EZ Server

As some already figured out earlier when I updated the zone table the exp modifiers were back to default and some zones were too high exp, so this was already fixed.

Some people even found ways to exploit Keeper of the Ages when hailing or turning a new rank, for example casting Divine Aurora just before turning your ring in. This was fixed though a while back.

People have found other new ways to now to power level their RoA 1-100 faster and in some cases within just a few short days via buffs, mounts, pets, familiars etc, which has hopefully now been fixed and working as intended. This RoA Quest was suppose to be a challenge of doing 1-70 over again, not to find a way to exploit buffs, zones, etc to get a rank every 15 minutes.

Now I realize that after some one gets deleveled, they have a high level player buff them, esp with regen, ds, etc. This might get fixed in the near future as well. Its intended to play as a noobie although I know its a natural human desire to find every possible short cut.

If anyone finds an exploit then let me know. I usually give out free credits, some times on average 200 credits for a decent exploit info.

Enjoy!

That's absurd

Almost everyone on the server that has done the quest has tried to do this as fast as possible, I dont understand why you would worry about changing this now, it just makes it harder on newer players to get this finished. 

Because some people are able to complete their rings in 5 to 10 minutes with the exploits left in.

Dude, I realize you find some idiot trolls on here, but seriously, read his post, its the 15-20 minute ranks that have been happening for well over a year here that hunter stated he wants to fix. The 5-10 mins were doable with the 3x exp in some zones, and that got nerfed already.  What I find the problem being is wanting to eliminate the 15-20 minute ranks, of which a large portion of the server used to get their ROA completed

I have a 5.0 Shaman, Druid, Mage, and Bard.  If I could RoA in 5-10 minutes I'd RoA more toons.  Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

Pretty sure without the 3x exp nobody can do 5-10 mins. 15 is about your best bet, maybe a touch lower

Yeah, I also used to be able to do ring runs in 15 minutes or so. When Hunter nerfed exp from 4x to 3x, and then from 3x to 2x it hurt but that is not what he intends for them to be. I think I heard him say an hour minimum is what he has in mind. As far as you calling me an idiot troll, Hunter mentioned fixing exploits, you mentioned not doing anything about it. Take a xanax and calm down.

I haven't called you an idiot troll yet, but its getting close. And I know what he has in mind, I'm posting here because I feel it would have a negative impact on newer players to have it take 30 mins - 1 hour / rank.  I realize having it be a harder achievement is part of the reason, but when 1/2 the player base already has it on their main why bother making it take longer... and until the ranks 101-500 were invested, it was a waste of effort to do it once t6 was introduced.  You still have to do massive amounts of exp'ing to get it to a decent level, so it still is a massive timesink

Eh, looks like you pretty much did call me an idiot troll. As for your passive aggressive condescending threat to call me an idiot troll, eh. People have been finding ways to get it down below 15 minutes and then it gets bumped back over 1 hour plus. I did mine on my warrior 1 hour to 1.5 hours at a time. I got a few of my monks in at 15 a long time ago. Lets not make this a pissing fest and derail this thread.

"Fixing" this quest at this time is not a good move, really.

The 101+ should be long grinds, that's fine but as others have stated, all "fixing" this quest at this time does is seperate those who have already exploited this from the people trying to reach some point of relevance. (not catch up as this item is now pretty much a joke)

This item is an atique "uber" item from the past. The stats now hardly hold up to modern higher rewards and the time it takes to reach the ROA 100 is inefficient as it was, at best. Making it longer only pushes the gap from time invested to reward into the "complete waste of time" category as the Sceptre quest.

PoFire is made for Pling toons, that's its function. Relegating it to 70+ toons just transforms this zone from the PL zone to a worthless zone. Fewer, tougher mobs is perhaps the best way to go here or use another zone with fewer mobs where you can just edit the stats of the mobs to make them tougher and give great experience

Let's focus on the future instead of nerfing the past, because doing the opposite just hurts everyone else coming up.

PPS: This item DOES take a long time for the people coming up to complete per level. The "10-15 minutes" Takes someone with full raid toons, bd gear, and 70% exp potions from T6. These guys should be able to level this faster, as they are end game. Earlier content becomes a joke for higher level toons, this is how this game works. Take a T6 in T2, It's no different.

i can see the exploit's being a problem but just judging by time/reward roa at 15 mins is still 25 hour's uc is around 30-50 depending on the player and double or Halloween loots but it's just my opinion seems like it's pretty well in line with the time spent for rewards gained

UC is not around 30 to 50 hours. It is 51 just to get ldons out of the way on average. Personally I think around 30 to 45 minutes is a good time per rank. I also think that pofire should be opened back up to 47+. People getting ring runs in 15 minutes was before exp potions.

We could instead introduce a timer on the quest. That way people who can do the quest in 10 minutes still have to wait the minimum to turn in for the reward.

