Are npc soldiers too buff and what would be a good way to fix it?

[Thomoto]

Discuss.

[Dar]

Are they? too buff?  I didn't think they were.


I mean, a well trained warrior class can accidentally kill one, or two before even managing to stop.


There may need to be a 'limit' on how many Militia HGs are available in the city at a time. That might be true.
But overall? I imagine every guild except the craftsmen, will eventually reach a point where 1-2 soldiers at the same time is 'no big deal'.

[cnemus]

They all need +10 strength.

Nosave arrest or die.

This is not intended as a troll post. Seriously I think the run from the cops or fight your way out as opposed to a time out or fine should be less common. There is RP to be found on the other end of an arrest. Play how you like, but I would prefer we reward player engagement as opposed to playing vs. NPCs. There are other existing options to avoid the clink, if that is the goal (that I don't care to list on the GDB). Find a successful thief/murderer/criminal IG and learn their secrets.

[mansa]

I'd like to see (if they don't have it already) that NPC soldiers have mercy on.

And maybe a few more NPC soldiers have clubs instead of swords, so they can knock you out instead of killing you - and drag you to jail knocked out.  Does that work for NPCs, though?

[Bebop]

They all need +10 strength.

Nosave arrest or die.

This is not intended as a troll post. Seriously I think the run from the cops or fight your way out as opposed to a time out or fine should be less common. There is RP to be found on the other end of an arrest. Play how you like, but I would prefer we reward player engagement as opposed to playing vs. NPCs. There are other existing options to avoid the clink, if that is the goal (that I don't care to list on the GDB). Find a successful thief/murderer/criminal IG and learn their secrets.

But player engagement can also result in crime code so that doesn't really make any sense.

[Heade]

There may need to be a 'limit' on how many Militia HGs are available in the city at a time.

This. If there weren't so many HGs, it wouldn't be bad. HGs are over-represented based on their supposed population.

[Nile]

What's the demographic breakdown for the Arm of the Dragon? HG's seem like they'd be more common there to me.

[Hauwke]

What's the demographic breakdown for the Arm of the Dragon? HG's seem like they'd be more common there to me.

In the entire 500,000 people of Allanak, I think? Half giants make up like 12,000 I think. If memory serves about 1 percent of the city is AoD, making it about 5,000 soldiers all told. Applying the same percent of the general population that half-giants make up, you end up with 120 half giant soldiers.

[Lizzie]

What's the demographic breakdown for the Arm of the Dragon? HG's seem like they'd be more common there to me.

In the entire 500,000 people of Allanak, I think? Half giants make up like 12,000 I think. If memory serves about 1 percent of the city is AoD, making it about 5,000 soldiers all told. Applying the same percent of the general population that half-giants make up, you end up with 120 half giant soldiers.

Makes sense to me that the city would employ a good chunk of those half-giants as their "muscle" on the streets. They're not much use anywhere else. If there are 12,000 HGs worldwide, and even just 1/4 of that in Allanak (3000) then you can bet a solid thousand of them will be among those soldiers - and a few dozen of them will be NPCs.

[Shabago]

Tuluk (350,000)
219,000 humans (50% are slaves) (62.6% of total)
108,500 elves (10% are slaves) (31% of Total)
3,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (1% of Total)
3,500 half-giants (80% are slaves) (1% of Total)
7,000 half-elves (40% are slaves) (2% of total)
1,500 muls (98% are slaves) (0.4% of total)
7,000 unknown/other/mutant (25% are slaves) (2% of Total)


Allanak (481,880)
310,000 humans (50% are slaves) (150,000 free) (64.3% of total)
150,000 elves (10% are slaves) (135,500 free) (31.1% of total)
7,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (2,600 free) (1.8% of total)
3,800 half-giants (20% are slaves) (3,150 free) (0.8% of total)
5,800 half-elves (40% are slaves) (3,400 free) (1.3% of total)
1980 muls (99% are slaves) (18 free) (0.4% of total)
2,800 unknown/other/mutant (40% are slaves) (1,400 free) (~0.6% of total)


Circa 2008~

Wouldn't have horrifically changed too much with up and down periods over the years.

[Lizzie]

So +/- 3800 HGs in Allanak, 20% slaves.

Could definitely account for the NPC HG Soldier population then, if HGs are the "muscle of choice."

[kahuna]

I think a problem is using the virtual world as if it has limitless numbers within it. Being able to "poof" soldiers into existence is great and all but the only clan in the whole game that gets to do that is the city soldiers. It should be an even playing field, if one clan can pull from their virtual resources so easily others should be able to as well.

[number13]

I, for one, welcome the idea of endless waves of elves automatically spawning to zerg any heavily armored individuals that wander into the Rinth.

[Dar]

The thing is that AoD is not a police force. It's a Militia. An Army. Most assuredly there are a lot of half giants in AoD. But the very last place where they'll be used often would be policing the streets. The environment is the most unpredictable there. The function of a mobile came does not do well for an HG.

