I was hoping to bring one thing to attention of Lillu and the Dev team.
I am currently working through progress legit (No tokens, not being carried through content) Just me and my groups doing as much of the content on my own as I can in order to enjoy the progression work put into the server.
Now that being said. There is a MAJOR stonewall in place right now that is absolutely hindering that. Iv personally spent the last 2 hours in PoFire farming the Essence of Fire's and gotten 2 items the entire time.
The HoH Access quest item requirements right now (Gyrating Essences and such) are set at .99% drop chance. This makes running chars through progress at this point absolutely mind numbingly terrible. I know it was setup at the time to have plenty of time to do it while new progress was being added. But currently in order to move to a next step in the road this far into tiers I feel like it could use a slight adjustment.
Having done Dev work on other servers. I myself have used a way of helping re-adjust old access progression systems. I have two ideas, one seeming like it is much much more likely to be implemented then the other, but ill lay them both out.
1) Getting rid of the Essence item requirement completely, and using the DSK2 access questline flag as a secondary flag to be able to summon the reaper. --- This one I dont see being implemented maybe quite yet? since its still somewhat a close to top tier access quest but always worth throwing out there as a idea (Maybe this one will fancy a dev *wink wink*)
2) The more plausible idea is increasing the drop rate of these Essence's from .99% to quite a bit higher. Considering alot of us working through progress haven't had all the time that original players did waiting for the next tiers to open alot of us haven't maxed out all our trades or such yet, meaning were gonna fail our tradeskill end quite alot more. Maybe bumping it up to 20%? 15%? Even that amount would be a MASSIVE help to people like me trying to do the progress legit without spending months trying to farm these essences while trying to get up to tiers with our guildmates.
Just wanted to throw this out there to see if we couldn't get this slightly adjusted to help out a little, cause right now its one of those roadblocks that pushes alot of people away from caring to progress anymore, and iv loved this server the entire time iv played it and would love to continue to improve some of this stuff that could use slight tweaks.
As always thank you! For the work an dedication put into the server so-far and the work you currently do
HoH Acccess Questline
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I looked at the quest, but I think for every one character that does the quest an extra 5 can be flagged as well as long as they're flagged for 2 tier of dsk (see wiki). So might not be as bad as you think 
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
I feel your pain. I too continue to progress on this server for the challenge and try to avoid outside help from powerful characters and only have one donor item on a rogue to shore up DPS so I don't have to box too many characters. I love the progression and challenge on this server, but not just because it's fun, but also because this server's friendliness to boxing makes it possible for me to play alone and on my own time when I have time, which is sporadic. Having said all of that, though, I prefer challenges in the form of mechanical difficulty, not with respect to the amount of time that you have to camp something.. a kind of challenge which was abundant in EQ, the original game, but is for the most part untenable to most players now who are older with jobs and families and such.
I think it's evident that the devs of this server have tried to avoid unnecessary time sinks, and that is a testament to their thoughtfulness when putting this server's content together. The amount of content is by and large contained in the amount of things there are to do and not how long it takes you to do each thing.
There are some things that I've done, however, which do stick out in my mind as being particularly tedious.. and the essence drops that you refer to are one of those. But, I don't remember being as bad as you're saying. Maybe it's because I had the flask of luck? I actually still haven't looted all of the essences that I need I don't think.. because I have already failed a few combines and still need one or two to flag my whole guild.
Generally I am in favor of leaving the challenge in the game to the encounters and figuring out quests, and not in time sinks like rare drops and rare spawns. So I agree with you. At the moment that I am typing this I am doing a part of the Wizard Epic 3.0 with rare drops of dragon scales from five different dragons. It sucks. But it is epic 3.0 so, maybe it's warranted.
This same quest that you are talking about also includes this encounter, which I haven't tried yet, which appears, as the wiki describes it, to be very difficult to do with only one person.. so I'm not looking forward to that either.
This server appeals to people who are playing alone for a bunch of reasons, and seems to be designed with that in mind, but at the same time seems to consider needing more than one person as an acceptable way to make an encounter more difficult.