 I feel 30 minutes is acceptable here, and an hour is too long for those who are geared to do it faster and are gearing alts. Quest can have timers right? You can only do a turn in every 30 minutes, seems to me I have seen this somewhere.

make the RoA 1-100 a quest with a 2h repeat timer that's my idea.

"Now I realize that after some one gets deleveled, they have a high level player buff them, esp with regen, ds, etc."

This IS Everquest, right? Twinks and buffs are a matter of course :)...

2 hour repeat is too long. We are wanting to stop people from doing 10 minutes.

30 minutes min to 1 hour max should be the time.

1 hour per rank is fine.  I see a lot of "penalizing the newer players" due to buffs.  I haven't played a lot here, however, I think I might have had a total of 3 times where I was lucky enough to grab some big buffs.  I did not box, just starting, to make that clear.  Last time I rolled the ring(am rank 5 atm) it took just over 4 hours i think, without any uber buffs.  I was playing my paladin doing that, who had roughly 100 aa I believe.

Perhaps you could adjust the DS to return dmg equal to the level of the toon it lands on? (I mentioned this in /ooc already, and was responded too, so never mind this .. although it would solve a lot)

This isn't going to affect any players who do not have the uber box teams, or are friends with the big boxers.  Nerfing the xp to the ground will hurt a lot though. 8 hours per RoA is 800 hours to get to 100, I have patience - but not that much patience. 10 hours a week playtime *most* weeks = 80 weeks.  Not likely to retain many new players with that.

I hope to see more of the ubers laying out some buffs and whatnot, or Hunter roll out a decent mix for nerfing and making the grind for non-ubers a little better.

I don't mind people trying to power level with buffs, but a level 1 character with 300k HP, super Regen, super DS, going into a level 70 zone killing stuff with a proc to get a rank every 10 minutes is not the point of the RoA quest. Since the beginning my goal was 1 hour per rank, and yes we were long over due for a rebalance on this.

Custom BD Gear tradeable and wearable at level 1 for extra HP is ok. It cost money to make (Unless you got lucky at Holloween Event). You would still have to have DPS to kill the mobs.

DS will probably get nerfed in the future when we update source code, either from no exp gain, or mobs having reduced dmg from DS.

If not the DS then I might consider a delay timer for allowing only 1 RoA per hour. This would fix all exploiters, to some extent. Someone could still just do RoA grind for 10 minutes, get a rank, then do other stuff for the rest of the hour. So the exploiters would still have some advantage of being able to do other quest while waiting for the 1hr timer.

Update (rebooting):

Combed through a lot of zones putting min level requirements on a lot of high level zones since people are using DS and Proc buffs to kill level 70 mobs while they are level 1 (through use of extra HP as well from buffs, mounts, etc). Almost all the Planes of Power zones have been updated as well as some from other zones.

PoFire is level 55 zone now. The mobs begin at level 64. The level requirement and mob levels might change or tweak again in the future but for now this is the new update. Plane of Fear is a decent zone after Dulak.

Abysmal will now be a no combat zone again.

Incinerating Aura is changed to pet buff until I figure a better way to fix this. Allowing a low level noob to kill level 70 mobs is not intended.

Obviously mounts have been disallowed during the RoA turn in due to the huge amount of HP the buff gives.

Handed out over 1200 free credits today for tips on fixing the RoA quest to make it more balanced.

The intended balance is 1 hour per rank. This is why I'm changing a few things.

Willing to consider other ways to balance RoA rate that is more suitable for noobs without butt-hurting them too much.

Post your ideas here. Willing to listen and tweak some more if stuff is too hard.

Exp Potions meant to help a little bit, although rare drops too. Might make them drop off more mobs and bosses as well. And might make a way to craft them from Essences. I realize that 1 essence for a 5 dose might not be worth it, so I might consider more than 1 potiion at 5 dose each for the essence. Those recipes are not created yet but might soon.

Enjoy!

I know on live certain buffs wouldn't land on characters under a certain level, could do that with incinerating aura, etc.

Doesn't work on EMU

Would it be possible to have the RoA NPC force port the quest toon to an exclusive zone dedicated to ROAing from levels 1 to 55? The toon would be debuffed upon porting and unable to leave until level 55. This way you have more control over the rate of exp and ensure that the quest is completed without buffs and as intended.  It also means that you don't  need to track down high end buffs and cripple them.

I would agree with this. Preferably a PoF like zone (large mob base, no loots, stupid fast respawn) both for the "speed demons" and for the server's CPU cycles. City of Mist is a fun zone, so no crucifying it please. Possibly using something like Gulf of Gunthak (leave the blind and/or root spamming npcs, but PLEASE FFS REMOVE THE CHARMING MOBS).

