Devs: Trade Orders and Britain GZ - Bug?

[Basara]

@Kyronix @Bleak

Britain's Guard Zone and the Trade Order spawn ranges have NEVER lined up properly. Is this intentional? As it's REALLY going to make Trade Orders suck hard for most once the amped-up spawn starts.

Britain's Guard Zone currently extends FAR further than it should (at least on Lake Austin), and the Trade Order spawn can pop up SEVERAL SCREENS INSIDE its reach, where AoE spells and Summons cannot be cast. While you could guard whack the spawn (most of us don't out of fear it would effect the reward value) in the normal Trade Order system, this NEW system for the event where the spawn steals the order contents would make calling the guards a VERY BAD IDEA, if guards would even work (as they usually don't respond to attacks from event monsters).

Specifically, you have to go past 14 Degrees West (that's TWO-THIRDS OF THE WAY through the mountain passage between Britain & Skara) to be out of the Guard Zone. The spawn can show up while you're still in in the farms, barely past the stable. This means that the ENTIRE farm area, to the edge of the mountains to the west, are a guard zone. And, it extends north to about the line of the Castle British moat, and the Trade Order spawn can hit anywhere in the farms.

Going south toward Trinsic, the Britain moongate, etc. you have to pass 25 Degrees South (about a screen south of the last road junction, where player housing begins to be possible) to be clear of the Guard Zone. BUT, Trade Order spawn can start showing up while still in sight of the Blacksmith shop.

Combined, this means that any deliveries to or from Trinsic (other than Jhelom) by land either have to go around the mountains and up the Yew/Skara road THROUGH YEW'S OUTSKIRTS, or risk running through the gauntlet of South and West Britain where you can be attacked by Event mega-monsters but can't defend yourself except against one at a time. So, this means if something spawns in the zone, it's going to take a LONG time for a tamer to take out one monster at a time, Sampires will have to risk hitting NPCs (and may have difficult times doing so), and every one else will be FUBAR.


Either the spawn boundaries need adjusted, or the guard zones do. Otherwise, the event changes with ground-deliverable Trade Orders To, From, or Passing Through Britain will become a bloodbath of unintended consequences.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Hmmm... can you call guards on them?

 

[Basara]

I think you can for the normal spawn. I've not tested the event-related spawn.

The big issue is that, for the event, the spawn TAKE the trade order contents from you, and you have to get it back from them. If that means "looting it off their corpse", the LAST thing you want to do is have the guards kill them (as guard-killed mobs don't leave corpses).

 

[Larisa]

I ran many many MANY trade orders from Britain and never had an issue, on my tamer....it doesn't take a LONG TIME to kill the spawn if you're prepared. I have yet to try on my sampire but it was easy with the tamer and never once had an ambush happen in guard zone there...at least on Test

 

[Tina Small]

@Kyronix @Bleak

Britain's Guard Zone and the Trade Order spawn ranges have NEVER lined up properly. Is this intentional? As it's REALLY going to make Trade Orders suck hard for most once the amped-up spawn starts.

Britain's Guard Zone currently extends FAR further than it should (at least on Lake Austin), and the Trade Order spawn can pop up SEVERAL SCREENS INSIDE its reach, where AoE spells and Summons cannot be cast. While you could guard whack the spawn (most of us don't out of fear it would effect the reward value) in the normal Trade Order system, this NEW system for the event where the spawn steals the order contents would make calling the guards a VERY BAD IDEA, if guards would even work (as they usually don't respond to attacks from event monsters).

Specifically, you have to go past 14 Degrees West (that's TWO-THIRDS OF THE WAY through the mountain passage between Britain & Skara) to be out of the Guard Zone. The spawn can show up while you're still in in the farms, barely past the stable. This means that the ENTIRE farm area, to the edge of the mountains to the west, are a guard zone. And, it extends north to about the line of the Castle British moat, and the Trade Order spawn can hit anywhere in the farms.

Going south toward Trinsic, the Britain moongate, etc. you have to pass 25 Degrees South (about a screen south of the last road junction, where player housing begins to be possible) to be clear of the Guard Zone. BUT, Trade Order spawn can start showing up while still in sight of the Blacksmith shop.

