feedback for alternate progression....warrens

[windsofwar]

hey guys i started my necro again adn decided to play through exclusively in alt p and then id post any feedback/ideas i had about what id seen. here it is. also to be clear this is not a flame this is not a knock this is my honest feedback of the things i would change if it were me. theres nothing inherently out of balance or inconsistent with the overall design traits of the alt p campaign.

tradeskills:

i like the recipes even with the high amount of mats needed its more then manageble but for each ts in the warrens area you require 3 things pattern main mat and then your other mat that is the smaller.....alchemical compound bag of gems etc.

for tailoring all you need are hides and a patter and the vial you buy from the vendor. jewl crafting requires pouch of gem dust and there vial.....the problem so far is that in the case of black smithing you can get a crap ton of ore (lookin my bank) but the alchemical compound is well below the drop rate of ore. so much so that it makes skilling up smithing time consuming at the extreme.....a lot of farming. my suggestion would be to bring smithing in line with tailoring and smithing and fletching....make the alchemical compound available on the vendor.

that is honestly the only complaint i have about the tradeskills except i would like to see maybe some 35 skill recipes.....by the time i get the mats together to make something at the 40 range i get one maybe two trys before i do another farming run and most times it fails.
possibly add some box or lantern recipes or maybe a vanity pet or something stupid like that. nothing massive but something that can help bridge that gap a bit since the first two combines that skill you to 30 ish green out very quickly.

content:

thus far i have killed everything that the warrens has to offer from one end to the other. the one thing ive found so far is that in some cases the loot dropped is nice but rare. considering the power level of the fight it seems like the loot drops could be a bit more constant. also so far only one mob (the king) appears to drop legs/chest quest peice and so far after 5 king kills ive only seen plate chest once with legs and NO other quest armor drops. in line with my concerns over loot drop consitancy is that the quest armor drop rates on some lines seems abnormally low. ive seen a ton of soft wicker and plate but splint and burlap seems very low. cold iron drops very consistantly but the latter to are much much lower. also i realize it is a quest item but since the change to main line armor quest took away the no drop flag from the patterns it might not be a bad idea to do the same with the armor pieces to help encourage trade and grouping in alt p.

the initial entry into the warrens seems a bit rough on the ass cheeks at first. i would suggest maybe taking the right hand side and making the mobs a bit less dynamic in level change and make them a bit more staggered so maybe the first hall and room are lvls 5-7 and then further in 8-11 and so on ramping up to the prince room. going in there at 4 and seeing only yellows was troubling but not impossible. without a bot i am honestly not sure if i would have been able to progress well without a lot of dieing and down time.

last but not least content-wise is kinda a wishlist item for me. a buffer not in line with main line content but something like maybe classic spells only based upon level so as not to make it over powering.

kudos:

i like the idea thats happening here and i truly cant wait to get into stonebrunt the content is pretty balanced from what ive seen and you can see that a lot of thought has gone into this and i appreciate it both as a player and as a retired developer from my own server days. i wish to god that more games and servers would consider the ideas used with alt p. alright gonna go play now and see if mugwump drops more then a slimy skin thingy :p

[windsofwar]

a quick other thought. to kill the wump you need magic weapons...i made a crafted bronzewood great staff....there is no magic tag on there at all. i remember chaos saying somewhere regarding muggy that the crafted weapons are supposed to be magic but they do not appear to be at this time. oversight maybe?

[ChaosSlayer]

I was about to go to sleep when I saw this post, so since I am half a sleep already, here are few brief replies I may miss somethings)

On crafting:

-The alchemical catalyst is indeed less common than the other parts, but you normally use just 1 catalyst in a recipe where you use 3 ores, or 3 gem dust. So 1 to 3 drop ratio should suffice. Of course, you usually get 1 ore back from a failed combine, but not catalyst- thats why you getting end up with some extra ore in the end. Overall I have no problem with farming up catalyst when I played my 3 test characters, but I will look this over.

-On the skill ups - you have you tried crafting arrows? Thought, they only good for rising up fletching. Not sure if something could be inserted for smithing, perhaps the iron arrows could be moved to the forge.

On armor drops:

there are 5 bosses in warrens, and each of them can drop the legs or the chest:
On Price side: Prince and Master
On King side: King, Bat Lord, Krode

they have 35% chance *2 modifier to drop legs and chest, which means on average you get about 55% chance to get legs or chest - so each 2nd kill or so. Of course luck is a factor, but with 5 named to kill - that at least 3 drops per zone clean up

On other parts- the plate, chain, leather and silk parts- they all have identical chance to drop. The problem is with Emu RND generator. When zone is spawned and loot randomize is run, the RND generator bunch of number sin close proximity, and out of 10 mobs who could drop either part, 9 will have plate helm for example. This is just how RND works- nothing can be done about it.

On Difficulty:

when you enter warrens, the layout of mobs is following:

If from the entrance you step into King Side- the mobs right in front of water pond are level 3-4, but BEYOND the water pound they are 15+.
If you go into the tunnel towards the Prince - the mobs are 5-6, and slowly gaining levels.
So in order of progression - you hunt around the pond first, and then go back into the tunnel, then into Jail area, and finally into the hall before the Prince, and after that you go back to the King side and cross the pond and go from there.
Its a little bit not straight forward, but just looking around and coning the mobs should get you the right targets

BTW- BOT is allowed - the BOXING is not allowed. people seem to be confusing the two all the time

On magical weapons:

-the Forlorn weapons (and some others) that dropped by the 5 bosses all magical
-The crafted weapon needs to be ENCHANTED to become magical and gain a proc/click effect. For that you need 3 different Elder runes, which drop of the 5 bosses - 100% drop rate of one of the runes.

compare:
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49417
and
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49437

BTW as necro, you would consider these for weapons instead:

http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49431
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49433
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49423

hopefully that helps =)

[windsofwar]

lol thank you for the quick reply.....the stick is atm for the pally cus its the only 2h wep i could rustle up a success on...the iron arrows sound awesome........and now my other question is answered more or less. i have several of the hesh runes and 2 of the others but im not sure what the process is to get them done.. maybe name an npc that in my blind haste to lvl ive missed or not paid enough attention to?

again my thanks and good night.

[ChaosSlayer]

Talk to the Weaponmaster in Paineel
Or rather- hand him the crafted weapon, and he will tell you what to do next. (you will get the weapon back) =)

[windsofwar]

ok i brought the weapon to him and he says something t the toon of oh dear i thought this would happen. it appears this weapon cannot be enchanted.......whatd i do boss whatd i do?

[ChaosSlayer]

so reads closely what he is saying - continue the conversation

[windsofwar]

was very tired totally did not notice the say link

[Bernat]

May I suggest increasing drop rate on Pouch of Gem Dust?

Reason: It's the only item used in 2 different tradeskills.

In Fletching, every Section of Bronzewood Shaft needs a minimum of 4 Pouch of Gem Dust. Most weapons created by Fletching need a minimum total of 14 Pouch of Gem Dust. It's not that you need a lot of weapons, but you need to make a lot of them if you want to raise your skill. At level 29, my fletching skill is 20.

In Jewelcrafting, you need a minimum of 9 Pouch of Gem Dust for every Dim Alchemical Crystal you want. I've counted 10 diferent augmentable slots for a minimum total of 20 augmentation gems (assuming no crafting failures). That makes a minimum of 180 Pouch of Gem Dust. At level 29, my jewelry making skill is 21.

I've already stopped rising my fletching skill because I've still got half my inventory to augment (I have 100+ Raw Bronzewood awaiting and 7/10 items augmented), and I've spent a lot more time than it was intended in the Warrens.

[ChaosSlayer]

question: did you out 21 skill points in EACH tradeskill BEFORE you started the crafting?
When I was planning drops and trivials, I assumed very person would start off by getting first 21 points the easy way.
Also, which classes you using for self and bot, and which wooden items you trying to make?