Pin Poll

[Dugur]

Pinning is the game feature/bug that allows freezing of monster so you can cause ranged damage on them without getting in hand to hand combat. Mostly seen in Bethel invasions, also common at dragons.

 

Mare Bulangiu can't be pinned, for some reason this is also the mob that is always killed last in invasions.

 

Binding stone price went to skies because of easy dragon scales. One person can easily farm 40 scales a day if they invest time in the game. There is not enough binders to convert the scales into armours naturally, but the EL shop brings plenty in game. This is income for developers, but for many players it eventually is shown in increased prices for items. 20k gc / binding is doable at current dragon armour prices...

 

Having top level monsters highly vulnerable to single person makes no sense. What happened to Dragon epicness?

 

Some spawns were already made unpinnable ages ago. There obviosly were reasons for this, why not finish the job?

 

Bethel invasion last wave is cleared by ranging from safety of cliffs, no challenge, no risk. Just slaughter fest. Later on when there's more room for fighters (risk of dying becomes small enough) the top levels can finish it off but with risking death on lag spike, disconnect, gangbang etc. Ranger has no such risk.

 

When arrow is shot, gc is removed from game (train ammunition only from npc at 10gc ea.) This is good. In Bethel invasion I end up positive gc. Even basic dragon can drop the amount of gc spent on ammunition. This is the top lvls with ap, same ppl that actually train ranging. Not saying ranging doesn't remove gc from game, but that having pinning in game doesn't really increase gc removal.

 

Omg it can't be removed now, too many have gained advantage of the pin it would just be so unfair!! Hypocrite! Yeah, poll option has the rangers opinions. Some might actually admit, just so we know how many omg hypocrites there are.

 

There has been no talk of pin removing by dev team that I'd have heard, just curious of opinions. Share them.

[amar]

I don't like it - I am a ranger

[Kaddy]

You have got enough profit out of it, now wanting it un-doable. Just like farming dragons with summoned Giants.

 

It's my opinion.

 

-Kaddy

[Entropy]

This is a feature, not a bug. As you can see from the MB AI, it is easy to make the monsters unpinnable. However, if I do that, the archery won't be that useful anymore.

 

There is not enough binders to convert the scales into armours naturally, but the EL shop brings plenty in game. This is income for developers, but for many players it eventually is shown in increased prices for items. 20k gc / binding is doable at current dragon armour prices...

So let me get this straight: The more dragon scales, the more expensive the dragon armor is?

[Dilly]

I love the fact that rangers can clear bethel last waves. It does take a lot of time (=dedication), their profit there is minimal when it's still swamped with mobs, so the fact that it's fairly risk free isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, if they are full AP it goes a little faster, but that takes a huge investment at first.

 

It also allows for people who don't feel like, or can't afford to spend months/years at spawn to train a/d to contribute in their own way to clearing invasions, so invasions aren't purely for the highest level a/ders, and the pr0 fighters actually need to rely on the rangers to clear the path for them a little before they can go in without dieing within the first 2 minutes.

 

There may be some downsides to it, not too fond about people just pinning a dragon and farming it, but that doesn't even come close to outweighing the benefit of the option to pin.

 

Just my opinion

[Kaddy]

So let me get this straight: The more dragon scales, the more expensive the dragon armor is?

 

I think its 'the more scales in game, the less expensive dragon armors is'.

[Aislinn]

I am a ranger as much as I am anything else (have ranging 22 which for me is huge ). I do enjoy ranging and I have never pinned anything. It feels to me like abusing the system, no matter who calls it a bug or a feature. The original intent may have been one thing but it basically is abuse now.

I don't like it, it is too big of an advantage with no risk. Ranging without pinning is relatively risk free if you have half a clue what you are doing.

I would love to see pinning removed.

