EZ Server

cool's

Neato

cant wait

Nice

thats a lot of regen

maybe bring it down to 2000 or less?
that could break the game even more than the UC did

Takes a while before you can get that much regen.

cool
thanks for the new content

i sent you some emails btw

Will T5 produce items of great statistic than this?  i.e. HP, Mana, Regen, etc?

Will be interesting to see how fast this is acquired.

seems to have been some confusion on how this works but basicly you need to kill 5,100ish? mobs keep combinding along the way. and theres 10 zones find a zone that isnt being camped or open a guild instance.

Have fun sounds like 5,100 hours or 212.5 days of solid camping (yeah thats correct thats almost a FULL YEAR)

Rank 2 = Rank 1 x2.
Rank 3 = Rank 2 x2
Rank 4 = Rank 3 x2

512 kills. All time estimates are speculations at this point.

Considering its finished incarnation is substantially better than ROA, which takes what, 100 hours,
it seems that 200-300 hours would be appropriate.

Interesing idea. Btw its 512 runs .. heres the math

1 run = rank 1
2 runs   = rank 2
4 = rank 3
8 = rank 4
16 = rank 5
32= rank 6
64 = rank 7 (nice has 14k hp)
128 = rank 8
256 = rank 9
512 = rank 10

So doing a little more math... If you can do 8 runs per day that is 64 days and anywhere between 64 - 192 million plat (more than 64 million if you reset the instances faster than an hour)

Sorry i am a data analyst~~

Dravyen

So i just gotta do more then 16 runs a day.. haha =D

That's slightly less cool since someone did the math.  :)

79k HP is best item in the game.

You don't have to get max rank though, can get a mid rank for some decent HPs.

Yes after that cash figure hit me I almost died.

I was wondering when youd get the range item out, thought for sure it would be implemented with T5 but this is great.  Of course it comes out when I'm not playing here ugh.  I still have a few weeks left here and love my peeps so might login to help them get it!

Ok, I know this is only now just out, but.....any chance it can be Range, Ammo? (and lore,of course)

That way I can still pull with my heart shards?

Thanks.

If it were lore it would take away the grind component.

Good point. 

The stats of anything in ammo slot does not count. Although mods like improved damage from the staff of fluxing power do.

I find it funny no one has commented on the Ranger dilemma yet - Guess no one cares?

I do not find this quest funny!

I did two of the bosses today. Both times I used just my SK and Pally. Sk is 115k, pallly only 50k. It was a long fight but anyone who uses a full group setup should have no problems with this. Looks like each boss has some different kind of effect which really is nothing to worry about. The two I did were Grots and Basher. Both hit about the same, same hp. Anyone w/a group of 3.5/4.0's will be able to plow through these w/no problems. I guess the best way to describe them is similar to the HoH avatars except w/a ton more HP.

This is basically another ROA -- a massive HP accessory.
Rangers don't need it for the same reason they don't need ROA.

Killing a single boss takes me about 20 minutes with ~70,000 dps.

So assuming every boss is up all the time, a full rank takes about 3.5 hours.

1800 hours (74 days) for all 512 runs would be making good time.

Bit broad compared to the ~100 hours required for ROA. I suspect even the hardcore will quit around rank 5.

Bosses been killed collectively 50x already just since 12 hours ago.

I dunno, this just seems to me to be on the high end of time involved for me. As a somewhat casual player compared to some on the server, I just don't seem to think that this sort of time requirement will be something I can do anytime soon so best of luck to everyone trying.

I may give it a shot once to get version 1. But this is so much time, there's no way I'm getting above....2 or 3 maybe?  And that's probably generous.

Nice item, though.

Hunter any way we can get the pieces for the quest non lore? That way we can get a an instance and stay there for the day or w.e instead of having to bounce zone to zone would be nice to do rivervale a day then go to the next the next day ect.

I support this idea. Since you need to kill these bosses a lot of times it would be nice to be able to make a guild instance in one zone on a Monday and just farm it several times and then Tuesday move to another zone.

People will probably say this is a bad idea but this is going to be a serious grind and I think its not unreasonable for a guild to make a instance and just farm up several from one boss a day.
Just my opinion.

that is some serious grind, 6 mos worth maybe?

That's probably about right. Be nice to make the events a little more difficult by adding an element then lowering the HP of the bosses. Essentially all you're doing now it just tank/spank, I afk'd for like 15 minutes on one fight today. Was boring as hell. Double the drop rate of the  quest item. That would help w/the grind but also allow you to give the item to another toon if you wanted. Of course removing the lore would have to be done if you wanted to keep both the drops on one toon. Or add this to the task system that way everyone in your group can get a quest piece when you have a kill.

The average player should be able to get a mid rank over time, and the absolute hardcore players will strive to get that rank 10. Who knows, maybe someday players will have them. I remember when just about nobody had an Ultimate Charm.

I moved the Librarian in cabeast out of the building due to the Floor Teleporters not playing friendly with instances.

Whats the price if someone just wants to pay the money for it

UC ... 800...

This.. !!! math would make that rather large..

Nobody can buy this item.

I just saw someone with a rank 2 already on the first day this quest was released. Grats! Only 8 more ranks to go!

Not the be a pessimist, so lets point out the obvious, just 510 more runs to go!

I really support the idea of lowering the HP Regen of the mob but scripting a unique fight. I like the idea that I can afk kill these mobs now but if I'm going to be at the keyboard leading a raid of guildies I would love to have a fight that requires some skillful play. What say you EZRiders?

Deadend

Like Balthor, i support this idea !

I like farming, i like doing quest, but repeating thing (zone X toon to X, kill X, zone X toon to nexus, zone X toon to X, kill X ...) will just kill us and i not sure 0.1% of the server will get a lvl 10, i know its a super item and its not intented a lot of player get it, but can you believe the player that made it to lvl 9 will have made only half of the item ? after 256 run ? 2560 kill ? what this guys will think at this time ?
Honnestly like someone said, hardcore player will probably go to lvl 5, maybe 6 ...  i know you are going to say like usual people are complaining, they always want huge item, easy and fast, this isnt what i m saying, just saying if we can "farm" a zone for 24h and loot more than 1 item if you kindly accept to make it no lore item  ::) the instance will worth his price and maybe some player might go to lvl 8 ? ...

Please, make it no lore  :'(

I think this is Hunter's "be dedicated or do without" quest!  Good luck getting the grind reduced but my feeling is it's very deliberate.  You want the end product, you're going to have to really work at it.

What zones are these guys in, are the Guild Instances 10k or 100k in most of them?

Also be interested to see how the item scales.  Does it double everytime as your effort doubles with each rank or is much less than double.

That will also decide how far people progress.

So I've been hitting the mob in Freeport for the better part of today.  I still haven't killed it (after 4 attempts).  My set up is as follows:
1 x War (3.0 + lvl 37 Sor + 4 x IV Anger Augs)
1 x War (3.0 + lvl 7 Sor + 4 x V Anger Augs)
1 x Pally (3.0 + lvl 42 Oracle + 2 x IV Firestikes)
1 x Pally (3.0 + lvl 6 Oracle)
1 x Ranger (3.0 + lvl 1 Guardian)
1 x Cleric (3.0 + lvl 1 Oracle)

The first time I hit him - everything crashed on my end when I got him to 2% health.  I then tried again and everyone died within 5 mins (I figured afk fighting wasn't a good idea)

Two more times (actively playing for 30 mins per attempt) -- am able to consistently get him down to 1% health and then he starts hitting HARD.  My main war (with 120k hps) gets one shotted out of nowhere.  Then he systematically cuts through the rest.  This happened both times.