I'm not at the point of asking for change, it just means that at some point I will have to interact with another human being for this one encounter which I will do
.. I just hope that I don't run in to a raid zone that is completely undoable without multiple people running boxes.
I typed a lot more than was probably necessary but it seemed like an appropriate moment to talk about the design of this server's content with respect to time constraints and playability by one person.
Yeah that's true. But also the combines can fail, so it's not quite that rosy.
I think it's evident that the devs of this server have tried to avoid unnecessary time sinks, and that is a testament to their thoughtfulness when putting this server's content together. The amount of content is by and large contained in the amount of things there are to do and not how long it takes you to do each thing.
There are some things that I've done, however, which do stick out in my mind as being particularly tedious.. and the essence drops that you refer to are one of those. But, I don't remember being as bad as you're saying. Maybe it's because I had the flask of luck? I actually still haven't looted all of the essences that I need I don't think.. because I have already failed a few combines and still need one or two to flag my whole guild.
Generally I am in favor of leaving the challenge in the game to the encounters and figuring out quests, and not in time sinks like rare drops and rare spawns. So I agree with you. At the moment that I am typing this I am doing a part of the Wizard Epic 3.0 with rare drops of dragon scales from five different dragons. It sucks. But it is epic 3.0 so, maybe it's warranted.
This same quest that you are talking about also includes this encounter, which I haven't tried yet, which appears, as the wiki describes it, to be very difficult to do with only one person.. so I'm not looking forward to that either.
This server appeals to people who are playing alone for a bunch of reasons, and seems to be designed with that in mind, but at the same time seems to consider needing more than one person as an acceptable way to make an encounter more difficult.
I'm not at the point of asking for change, it just means that at some point I will have to interact with another human being for this one encounter which I will do
.. I just hope that I don't run in to a raid zone that is completely undoable without multiple people running boxes.I typed a lot more than was probably necessary but it seemed like an appropriate moment to talk about the design of this server's content with respect to time constraints and playability by one person.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I looked at the quest, but I think for every one character that does the quest an extra 5 can be flagged as well as long as they're flagged for 2 tier of dsk (see wiki). So might not be as bad as you think
Yeah that's true. But also the combines can fail, so it's not quite that rosy.
<Heroes of The Seven Suns>
/tell Program to talk to me in game
/tell Program to talk to me in game
-
MayhemGaming
- Posts: 7
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
Yeah I don't want to sound ungrateful about the content at all cause by far and large i'm not even a little. Iv enjoyed every minutes iv played on the server.
Its just the drop rate (maybe just for me -My luck absolutely sucks- and no I dont have the flask myself) is just unbearable. Iv been off and on farming them for 2 weeks (only PoFire so far) and still have yet to successfully make a Pure essence.
And yeah I understand it allows a couple to be flagged, but in order to even GET the pure essence to begin with (Let alone 3 of each for 3 groups of chars) is just a bit much
Its just the drop rate (maybe just for me -My luck absolutely sucks- and no I dont have the flask myself) is just unbearable. Iv been off and on farming them for 2 weeks (only PoFire so far) and still have yet to successfully make a Pure essence.
And yeah I understand it allows a couple to be flagged, but in order to even GET the pure essence to begin with (Let alone 3 of each for 3 groups of chars) is just a bit much
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
Just to illustrate, because I'm bored sitting here camping dragons
Imagine two different scenarios of content
In scenario one, there are two items that you must acquire to complete a quest. Each item is a very rare drop and takes on average 30 kills of a 10 minute spawn for each item. So, this quest contains, on average, 10 hours of content.
In scenario two, there are 20 items that you must acquire to complete a quest. Each item is a drop from a mob and takes, on average, 3 kills of a 10 minute spawn for each item. So, this quest contains, on average, 10 hours of content.
So both of these quest lines contain the same amount of content in terms of time that must be invested by the player - 10 hours. One of them, however, is far more conducive to something that is psychologically enjoyable than the other.. especially if you cannot complete the very rare drop quest in one sitting and end up logging off having made no progress.