[jajohn]

I have no problems with rangers helping during invasions,

but killing dragon just because he is too stupid to go away and just stands there looking at you waiting for death.... that doesn't sound like the ancient race of allmighty dragons who fear nobody and nothing etc....

voted I don't like it (ranging level 25 )

[teehee]

Pinning is basically only thing that makes ranging useful apart from rank and the rare times you team bula and 60 AP costs a crap load of gc nvm the arrows/bolts to kill. There's still risk trying to pin or getting bags/getting to bethel cliffs when ACW are in the invasion and without bags no profit. Also doesn't work when you farmed drags with pinning then for "some reason" you want it removed. If pinning gone, I'd like my ~1mill gc of AP back since all you can do with that w/o pin is shoot things and have them run up to you and pwn your ass. I like the idea you can kill big mobs without spending a lifetime on a/d just like mages except you rarely profit.

[Desertus]

I've never liked it, I've always considered it as a bug. I'm not against rangers in general, just with pinning it's way too overpowered in PvE.

The only pinning available should be when your opponent is busy fighting melee fighter.

[Dilly]

I've never liked it, I've always considered it as a bug. I'm not against rangers in general, just with pinning it's way too overpowered in PvE.

The only pinning available should be when your opponent is busy fighting melee fighter.

 

While I respect your opinion, I have to disagree with that, main reason being that a mob has a chance disengage from melee combat and turn bang smack onto the archer.

 

Personally I would suggest keeping the possiblity to pin in a place like Bethel (see my initial reply for my reasoning for it), but remove all pinpoints in RD cave and Hulda, as well as, for example the houses with ACW in which you have the possibility to pin.

[Ermabwed]

I think the fact that some people can kill dragons using only a few restoration spells is a much bigger problem than this (and that fact also points out that for those people there is not a lot of risk involved), because this reduces a creature that - in a medieval RPG - should be an awe inspiring, extremely hard to kill creature to just another critter, that one only can't train on because of long respawn times.

However, I also agree with the people saying it's a bug and thus should be removed. If the only reason to keep this bug in game is because it's the best part of ranging ("archery won't be that useful anymore"), then there's the real problem: training ranging without pinning is too obvious a money sink, boring in pvp/arena and frustrating with mobs and both are very slow and expensive.

One small fix for that (and I'm sure there are a number of other possibilities), making ranging more attractive from a game play perspective: Flying entities (birds, phoenix?) could be made so you can attack them only with ranging or magic (once engaged it'd be regular combat). After all, this is not some version of "California Games" where we throw swords into the air and hit gulls for 1000 points...

[Dugur]

This is a feature, not a bug. As you can see from the MB AI, it is easy to make the monsters unpinnable. However, if I do that, the archery won't be that useful anymore.

 

There is not enough binders to convert the scales into armours naturally, but the EL shop brings plenty in game. This is income for developers, but for many players it eventually is shown in increased prices for items. 20k gc / binding is doable at current dragon armour prices...

So let me get this straight: The more dragon scales, the more expensive the dragon armor is?

 

The more dragon scales, the more worthless the scale is. Some ppl like getting rid of the scales instead of hoarding them. Only thing keeping the dragon armour prices up is binding stone. If I wanted, I could sell ice scales 1gc and still cover the ranging cost. Current prices with armour atm I could afford to pay 20k ea and still get armours done and sold with competitive pricing.

Lots of scales, need more binds, pay more for binds. Pay more for binds and price of anything with CoLs rise. Lots of stuff has bind in recipe so it affects all.

 

I single handedly made the whole ice scale market bend over by filling all bots buying them on one day and adding 100 to sell on my own bot. It went from 9-10k value down to 4-5k in no time. This was no accident. Dirty Easy.

[Choris]

(Warning: long post, much of it already mentioned by someone else, but I thought I'd gather my opinions about the problem here.)

 

I can't really say if I'm against pinning or not. Yes, it looks very unrealistic and a lot like a bug, but in the current state of archery in EL it's pretty much necessary for those who decide to be a full-time archer.

 

Even if RD pin spots were removed, would their prices really go up so much that it would actually be worth it hunting them with a tank and a ranger killing a dragon together and sharing the drops afterwards?

The current price for BD (which can't be pinned) scale suggests no. RD scales would probably stay cheap thanks to the fighters who can take them 1 on 1, as seems to be the situation with BD scales.