I think I'm over it until all my tanks are 3.5 min.  Dunno - maybe even 4.0s?

Either way - if your idea of "an average" group is one where everyone is wielding 3.0s you may want to rethink this quest until you have better gear.

Logging off now and going to find something more productive to do with my afternoon (/rant off)
Strix

well, i want to illustrate my opinion but again its either you go and do it or leave it. yes i agree but i have to say something here since i care about doing all the quests on EZ and ENJOY doing them.

i like the idea of the quest and even the grind part since thats how we obtained our UC / ROA. but killing those bosses 5000 times is crazy! even if you turn attack on and afk ! the whole setup is just too much! you will then have to wait for repops.

all i am asking is to change it in away to make it doable because i personally feel that if i can not do it nobody else will only because i play too much :D

/cheer hunter new contents are highly appreciated! but c'mon dont you feel adding some salt and pepper will change it to be one of the best quests? even better than UC!

i did some calcalulations to when i will be able to obtain this items considering my capabilities and spare time to play! it is 530 days! 260 days time play!. (it is 4 x obtaining UC, ROA T4 and epic 4.0! all together for 5 characters!)

even if you said do half of the quest and enjoy the reward! but it is exactly like telling me i will give you an incomplete quest to enjoy half of it (half the fun) but guss what? i am greedy and i want all the fun from EZ!

/cheer

I could see myself getting possibly to level 6 or 7, if I even do it at all (I absolutely HATE grinds) but no way in hell I would ever want to go passed that. Getting to level 7 would take me a few months and getting level 7-10 takes 8 times as long as that. If I ever acquire level 10 I think it would be a wake up call to go out and get some sun. I would prefer if the ten bosses were extremely hard to kill, required a few groups of players. a lot of strategy and you only have to kill them once per level, rather than having to kill each one 512 times. I appreciate the great item with the great stats, but I prefer a boss that pisses me off so badly that I want to throw my computer against the wall than being extremely bored for 12 months and finally getting the item. The tough boss is SO much more satisfying to finally beat. 4.0/UC/Roa/Qvic-T4 are insane grinds, how about a little challenge in order to get a nice item?

This quest is not finished yet. Boss events will hopefully be more challenging in the future, so farm it up now while they are easy =)

lol the further we discuss the harder it becomes.

i am gonna just shhh.

I don't mind hard to kill mobs but making them have a ton of hps doesnt really make em hard just makes em tiresome

When they become more difficult will we still need to kill each of them 512 times for the level 10?

I'm killing the last boss now for my first level scepter.  Group make-up is:

Warrior : 220k hp, Epic 3.5 x 2 + four Anger IV augs
Paladin: 116k hp, Epic 3.5 (1hs) + mossy tundra stone V aug
Paladin : 112k hp, Epic 3.5 (2hs) + sharpening stone V & Firestrike IV augs
Paladin: 99k hp, Epic 3.5 (2hs) + sharpening stone V aug
Ranger: 101k hp, Epic 3.5 bow + Mossy Tundra V aug
Ranger: 74k hp, Epic 3.5 bow + Mossy Tundra V aug

About the only time the warrior is in trouble is if I miss Enrage, otherwise I can AFK it.  The fights take 40 - 45 minutes with this group.

Strix. The reason you wipe at 1% is that at 3% he enrages.

Simply turn off attack on your MT and let your pallys heal you. He only enrages for 30 seconds or so.
I was surprised to find out he enraged as these mobs are the first that im aware of on EZ that do this. It made me smile actually and happy that I actually read the spam that flys by in the window.


GL in the future


Deadend

I really feel like 9 months ago when I got into t2 those bosses enraged.  I haven't noticed it recently but I remember it pretty clearly back then.

Thanks for the report, glad I didnt even try. Sounds like you saved me a hell of a lot of time. 

What about taking their HP down and their difficulty down some and making it similar to Rathe Council from PoP and you have to kill all 10 within a small time frame and increase spawn time on them.
You could have only 1 mob drop the quest item each time.
If your looking to make a quest require extra people the best way is to spread them out.

I am biased as that event was one of my favorites for what it required.

Yeah, Rathe Council was a lot of fun.

Mobs did enrage some time ago, however a code problem was causing some problems and enrage was removed from all mobs as a fix.  These bosses are the first to re-introduce it. that I've seen.

Thanks Deadend - will give that a try.  Been a while since I fought a mob that enrages - so used to just muscling through fights.  :D

Strix

Hey Gunther - I hope my frustrated ramblings above don't put you off having a go.  Yes it was a time sink - but I've been thinking about it ever since and am chomping at the bit to have another crack.  I feel that my setup is perhaps the bare minimum requirement and at that 50/50 line which means the ride is just that much more fun at the moment.  Yes, I'm wiping - but wiping at 1% health is just that carrot too close!! 

Strix

I think you are more then capable of finishing the fight.
I would say the minimum set up would be.
3.0 war ~135k
3.0 Pal oracle lvl 21
3.0 Pal oracle lvl 11

I'm 90% sure you could kill these mobs with this set up. Sure it would take you 2 hours but it's certainly possible.

These mobs don't hit that hard or fast. The aoe isnt really anything to worry about. It's really all about dps.

If you want to have a easy go at this. Just have the above min covered and dump in a ass ton of dps. Blamo success.

I say if it's not difficult it's not worth doing!

Deadend

be cool if this quest started off in time, ldon, qvic, tacvi, t1, t2, t3, t4. once it gets to t4 status it could equal roa 100. For further ranks, could use zones not used and make the mobs much harder like you are wanting. I think the average player could use a new range upgrade instead of using qvic range.

Now that's very cool!  Always good to know the min specs!!  Would you say that this config could cover all 10 bosses?

I can't say for certain as I haven't killed all ten yet but the few I have killed haven't varied all that much.
I will keep you posted as I'm planning on knocking out a few more tonight.

Deadend

The difference in bosses isn't all that large.  All have similar HP, all do similar damage.  The librarian in Cabilis has an aoe, the clockwork in Ak'Anon has a stun/mild knock back, the gal in Halas does a gravity flux (real pita...I killed her in the water to offset it), the Sentinel in Erudin roots.  They're pretty much a lenghthy tank -n- spank. 

Maybe some shout kills to spice it up?

Seriously though, might add some more guards in the area, so there are like adds.

When you say "like" adds - I assume you mean that the adds would be of equal hps and difficulty to kill? 

Wow - not sure those min specs would cut that kind of fight.  I'm getting the feeling Hunter that you're leaning towards this quest being designed as a "High End" quest?  Very cool concept given the amount of people saying there is no content on the high end.  Certainly adding "like adds" would ensure that an average geared player (at this point in time) would find this quest very tough (if not impossible).

Back to farming for me :D
Strix

Nah, it wasn’t your post that is discouraging me. After reading all the posts regarding the quest I realize that although the end result is a very nice item, it’s not doable for me at this time. Over the last few months I have really surprised myself at what my tiny little band of toons can tackle with a little effort. But even if I did go and spend 40 minutes and defeat one of these bosses that still leaves 9 more to go and the end result is not that great at rank 1.

It’s a high end players item. I have a long way to go before investing in it. Your post just saved me from being disappointed had I been able to beat the mob or not.

Sounds like it just gonna get tougher too, forget that.

There was something I forgot to mention in my above post. When this quest was first announced it was worded to sound as if it was going to be a raid event.

When I think of raiding I think of events like the Thanksgiving event (never mind the crappy reward, that’s another subject altogether) where lots of people get together, group up and achieve a common goal and get a reward.

