The Hidden Forest

Hi all...

I've run this quest dozens of times or more and never had any issues like this. Across many hours of play (enough to earn 691 radiant crystals) in Shadow Haven trying to get my mom's (and an alt) toon their healing automation... I have only seen the 4 stones (pre-quest) and like 50+ each (no lie, maybe closer to 80-100) of the Focus Crystal, Lost Toolbox, and Chunk of Mythril...

But... NOT ONE Silver Cog, Bronze Cog, or Shard of Metal in 3 days.

At first I thought yesterday that maybe my ill luck was because there were 22 players in the zone (6 in my group) and I figured that could easily distort my odds (other looting groups). However, both the day before and today I was alone in there for hours plowing away. I pull between 20-23 and squash those trains in 30-40 seconds (about as fast as I can target/attack). I found the pull itself is about one minute. Graciously I can figure 2 minutes per pull + occasional rebuffs. I've spent about 14 hours in there now hardcore grinding. I estimate that is about 9,600 kills. I will say 8500 for bio breaks and eating dinner. I think anyone will agree that 8500+ Shissars should be adequate for 2 complete healing automatons.

I waited to see if it was just the worst streak of luck I ever encountered on EQ [ever] before posting here. I was able to much more quickly (like in 1/3 the time spent currently on HA) complete 5 WoS Murkglider pet quests. The WoS Pet usually takes much longer. Especially the Murkgliders with their non-existent plasma.

The fact that only 3 items have dropped as many times as they did (like 225 to 275 times for the Cogs and Shard [combined]) and the other 3 not at all leads me to believe that something is wrong.

I don't mean to be presumptuous here but is it possible to have Vaion look at this?

Has anyone else had different results?

I'll put this on the back burner until I hear back...

Just very bad luck. I did this for a couple of my new toons a couple weeks ago, and helped someone else do it a few days ago.Took forever when I did it myself (about 4-5 hours of constant mass pulls), but it took the fella I was PL'ing less than an hour, maybe a lil more to get his finished.

Much higher drop rate off the names/bosses, as I'm sure you know Just keep plugging away at it. And look at it this way, you're evolving your fordel gem and farming AAs to go along with the quest, so it's a 3 for 1 kinda deal That fordel gem has to be one of the best augs in the game!

I agree with Rude. Probably just terrible luck. I did this awhile back and had 3 toons all needing the same 2 pieces after a couple hundred AAs each. I am not sure how many mobs I killed but it was a lot. When they finally did drop it was almost 1 right after the other. I ran into a similar situation in Icewell working on 2.0s. After 30 or more castle clears I managed to get 2 FD clickies but not a single Icy Emblem which seemed a bit strange

Yeah... I feel so uncertain. Invested about 14-15 hours or so already. Yeah the 2.0 has been known to do that. Never seen such a mess with automatons though.

@rude - what is the Fordel Gem? Sorry been on server a few years but just got back a few months ago from to roughly a year's haitus. There are many custom additions new to me.

The reward for finishing the 2nd kill task. It's an aug that fits in almost every slot and evolves based on how many shissar you've killed. Final reward is 70AC and a good amount of HP, needs 10k kills to max

Fordel Gem if memory servers right you get aug at ZI after first kill quest and stats go up as you kill mobs. Did quest on my 18 toons + random other toons lol .. drops are like anything in this game when your looking for it, it takes twice as long to get max aug is like 10k kills or so... focus on the aug and you have the quests will be done in no time

Thanks Rude!

Thanks Beatboxin!

AFTER ALL THAT... Drakkemortis finally got the three pieces (2 cogs and the Shard of Metal - in like 15 miutes too!), combined, returned to Zimloro...

...AND HE #@&%$!? ATE IT!!!!!

Were you on the proper step? I don't think you can pre-loot the items since the task has checks for "Loot xyz", and then when all those are accomplished it tells you to return the completed combine. I'm always super paranoid about prelooting quests that have that poopy "Loot xyz" check in the task

You can preloot the second part.

Speaking of automations, has anyone noticed he's slowly stopped healing in more and more zones? There were a handful of zones that it has never worked for me(sebilis, for example), but he's always worked in Shadow Haven, VT, ect. Recently he's stopped in several.