 

Removing pinning would probably make ID scales go up in price a bit. The price has been steadily going down with more and more rangers farming the ice dragon in Hulda. But I don't think it'd still be worth it killing them without pinning, with not so much demand for ID scales.

 

 

Some numbers from my tests if anyone is interested in the difference between pinnable and unpinnable dragons:

 

Red Dragon - takes 2-3 minutes for me to kill from the entry to the cave, takes 50 PK arrows in average to kill, total cost 1800-2000gc.

 

Black Dragon - takes 20-30 minutes for me to kill, takes 150 PK arrows in average, total cost 5-6k gc.

 

Ice Dragon - takes 4-5 minutes to kill, takes 90-100 PK arrows, total cost 3-3.5k gc.

 

As you can see, the gap for black dragon and the pinnable dragons is huge. Probably a higher ranging level would make the gap a big smaller (better chance to hit from large distances), but it's still a big difference.

 

 

As a side note, I have nothing against shooting from the cliffs in Bethel, because you are actually unreachable by the monsters down there. Not that the cliffs were ever even designed for that, but they are a great way for archers to participate in invasions (as others have already said).

It would be great to have more possible places like that - like walls that you can climb on, shoot the monsters down there and the monsters can't come after you. I know there are already climbable walls, but those maps aren't invaded as often, there are no hints for the rangers to go there before the invasion starts, and often the monsters can as well just walk up the stairs and eat the rangers.

 

 

If pinning were considered to be removed from EL, some other options would be needed instead. More realistic options for a ranger would include the use of cape of camouflage and tunic of the ninja when hunting - a chance of the creature you're shooting not seeing you and therefore not coming for you?

I have made some tests with camouflage cape and ninja tunic, and it seemed to me that they weren't much use at the moment. Either the creatures I was shooting have really high perception, or they don't even care about the ranger's visibility when deciding about coming after him/her.

There's only the odd situation where you shoot and hit but the dragon doesn't budge, but that always happens only when shooting from the very longest distance you can even see your target, and the chance of hitting (especially when you're in a cave or shooting at night) is very small.

 

Maybe even engineering could be used? Snares sound nice on the paper, but the 2 seconds is far from enough to be of any use for an archer. Shooting from behind a barricade might work, depending on how those are going to be implemented.

EDIT: Another possible use for engineering would be to have a 'freeze ward' that pins the creatures in a certain range for some time. Thanks to MiiX for suggesting that idea

 

 

In the end, as a ranger myself (ranging level 36, AP 60, both ranging perks) and having killed several of each dragons, (probably 100+ reds, 3-4 blacks and ~20 icys) I would like to see dragon pinning replaced with something else that would still keep rangers useful. Killing a pinned dragon who just stands there is also pretty boring, after all. But also really the only thing we rangers have now for making some profit out of our skill.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Choris

[Miiks]

Ok I'll take a little break from triple ogres and post my idea here

 

Barricades: They could have some health points and armor. Let's say 20k hp. Creatures attack the barricade first and rangers are safe behind it, until the barricade breaks.

 

Freeze wards: Works like MI wards and they have some % to freeze the monsters in small area. Effect would be hooked to eng level of the person who places it.

 

Freeze spell: Spell that freezes one opponent. Effect is hooked to casters mag lvl.

 

So how it works?

 

Bethel invasion: Engineers make some barricades at first. Better to make few in a row, so rangers can tele to range behind the next barricade if the first one breaks. After making them, engineers run to the unsafe zone outside the barricades and start placing some freeze wards aware of giants and ebul dragons. Nuu there comes 50 giants. Half of them gets stopped by freeze wards, but there's still 25 hitting the barricade that is loosing 1k hp per second... But there comes the mage and starts freezing the giants. Effect stays for 30 seconds, but mage runs out of mana often, since the spell requires lot of mana. Rangers try to shoot giants, but wall has just 2k hp left. Fastly they have to tele behind the next one, but still couple rangers get killed by giants. The effect of wards is wearing off and the rest of the giants are nearing the wall too. Luckily there is still couple barricades left, so we might have a chance to survive...