Does anyone remember the goblin mission in Highpass on EQ live? Tons of people in zone LFG to complete the mini event. At the end of the event everyone in the group got a reward on their cursor if they survived the event. Those mini quests solved several problems for EQ at the time, it was a nice change of pace, there was a nice reward and it encouraged groups again, well at least untill the reward got nerfed.

Sounds like these bosses drop 1 item at a time. That not an incentive to group/raid with others.

       Or maybe make it so the Name mob/adds becomes immune to a certain type of damage for a period of time and so on. Slashing,blunt, piercing, and or spell damage. Maybe even take it a step further and make it so the Name mob/adds will call out a class type that it will be immune too (Fighters,scouts,mages,Healer). Maybe make it so when the Name mob/adds calls the healers the Name npc/add would do an aoe mana drain..LoL if that doesn't get everyone playing each class i don't know what will. LOL Just some thoughts. Enjoy  ;D


Cracken
~GL of Classic Composers

Hunter thanks for reading! I don't want you got get the idea the quest is easy as it stands. I feel it's anything but. The time sink is nearly beyond measure. The minimum specs I listed above were conceivable but my no means a efficient method of completing an event. My estimates of 2hours per kill are more realistic than you might imagine. These mobs have insane amounts of hp regen.

Quick idea i just though of. What about making a side quest with uber bane weapons you can get for the fights! Make them crafted from the crafters guild. Kind of like seru.
Hmm I will think more on this one.

Deadend

If you have a masterful DPS setup, you can kill these in 20-30 each minutes making;

* Rank 4 - 28 hours
* Rank 5 - 56 hours
* Rank 6 - 122 hours
* Rank 7 - 224 hours

I appreciate that this event should be done over six or twelve months, but the exponential growth
required for further ranks is very unattractive considering how plain these encounters are.

If you have to keep the time sink element, spread it out in a more interesting way.

Make random city NPCs be placeholders for the boss.
Make us do some short quest or task to spawn the boss with a turn-in.

Do things like this to create the time sink element you want -- but lower boss health so the event
is both (a) more interesting and (b) available to more people.

EZ's content stopped at T1-T2 i've said it many times.

everything passed T2 has been an attempt at prolonging server's longevity and it has not succeeded.

there's no creativity, no direction and a lack of design ability.

from avatar farm fest to gem combine click fest and now this, zero content.

this is just another way to hold people over for T5.

honestly if the content (if you can call it that) passed T2 is any indication i'm not holding my breath for T5.

man why does this post sound like a rant? lol it's not meant to be, it's just built up frustration i guess and calling a spade a spade.

I don't know what Hunter's abilities are when it comes to creating content, i mean other than placing a mob somewhere and adding a custom made loot to its table, i'm assuming someone else writes the scripts and whoever that person is stopped contributing a long time ago?

I hope the direction on EZ changes for the better soon. i like playing here but a lot of people like me ran out of things to do a while ago.

I hear you. And it doesn't strike me as a rant, but just as you said frustration.

I've had fun here for the last year but as everyone told me "wait till you hit....." is slowly becoming reality. 

This new more of the same didn't help any. I'm hoping future content can break up some of the grind and make the grinding worth it.

And the villagers are looking for their pitchforks and torches, saw it comin awhile back. :'(  Yall are one of the best if not the best community I've been a part of.  Like I said last week, you deserve the best  and should stand up and demand it.  If you are'nt satisfied with whats happening take Hunter's  advice and go somewhere else/play a different class.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions.

On T3/4 would random mini bosses that drop cyan-purple stones help? PH and/or random trash kill spawns? Might lower boss req by 1 color too. Shadow script still a top priority.

Might add code to assassin bosses that whole group gets item on cursor + 1 to loot.

This will hopefully be more fun and streamline for T5.

I like all these ideas. 

Minis wouldn't just add speed where speed is needed, they might make the stone farming more interesting.

And the assassin idea is sharp -- it gives players incentive to group up on these bosses (fun) and opens up the potential for nearly
everyone to participate.

All sounds good to me but the whole whole group gets an item + one to loot mean your gonna make em no lore? Or are we gonna be giving em away ect. , Just trying to figure it out heh.

Would still remain lore, so if you don't have one and your in the group for credit for kill, then you'd get one.

So only the group with the highest dps would get the piece?  I don't think raids work here but could you make it so everyone on the hatelist gets it for contributing.  I remember you saying that this would take many many players to kill but only rewarding one group of them seems odd.

Changing it so everyone on the hate list would get one would be incredibly over rewarding. I seriously doubt Hunter would ever do that.

Let me give you an example. I myself have about 20 characters. Balthor has about the same. We could go over there together and get a reward for 40 toons. And that's just two people. Imagine what a guild could do.

It depends on how much of a grind he wants it to be.  You would still have to do 512 rounds of all 10 bosses for the max lvl item. 

Excellent idea.  Lowering color requirement by 1 would be huge.  It would definitely make things more fun for players knowing you had to farm half as much for the same reward.  It helps reduce some of the grind required since at the end of the day I'd think the point of this server is for people to have a great time.

If I make everyone on the mobs hate list get the reward, then the mob would have to be 5-10x harder and no instances. Would basically mean a 24/7 raid going on the server, just join up any time lol.

- Random mini bosses, like in T1/T2 spawning while killing trash should really help farming and will make it more fun, more surprise, and this will break the monotony of the stones farming, after month et month of farming, i m just too much bored of doing the same thing day after day  :'(
- Lowering the boss req by 1 colour will speed a lot the gearing of any toon, maybe wait T5 before doing it ? a lot of people are actually hitting T3/T4, let them do it old school ;)
- I hope the new shadow fight will be fun and worth the hard work to kill, so we will want to do him  ;D
- Raid get the item will be just too much easy, and like you said, they will be killed 24/7, just join the raid, kill and leave, not really interesting, might find something more fun.

Thanks for listening the suggestion and trying to make it less boring ;)

just do the group + 1 sounds good take what we can get hah and will help alot for us that box lol almost everyone

Hunter if you go with group+1 I think thats a good idea. I would test it to see if two groups joined in a raid did or did not get one on kill.
Knowing how buggy raids can be I wouldnt be surprised if one kill everyone got one as reward, another time only some people did.

Lowering stone requirement for t3/t4/mcp would be nice, the grind is boring which is why I have put in a lot less then most people.
Random minis poping would be cool, spice it up, as long as they didnt do something crazy like have a zillion hp and death touch.

Sure hope you store that pp across 97 toons :)

This is what it gives after 8 days :






So thats 2 run per day, 3h per run ... = lot of grind  ::) at this speed i need 248 more day  :o 496 run to go  ::) WOOT  ;D

Honestly dont you think its too much ? getting a toon from zero to full T4 with UC and ROA 100 is shorter than doing 512 run, lets find a new idea to lower the requirement of the lvl 10

P.S : ROA 100 is less than 100 hours, says UC take 100 hours, why Crafted Scepter should take more than 1500 hours ? make it 250 - 300 hours if you dont want a lot of people get it, but with 1500, you just want no one get it, or maybe only 1 crazy player get it ?  ::)
Please reconsider this item, i just think its a bad thing to create something and no one get it, try to take a look, how many people are doing the quest ? no a lot, everytime i zone in public, the boss are up, i just had to get a GI the first day, why doing content if people dont play it ? i hope you will think about it ;) Thanks anyways ;)

Wow, grats! :)  I know you've got a long way to go for more levels, but that's still pretty impressive.

You don't have to get max level, and but if you do, its the highest HP item in the whole game sitting at 79,000 HP.

