: Two systems currently function within the cave distinct from the basic hunting of Aurli Broods.
First is the boss system; after a great number of Broods have been killed, a boss mob spawns which can then be killed and has an increased chance of dropping special loot.
Second is the spawn of Aurli Larva. This presently functions similar to that of at the Oil Rig, and the system does not make much sense. Unlike the oil rig, which is accessible to all players, the Brood Cave is only accessible by those who have killed over 5,000 Aurli - a feat not likely to be accomplished by a player who sustains their game play from oil rig pickings.

Solution 1: Move the Aurli Brood mobs to their own individual instances which may be privatized. A hunter may then select the Brood of their choice and hunt them either solo or in team as they see fit.
But what about bosses?
Simply take the special loot and integrate it into the loot of the regular Broods, with the drop rate being adjusted to roughly match what it would have been had the bosses been spawned and killed.
What about Aurli Larva?
Put the Aurli Larva into the loot pool of the Aurli Broods, rather than being a free to pickup drop. This ensures continuity of supply while eliminating a system which never made sense in the first place, and rewards those who actually grind the mobs - rather than setting an alarm to log on, pick the free drops, and log off again.


Solution 2 (far less desirable): Enable the entire Aurli Brood cave to be privatized in the same way most other instances can be - through creation of the team.
But what about bosses?
Option 1 (optimal): A codex-like system could be used to track kills between different instances and enable a hunter to spawn a boss mob at the end of the codex-style tracker.
Option 2 (less desirable): All kills in private instances could contribute to the spawning of the regular boss in the public instance.
Option 3 (least desirable): Kills in private instances do not count toward the spawning of boss mobs.






Note: Sources cited are based on a brief search and not absolutely thorough investigation for precision. Consequently they reflect a "close enough" estimate rather than a precise
Sources cited:

Source 1: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...hive-a-tutorial-to-aurli-uber-bosses.223371/\
Source 2: http://entropialife.com/rareloot.aspx
 
Simply take the special loot and integrate it into the loot of the regular Broods, with the drop rate being adjusted to roughly match what it would have been had the bosses been spawned and killed.
The regular broods do drop the bones also currently, just ofc a lot less chance. So in theory it shouldn't be too problematic.

I have seen the etiquette in the hive leading to frayed tempers, when someone feels it wasn't followed, when each party saw something different. If that could be alleviated it may encourage more people to hunt there.
 
Yes, there's simply too much firepower to sustain the current playerbase in the cave. I went there today and wanted to grind unruly but it was taken. Then I went to the brood of all and it was also taken, then I went to the warren's you guessed it. It was also taken. This makes it feel like a wasted trip. In short I'm less motivated to grind on the cave if it's so over the capacity. For sure they should make it privatized. Solution 1 already partly exist though, regular broods can drop bones too just very rarely.
Imo a "wave" boss system would be ideal system imo and it should work for both privatized and regular cave. Waves of broods and then a boss is guaranteed to spawn. So basically a wave for each brood and each boss. Amount of waves and time limit is up to MA to decide.
 
Did not make my way to Cave yet. Are mobs there shared? isnt it the solution?
 
I like your suggestions, my perfrence would be to have the cyclophs depth instance solution - with global and private team instances.
If the instance timer needs to stay same length just reduced the number of kills to spawn bosses by factor 10 and reduce dropchance of bones accordingly - at this point even dread has only a chance and i wouldnt mind killing him 50 times a day at further reduced chance.
 
Bad idea, with current macro / bot hunting system, we would see too many bones around. It should stay this way, and make whole cave PvP to disable botting factor.
 
Bad idea, with current macro / bot hunting system, we would see too many bones around. It should stay this way, and make whole cave PvP to disable botting factor.

Bone drop rate can be adjusted to a fixed drop rate, like Mushrooms have been for a very long time.
 
Bone droprate has already been adjusted since snakes have scales and will likely be further adjusted when cyrene plates get their upgrades.
Mindark will only allow a set number of high quality plates to enter the universe and they decided to split the number with planet partners it seems.
So killing more broods wont suddendly increase bone number, it may only leed to more brrods killed per bone drop.
 
(n)The reason I voted no is because of botting. I won't tell people how the exploit is done, but there is a way to privatize some cave instances and you have people setting up their hunting bot there out of sight for many hours. To privatize the cave would just be to give botters more advantage. :twocents:
 
This is a great idea!
I like your suggestions, my perfrence would be to have the cyclophs depth instance solution - with global and private team instances.
If the instance timer needs to stay same length just reduced the number of kills to spawn bosses by factor 10 and reduce dropchance of bones accordingly - at this point even dread has only a chance and i wouldnt mind killing him 50 times a day at further reduced chance.
100%

Setting up the CP Cave like Cyclops Depths would alleviate a lot of the problems mentioned in Jack's post.

Fantastic idea, Jack! This makes a lot of sense. Hopefully MA is listening and seriously contemplating this change. ?
 
I understand the botting argument but at this point i hope everyone realizes that its no longer just cp that needs balanced it needs balanced against planet partners and there certainly is more snakes then broods.
 
Not sure how I feel about this...certainly much more convenient for grinders/macro users.

However, what'll probably happen if MA does make the instances private, is that MA would probably have to reduce the bone drops for balance because there would be so much more additional cycling going on in hive.
Probably end up with with a mutated bone every 50k-60k cycled :p or worse. So I guess be careful what you wish for...
 
I did not vote because I do not hunt there often enough right now. The main reason I don't is that I don't stand a chance of being there when the bosses do spawn. I think JBK's suggestion is the best idea that I see for a resolution. Making it work like the Cyclops Depths where you get into a "semi private" cave would be great. It allows for more people to access the instance to grind while at the same time also not forcing you to compete with other players just to get kills.
 
