They notice you later
Aggro and link radius are cut in half. The honest con from yesterday's update stays -- anything that pays experience still cons Easy Prey, and an aggressive creature in that band will still come for you -- but it has to get much closer first, and it brings far fewer friends. Nothing about holding aggro changed, so pulls and kites work exactly as they did.
Yesterday's update made the /check con agree with the experience curve: if a creature pays experience, it cons Easy Prey or better. That was the right call and it is staying. But aggression reads the same con, and the post said so out loud -- the honest con cuts both ways. The 25-level band that pays you became a 25-level band that can come looking for you.
In practice that was too much. Roads you used to walk down became roads you fought down. So rather than take the con back, we have shrunk the circle.
Aggro and link radius are now half what they were.
What that means on the ground
- Sight, sound and magic detection are halved. A creature that used to spot you at 15 yalms now spots you at about 7. One that heard you at 8 now hears you at 4. Casting a spell in front of something that detects magic gives you away at 10 instead of 20.
- Low-HP and ability detection came down with them. The creatures that notice a hurt player, or the flash of a weapon skill, work off a 10-yalm window now instead of 20.
- Links are halved too. A creature that dragged a neighbour in from 10 yalms away now needs that neighbour inside 5. This is the part you will feel most in a crowded camp: pulls come back one at a time far more often.
What did not change
- Holding on to you did not change. This is only about the moment something decides to come after you. Once a creature is engaged, its senses are exactly as sharp as they have always been -- so pulls, kites and rest-outs behave the way you already know. You do not get a free escape at half distance.
- The con and the experience curve did not move. Every kill pays what it paid yesterday, crystals and seals and weapon skill points and Drift Board credit all still ride "does it pay experience", and creatures more than 25 levels down still ignore you entirely.
- Ambushers still ambush. Antlions and worms erupt when you walk over them, at the same range as always. That is a trap, not a pair of eyes.
- Families that link across a whole area still do. A handful of creatures are built to call the whole room; halving a radius they never used would change nothing, and it does not.
- Sneak and Invisible work exactly as before, and sitting down is still an invitation.
This is a first pass
Half is a starting number, not a verdict. Aggro and linking are two separate dials now, each applied to every creature in the world at the moment the game asks "can I see you" -- so moving either one is quick, and they can move apart if it turns out the trains were the problem and the bubble was not. Play a few sessions in the places that felt worst -- the low-level roads, the crowded camps -- and tell us whether it lands. If it is still too loud we will take it further; if the world now feels asleep, we will give some of it back.