Weapon durability, death penalty and the HUNTS!

Hi Devs,

Just a thought…for those of us who really love to join the hunts, but do not have full weapon durability and death penalty skills maxed. Is it possible to only have the weapons/tools that are currently in hand to get the penalties? It really defeats the purpose of bringing more weapons and such to a hunt if they break before you can even use them if you have died a few times :frowning: I know people are going to ream me out for this, and I REALLY try to not die!! but its almost impossible in the chaos of a large group hunt with a lvl 6 meteor.

I know this has been brought up before, but I think it bears repeating especially now with community hunts. They are so much fun but I really hate being just a spectator half way through because i am only level 28 and don’t have the skill points to invest in tool durability and reduced death penalty. Are the community hunts only for max level players with maxed skills?

Is there plans to reduce the penalties? Is there plans to have another skill reset at the next update? if so, i will make one toon a hunter and my alt a builder/crafter (but she is only lvl 9)

Please let me know what your thoughts are, and as always Stay Boundless! :boundless::metal:

9 Likes

While we patiently wait out some sort of an answer to these repeatedly asked questions, here are a few quick tips for anyone that hasn’t built full hunter or have an alt hunter maxed:

  1. Limit what you bring. For community hunts, not much is really required for people to attend, just being part of the community is enough. The few I’ve attended so far did have short breaks throughout so it is possible to return home and restock on things you might need more of. A simple list of basic gear that would probably get you through from start to break:
  • 1 Slingbow
  • 1 Grapple
  • Food Stuffs
  • Totem or other whacking item
  • Light source (Optional)
  • Warp Conduit
  1. Don’t be afraid to scale a tree or run out of a fight that gets too hectic. You will still be eligible for loot, and no one is going to say anything about “participation”. You showed up, that’s enough. Enjoy it how you can, and contribute how you are able.

  2. Have fun.

Cheers,
-Eld

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Thank you for your kind advise @Eldwen and yes, LOL this is almost exactly what i do except for the warp conduit. I will start to bring some. Excellent idea! I have been bringing back up grapple and slingbow but that has backfired because, the daily hunts I have been going on are super fast paced! IF you stop to warp home to get another bow, you are left behind. I would love if there would be a quick 5 minute break in the hunts for people to restock their gear. Next skill reset, i am going to try to make my main toon a hunter build! Its so frustrating right now.

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Yell at @virresss to slow down. lol. Or ask for a quick break. I’m sure they would understand and make the time for anyone that needs it. Also, you can friend the leader or active member of the hunt, and then just warp back to them directly at anytime should you get separated from the main group. My wife and I use this mechanic normally at least once or twice per long hunt to restock or make quick bio/drink breaks. :grin:

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@Jenndragonfly iv never attended a hunt, but I do see people post about how they are going to bring slings and food for people who need them. Maybe try to find one of these nice people next time you’re in a pinch.

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maybe as a new support class we have the mule. basicly it’s someone you trust with death penalty reduction maxed out to carry extra sling bows for people. one mule could hold for 3 to 5 people. or just carry extra sling bows to pass out.
just a thought :smiley_cat:

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There have a been a lot of us that constantly bring this up but the overall response so far from development has been that they have the skill tree for a reason. I completely agree that only in hand item should be damaged but it isn’t a hot topic for development even though this problem affects not only high level but severely hurts low level players.

My strongest suggestion is to take your main and spec it as a hunter with full death/durability stuff set. This person should still have more than enough point to set simple building or crafting abilities. I use my main to do lots of building and yes it is a bit slow removing blocks, etc but works ok. Basically I just gave up trying to change the mindset of development and others about excessive damage to tools/weapons after death and just adjusting things so my character isn’t hurt by it. I just used the 3 alts I have even though I really am against being forced to do so… But you can’t control everything or always get what you want so I just make it work in whatever way I can. And to be fair to the developers they do give us the skills to remove this problem so I just did it… :). Imagine if they didn’t provide those skills to adjust it… but they do so I have to respect that and use it.