Yeah sweet item, I just dont have the energy anymore to take a  three quarters of a YEAR to get a sweet item on ONE toon.   Yeah I tried to make it as positive as I could given my current blood alcohol level.

why not make kills a group reward so at least you can gear up all toons at once

I don't think you understand. Nobody is going to get to level X, nobody. It's too boring and take's wayyyyyy too long to get. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind, after spending 768 hours(and that's IF you can do it in 3 hours every single time) killing  the same ten mobs over and over in order to get to level 9 and saying, "yeah! I'll do that all over again for the 20k extra Hp!" or w/e the difference is. It's not worth it.

My suggestion? Decrease the HP that each boss has, increase the amount of damage they hit for. Give them different AoE spells that do major damage, or decrease mana by alot or decrease the amount your healing/damage procs do or even a silence. Then you can give them adds, but don't have the adds have an incredible amount of HP, you should be able to kill them. Make it so if an add is up the boss hits for alot more and has a larger AoE spell. Something like that! If you make them MUCH harder to kill (because currently I can attack them and go take a shower or watch TV and that's with 3-5 adds) then you can justify decreasing the amount of times we need to kill them

Also? Decrease the amount of runs we need to do from levels 7-10. It's just ridiculous. Maybe increase the AC on them by alot more, and give them clickys and focus effects that increase every single level. Kind of like the charms.

Thoughts?

Might want to say what level of gear you have.
IE: I have UC and 4.0 on both warriors and 4.0 paladins with mixed charms. I can turn attack on and go afk knowing I wont die with 3 solid healers in my group and UC dps.

Saying you go afk on the fight and not listing your gear is a good way to have Hunter see this, assume you have t2 gear and think the fights are to easy and make them harder.
I do not see the number of fights required going down based off what people are saying, what I forsee is this getting even harder and no one getting past rank 7.

Ok. I use a SK, Paladin and warrior. SK has full T4, paladin has mostly T4 with some T3, same with warrior. All 3 have UC and the best augs in the game on their 4.0s. 

Thanks for the ideas. There will be changes in near future on this quest.

I like reading about how people want to make a huge time sink quest harder and longer.... this item is badass... only a few will ever max it to" X" status... and also what do you guys expect for an item that has 79k hps! A free ride?

Less hps harder hitter would be cool also or see below.. gotta make the time sink worth the other people helping the group!

The only thing I could see is have the npc drop t3 accessories they are about equal in my eyes .. plus the drop rate of spells and t3 accessories is extremely way to low period...

Bare with me posting from phone..

Perhaps it is we who do not understand.  I'm thinking that Hunter wants this to be a nearly unachievable item.  It is something to do in the down time.  That's what RoA was for, but mudflation and player ingenuity have made it much easier than was originally intended.  The original intent of charms (per Hunter) was that they be so rare no one would ever achieve lvl 25 on one, let alone level 50 on all four.  But again, as gear grew and the quest changed, it became an attainable goal.

Do you still think this quest will take 3/4 of a year when you're in full T6 armor with your 5.0 and all your dps toons have Icestrike/Firestrike?  I think this quest was designed to still be challenging when the next level of gear is done and people are waiting for T7/T8.

To add on Balthor's comment,

My crew is a mix of T2 - T3 gear.  Six toons all with 3.5's.  The fights take about 40 minutes and I cannot AFK them.  Bosses get in a lucky round from time to time that requires a stonewall.  Also have to watch the enrage.  I've fought through a couple of them, and in all instances but two my Warrior took a dirt nap.

Fantastic and greatly needed/appreciated quest. The idea is good. The reward is good. The difficulty is okay, since it's basically the next step
after ROA/UC.

But yeah - time involved is insane. Even under highly unrealistic conditions (like a 3-hour run -- nobody is going to throw millions at instance
portals) the time involved is incredible.

What about leaving it as is untill like, level 5, then from 5 on, only having to combine a lvl 1? Meaning, do 1-5 the way it is now but to get 6 you just combne a lvl 1 with a lvl 5 and so on? Would still take a while and wouldn't be "giving it away".

Nice, so if you play 7h30 per day you can make 1 run, at this speed, you need 512 day ! playing every day ;) so that's almost a year and half ... i hope you enjoy the grind ;)
If you make it, I will take the plane to offer you champagne and restaurant  ;D

RoA is just 100 run for 25k hp (do able in 100 hours)
UC is 200 charm upgrade for 50k hp (do able in 100 hours)
SoT is 512 run for 79k hp (do the maths according to your speed, but I don't think many players are be able to do it in less than 3 hours, and that is with high end content stuff, so that's from +1500 hours to +5100 hours for those that need 1hour to kill and i already saw it !)

I think the time needed to get this item should be lowered, like other people said, do boss a lot more hard to kill, we could use 20+ to kill them, like a dragon fight at the beginning of EQ, need buff time, strategy and the fight should be more interesting than actually, the boss should drop a random number of the item needed, so we can randomly share them with the people who participated in the fight and each time you get the 10 items, you combine and get +1 lvl, so this way, we no more have to do 512 run, that don't have any sense (only ultra farming) be we want just some nice fight like we where doing 10 years ago, and every time we killed a dragon we were having fun ;) I think this is what people are waiting and wanting, big fight, fun fight, that need strategy and tactics, but no more ultra farming, we all got enough with T3/T4, stone, stone ...
I hope you can see what i mean ;) But this is only what i think, maybe other people don't think like me :)

what are the stats on a level 1-2 of this?  can a 3.0/tacvi gear paladin+ranger+druid group do it?  sounds really boring LOL but my pally could use a nice range slot, only have some ~350hp thing from qvic right now.  no way I'll ever do more than rank 1 or 2 tho.

also UC can NOT be done in 100 hours, not unless you have 4.0/T3-4 and pull half the zone at a time.  realistically you can quadruple that if not more.  I've easily spent 100 hours in LDON maybe 200 and only have one 25 Oracle and 25 Brawler and another 12-13 Oracle or so...

Pictures of lvls 1 thru 5 are posted on page 6 of this thread, you can view the stats there

As to the UC being done in 100 hours, that's being used as the high benchmark as compared to the high benchmark for this quest.  I too cannot farm 4 upgrades an hour on average, but some can.  So for comparison sake you need to look at the fastest this quest can be done versus the fastest others can be done.

I don't know if your 3.0, Tacvi geared Pal+Rng+Dru would be enough or not.  I honestly doubt it.  Even if you could win the fights, I think you'd find them incredibly long.  I'd estimate 90 - 120 minutes with that group, if they can even overcome the regen.  These fights were designed with multiple groups in mind. 

My opinion the item scaling is outa wack.
Then again its like that on everything.

Yeah ok I kinda figured.  With 500, 800 hp for rank 1 and 2 seems like my time is much better spent working at T1 gear etc.. maybe a few more Roa levels for the Pal.  Thanks.

Scaling was double (100% more) farming for 75% more HP on the items. So you can see the curve

500 hp
800 hp
1500 hp

etc

Dont know if this is intended, so figure i might as well point it out :p

Remember a while ago you posted about how you reduced the HP on the freeport boss, and increased his Damage?

Well, i think its hitting abit to hard :p i can handle all the bosses but the freeport now, which hits me for 60-80k each hit.. my warrior being full t2 with full hp augs, only has 114k.. granted with RoA/ultimate charm, i'd be up to what, 189k hp, but thats still only 3 hits i'd survive, since AC doesnt really change from t2 to the better gear the other tiers, lets say on average a max geared warrior would have what, 220k hp?

Thats still like.. 4-5 hits on average and insta death, and thats to the best geared possable.

So i dont understand how this was a fair tradeoff, it might not take an eternity to kill now, but its pretty much become impossable.. i mean we're talking tripple the damage here in the change? thats insane, and i dont know why this hasnt been commented on before.