 

Would sure add lot more thrill for rangers too, since now it's really easy and even boring skill imo. Also engineer and mages would have some role in invasions after that.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Miiks

[Maxine]

Personally I would suggest keeping the possiblity to pin in a place like Bethel (see my initial reply for my reasoning for it), but remove all pinpoints in RD cave and Hulda, as well as, for example the houses with ACW in which you have the possibility to pin.

 

I completely agree with this. I like the possibility of pinning monsters in a Bethel invasion or from the walls of a fort or city. After all, thats why these locations ar up high

 

I dont like the farming aspect, these are epic monsters, going to their lair should not allow you to farm them risk free, not even after investing huge amounts of gc in AP pots.

 

I am a bit of a ranger: 21 AP and ranging 29 and hope to use my skill in an instance one of these days.

 

Mixi

[ProHibited]

'Pinning' occurs in more games. It is a way to enable ranger to actually range. If ranging becomes 25% ranging and 75% fleeing, what is the point of the skill? I agree 'pinning' is not realistic, as are a lot of other things in 'games'.

 

I hear a 'call' for removing 'pinning' but I have not seen any suggestions to make this a viable option. (now I have .. few posts up)

What can be done to enable rangers to remain 'useful' while removing 'pinning'.

 

 

-Increased snare effect for PvE (A lot)

-Create a snare spell (Less effective as snares)

 

-Engineering 'stun-mine' (Stops or Slows opponent)

-Stunning arrows, high cost, high accuracy (Stops or Slows opponent)

 

All effects should only be a few seconds in PvP but much longer in PvE to provide an alternative for pinning. Slowing an opponent allows ranger to fire an arrow, run away and fire another.

 

 

Without an alternative, why vote to remove a feature where 90% of the ranged experience is gained?

Edited February 11, 2010 by ProHibited

[Dilly]

alternative to Miix's suggestion:

 

Remove pinning altogether and then change the Ice arrow/bolts and give them the chance to make a mob freeze for 2 minutes or so, so they come to a standstill and allow the archer to take some easy shots. If not the ice arrow/bolt, create a new bolt that mesmerizes the mob in some way to reach the same effect.

[Nova]

I still see the original post as a case of 'I got all I needed from this bug/feature, now I don't want others to use it to benefit as I did.' Pinning might not be realistic but with out it, archery is barely level-able. Pinning dragons does not come with no risk like some are suggesting, and its not always easy to do. I have died many a time trying to get mobs in the right place. If dragons are like most reptiles they have a brain as big as a pea, maybe a dragon has a walnut sized brain, they probably wouldn't be the brightest pennies in the fountain, maybe they WOULD get pissed enough at you binging arrows off their hides to 'stand' in one spot to try to get you. Our animation just doesn't show the pissed off dragon trying to dig his way to you because he can't figure out how to go around.

[Miiks]

I still see the original post as a case of 'I got all I needed from this bug/feature, now I don't want others to use it to benefit as I did.' Pinning might not be realistic but with out it, archery is barely level-able. Pinning dragons does not come with no risk like some are suggesting, and its not always easy to do. I have died many a time trying to get mobs in the right place. If dragons are like most reptiles they have a brain as big as a pea, maybe a dragon has a walnut sized brain, they probably wouldn't be the brightest pennies in the fountain, maybe they WOULD get pissed enough at you binging arrows off their hides to 'stand' in one spot to try to get you. Our animation just doesn't show the pissed off dragon trying to dig his way to you because he can't figure out how to go around.

Well IMO dragons should be smart creatures. Secondly even EL dragon can fly short distances, so why doesn't it just fly over the rock? Also dragons should be able to spit fire. Why don't they kill you by that way behind the rock (or whatever)? Edit: Someone will sure say: "how can dragon spit fire through the rock??!11", but iirc the rock that pins RD, is pretty low. And since dragon is big creature, it can easily spit over the rock. Or if that's not good enough, then it can fly bit upper and spit there

 

At least there should be some area damage, if the pinning stays. If you stand right front of the dragon, you'd get some fire damage. And maybe also make the animation of dragon spitting fire. Edit: Of course ID would make cold damage.

