Dual-wielded knives are actually pretty potent against most wildlife. Given the right build, dual-wielded knives are actually one of the most potent melee strategies in the current SOI PvE environment.
If anyone solo'd a mega-bear in melee, without first injuring it with ranged attacks and letting it bleed down, that happened because they were very, very lucky.
I don't think the answer is in making the wildlife more dangerous. It's in introducing dangerous plots, with dangerous adversaries, and then partly automating those plots so that the threats persist even when RPAs aren't available.
Alcarin and Fulgrim actually did this rather well, once (with the original Spider infestation plot), but it's otherwise been a persistent issue with this incarnation of SOI3. Even if there aren't any clans with the same power level of some of the SOI3 clans from last year, there's still nothing scary about the woods beyond the PVP opposition.
IMO, Mirkwood should be a fantasy horror setting, to an extent. It should be a scarier forest than Northlands' was, than the Druadan was, than Ithilien was. Right now, it's about on par with Ithilien (at its least active) in terms of scariness.
Most RPIs' problems can be minimalized when good writing, consistent and
meaningful plot allow characters to make meaningful impacts on the world and the overarching story. Bugs, empty craft-suites, non-interactive building, and other issues seem less important when the players have an excellent story that they can become a part of.
And, as over half of the players that play RPIs prefer to play combat-oriented characters (as evidenced by other RPIs), a dangerous and challenging combat environment is paramount to that. SOI's playerbase is heavier on the non-combatant side of things because it just isn't successfully appealing to the combat players, at large.
ETA!
Letters wrote:I've only been skimming the forums, but you guys are making some odd assumptions about people who played leadership characters extensively on Atonement (or the few months of Parallel). I'm pretty sure most of them aren't playing new SoI. Matt, maybe? Kory's primary function at the moment appears to be forum lurking, but maybe not. I know I'm not playing. I don't recognise anyone else here who I know played leadership PCs in the past.
There are players in leadership positions now (and more, last year) that were regular PC leaders on other RPIs. It is true, however, that there aren't many Atonement players that are currently playing SOI any longer, that I'm aware of. This probably has a lot to do with what I wrote about above.
My own of any consequence were Eothelm, Elizabeth, Bet and James (Morrow), across three MUDs. I often just grabbed anyone and everyone in sight to go fight stuff or explore or whatever, and some people hated that. Enough people kept joining in that I kept doing it though - and some people hated the 20 to 25 person crews.
20 to 25 person crews can be fun if they are managed well, and the leader(s) help inspire those other players to slow down and take their time and roleplay immersively. They tend to become unbearable when they are nothing more than running around and spamming forage/commands without meaningful roleplay.
We did have a two-day battle against the spiders north of Utterby last year with a massive group that I think was very successful in terms of pacing, fun and quality of roleplay. If we'd just been picking berries, and half of the players were playing DOTA at the same time because there was no interesting character play happening, it would have been unbearable.
Managing large groups of people well is very difficult.
Currently not playing and not likely to get back to playing for a stack of reasons, though the biggest is probably that I just don't feel like a setting with two violently opposed settlements 40 rooms from each other.
I'm not a huge fan of the two sphere design, after trying it a few different ways. That said, it can work at a higher level than it currently does for SOI3; doing so would demand flexible objectives for both spheres, though. Right now, beyond getting caught out in the wilderness while foraging or hunting, there is no threat that either side could actually affect the other in a major way. The orcs will never raid the town, and the town will probably never raid Vadok Mal again. This is a pretty normal issue for the two-sphere setup in RPIs, because there is often an inherent staff desire to want to protect non-combatants and not destroy what they've built. While I understand the instinct to have that protection, I do think that it can sometimes do a disservice to the players.
Without any true risk of complete destruction, there is never any true opportunity to become a true hero (or conqueror). Without any true risk of long-term, meaningful consequences, there is never any true opportunity for players to become a part of (in this case) Tolkien's greater legend.
) for the rest of the pbase or a smaller group? I think fighting a pair or group of trolls is much more narrative and interesting than just one, who only five PC's can engage anyways while the rest sit back and twiddle their thumbs.