Im really thankful for everything you do for us hunter, and i understand that changes are going to happen that just dont fully work.. and i firmly feel this is a change that needs to be removed.

A maxed out warrior is like 305khp not counting this quest item.
Average T4'd warriors running around are 250 on the low side.
I havnt bothered with this in a bit but I caught the ooc about getting wtfpwned.
I'll go try him tomorrow/today when I wake up.
I agree about the AC not changing from tier to tier, once upon a time the code was such that if Hunter increased AC melee became gods. That was awhile ago and could use a review.

I'll take another look at this guy too.  Haven't done the quest since the first run as it was just too time consuming.  Warrior is half T3 with 220k hp so we'll see if he gets his lungs handed to him.  ;)

Goodluck, tried it the other night 240k war/260k pally/220k war/clr/bst and got face raped. Never got it below 90%.

i just tried him 2 war 2 cleric pally and bst all t3/t4 and most have uc roa 100 and the best i could do is get him to 75%. someone let me know if you have been able to defeat this guy since the change and how if you did. I just dont see getting a full guild raid together everytime to kill this thing 500 + times.

Blame all the people who said this "event" was to easy !! WTF to easy.. 6+ month to complete....

yeah.. blame them

/e points around they are lurking here somewhere..

Did you try this quest ? how far did you go ? i finished the lvl 5 and stopped, its way to boring, easy, really easy, but too much boring ... why do we play Everquest on EZ server ?
To burn your free time ? or to have fun ? personally its for fun, EZ server is always on progression, adjusting thing to try to make them better, like a beta server, we are beta testing, and thanks to Hunter for listening what we say.

I think those boss need to be hard to kill, this way it will require skill, and many people to get them down, like the old raid we where doing on the live server when we wanted to kill a dragon or anything else, but this is EZ server, so fight must be doable with less than 40+ people like live need. But if boss are hard to kill then the number of the run needed to achieve this quest should be lowered. I dunno, kill them once or twice per level, depend on the difficulty to kill the boss, and let the boss drop a random number of the item so people who helped with the kill can get it ;)
I think fun come from the challenge and we enjoy the reward when we get it, not when we are at the point to suicide because we are bored as hell while doing our 500 + run ...

I killed the Freporte guard, the fight was more interesting than before, i tried with 6, wiped 2 times, one at 11% and second at 13%, so i came with 12 and i took him down in 7-8 min if i remember. i had to use more heal to make it more safe for the tank group, and added dps to kill him faster, but i think he is doable with 6, just need to practise him a little more ;) (Crab i know if you where here, you will want to kill him with 6 max  ::) )

Thanks for reading me to the end  ;D

Haha, funny been testing him with 4, I think it's totally doable just need a bit of practice on it is all.

/cheer 
We miss you ;D

I understand your wants, a lot of people are grown and just play a little in spare time... with a quest that will take a long time to complete and your all bent out of shape cause its boring...yea get more people there that wont get the item...

Unless it gets coded for every one that sees the kill message wtf is the point for a dps race to get the quest item through 6 uc chars full auger they will max dps every time...

So wtf about the other ppl as your group or my grp rakes the quest item every kill...how's that fair to the rest of the ppl who's dps isn't great or haven't got maxed goons like you and I...

The quest needs to be groupable by 6 to with heavy charms and 3.5s.

I want to see this quest attainable by others not just rage, foh, fp,Bh,demo, fol and and any other heavy 4.0 guild I missed...don't get your feelings hurt...

This already long quest for a fking awesome weapon doesn't need to be longer... yes enjoyable but not longer....

This was from phone ill edit grammar and stuff later...

Flame me if you want. /shrug

I want to make these bosses 1-group-able and the whole group gets a reward / credit for the kill. If it takes more than 6 players to down the bosses, then I'll consider making them easier. Good thing I'm just experiementing with 1 boss for now. I'll continue to tweak them.

I'd agree heartily on the side that this should be at least a bit more attainable. While yes, it is true that the RoA, UC, and now the Assassin Range item ARE optional, and nobody HAS to get them, it's pretty much a fact that you do indeed HAVE to get the UC and RoA 100 to get the Assassin Range item (as it is currently) or progress into T4/4.0 smoothly.

I'm the kind of guy that loves to dabble into everything, and while the UC and RoA are pretty big timesinks for someone starting out, they're very much a possibility and are actually relatively easy to get.

From what I've read, doing this 256 times to get lvl 9, only to realize you're halfway done is kind of a bummer. I don't see a lot incentive to go from 9-10 (double the time) for a 75% increase in stats.

While this shouldn't be something that you can get in 100 hours, it shouldn't be something you wouldn't WANT to get in a year of straight grinding. All I seem to hear is complaints from both sides. Some say it's too easy and should be made harder, with less time between upgrades. Some say it's too hard, but will agree that there should be less time between upgrades. Either way, I'm getting the impression that when some in the forums would say "not everyone is going to get this," what I hear is that "NOBODY IS GOING TO GET THIS."

I'm sure more folks would go with toning it down a bit and creating another formula for the creation of lvls 1-10. Perhaps an expanding variable?

lvl 1 = 1 set of 10 bosses
lvl 2 = 2 (more) sets of 10 bosses
lvl 3 = 3 (more) sets of 10 bosses
etc. etc...

Then at level 10, it would come out to 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1= 55 total (if my brain is correct)

Now, yes that seems WAY too easy now compared to the 512 we were initially supposed to do, BUT... why don't we reduce the stats of 1-10, and expand the range item to a maximum level of... say.... 25? That means instead of a 75% increase per level, it'd be more like a 30-35% increase per level.

25+24+23+22+21+20+19+18......+3+2+1= 325 (again, if my brain is correct).

At 325 runs, you could even cut the stats down to +25% per level and still leave the customer satisfied. This also means you are effectively reducing the amount of runs required by expanding the max level, but STILL making it a grind that not everyone is going to get, but there is a higher chance that few WILL. UC has (relatively speaking) 200 levels to grind out. RoA has 100. This one shouldn't be cut down to 10 levels, where lvl10 is twice the grind as lvl9.


My 2 cents.

Yeah, but are you talking about 1 groupable for a group of 4.0's with UC's and lvl 100 RoA's?

Sorry to borrow your quote, but this ties in perfectly with the first paragraph of my post =P

**Quick edit. Did the math @ 25 lvls + 25% increase per lvl and it came to 105,879hp (rounded to nearest 1) if lvl 1 is 500hp. Will do some number crunching with lvl 1 being 300hp and 400hp to see what those results add up to. Doing this out of sheer boredom at work so I don't mind if none of this gets used =P

KK so here's the numbers I came up with:

- 25 levels starting w/ 500hp @ lvl 1 =     ~106k hp. Too much
- 25 levels starting w/ 400hp @ lvl 1 =     ~85k hp. Maybe too much?
- 25 levels starting w/ 300hp @ lvl 1 =     ~64k hp. Sounds about right!

So in short, you'll be cutting down the runs by almost 200 or so, and decreasing the hp by 15k and stats by however much.

To be fair here, the person with rank V in this thread has done this (at least) 16 times to have achieved that. They don't even want to continue, especially with the VERY large leaps between upgrades later on. At least this method would spread them out a little more evenly, with the last upgrades taking considerably longer to achieve.

Starting at 300hp with the 25 lvl version I suggested, you wouldn't even break 10k hp until lvl 17. This would NOT make it "so easy" to grind through that it would be everywhere on the server, but would make it a lot more possible for those players who reeeeeeally want it.

As for boss difficulty, I'll leave that up to someone else to suggest =P my brain hurts now.