Combined, this means that any deliveries to or from Trinsic (other than Jhelom) by land either have to go around the mountains and up the Yew/Skara road THROUGH YEW'S OUTSKIRTS, or risk running through the gauntlet of South and West Britain where you can be attacked by Event mega-monsters but can't defend yourself except against one at a time. So, this means if something spawns in the zone, it's going to take a LONG time for a tamer to take out one monster at a time, Sampires will have to risk hitting NPCs (and may have difficult times doing so), and every one else will be FUBAR.


Either the spawn boundaries need adjusted, or the guard zones do. Otherwise, the event changes with ground-deliverable Trade Orders To, From, or Passing Through Britain will become a bloodbath of unintended consequences.

Basara, I'm not sure if this has any relevance, but I noticed yesterday on Test Center that several buildings in the Britain farm fields where you find rancher and farmer NPCs have paint splattered on the outside walls and there are heaps of garbage on the ground outside the buildings. I'm guessing this is arc-related. Would there be paint splatters and garbage piles if guards are active?

Edited to add: Just took these screen shots on Test Center a few minutes ago. The ones further north have no paint, garbage, flames, etc. They look untouched. It's just the two buildings closest to the road that goes through the mountains that have been altered.





Not that it affects Britain, but wow the farmers and ranchers outside Skara Brae have been pelted with eggs.

 

[Dot_Warner]

I think you can for the normal spawn. I've not tested the event-related spawn.

The big issue is that, for the event, the spawn TAKE the trade order contents from you, and you have to get it back from them. If that means "looting it off their corpse", the LAST thing you want to do is have the guards kill them (as guard-killed mobs don't leave corpses).

The order pops back into your pack once the last ambusher dies (the caravan then goes poof as well). I don't think the spawn can be guardwhacked, but I'm not certain...

 

[Dot_Warner]

Basara, I'm not sure if this has any relevance, but I noticed yesterday on Test Center that several buildings in the Britain farm fields where you find rancher and farmer NPCs have paint splattered on the outside walls and there are heaps of garbage on the ground outside the buildings. I'm guessing this is arc-related. Would there be paint splatters and garbage piles if guards are active?

Edited to add: Just took these screen shots on Test Center a few minutes ago. The ones further north have no paint, garbage, flames, etc. They look untouched. It's just the two buildings closest to the road that goes through the mountains that have been altered.

View attachment 70718
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Not that it affects Britain, but wow the farmers and ranchers outside Skara Brae have been pelted with eggs.
View attachment 70721

I'm fairly certain that stuff has nothing to do with the arc, but is from - which TC1 is currently a partial copy of Baja (circa last December) right now.

 

[Tina Small]

I'm fairly certain that stuff has nothing to do with the arc, but is from - which TC1 is currently a partial copy of Baja (circa last December) right now.

Thanks, Dot. I wondered if that might have been the case but couldn't remember reading recently that TC was a copy of any particular shard.

 

[Basara]

But guardwhacking would be an issue for special loot in the ambushers....

And, the extent of the guard zone on LA goes back at least as far as the Despise invasion global events, if not all the way back to its founding in 2002. I didn't play a mage on a regular basis until around the time of the destruction of Magincia (and now, ironically, most of my friends know me by my female mage more than my male characters, even though I'm playing my male tamer whose name is the same as my Stratics handle the most these days).

LA's always been weird. I've heard it was fudged a little (or copied another shard's best case scenario), since the shard wasn't around to fail in the cleansing of Yew the first time around, to where LA Yew was one of the few shards were you could deliver escorts prior to ML. I even took screencaps of me delivering escorts to Yew (you had to go toward where Heartwood is now, not the Abbey), and was called a liar repeatedly when I posted them on Stratics.

In fact, until someone removed it during the road tile rework a decade or so ago, there had been a small statue STUCK in the middle of the road going south out of Britain toward the Moongate, at about where the Guard Zone ended. I always wondered if the alignment was intentional.