The November Great Hunt

Khizan

There's a while yet before this Great Hunt starts, so I wanted to bring this up now while there's a chance to do something about it, rather than afterwards when there's nothing left to do but complain.

Can we please have this Great Hunt done in some fashion that's NOT just a big 72 hour long block that you can only win by poopsocking it out for an entire weekend? 

It's impossible to be competitive unless you've got the entire weekend free to bash, and that means that if you've got any kind of plans or responsibilities for the weekend, there's no point in even trying to participate in the event past the participation credits, and that's frustrating as hell.

What I'd like to see is to have the 72 hour timespan broken down into 24 separate 3 hour hunts, and divide the overall credit winnings between them. As soon as one ends, the winners would be recorded and the next hunt would automatically begin. Somebody who wants to poopsock it out could still win a huge percentage of the credits, but it wouldn't be this "What, you have other things to do on a Saturday? I guess you don't get to actually participate past your pity credits" kind of thing that makes Great Hunts so incredibly infuriating right now.

Victor

It falls perfectly into my 3 days off. P-p-poopsockin time!

Apoloc

This sounds fantastic. 

Gurn

Remember folks, $2.20 an hour is nothing to scoff at! I know, I did it once!

Once. Never again.

Jeremy Saunders

Okay, we will try something like this. It will probably be in 6 hour chunks, but I am not sure.

Khizan

Six hours is better than 72 hours, but it's still so incredibly long to just be sitting at the computer bashing. And bashing. And bashing.

Let's look at it this way. I want you to do something for me as a test. Sit down at the computer at 6pm tonight. Once you're seated, I want you to press F1 every ~3.5 seconds. You can stop at midnight.

Come back tomorrow and tell me how enjoyable that was.

Sarrius

Or just staring at it while it autobashes

Dicene

Yeah, pretty sure I remember @Jeremy saying that almost any level of automation is cool, as long as you don't actually leave the computer.

6 hours is a pretty fair amount, I would say. Download an autohotkey AlwaysOnTop script. AlwaysOnTop a window with Netflix. Arrested Development. Or, you could AlwaysOnTop your mud client and play something else in the foreground. If I participate, it'll probably be while playing Path of Exile. 


Also, thank you @Jeremy for this change. I'm probably not even going to participate, but I'll be very glad to have the word Poopsock disappear for a while.

Sarrius

It will disappear until the next event.

On a serious note, I'd prefer a period of three hours rather than six. Six is approximately one quarter of an actual day. Do you really expect people to sit at their computer for a quarter of a real day for some credits, especially on Thanksgiving weekend? It's going to be six hours of them running a script and doing something else in the background, tabbing in to ensure they didn't get killed, disconnected, or banned. The amount of time the Hunt lasts doesn't really change this, but it at least removes the burden of six consecutive hours from players.

To be frank, bashing isn't mentally engaging whatsoever. That is why we automate it. I'm not mad at giving players a chance at free credits so long as they can code a competent autobasher, but come on - six hours is longer than most raid nights in other MMOs. Even three hours is kind of pushing it. The advantage those games have is that their PvE is actually interesting, as opposed to 'hit a mob. balance back. hit a mob. balance back. hit a mob'. In addition to lowering it to three hours, you could maybe consider throwing some curveballs out to make the entire thing less of an absolute snore.

Dicene

Thing is, the shorter the event, the more it's about being the quickest basher in the game. I've always appreciated that in a 72 hour event, you can have people that aren't Gurn, Lionas, or Khizan get some of the top spot, simply because they're willing to put the most effort(read: hours) into it. If you're going to turn it into something short(ish) like 3 hours, I would think that is going to lead to just top-tiers getting credits from it. If you want it to be 3-hours, maybe tier it so some non-aspects can get credits too?

Edit: Ignore that, 3 hours would also be great.

Sarrius

The Hunts are split by division already, by overall level.

Khizan

Dicene said:

Khizan 

Hahaha no.

I'd literally make more credits per hour if I went around collecting change out from under the coke machines on campus. IIRC, at the rate Great Hunts go, you only have to find like $2 an hour to manage that.

Dicene

Heh. Was more of noting your bashing ability, not your willingness to participate.

Jeremy Saunders

Okay, so at this point this is what is going to happen (finishing the code now).

• Will run in 6 hour chunks for 3 days.
• Only the top 5 get credits.
• First place gets 100 credits. Second get 50. Then 40, 30, 20.

Even though we are only awarding the top 5, this still means we are giving out more total credits then we did in the past. More people should be able to win as well. At any rate, I can still make adjustments before this is super final, so if you have any final suggestions.