And yes, I do realize this would require a complete revamp of the whole quest process, and therefore I do not expect it to happen. I'm just trying to take part in the discussion because like I said, I want to dabble in everything I can get to in this game, and if I'm reading posts and hearing /ooc chat from experienced players about the quest being not worth the effort and time required, I'm a little disheartened to even try.

@ Hunter:

I find it to be a little more than a buzz kill that you took the time and effort to create something like this, which is MORE content for the players, only to have it shot down and nobody wants to even try it because they've done the math (or got a couple ranks and THEN did the math). I'm a strong believer that while certain content should be hard-earned by the player, it shouldn't be so difficult as to be virtually ignored by players with RoA 100 and UC because it's "too much grinding/time." Hell, I'm reading old posts and talking to people who say the UC is "too much grinding/time."

If some people are disinterested in even getting a UC due to the grind required, why multiply it by 10 and expect even a persistent player to attempt rank 10? The UC has an extremely versatile and useful focus effect, as well as some unbelievable stats. The Assassin's Quest Range item focus/right-click is still being constructed (I assume from what I've read), so it really is kind of unfinished. The only thing that we'd be wanting it for is the HP and perhaps the regen. I see there's also 79k MP on it, so now it's a Wizzy manaburn item too =P... but there aren't any insanely must-have buffs, focus effects or modifiers attached to this item to create a bloodthirsty hunger for obtaining it. The UC is actually superior to this in my mind based on the focus effect alone.

I dunno, I just keep throwing out ideas, opinions and viewpoints, but I'm just one person and I believe you're better at judging the wants/needs of the greater population. I'm gonna shut up now.

/rant off

I wont flame you, and i m sorry if i hurt you with my post  :(
I think i understand what you mean, this item need to be doable by a lot of people and not only a group of 6 full T4 and aug/epic4.0 and aug/UC/RoA100 , but these item dont need to be boring as hell with 512 run, i just suggested a "raid" should be fun, but not a raid like it is on live or p99, well forget it, it was not a good idea.
I dunno which thing can be changed to make people want to do this quest.
But like Mechules said it :

and each time you achieve a lvl, you just made only half of the next level dont make people want to continue.

Anyways, thanks to Hunter for the test and trying to make it better, so to respond to this :


Actually its hard, rough, but doable with a group of 6 full T4, epic 4.0, RoA 100, UC.
Letting all the group get the reward for the kill is nice, but i wont kill him 512 times  ::)

I agree with you totally it needs to be fun but a grind...hard to do both the more we brainstorm here daily and what we can get hunter to bite at will improve the quest.

Thanks for hanging thru my post..

*him and another 9 bosses x 512 lol. yucky

So right NOW it's "doable" with a group of 6 FULL T4, 4.0, RoA 100 and UC toons.

Fan-frickin'-tastic.

Only about a year of grinding UCs, RoAs and PoG on 6 toons til I can grind for another year of getting 1 of these "uber" range items.

Not to be a buttplug or anything, but RoA is soloable. It's easier if you use multiple boxes or have a friend to help, but it's soloable. UC is soloable (1-25 on all charms more so than 26-50). It's a ton easier if you box it, but you can do it with 3-4 characters or less (just grinding HoH avatars? pfft).

Assassin's quest seems to require boxing 6+ characters, requiring either more boxes (or more players) to attend. It also requires substantially more time than the RoA and UC combined as it is currently.

All for a shiny 79k hp.

=)

Well at least every character gets item from the drop which is way better than it was intended at first. 79,000 hit points is a lot so it should be hard to achieve but doable.

Yes. Every character in the full T4, RoA 100, UC, 4.0 group.

You sound so grumpy about this.  It's high end content with a high end reward.

Nobody is forcing anyone to do this quest.  If it's too much then people won't do it and maybe it will be made easier.  If not, oh well.

I havent tried it, is it really that freakin hard for 6 toons to do?

The 4.0 used to mana drain where everyone was OOM in 10 seconds, blind, death touch, aoe and have adds.

This is a nice change.

For a high end reward, I'd just be anticipating a little more pizazz than "79k hp. Most hp in the game. Whoopee." I'm looking for "OMG WTF YOU GOT MAX LVL? ENJOY THIS CRAZY BUFF! WOOHOOOO!" you know? A little more flair.

I'm not so much grumpy as I am disappointed to see something that Hunter actually put thought into to give us a good range item be so monotonous though. I mean... I'm not sure if all of you have paid for an MMO at one point or another (probably), but for a game to tell you to repeat the same quest over and over and over (x512) to receive the final item in the series seems... dare I say... not fun. You'd complain a lot more if you were forking over the $15 a month, even though many players on this server already fork over more than that as it is (voluntarily, of course). There's literally no fun to be had while doing it. So to sacrifice a year's worth of fun, just to say you have 79k hp more than the guy sitting next to you is.... well... insane.

Yes, with a normal setup. But i'm thinking if you had 5 pally's and 1 war UC'd, RoA 100'd and T4'd then it might be doable, anything less than 3 healers you'll see the light...errr "Loading, Please Wait"

The clowns like Rostam got their wish.

You dont need 5 pal + 1 war, you can do with less, but thats right, with not enough heal, loading please wait  ;D

Considering dropping difficulty from 4.0 boss down to a T2 boss.

Also double hp per rank starting at 500, then 1000, 2000, 4,000 etc so do the math would make more worth.

Don't forget. No rots + group all gets the item + 1 item on corpse.

lol At first I thought you meant you were dropping the difficulty of the 4.0 boss down to a T2 boss, thinking to myself: incoming sarcastic post. But then I re-read it lol

Sorry, i dont want to misunderstood again, but actually its :

Lvl 1 500
Lvl 2 800
Lvl 3 1500
Lvl 4 2600
Lvl 5 4700

and you say now its 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 etc do you mean you are going to change the stats of the item ?

Changing it to a t2 boss level would be great news!

So Hunter, you're going to change the max hp at rank 10 to be 256k hp?

O.O

That'd be some crazy survivability.

I do not know much about the coding and everything but is there anyway to make these spawn from an NPC tht you hail and then select what Rank you are on.  Similar to LDON teleporter where you pick the level.  And have it set up that each rank of the mob is harder and harder and that way a group that can handle t2 can only go up to say rank 4 or 5 of the item.  Make it the same where you need 2 of the lower rank to make the item so rank 1 + rank 1= rank 2.  This wouldnt trivialize it and it would be much more of a status thing if you or your guild are able to take down the rank 7 mob or what ever.

Just a thought.

Ok, I just got home and modified the Guard_Gollus in freportw which reduced HP by 1/3, and the damage should now be same as Kronos (T2 BP Boss).

This new stats on Guard_Gollus should be in effect now.

Its being designed for mid game group, not solo, and everyone gets reward.

Let me know how it works out now.

I'll probably up the HP on the reward items soon too to make it more worth it.

List of possible new HP values I might make them:

1 - 500 HP
2 - 1,000 HP
3 - 2,000 HP
4 - 4,000 HP
5 - 8,000 HP
6 - 16,000 HP
7 - 32,000 HP
8 - 64,000 HP
9 - 128,000 HP
10 - 256,000 HP

But I'm thinking a 256,000 HP item might be over powered so I'd have to make possible this:

1 - 250 HP
2 - 500 HP
3 - 1,000 HP
4 - 2,000 HP
5 - 4,000 HP
6 - 8,000 HP
7 - 16,000 HP
8 - 32,000 HP
9 - 64,000 HP
10 - 128,000 HP

Good idea. I could make a quest line like that, hail the NPC and based on your gear, hp, flag, etc or whatever level mob you want, you can get a token with some HP (maybe food) or whatever wearable item slot not used much, as a status symbol for how hard of a boss your guild could take down, up to crazy stats like a level/rank 15 boss that had 250,000,000 HP and hits for 250,000 damage per swing, etc. The reward wouldn't be super high hp item though as its not really a grind, more of a test your strength.