Then take an alt and make it your crafter. At the lower levels it isn’t to hard to get almost all the points in that minus maybe gem stuff. Really focus on what you need at a core level and only put points there. Then maybe have an alt for true mining. Low levels can rise quickly enough to get enough core skills to offset the main skill spec.

In regards to hunt survivability - we have tons of people there so pull back and play it smart. I know people want XP, etc but balance that stuff against your need to stay alive. You are bound to be hit by wild stock etc but try to stay outside of the larger group and move in for hits. You still get rewards no matter what but yes XP gain will be lower. But do you want to die a lot or get the loot? We have enough people in our hunt to kill things so it isn’t like we have to take them down in 4 seconds or everyone is dead.

For the hunts I manage we usually take a break about 1 hour into it or sooner if we really have lots of deaths or people need to get stuff. I couldn’t do it for everyone but I have max inventory and usually have a slot or two where I could hold weapons for people if need be. Also I know there are many people that have full death/durability set and I am sure they would be willing to hold a weapon for you.

5 Likes

Quick way to level an alt if you get a lot of Rock from mining:

  1. Grab Bulk & Mass Crafting from the Equipment Crafting tree, and Common Machine & Common Block Recipes from Item Crafting.
  2. Lay down a bunch of Crafting Tables and Mass queue 20 crafts of Rock->Stone in each.
  3. Log back in the next day and get a ton of xp.
  4. Lay down a bunch of Workshops and take those new Stones and queue 20 Mass Crafts of Stone->Refined Stone in each Workshop.
  5. Log back in the next day and get a ton of xp.
  6. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Granted, this depends on how much Rock you get. If you can queue up all 20 slots in say 10 machines, you’ll log in the next day to several new levels :slight_smile:

And you can always Cleanse out of the crafting choices later.

3 Likes

Good points… also about Cleanse.

I do really suggest people use the recent skill wipes and future ones to really figure out how you want your characters and alts to look… Do it now because in 1.0 it will not be pretty if you aren’t sure and there are no full skill resets!

1 Like

Good points… also about Cleanse. Using that is very helpful when you can.

But I do really suggest people use the recent skill wipes and future ones to really figure out how you want your characters and alts to look like… Do it now not later because in 1.0 it will not be pretty if you aren’t sure what you should have and not have and there are no full skill resets!

I always bring stacks of healing brew when im there, ask me i will give you a fair price =)
i give some too to lower level characters.

1 Like

If you attend the hunts a lot you should level up pretty fast. I joined 4 hunts this week with my hunting alt SirMixALot and he was level 26 the first hunt and is now level 38. Maxing out the death penalty and the durability is very wise when leveling up so fast.
I also invested points in being able to move fast. I use a topaz or an amethist slingshot because they are repeaters. I just keep down the mouse button and shoot and move around fast shooting everything that moves. Keep potions in the other hand and off you go. If i die now it is usually from being bumped into the lava by wildstock, of when them elite cuttletrunks start carpetbombing the place and i can;t get out fast enough.

Still the loss of durability is not very fun, even when its 14% for my char now. Fortunately the stream of gems from the hunts are so huge i can make massive amounts of slingshots so its all good.

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The thing with “Only tools on hand should take durability loss” is that everyone can just go bare hands when he’s about to die. If i’m below 1/4 hp, I might just give up fighting, go bare hands and die intentionally than risk losing durability on my tools.

I share the pain of being unable to bring multiple slingbows during hunt. At least, we could probably lessen the hits on your inventory. What I prefer is for us getting more creative. I really like Jeff’s idea of mule but sort of hard to remember whose slingbows are from whom. A better option for me is we could setup temporary camps during hunt and everyone just put their shelves and stock them up with slingbows. However, with how easy it is to warp, I’m hesitant that the extra work is worth it than just straight warping back to your home.

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Maybe a system like in no man’s sky so only some things are damaged randomly.

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It’s easy to get around players trying to circumvent the death penalty by going barehanded, if that were the main thing preventing a change. Just make it the last X tools held, or multiply the last X durability loss. For example, the last 5 tools you held (or better, actually used) would be a big improvement over literally everything in your bag, but would be very cumbersome to circumvent. Or, take the last 100 units of durability loss and double them. There are plenty of options.