Clearly the quest where you collect 20 items over 10 hours across different zones with different mobs will be more fun and engaging, especially when you cannot typically commit 5 to 10 hours at a time to playing. You will always make progress with each play session in the scenario with more drops that are common.
Importantly, however, making the more enjoyable quest with more drops takes significantly more time for the developer to implement. They have to put 20 items on various mobs instead of 2, and deal with all of their combines and turn ins and so on. So while it's more enjoyable for the player, it's also more work for the developer. Nine times out of ten, however, the developers on this server have chosen to go with the one that involves more work for them, so that's pretty great.
Imagine two different scenarios of content
In scenario one, there are two items that you must acquire to complete a quest. Each item is a very rare drop and takes on average 30 kills of a 10 minute spawn for each item. So, this quest contains, on average, 10 hours of content.
In scenario two, there are 20 items that you must acquire to complete a quest. Each item is a drop from a mob and takes, on average, 3 kills of a 10 minute spawn for each item. So, this quest contains, on average, 10 hours of content.
So both of these quest lines contain the same amount of content in terms of time that must be invested by the player - 10 hours. One of them, however, is far more conducive to something that is psychologically enjoyable than the other.. especially if you cannot complete the very rare drop quest in one sitting and end up logging off having made no progress.
Clearly the quest where you collect 20 items over 10 hours across different zones with different mobs will be more fun and engaging, especially when you cannot typically commit 5 to 10 hours at a time to playing. You will always make progress with each play session in the scenario with more drops that are common.
Importantly, however, making the more enjoyable quest with more drops takes significantly more time for the developer to implement. They have to put 20 items on various mobs instead of 2, and deal with all of their combines and turn ins and so on. So while it's more enjoyable for the player, it's also more work for the developer. Nine times out of ten, however, the developers on this server have chosen to go with the one that involves more work for them, so that's pretty great.
<Heroes of The Seven Suns>
/tell Program to talk to me in game
/tell Program to talk to me in game
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
My point in my last post is this.. you can have content which is equivalent in terms of time spent in game to do things but in which one is clearly better in terms of being rewarding on shorter time scales. But is the one with more items actually as rewarding as finally getting that super rare item? Or can it be as rewarding? I think it can, but in order for a number of common drops to feel as rewarding as a few very rare drops, it really has to be a lot of common drops that includes a whole bunch of running around in order for it to feel as rewarding and as difficult as completing a quest that involves very rare drops or spawns.
So the take-away I think is that this is a somewhat reasonable philosophy to follow which will result in content that is best for shorter play times and doesn't sacrifice how rewarding and difficult things feel, but it does require significantly more work by the developers in order to achieve it.
Side note, I'm mainly talking about quest drops for progression here, not rare drops of raid gear from raid mobs or quests that are not necessary for progression. By all means, those things should be there for those who want to challenge themselves to poop-sock something or kill a raid mob 100 more times than they actually need to in order to progress. I'm still killing mobs in DSK2 right now that I don't really need to in order to progress, but just because I want certain items.
So the take-away I think is that this is a somewhat reasonable philosophy to follow which will result in content that is best for shorter play times and doesn't sacrifice how rewarding and difficult things feel, but it does require significantly more work by the developers in order to achieve it.
Side note, I'm mainly talking about quest drops for progression here, not rare drops of raid gear from raid mobs or quests that are not necessary for progression. By all means, those things should be there for those who want to challenge themselves to poop-sock something or kill a raid mob 100 more times than they actually need to in order to progress. I'm still killing mobs in DSK2 right now that I don't really need to in order to progress, but just because I want certain items.
<Heroes of The Seven Suns>
/tell Program to talk to me in game
/tell Program to talk to me in game
-
MayhemGaming
- Posts: 7
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
I see what your saying, all i'm saying is as they open higher tiers, sometimes the older tiers that were deliberately made a little harder to stall progression in order to buy time for development purposes may just need to be relooked at.