Since you're still formulating your ideas let me put mine in. I will try to be brief.

Mine is simular to Ricorez. There would be the 10 initial mobs that stand there. You fight one of them and get their component just as you do now. At the end, if you have all 10 bosses lvl 1 components you can combine them into the lvl 1 range item. However you can also hand the corresponding item back into the boss for him to despawn and respawn into the next lvl boss. Fight and kill him for his lvl 2 component. Again, you can combine all 10 lvl 2 components and make the lvl 2 range item. Or you can go for lvl 3. It would continue on like that, but each time you risk losing your item. This way you can scale it up and make it harder to obtain instead of longer to obtain. The shortest distance to the end would obviously be 100 fights but could potentially be much more. If unengaged the mob despawns in 10 minutes.

Well 256 k HP is a lot, but maybe that much HP will make some crazy player (someone totally masochist) want to get this monster, uber, crazy, silly, ultimate lvl 10 , but honestly i m really not sure more than 1 player will have this item in the next year, i hope i will be here at the end of 2011 to verify what i say ;) i think i can bet on this fact and will win :)

I m going to test the new freporte guard and let you know.


Despawn on 10 minutes is really too short, have to make it at least 1 hour, like in airplane

Reason I saw despawn within 10 minutes if not engaged is so you can't just happen upon a mob that is lvl 3 and just skip the previous. The fight can be sold, but hardly able to just happen upon it.

Or, could just make it as an instance only event.

Making the mob so that he ports you to an instance when you hand him the component would be premo.

Ok, i killed him, he hit like Hunter said, like Kronos, his best hit are around 19.5k, so a T2 group can do it without any problem.

Awesome so what would I have to kill to get say rank 2 ,which is all I most likely will be sucked into the grind.  you never know though I have a weakness for high HP items.

Actually, to get lvl 2 you need to do 2 run, so kill all the 10 boss, combine, get the level 1, kill them again, combine, you get another lvl 1, combine both lvl 1 and you get lvl 2 ;)
But only the freporte guard will give you 1 item for all the group + 1 in corpse, all other actually drop only 1, have to wait for the change :)

With my idea, if you wanted a lvl 2 range item, you would need to kill each of the bosses once. After the boss respawns you would turn in the corresponding component to spawn the lvl 2 boss. To be clear lets use the freeport boss as an example. Initially you would fight the freeport boss as he stand and he will drop the lvl 1 component. After an hour when he respawns you would give him the component you got from killing him. He would then, either respawn as the lvl 2 boss or he would port you an instance where the lvl 2 boss is. The level 2 boss would drop a lvl 2 component. If you do this to each boss and then combine the lvl 2 components you would end up with the lvl 2 range item. Total 20 kills. The risk is, if you fail at killing him, you lose whatever component you turned in. So it could be done in 100 kills, but you could also get wiped on boss 6 and have to start all the way over on that component part.

This.

Did this tonight, was a good fight a little harder then a Kronos per say but I feel doable from a grp of T2 People.. or more of T1s and such corpse raid it..

Just watch that 14% range =)

Ive done it a few times now after the change. I think that you got it just about right now, not to hard and not super easy, and love the fact that my whole group gets it. I think you could change all of them to the level of difficulty as the freeport guy now. It might make more people wanna join in the kills with me but thats just my 2 cents.

/agree with severs


/vote for all 10 to be similar with group reward.

OK I just finished The Kaladima dude....only one item. Did I miss something. I was expecting to get the item on my pointer...so did my grp >< ...sigh

Deadend

Pretty sure only the Freeport boss was changed to do that as well as have different stats, etc.  Was for testing before implementing the rest I suppose.

Makes sense.

Now I know not to invite my guildies to come down and lend me some dps until its fixed.


Deadend

yeah, I'm sure hunter will make all 10 similar soon.

The fight is decent..

All 10 bosses will be like Freeport Soon as I get some time, maybe this weekend.

More Beer more Bulat!!

!!!

The mere thought of balut makes me stomach cringe.  I do enjoy some sinigang though.  Wish i could go to the Philippines during this terrible Winter season ><

!!! sinigang  ;D ;D

I spent 10 years in Japan before coming back to the states, was a short hop for me to head over there..


also cant get any good pancit over here..

If you live anywhere near the suburbs of Chicago, i can point you to a really good place to get sinigang, pancit, and good ol' tosino.  It is a family owned little place.  Their customer service isn't great, but their food makes up for it.

Yeah, 2 weeks and counting down for my 1 month off from work. I'll have lots more free time to catch up on EZ Server custom content and most likely be online every day.

Looking forward to seeing you in game =)

OK woo woo just read this didnt know the quest was changing to group reward.  Damn I love you man i am so gay for you right now.  Yeah that boss was a toughie hell even his guards has eleventy billion hp's!  they irritated me after he was dead they stuck around and kept poking me forevor.  was a very fun change to T3 T4 and that whole bit, I'll be doing this after it changes to group reward on everyone for sure!

Been doing this a bit lately in hopes of at least Rank6 or 7 (gotta see how much more can stomach =p). The zones are pretty much empty at all hours, so that kind of speaks of the server populations interest on doing this quest... I mean the grind is insane, and makes sense that it would be since the final reward is pretty outrageously good. Current priority is most likely T5, but figured would pelt my pile of 2 cents somewhere!


What throws folks off the most imo are:

- Running through multiple zones to half of the names (neriak, freeport, qeynos, kaladim, erudin)

- 100k instances. That's 1mill total for 24h of all 10 zones - wtf? o_O

- Losing faction with the cities and thus having more issues getting to the names (most notable in qeynos, freeport, rivervale)

- The grind in general is overwhelming to think of, so just makes people cringe at thinking about doing this. This ofc can't be helped, since it should be insanely grindy to make up for 72k hp item. =p

Couple suggestions personally I'd have on making this more tolerable!

- Let us port directly to the right zones. I bound all my toons to neriakc to avoid the tedious trek through all the zones, but still hafta do the damn runs through erudin and freeport and qeynos. The running around takes up like 1/2nd of the time doing this (except maybe if you got /stick in use, dunno then).

- Make factioning easier? Alot of cases you can raise your faction with the city again to avoid all the trouble. For freeport this would be done in North Freeport by slaughtering the gimpy pallys. In rivervale by performing goblin massacre in runnyeye. Qeynos, go to splitpaw. I spent a while clearing splitpaw though, and came to realize that my faction had hardly gone up at all. It'd be more tolerable if by clearing the zones once you'd find yourself getting from max kos to maybe indiff. I suppose invis is another solution, but again takes up alot of time spent, what with possibly having to do the CoS quest for alt #whatever or bringing a caster-class along solely for the purpose of invising everyone. This might just be a personal thing tho, since I always liked factioning. ><

- Reduce the instance costs? No one will be paying 1mill to get all 10 zones, that's for sure. I guess it promotes grouping/forming raids when everyone clusters to the pub zones, but alot of times you enter a zone, find the mob not up, and think "I can ooc and not get an answer, I can start /who alling all the zonenames, I can... Ahh screw it, someone else is at it and it's enough trouble as is." 10k would be more than enough for the instances imo, making it a total of 100k for all of em. Afaik alot of the server is rather antisocial and would probably rather not start forming raids and crap and adjust their run-styles with another guy (like what order they do em in or how they do this or whatever, it'll just result in extra busywork). Or perhaps add a purchased option to these waypoints to port directly to the other zones, thus skipping the nexus visits. Less zoning would be awesome, since that takes up most of the time in these.

