Pulling huge numbers of spawns .... aka ... a can of worms

[Auricula]

I am a bit frustrated here because I see so many folks bragging about how they farm tradeskill items buy AoEing 20+ spawns at one time. I have not done that because ....

... it is my understanding that doing that type of mass pulling is a violation of the EQ rules. I was told this a by a guide or GM (don't remember which), and lord knows they don't always give out accurate information.

Was I misinformed? Or are folks not aware the are violating the EQ code of conduct? Or do they just not care?

[Lilosh]

PnP dictates that you share and play nice.


But if nobody else is around, then no violation of the PnP.


-Lilosh

[Dokomo]

Pulling 2 mobs?

haha, that is so funny. I used to use ae taunt to get all the owlbears in hollowshade to attack me. Never knew I was "violating" any rules. IMO, and probably SOE's, if you can pull 20 mobs and kill them by yourself, I don't see a problem. However, kill stealing 20 mobs is not cool.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The PNP (Play Nice Policy) just says that a Character that gains no experience from an area should not deny a character that can gain experience from the area from doing so.

So... As long as you leave them a huntable area... One can AE as much as they want.

There is also stuff about not taking mobs that someone else has already started a fight with...

but those are the ones that apply to your situation.

There is no particular rule against AE hunting as long as you do not viloate the other rules

Now Game mechanics, do not allow for a SINGLE person to kill a large amount of spawns in one AE.

Most AE's are small range, and then only 3 mobs will engage a person., the others go home as soon as 3 are in meele with a stationary target. (you have to be stationary to cast the AE...)
The way AE groups work is that it is a GROUP... one person CAN grab a large train, it just goes home if it is just him.... But if he brings it to a GROUP... then each person will get 3 agroing on them... making a much larger set of targets for AE (18)... and sometiems the extras get a bit confused and hang around

[Unidin]

they changed the way that aggro works when they fixed pets a few months ago. You can be hit by more than 3 mobs at a time now. That was about the time that ae groups became quite a bit less popular. We were AEing skellys in ssra the other night, and I lost stun lock. Even with 4k hps + a 1350 hp rune, I was dead before i could even try to cast another stun. No way that 3 mobs could do that in one round.

[Liwsa]

When farming silks in East Karana I just run around and tag all the spiders I see then cast Upheaval(PB AOE which will hit everything in its area not just 4 mobs). I am not taking all mobs from people that can get exp there plenty of cats, wolves, and snakes to kill. When you do a /who there are only level 50+ characters farming the spiders in the zone anyway most of the time.

[Gnarl]

Actually, there has been precedence for AoEing mobs to be considered an exploit. However, I think it was an exploit because of using a pathing issue rather than using spells effectively. Specifically I'm speaking to when people would mass aggro mobs in OT, and fear them to SF zone, the mobs get stuck in the tunnels and it's trivially easy to mass AoE them to death. The solution? Verant (at the time) labeled this an "exploit" and threatened to ban anyone doing it... me? I think VI was wrong at the time. They should've gotten their programmers to fix the pathing or the AI of the critters. Makes more sense to me for a cornered mob, no matter how frightened, to turn and attack. Which would be a nice surprise for the "exploiters."

GnarliAnna

[Tobin Itharel]

The EK spider hunters many times don't care about the other PnP rule - SHARE SPAWNS

I am a ranger and I dont get to nuke 10 spiders at once but I se others take ALL the spawns while I'm hunting in the area. I've been told "well that's to bad come back in two hours when I'm done."

Share - this is a social game and players should learn to share

I played the Tagger once in EK partnered with a druid... my AOE spell isn't big enough to kill them in one blast.

Basically I'd run in circles tagging anything and everything, come back and the druid would kill 15-20 mobs in one cast. They were all hitting me, but stopping on top of the druid for them to catch up they were only able to have time to get me down like 30-40% life.

The only competition in EK are other farmers, haven't once had a group that was killing the things for EXP. They may get a bit upset at first, but so long as you are also killing the Snakes etc. it actually increases the spawn rate of the spiders.

When I hit 49, I'll use supernova and a partner to do the same... it saves hours and hours.

[kiztent]

There are times that AoEing can be a violation of the rules, or bad manners (pulling an AoE train through a fighting group is the first or pulling an AoE train that will path through a group if you die is the second), but it's, generally speaking, legal.

[Mendan]

It's definitely possible to pull mass numbers of mobs and wipe them out with PB AoEs. I had to get my Shar Vahl faction up, so I set up in one of the tunnels in shadeweaver's where there were 13 loda kai spawns and constantly pulled them all and knocked them down with one upheaval. Same works with wolves/owlbears in hollowshade, just a bit more dangerous for me since I tend to pull more than I can handle. With 20+ wolves hitting you, even though they're green, it's hard to channel through all the hits. :P

[Quesci]

The only thing that stops me from killing every single kobold in the Warrens with a single AE blast is that with run3 and bad pathing I can outrun them and they forget me and go home. So I do it in stages. Most of my kills are 40-50 kobolds at once. Staff of Temperate Flux is a godsend for pulling mobs, instant click--the hardest part is targeting them all.

[Chenier]

I'm having fun farming in EK. I dire charm a griffon and then pull with ensnare everything that's moving within my range...griffy kills, spawn refreshes. I do move around a bit, but others are benefiting from my mass death since more spiders are spawning.

It's funny because everyone thinks I'm tracking - nope, much easier to just sight the spiders and run to them. =) (tho I do keep opals on me to keep the rain away).

[Dunthor Warsmith]

SoE seems to have changed a number of the policies ... I was looking over the Naming Policy reciently, and the rule that got a friend's name changed isn't even there anymore (something about 'no names may be 3 or more words'). Looking at the PnP, the only things that seemed applicable is #6:

<hr>
6. You may not disrupt the normal playability of a zone or area.

Zone/Area Disruption is defined as any activity designed to harm or inconvenience a number of groups rather than a specific player or group of players. This includes, but is not limited to::

o Monopolizing most or all of the kills in an area.

o Deliberately blocking a doorway or narrow area so other players cannot get past.

o Refusing to cooperate with the other parties at a contested spawn site after having been instructed to do so by an EQCSR.

o Making excessive and inappropriate use of public channels of communications (/shout, /ooc, etc.).

o Intentionally causing excessive zone latency (creating excessive corpses, abusing spell effects, etc.).

o Causing intentional experience loss to other players (deliberately impeding fleeing players by blocking their escape route, intentionally training NPCs on other players, etc.).
<hr>

The only things that seem to be able to apply are monopolizing kills or excessive zone latency. Since in most cases I don't think you'll be creating <i>that</i> many corpses in the 7 minute window of corpse decay, the second one shouldn't be an issue in virtually all farming. Monopolizing the area is much more dubious ... but when you have 3 or 4 people all individually wiping out an area, its rather hard to say any one person is monopolizing it. And I can't think of a time I've heard of someone getting in official trouble for monopolizing an area - complaints, primal screams, flames, rants yes, but never GM interferance - that could be a detail you don't care about (don't want to break the rule, even if unenforced), but still, a detail I find interesting.

[Viken]

In regards to East Karana spiders... the faster you kill, the faster they spawn, so it balances out in the end IMO. Mobs that have a fixed timer are a different story.