It is true that this would create a bot problem, but the solution to that is for MA to enforce the rules and stop the botters (regardless of whether the CP cave is changed).
 
I think the system is fine. There are lots of times, when the cave is nearly empty. It should stay this way.
 
I voted no, in all scenario its promoting botting.

There is far too many botters ingame and the idea to offer them a new area where they can hide and keep botting in peace should excluded at all cost.

Keep the instance as it is. The solution to your problem is to make the broods respawn faster.. they take about 30sec (some take longer in the hallway) to reappear today.
So even cutting that timer in 2 can meet the mobs quota needed for few hunters in the same cave.
Dev could recreate the cave to be more in shape (like RDI) or they can also redesign the cave to be larger in order to host many more hunters, in that scenario you could add few more mobs to each caves.

Also Re-enabeling swirl and global message for a bone, a slime or mushroom looted seems to makes sence nowadays.
 
I like the current mechanics of the cave. When I go and another is hunting the mob I wish to hunt, I either ask if I can join, or pick up adds, depending on how fast that person is killing the mobs. if they were there first, then I leave them be and go hunt something else.
 
I do not support the idea that good mobs should be in a private server where people can be afk 24/24 there.We already have pupugi for that.
Back in the day people used to interact more one to another in open world.Other players would be able to come close to a specific avatar and be able to investigate how he does it and stuff.I was highly motivated in early stages of the game to teleport to the highest level hunters and just stay near them for minutes and scan the shit out of them and just watch them how they do it.Then i started to put everything in wiki and studied for hours and started asking myself questions over and over.
Private servers where people can bot 24/7 is not the way to go.
 
I disagree with instances entirely, and the interact button as a whole. MA closed the sabakuma cave because people were botting in it and afk all day and night. I think the same approach needs to be taken for all instances. Easy way to stop it is just get rid of the interact key, make people have to manually aim at mobs again. This is in fact a game.. It can be PLAYED.
 
However I am open to instances remaining, If private instances are removed entirely and all are made public, and lootable pvp. See how fast all the cave dwelling goblins come out and see the sunlight for the first time in a year
 
I disagree with instances entirely, and the interact button as a whole. MA closed the sabakuma cave because people were botting in it and afk all day and night. I think the same approach needs to be taken for all instances. Easy way to stop it is just get rid of the interact key, make people have to manually aim at mobs again. This is in fact a game.. It can be PLAYED.
Faster respawn would indeed work nicely too, but it doesnt prevent botters - what would prevent botters would be if bosses got beefed up to have 20k+health/high lvl with a special attack that is different dmg type then standard mobs (could be a random buff on the boss that changes dmg type) - or leave bosses as they are and spawn some additional 'bouncers' randomly amoung existing spawn which would have the dmg type buff - anyone who doesnt adapt quickly would get whipe -> end of botting.
 
I don't care if anyone else is in there, I hunt the mob I'm after anyway. If the Brood turns up the other player
can have it since my reasons to go there are codex, skillgain and oils. If I'm alone I'll kill the Brood ofc.
So for me it doesn't matter if it stays the way it is. To get botting a challenge then maybe more non-static obsticales
could be around that forces players to move but not in a predicted course.
 
I don't care if anyone else is in there, I hunt the mob I'm after anyway. If the Brood turns up the other player
can have it since my reasons to go there are codex, skillgain and oils. If I'm alone I'll kill the Brood ofc.
So for me it doesn't matter if it stays the way it is. To get botting a challenge then maybe more non-static obsticales
could be around that forces players to move but not in a predicted course.
A simple thing such as disabling the interact action in cave could fix the less advanced bots
 
A simple thing such as disabling the interact action in cave could fix the less advanced bots

Could also just temp ban botters with a warning, some of them are pretty obvious, I can name atleast 3-4 players that are without a single doubt botting/macroing
 
A simple thing such as disabling the interact action in cave could fix the less advanced bots
There needs to be a way so system can't "see" the target, otherwise I guess the only kind of players that will be effected
are us who have some issues with clicking a lot.
If they gonna do something to prevent botting they should go all the way when it comes to track target but
not when it comes to reduce the amount of clicking.
 
Could also just temp ban botters with a warning, some of them are pretty obvious, I can name atleast 3-4 players that are without a single doubt botting/macroing
I could undoubtedly add another dozend botters to your list, but in the meantime mindark seems to have chosen to leave botting in the greyzone by removing all references to it out of ToS/EULA. Nevertheless putting modified random mobs in spawns wiht changing dmg type buffs i perceive as a neat way to deal with potential botting without having to proof anything.
 
Simply saying botters would bot more as an argument shouldn't hinder quality of life improvements for players, come up with a solution instead. Imo a system designed to lower the advantage of botting should be implemented. Something like making use of stamina in-game. Based on your total stamina you'll be able to hunt getting skills as usual in a set formula based of your stamina points. Your stamina will go down if you stay hunting the same mob for a set duration time (having higher stamina points would increase the amount of time you can kill that particular mob in 24h period). If you want to recover your stamina you must hunt other mobs or log out for a set amount of time. If you were to hunt for 24h a day then you'll stop getting skills alltogether. If it's like that everyday you should even receive a loot debuff.

There'll probably still be botters out there who don't care about not gaining skills but once the loot debuff kicks in for sure they'd think twice about botting 24/7 again. I think it's pretty reasonable to set a cap at 16h a day of pure hunting (any mob). Changing mobs and having more stamina would increase the amount of hunting you can do during the day before you stop getting less skills and eventually getting no skills and last a loot debuff.
As for how MA should balance it that's up to them. Maybe this would even increase hunting MU since there'd be less botting going around.
 
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