- Additional rewards! The names drop plat ranging from 100pp to 900pp atm, which is cool but kind of underwhelming. Perhaps add more, or throw in plat bags on them? Or, as Hateborne the Squishy suggested, add a small chance of receiving a complete rank1 scepter. Maybe a 5% possibility of the named having it on it's loot table, so only one guy would get the additional reward?

-Alot of cases you just waltz invis'd past the city, get to name, tank, spank, throw reward in magic box and gate out. Mayor Gubbin, Guard Gollus, Grot, Spice... Everyone really but the qeynos guy are secluded from other guards, and no one sees through invis. Even in qeynos case wherein you do probably get adds, you just kill the name and gate/ranger-gate out of there. No point killing the others, they take as much as the named did and there's no reward to it. There's hardly any challenge to it either, so the quest is pretty much running around from zone to zone and spending 5min-ish per mob tanking and spanking em. It's just generally boring. =p Perhaps make the trash guards see through invis, make em have like have 1/3rd of their current HP, and have em drop HoH-avatar-amount of vendor gems? This'd make it more of a war than it is now, since folks who do it can easily tank up to 6 qeynos guards at the same time, and will just kill the named and evacuate. The trash aren't really amounting to anything whatsoever.

Also would have to admit that some of the zones aren't currently made to include the harder trash guard nuisances. Freeport, qeynos, halas, rivervale and to some extenct akanon are like that, they require some trickier pulling or whatever good factions. Grobb, erudin palace, neriak, cabilis, kaladim have no buffed up guards to complicate the matters.

Got 1 toon to lvl 4 scepter and need 1 more run to get my other 5 bots to lvl 4. Takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to do a complete run with at least 1 wipe.

Most annoying problem I have run into is the Halas encounter. Last night I think my group was grav fluxed every 10 seconds. I tried to fight her in the water and I still get tossed around alot and swimming back to her is worse than on land running though the buildings to get back to her.

Have not bound in Neriak yet but think i will try that as well.

I use a gnome illusion where i run in to faction problems or I'll use my bard to sneak past the angry guards.

I'm not paying 100k an instance that I can hardly eek out 2 runs a day on. Would like to see instance cost similar to the LDoN's with options to 1 for 1k and 2 for 2k.

It is a PITA having to zone 2 or 3 times but it's not so bad considering how epic the final rank is.

Hoping to have it completed for my 6 toons by Christmas 2011.

I think Curry has made some excellent points about this quest.  I have the level 1 Scepter and was grossly under-whelmed by the stats on it.  After all that work - the Scepter I got from QVIC with a hp Aug in it is better.  I wonder if the starting stats on this item could at least be a little better than QVIC armour?  Given the bosses are meant to be at least T2 level.

I find the zoning aspect quite painful also.  Especially when boxing a group.  My computer seems to take ages on some zones which just adds unintentional time to the completion of the quest.  TBH - I'm not sure I care enough about this item to be doing two runs a day (or more) for the next 500 days.

Regarding instances - I really feel that the price of instances was originally indexed to the server's economy when we had a surplus supply of plat duppers.  Even HoH at 100k is too much to be forking out every 24hours. 

It'd pretty much make it alot less painful if the quest guy would allow you to port to the correct zone, skipping the painful trips through neriaka/b, qeynos, erudnext, kaladima, freporte (or ecommons if you prefer that route, wouldn't know why since it's longer!). Perhaps the quest guy could request you to hand him the first rank1 you manage to make, he'd then return it (or eat it, whatever, 513 is hardly a difference from 512 =p) and you'd get a flag from then on, so he can port you directly into the zones.

Protip: oldschool Cazic Thule / Innoruuk fights - grav flux was countered easily with Levitation spells. The spell doesn't work in HoH so you might not think of it instantly, but yeah, you can cast it at halas and just push your butts into a corner somewhere and pretty much ignore the grav flux after that.




HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!!

+1 for the npc quest who can port you to the right zone  :D
i will be considering making more lvl of my scepter (lvl 5) if this change can be made  :D

That would be cool if he ported to the zone the boss's were in so you didnt have to run it.
I wouldnt be surprised if you managed to finish your scepter before anyone else even if that isnt added bro.

I like the port idea.  Anyone that says "Well that will be too easy" ....... *points to server name*

To be honest Balthor, i m tired of the "grind" and i m tired of the drama, even if i no more read them, i hope i will still enjoy the game soon, if not i will just retire myself.

HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!!


I have shame and 9 rounds down only 503 to go   :o

Yea but you stay out of the drama. Not your fault you guild with people that cause it or stand out enough to get poked with the "balthor hate stick (TM)"
Myself I have no desire to work on the scepter of grind. Id rather spend all those hours masturbating.

That's still kinda "working on your scepter"...

The reward for this is all out of whack at the lower levels.  I know the last couple of ranks are ZOMG uber, but it takes.. what rank 4 or 5? to beat a range slot item you can get from f'in QVIC.

Not to mention, rangers have zero use for this item =) 

ROFL, i always smile when i read your post, you speak without any restraint ;)

I m still waiting your answer on the 2nd aug slot on T5 post  :D

wait, since i'm too lazy to read the whole thing, am i right in believing that i have to kill every mob more than once per tier after doing the first time?

Combine rank 1 scepter with another rank 1 scepter to make rank 2 scepter.
Combine rank 2 scepter with another rank 2 scepter to make rank 3 scepter.

You get a rank 1 scepter per run.  Do the math...

I think the rank 3 at 1500 hp/mana beats the qvic item, that's only 4 runs.
Complete the quest 8 times and you have Rank 4, bring your whole guild and run it together and they are all golden as well at least with a far better range item then what they currently have. Make 8 more runs and your at Rank 5 4700 hp/mana not a bad reward for halfway completing the quest. The 2nd half of the quest will probably drive you nuts since you will not get a reward for your efforts for a long time.

Er, the rewards are kind of adjusted clearly so that around later ranks it actually starts closing moreso on the stats of the final reward. Rank5 is 3% done, I wouldn't call that the "halfway". =p

Rank 9 is technically "half-way"

i still dont get how this is called "assassin quest" when you kill the same 10 mobs over and over again

Hunter would it be possible to decrease the time for the npc's to respawn after killing, perhaps put them on a 30 minute respawn?

I think they are on an hour timer and if someone is doing the quest you have no way of knowing when the npc will respawn again unless you sit and wait in the zone for a repop. Or go to the next boss only to find it is down as well and so on and so forth. It's already an enormus time sink just to do the quest with full pop's

Also can you make the instance cost on par with LDoN?

You could just send a tell to the other guy and suggest that you team up, since a raid force will all get the reward. Only problem is, you'll get no benefits if you do the full run faster than 1h, since you'll end up waiting for repops.

Personally fancying the idea of adding a chance of the mobs dropping complete rank1 scepter with like a 5% chance or something; it'd make it slightly faster for one of your toons, and break the monotony a bit when you get the sparkle of joy in seeing one on the loot table. =p

Adding a 5% chance of completed scepter would cause some players to just bind right next to one of the mobs, and gate/kill every hour. That'd throw whoever is doing all 10 off because now at least 1 of the npcs would be perma-camped by people trying to get the completed scepter instead of the pieces.

Just what I can see happening... doesn't mean it will though.

Did the 9 other Bosses get updated to give group rewards? last post i saw by hunter he was going to work on it during vaction? thanks