A small contingent of them sure. In terms of riots, or sudden need of overwhelming force. Patrolling the streets? That would be silly.

[Heade]

So +/- 3800 HGs in Allanak, 20% slaves.

Could definitely account for the NPC HG Soldier population then, if HGs are the "muscle of choice."

Pretty much all HGs in the AoD(except PCs), are slaves raised from birth for the job. 20% of HGs being slaves means around 760 HG slaves in Allanak. Even if Tektolnes owns 100% of the HG slaves in Allanak, 760 isn't enough to justify all the HG NPCs in the game. One would have to assume that HGs are present in important areas not in the public eye, on missions with military regiments, etc. Not JUST kicking rocks around patrolling the city.

Furthermore, even if they all WERE patrolling around the city, you wouldn't see them as often as is represented in the game. You can't walk a few rooms without seeing a HG soldier somewhere. I've lived in a real city with half a million people, and they had over 1700 police officers in their police department, triple what Allanak has in HGs. While the city in question didn't have HGs, they have police cars, so the cars sort of stick out like a HG would. I didn't see police anywhere near as often in said city as I see HG soldiers in Allanak. The number of HG soldiers seen by PCs should be representative of how often they'd be seen with only 760 in a population of half a million. That is to say, not very often.

I think HG NPCs should be limited to super-important, crucial choke points for the city, like guarding the gates, the noble's quarter, and templar's quarter.

[Lizzie]

I think at one point there weren't nearly as many NPC soldiers as there are now. But years ago, there were some crashes that spawned duplicates upon reboot. I would assume many of the soldier NPCs are the unintentional duplicates. At the time I remember bugrepping bunches of them in the elemental quarter where you'd see 8-10 identical HGs just standing in the same spot for several RL days in a row.

I don't think those HGs need to be tweaked, and I don't think they need to replaced with non-HGs. I think there are just a few too many of them and a few of them need to go poof. I also feel that some kind of script should be added, that makes the soldiers disperse back to their spawn point, after their target is either a) dead, b) deposited in a jail cell, c) no longer in Allanak, or d) logged out of the game.

I feel that would go a long way to "repair" what some perceive as a problem (I personally don't care one way or another since it doesn't affect me personally but I get that perception).

[Doublepalli]

Like 8 halfgiant soldiers standing right outside of the rinth seems a bit much

[Alesan]

Duplicated NPCs are a thing. We've all seen it, we all know about it, but considering it keeps happening and it's been happening for the last, what, half a decade at least? I'm going to just guess working as intended at this point.

[Bebop]

Duplicated NPCs are a thing. We've all seen it, we all know about it, but considering it keeps happening and it's been happening for the last, what, half a decade at least? I'm going to just guess working as intended at this point.

It's not a bug it's a feature?  Duplicate NPCs are actually highly problematic for sneakies.

[Hauwke]

It is problem for anyone going against the law.

[Alesan]

Duplicated NPCs are a thing. We've all seen it, we all know about it, but considering it keeps happening and it's been happening for the last, what, half a decade at least? I'm going to just guess working as intended at this point.

It's not a bug it's a feature?  Duplicate NPCs are actually highly problematic for sneakies.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to find out that there's intent to fix it. Every time I walk past a list of ten HG soldiers or some other similar thing, there's a small part of me that wishes something could finally be done about it. I just don't really believe it'll happen.

[Brokkr]

I'd say "Find out IC" for some of the stuff that has been said, but that is kind of hard to do when there is some misperceptions and outright guesses being passed off as factual.

Allanak militia is roughly:

10,000 human soldiers (free)
3,000 slave soldiers (mostly human)
1,000 half giant soldiers (most of them are free)

Additionally Allanak has about 15,000 work slaves that could be given a weapon and made to fight.

With another assorted 1,000 odd of other forces (Templars, Gemmed, Scorpions, etc), that is about 30k.

Unlike someone said, nearly all the Allanak half giants are free.  I believe they got confused with Tuluk, where indeed out of 3,500 half giants in the population, 80% are slaves.

[Inks]

Npc soldiers shouldn't spawn instantly, at all. It is bad and has always been bad. They used to have master scan too.



**Fixed that for you, rather then perpetuating this tired old song. ~Shabago.

[Inks]

Thanks for leaving the actual facts in at least.

[Dar]

Made me chuckle.

When I read about HGs slaves, I wondered about validity of it. Why would they be slaves? Army lives fit HGs so well. It is a natural vacation for many of them. If anything, slave HGs are used for jobs that they don't already enjoy. Ie lifting giant blocks of obsidian blocks to build a giant obsidian pyramid in the middle of the city. Or hacking at that obsidian inside a mine, etc. While HGs in the army should be happy to be where they are. Lots of action, lots of repeatative action, and always someone enigmatic and authorative to mimic nearby.

Then I wondered if Tuluk would be different? And I guess there would be. Because Tuluk uses other methods to assure guidance and compliance then allanak.

If you think about it. In terms of free will and freedom to live the life of your choice, Allanak is a lot more liberal then Tuluk.