 

Edit2: Only problem is it would be too easy to protect yourself from damage with cold/heat shield.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Miiks

[Gilrain]

1) everyone saying pinning dragons is easy should pls come to RD lair or invasions and show it to me. I lost some rostos practicing it and still its risky in the open field. Only some ppl are very good at it. Ofc there are 'easy' pinnings like cliffs or forts, but those are rare enough.

Removing pinning possibilities at normal (dragon) spawns to prevent overfarming? yes pls! (but how to do that in hulda)

 

2) i never (never!) come out even when ranging on bethel cliffs. Even with training bolts i always lose gc there, i see it primarily as a way of training and thats an important part for training this skill imho.

 

3) who do you define as ranger? i am allrounder, still ranging fair enough with level 32, but no AP yet, because they are expensive.

 

4) my answer to the theories of dugur:

the problem is AP and pk arrows. So just remove AP benefit and make pk arrows more expensive from NPC: problem solved!

It would even encourage making pk arrows instead of just buying them. High level archers like dugur do too much damage, its not the pinning thats wrong, we had pinning before without such effects on the market.

[Raytray]

Places count? DP Sto 103,44

[Raz]

Yes Dugur is right - killing pinned dragons is profitable - and if you are good - and practice a lot, relatively safe

 

However he does gloss over the 900k to get full AP, the cost, time and practice to get to the levels where you can pin easily - and the 10 PP that is desirable to make training more cost effective.

 

Please also add into the equation - it takes 8 mins for the dragon to spawn, ~5 minutes to kill (with pk) - so you can kill max 5 dragons per hour. 5 scales@4k=20k profit - I know many ways to make more than 20k profit per hour, without any risk or grinding!

 

Mare Bulangiu can't be pinned, for some reason this is also the mob that is always killed last in invasions.

Probably as it is the toughest mob.. for the same reason the goblins and ogres tend to get killed first.

 

If I wanted, I could sell ice scales 1gc and still cover the ranging cost.

So the max drop from icy is 2k, so the average must be 1000 - so add in 1 for the scale you get an average reward per kill of :- 1001

 

Icy has 5500 health - I do 35 dmg max with trainers, 65 max with pk - add a few more to be safe (40 & 70)

That means 138 trainers or 78 pk- add in the arrow saving or eternal ranger - you get 105 or 60.

 

60 pkers cost much more than 1k - 105 trainers is close to 1k.

 

This does not take account of special drops - which admittedly are relatively common from dragons.

 

However, it assumes - 100% hit rate, each doing max crit damage, and does not take account of the cost to 'unlock'.

 

In short - you would have to be very, very lucky to break even with scales at anything like 1gc each.

 

 

Our animation just doesn't show the pissed off dragon trying to dig his way to you because he can't figure out how to go around.

Please please add this!

[Dugur]

Mare Bulangiu can't be pinned, for some reason this is also the mob that is always killed last in invasions.

Probably as it is the toughest mob.. for the same reason the goblins and ogres tend to get killed first.

 

Last night invasion with Robin Tell. I log in and 3 monsters left. Been like that for a while too. There were few going to take the MBs, but one died due to lag.

Not many fighters take on Ice Dragons either, but surprisingly the Iceys die in invasions the moment someone finds one. No risk.

If they were pinnable, there'd be 0 mobs.

 

Killing mare bulangiu is a team effort, the way it is supposed to be on top monsters. There are two opinions to this. Those who like some challenge and those who like easy levels. I always thought EL was supporting the challenge.

[LochnessLobster]

I have trained a/d for over 5 years with the goal of fighting the top monsters. When the attribute cap was put in place going 1 vs 1 with most of the top monsters became a thing of the past for me. Now i watch guys range them using the pinned "feature". Yes I know i could train up to do the same thing but is that what i trained 5 years of a/d for? Remember that my original goal was only to be able to fight the top monsters and this was long before ranging existed. I have basically stopped playing and this is why. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.