Love the new Ulfheim!

I was inside the walled area between those two magical barriers. Once rezzed i still had no way to get out. I will try again

 

Well, i hate to say it, I like how it looks but I hate it as a zone.. once again an area I enjoyed has been screwed over.. I lead a simple life in game, I solo, and now once again a good spot for me has been decimated when frankly it wasnt needed..

 

@Sannio it seems we have a two way split on player views on the new map or rather the overall impact of the map change.

Is it not possible to add the new Ulfheim but also keep the old one for folks that liked it (especially casual solo players)? Maybe call it 'Ulfheim foothills' or something. It is different enough from the new map to not look like a simple cloned copy of the new map.

 

Having a Ulfheim fort inner zone, or such sounds like a perfect answer

 

I'm a pretty casual player that solo's quite often and it's fine for a tier 8 area. The old Ulheim was more like a tier 6 area. Even a mid level team would have no problems in the new Ulfheim. Given that as of now, tier 10 is our highest area, a tier 8 should be a little bit of a challenge. I think the idea of an Ulfheim Foothill area might be a good one as long as it doesn't create too much extra work for Sanyo.

 

Just to clarify, Ulfheim was good for producer xp because of all the bears that were available for skinning, not necessarily because of how many nodes are available.
I think the main point Dorkish was trying to make was that there are alot fewer zones that producer xp is easy to get in large quantities and with the trend to bump up the difficulties of zones they become less viable. 1000 xp for skinning a bear with 600 hps vs 1,000 xp for skinning a bear with 9,000 who is guarded by 12 archers etc etc.

 

From what I've seen, this is a perfectly suitable new adventure area and no complaints on that count.
I think the disconnect here comes from a lack of understanding of what makes a scene appealing - we saw the same thing happen when Naryad woods was neutered.
In this case I don't think this is a worldbuilding problem so much as an itemization problem.
Adding targets that are more difficult, hit harder, and have more HP to a scene to "up the challenge factor" is fine, provided that the loot scales up accordingly.
What we see time and time again: it doesn't. And while the higher tier mobs have "a chance" at dropping artifacts, the reality is that those chances are so slim that they aren't even noticeable to the majority of folks.

Killing a "Ferocious" bear with what, 1500-1600 HP? Is giving the same, or even less loot, than bears with half that HP (they don't even drop obsidian carcasses!...fair enough, they're not obsidian-colored, but they don't offer anything above killing a T3 grizzlybear.) And the producer XP for skinning them is -exactly the same-. The itemization and XP, particularly when it comes to producer XP, ensures that it is always more efficient for a player to try and mass-kill lower level targets rather than bothering with high HP ones. Adding higher density of lower HP mobs makes a better scene than adding fewer, more difficult mobs. Nothing is more frustrating than skinning something with 5k, 10k, 20k hp and finding out it drops the exact same loot and XP as the 400 hp equivalent. Why would you even bother? Unless the "rare drop" chances are significantly beefed up, these mobs will continue to be a waste of time.

Ulfheim in the old days was an attractive scene for crafters not because of the number of trees, bushes, and ores - although these were nice bonuses - it was attractive because you could round up a whole bunch of bears, aoe them down, and skin them, getting producer XP. If you couldn't take them all, you could do a a few at a time, and there were always enough bears 'left' that you could keep going. When the bears were beefed up, it was still decent provided you had sufficient "adventuring strength" to still melt them down, but it certainly had less appeal.

I think what you've done with Ulfheim is fine - its aesthetically pleasing, well planned out, etc. No issues at all there. But I'd love to see a few scenes uncloned/rebuilt with a new goal: Make an attractive producer XP place. Let's have a desert canyon with ores down both sides and fill the middle with corpions and desert/obsidian wolves. Lets have a mine full of bears/wolves/skinnables instead of skeletons. It kinda makes more sense for bears to be living in a cave anyway . Howabout an actual forest scene which has tree/bush node density/spacing similar to a mine? A forest of choppable trees!

Lately the most optimized way to play is to go into a scene, clear the initial higher density spawns for 10 minutes, and then leave - because the respawns don't keep up, not even with a single player on their own. This is more evident in scenes like mines, which after the changes earlier this year, I can go in, clean completely out of every node in 7-8 minutes, then sit for 10 minutes waiting for something to be available. When I am playing Sota I'm often changing scenes every 10-15 minutes because waiting out the respawns is like watching paint dry. This is not a flaw in the design and layout of the scene but in the density and timing which need tweaking.

Any mechanic that results in a player having to go afk, leave, reset/flip a scene, or tab out of the game and do something else that isn't playing the game while they wait for the game to generate more content, is ..not good,

 

well retried the new ulfiem with new set of armor this trip was a bit, better a map would really help other than that unlike in the old one where you want to follow the paths looks like it's better to stay off the paths unless you want to run into a bunch of barbs hate the focus stealing zombies though

 

FYI, love this scene! Love the diversity of mobs, the danger and what I love most is the design nice density of mountains, tree's and what not.
Thank you. Hope to see more of these.

 

ya thats the biggest problems i have is what kaeshiva mentioned adventure vs producer exp is a problem you can kill a 2k mob and get 10000 adventure exp but only 1000 producer exp then there is the long respawn time for the crafting resources in the mines, least if you go after low lev t5 mobs you can get good producer exp with a quick respawn which is fine if you need animal skins but mining is the worst right now

the new ulfiem is nice though for getting maple cotten and iron in a outside zone

i also prefer a simple layout for a crafting area zone like the old ulfiem you could go in a circle for the ultimate adventure and crafting exp zone i'd like to see deepravens wood zone upgraded to a +8 zone like old ulfiem

 

Sannio. I heard that in solo there are multiple wyverns in the outer area. Almost insane to try and survive. I dont usually play solo but i might have to check it out. Guildmate was in private mode and there were 3-4 right as he zoned in. Almost as bad as the first day i went in and got ganked by obi boars and wolves. LOL. Not to mention the reaper who pegged me. Might want to check the spawner again.....but hey if that is how its supposed to be then so be it

 

Ulfheim is amazing my friend and I have a lot of fun there
Its a very polished area except the fps, i dont blame the devs i blame unity

 

I prefer the new dungeon. There are many places I can go in game to solo and only a few that NEED a group to finish. This is one that I need to do with a group. I like the speed and toughness of the dungeon too. The only problem I have is that if we all die while fighting the dragon then we ress we ress in the courtyard and can't get back into the keep and to the dragon. If we fail at the dragon are we meant to have to fight all the way back to the beginning then leave and come back in before the dragon keep opens up again?

 

There are and they move really fast.