Khizan

I'd like to suggest not tying people to the computer for a six hour session of pressing F1 over and over.

Iluv

3 hour sessions seem better.

Jeremy Saunders

If we go to 3 hour contests we have to reduce the prizes more. Maybe not a big deal as it averages out in the end. How much do people care between 3 or 6 hour rounds? And please post your thoughts on that. No promises.

Tahirah

Jeremy said:

If we go to 3 hour contests we have to reduce the prizes more. Maybe not a big deal as it averages out in the end. How much do people care between 3 or 6 hour rounds? And please post your thoughts on that. No promises.

Four and a half hours.

Ambrose

Jeremy said:

If we go to 3 hour contests we have to reduce the prizes more. Maybe not a big deal as it averages out in the end. How much do people care between 3 or 6 hour rounds? And please post your thoughts on that. No promises.

Sorry to say this - but bashing is boring, see Khizan's statement about F1 keys and all. 6 hours is a long time to sit in front of a computer on it's own, much less sitting in front of a computer mindlessly pressing the exact same button for that entire time. Sorry, but the Great Hunt just doesn't sound fun. I may participate because I like Imperian and want to support it and the community and the events you guys put on, but this isn't exactly the one that has most captured my interest.

Jeremy Saunders

Well, bashing is not boring for everyone. Lots of people love doing it. We have some non bashing events we are working on for December though. Should be good stuff.

Gurn

What would be even better is if this were made like achievements. You can 'activate' a 3/6 hour chunk, and bash for that time, but it'll just keep ticking down and count things you kill during that time period. If you don't use it all up, then that's fine too, it'll just count what you have.

Xeron

I actually had a similar idea to that, except a little different. What if you extended the Great Hunt time period to like, 5 days, or a week or something, and then give people a command to activate/deactivate a timer? They'd get a certain amount of hours worth of bashing time for points in those days, but they wouldn't be pigeonholed into having to waste their weekend, but instead could just do it on their own time. Would have to make it so that you couldn't deactivate for an hour or something after activating to dodge potential attempts of like activate;bash out room;deactivate or other similar scenarios.

Glijije

Jeremy Saunders

That is an interesting idea. I will have to keep that in mind for the next iteration or for a new event.

Khizan

Six hours is basically the amount of time it takes to watch The Two Towers twice in a row back to back, if that puts it in perspective. It's about the entire first season of Futurama. It's listening to Stairway to Heaven ~45 times in a row.

What I am trying to say is that's an awful lot of time to sit bashing, especially on a holiday weekend.

Kryss

Bashing for one hour is boring. Six is horrendous.

Mathiaus

Bashing in itself isn't boring necessarily, it's fighting over hunting areas as well that makes it tediously annoying.

Rynok

While I don't always mind bashing mindlessly for hours, that doesn't mean it's fun. (I'm usually doing it while also listening to music and texting friends)

I will say though that I've never been a fan of the Great Hunts because the credits simply aren't worth having no social life for the entire weekend, and that's what it takes to win. Also fighting over bashing areas is "meh" at best. You have to be on, for a long time, to have a shot...and even if you do that there is a chance your normal bashing areas will be bashed out and you'll have to scavenge (which usually means you adjust your sleep schedule so that your sleeping during prime bashing time and bashing while others sleep). None of that is exciting.

I really like the idea of running the event for a week. You get X hours to earn points, but you activate those point earning hours in 1-2 hour chunks up to the X maximum.

That way, if I have nothing to do and I need to kill and hour or two, I go bashing and listen to my music for a little while. If I do have something to do, it's no big deal and doesn't spell doom for whatever effort I'd already invested in the event. I know it's a big change to make that happen, but even if that gets implemented starting next year and going forward, that'd be a huge change over years past and much more enjoyable!

With that said, given the choice of 3hr chunks or 6hr chunks I'd opt for 3hr chunks with awards for winning cut in half. (50/25/20/15/10)

Ahkan

Best hunting events were the ones where you stood in one spot and killed your own personal wave of progressively stronger monsters. Everyone had on demand access all the time. Even if you had no chance of winning you still got x2 xp and the opportunity to use it.

The way normal hunting events run is like Rynok described. It sucks and actually limits how much you can participate.

Saddest thing is there were like 2.

Ragnar

If it's so horrendous, don't do it.

I personally think Jeremy is being fantastic by chopping it down to six hour chunks.

Say thank you already and move on.

Khizan

"He's only hitting you in the stomach when he could be kicking you in the nuts! Be grateful for it!"