Like I said it doesn't need to be insanely modified yet (If we get to Tier 15 or something maybe just eliminate the item drop process completely) but just increasing the drop rate at this point would be a amazing thing to just ease it a little since were not AS badly worried about people massively outpacing content for a T7 flag
Like I said it doesn't need to be insanely modified yet (If we get to Tier 15 or something maybe just eliminate the item drop process completely) but just increasing the drop rate at this point would be a amazing thing to just ease it a little since were not AS badly worried about people massively outpacing content for a T7 flag
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
Yeah, I see what you're saying. Also, beating T7 raid mobs without donor items is also very hard as it is.. at least, it was for me. I would be fine with just having Xeru kill be the flag for T8 and leaving it at that.
<Heroes of The Seven Suns>
/tell Program to talk to me in game
/tell Program to talk to me in game
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
peterigz wrote:Someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I looked at the quest, but I think for every one character that does the quest an extra 5 can be flagged as well as long as they're flagged for 2 tier of dsk (see wiki). So might not be as bad as you think
Yes that is correct, for me personally i believe i spend 3 to 5 or so days in Fear killing everything that could drop a Essence. Like 3-4 times a day due to the respawn timer. The problem wasn't that i didn't got any drops i had multiple of the wrong ones as drop.
But then again i was working on 3 Groups to flag at that time.
Team Nexor
Fexor - Fexxor - Nexxor - Nexia - Nexxia - Nexis - Nexxis - Gnex
Fexor - Fexxor - Nexxor - Nexia - Nexxia - Nexis - Nexxis - Gnex
Re: HoH Acccess Questline
We're talking internally about the HOH access quest. Some changes may happen, no promises just yet though.
About the Wiz 3.0, sadly you've just decided to do it before I could spare the time to revamp it. There have been four 3.0s released so far (Cleric, Shaman, Warrior and Wizard) and I'd started a project to alter the approach of these so that the long, low chance camps were less campy. Here is the post about that:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14901&hilit=revamp
I had to stop development in general over the last year or so due to personal reasons (some of which I'm sure you can guess why but others as well) and so this project was placed on hold. I'm back now but we've decided it's more beneficial to get the other 3.0s out (and they'll follow the new way of doing it), before we revamp the warrior and wizard epics so they remain a little grindy.
The server has been around for a long time and some of the initial intentions of quest design were based on different times and we do appreciate things change. This is why we're trying to add content that's more "open" (such as the excellent Expeditions feature that peterigz worked hard to bring in from the latest EQEMU revisions). 3.0s are a priority for me but the other project is on our radar and that is the group pathway proposal. This is the thread for that:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14442&hilit=group+pathway
Since that thread, we've discussed this internally and we're likely to be using the Expeditions to deliver some great single group content across all of the tiers, so there are ways for single groups to progress without needing to raid necessarily (although doing both will of course be the best option).
So, lots planned!
About the Wiz 3.0, sadly you've just decided to do it before I could spare the time to revamp it. There have been four 3.0s released so far (Cleric, Shaman, Warrior and Wizard) and I'd started a project to alter the approach of these so that the long, low chance camps were less campy. Here is the post about that:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14901&hilit=revamp
I had to stop development in general over the last year or so due to personal reasons (some of which I'm sure you can guess why but others as well) and so this project was placed on hold. I'm back now but we've decided it's more beneficial to get the other 3.0s out (and they'll follow the new way of doing it), before we revamp the warrior and wizard epics so they remain a little grindy.
The server has been around for a long time and some of the initial intentions of quest design were based on different times and we do appreciate things change. This is why we're trying to add content that's more "open" (such as the excellent Expeditions feature that peterigz worked hard to bring in from the latest EQEMU revisions). 3.0s are a priority for me but the other project is on our radar and that is the group pathway proposal. This is the thread for that:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14442&hilit=group+pathway
Since that thread, we've discussed this internally and we're likely to be using the Expeditions to deliver some great single group content across all of the tiers, so there are ways for single groups to progress without needing to raid necessarily (although doing both will of course be the best option).
So, lots planned!
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest