LDON Points per run

[aabamzen]

First off, I'll echo this:

By the way, would like to thank Lillu for making the change today without nerfing, rather making the other options more rewarding. It's appreciated.

I'll post a full, honest review of the LDON system as I see it. I do this not to nerf the normal miragul collection tasks, but to maybe paint a better picture of why it is the only one a serious LDON points collector would run and hope that the others would be brought more in line with it so that the others might be used more. I think LDON is a great system and allows a more casual player/group to attain some very nice items at the expense of their time.

I spent a little over 12 hours (I am an engineer and love data - logged all the time I spent doing it) collecting 1500 points, which comes out to be slightly 12 minutes from port-in to the vale to the next port-in after a win (longer at the start and faster at the finish as I gained AAs and gear from other zones) using a group of 5. This just barely put it over my risk (time) vs reward to get mainhand weapons for my chars and would have much rather (from a standpoint of my sanity, not exactly rvr) been killing in Ssra/Kael. This does not count the times when I would just log because of characters getting hung up zoning or when I would simply log because of characters going into different LDON zones. I don't have much of a patience when it comes to that stuff. If I did count it, I would guess the average would go up to the 14-15 minute per run range.

Difficulty

I couldn't live through a two-pull on the only one I tried, but that was with lesser gear than I have now. From what I have read, much better geared people have spent an hour doing one of these.

Advantage: Normal

Zone

You have the choice of miragul or tak for normal, no matter which type you choose. The entrance for the miragul ldon is within spell casting range of the port in. The tak entrance requires a lengthy run across the desert of Sro.

Advantage: Miragul

Suggestion: Move the port in closer to the tak entrance and maybe consider doing the same for the hard ldon entrances as well.

LDON Type

Collection: Once you figure out where you need to go, you kill 20 mobs for 20 collection items (at least in Miragul). The mobs are close together and don't require much running to get to.

Assassinate: Kill an unknown number of mobs and wander around for a while until you find where the boss popped. I didn't stick around long enough to figure out where because I had already killed way too many mobs and could be getting faster points in other types.

Slaugher: Kill 60 mobs when I could kill 20?

Rescue: Honestly haven't tried, but I went with the assumption that it would be like an assassinate.

Advantage (although not 100% researched): Collection

Overall, I was happy with the time spent for my weapons, but it was only because of the specific combination of choices (normal difficulty, miragul, collect) that led to my time being used the most efficient way possible. If I had to spend a few more hours to crank out these points, I would have probably felt it wasn't worth it.

Edit: Wow, that was long. Sorry!

[khaliss]

I still think Miragul's (normal) is the best and "only" way to go if you are in hurry to farm points... even if it is the least enjoyable. Every Miragul collection I went through had a guaranteed quest drop from ZI down to the 20th mob. This wasn't the same with Takish. Hard LDoN just plain sucked on drop rates (was like 1 out of 7 kills), but it was fun cuz I like a little bit of challenge.

[striat]

I dont know how it works, but its the way they are distributed that seems perculiar.

From the first twenty or so mobs, you can get 18/19 of the items you need. As you go deeper into the dungeon the mobs further in then stop dropping the collection item.

Its almost as though the mobs in the front of the dungeon spawn first and get given the collection item, so that is why the mobs deeper in the dungeon are all empty as the total you mentioned has already been reached.

My response is:

I plan on reviewing LDON in the very near future and revising how things are handled. Loot should be dispersed more evenly (instead of the front mobs dropping all of the collects only!).

I'm the only one dealing with code at the moment, and I have not been available until today really. I can't remember how it was coded, but it probably uses Mob ID in sequential order (the order they spawn in). Again, looking to revisit it. Just will take a few days most likely.

[Kuldiin]

No rush

Thanks for doing all this Striat, its appreciated

[Koeril]

I'm the only one dealing with code at the moment, and I have not been available until today really.

Yay! Striat is back! Great to see you again!

[Rocums]

And by no rush he means just go ahead and forget about doing that =p

[Rocums]

I'm more for increasing difficulty and substantially increasing points then anything else.

The reason why there are some people who have done it 200+ times is that they can both 1) do the ice collection in under 5 minutes because they are geared in raid gear over tier 3 and/or 2) they have the ability to do repetitive tasks repetitiously.

For those with non raid gear, it's more like 20 minutes. Just to get 1 piece of LDON armor would take 5 hours. You can get a full set of ToV armor in less time than that. In order to make a run in 20 minutes, you need a very geared raid toon, at which point you don't really need to do LDONs that much, except to fill in small gaps in gear, or get an aug if you happen to get a drop with a slot 2.

ON the other hand, if there was something that was on par difficulty wise with maybe t5 where you first see a drop with a slot 2, and had a much higher return on points, then maybe it would become worthwhile. I would like to see the hard modes harder with better returns.

[mukkel]

I was lucky enough to do my first LDON collect the other day. I'm in ToV/ST gear on my tank and was pulling entire wings at a time. Needless to say I cleared the whole zone and never did reach my 20 quota. I've been looking at the other types, but haven't had the opportunity to run them because I don't want that same experience EVER. This was in Miragul's..

I then tried a hard collect in Mistmoore and ended up killing about 35 mobs for my 20 quota. The problem with that instance run was sometimes you can't avoid pulling 3..4..sometimes 7 mobs at a time. These mobs have more hit points than ToV trash, which seems crazy to me. The reward definitely wasn't worth the time it took to kill those 35 mobs, and the risk of when you have a 7 pull and then it's basically harder than trying to kill a raid boss.

Fitzor