-Hate

that also might encourage some grouping and getting to know others if you can set it that it is a little faster in a group or something with potentially a vendor that sells a gear set that is temporary

Incinerating aura has a pretty bad proc rate (almost all defensive procs do for some reason on EMU) and was hardly the problem. It's basically just the bard DS on level 1s. my SK could solo 1-47 in about 15 minutes using a coral hilted tulwar and a shaman 3.0 click with no other buffs, but the aoe range of that got nerfed sadly. Probably still doable in about 30 now, but you can no longer do 1-26 in kurns in 2 pulls :p

Oooh, that's a great idea Strix, imagine a 1-55 zone that has boosted exp for groups...everyone back to noob status and forced to grouping with others...that would make me grind RoA most definatelly. It's  just a matter of finding the right zone that have 4-5 sections for leveling and ofc Hunter's will to make it happen!

/Enosis

Heck, id make that 1-70 splitted in 2 zones maybe and force people into grouping...would solve the AoEing in instances lag issue  and most of afk'age, plus it would be be fun and social, no 70's allowed and kinda opens up a whole new world to crafting/farming gear for low levels ... great stuff imo

It's a pretty easy solution.  Just put a lvl req of 70 on all of the buffs (custom damage shields and regens) you don't want people to PL with... that was SoE did when they got all butthurt about powerleveling.

Does it have to be one zone? How about a new LDoN type setup where u travel through ~5 zones till you reach lvl 70? First zone is 1-15, second is 16-25, etc.

Proc rate was fixed when Hunter updated the server awhile back. The spell was VERY good for power leveling.. and a pretty decent amount of DPS in higher tiers as well.

Interesting, so it actually does what it was designed to do. So...what to do to stop exploitation?

A) Apply Level 70 Requirement (which, I've read, doesn't work correctly/at-all)
B) Allow only in content zones (PoT, LDON, QVIC, TACVI, etc etc etc)
C) Blame Xiggie
D) All of the Above


-Hate

May answer is "C"

Well with current stuff i'd like to see maybe Riftseekers or even MPG (with trails) as the leveling there are many camps and he can add certin stuff to which could be fun... i know there where lots of mobs in MPG at least... i know Crystalos or whatever had lots of mobs in it so there are zones he could lock to everyone but the ones doing RoA which would be nice.

i fully support Strix idea. just the zone could be anything and hunter can always add more mobs to any zone... heck he could do Walls of Slaughter and add mobs to it its big and he can lock it from the outisde world *no ports or anything* and could go form 1-55 or 1-70 in it..and 2 sides he can make one side of the wall 1-55 and the other side *side with anguish* 55-70 and inside the wall its an idea for sure i would happily due more research on the zones with lots of mobs

Forcing toons to actually melee their way through ring runs would be slower than they already are. Grouping while ring running takes a lot longer too. I am really glad I am done with my warriors. If it is what it sounds like, removing outside buffs from ring runners then I want no part of it.

Honestly

The bottom line if it's a "job" and the reward vs the treadmill grind isn't there.... it's zero fun.

To many "treadmills" in the game any let's not make 1 worse.

Even with the Xp changes currently let them build their RoA buff Team and get it done. It still takes a good dedication to get thru the 1st 100.

Just put it on a timer.  No sense in nerfing all of us who are not uber yet.

I have 6 guys, none with UC or ROA, barely any charms etc.  My guys were not strong enough to get charms during Halloween.  Now I sit with a group of guys, all done with T2, but just barely can do HoH.  So, figured ROA would be a good thing to do, but now it seems all xp everywhere is boinked.

If you are trying to fix how long it takes, then put the quest on a timer.  No need for all these other changes.

Keep it simple.  Fix the main problem which it sounds like, people are doing them too fast.

Rather than try to make the old stuff harder, why not continue pushing the new stuff? This is just like when all the uber players farmed millions of plat in BoT and then it was nerfed, and then they were farming shadow for charms and then his drop rate was nerfed, then T3/T4 were made nigh impossible for new groups to break in (of course that was fixed, but the idea was there)

You made RoA 500, if you want people to actually get to experience the new thing you've created, nerfing the hell out of RoA 1-100 is not the way to do it IMO.

Yes and no xiggie he can up the group xp earned in the zones to amke it go fastrer he can make it so that solo xp is 1-2x and grouping being 3x per full group or some veration of it

PoFire was always the longest part of RoA for me.


Would take 30 minutes to do an RoA mostly because of the 47-70 grind.

If the ring runs are being done to fast just put a timer on the ROA keeper. that simple.

Right, now imagine PoF starts at 55, and he wants to nerf DS damage.

Why complicate the mess? Exp was fixed. Part of doing backflag stuff (which is basically what RoA 1-100 is for anyone in the t6 range), is being able to power through it quickly. I can totally see trying to slow things down a bit, but for those that put the work in to make a druid for the ds/regen, cleric hp buff, etc, it seems like nerfing all that would be counterproductive.

I know I have a druid that I use just for RoA, and thats about his only purpose. Take that away, as well as other buffs, and all the work that went into making these classes desirable goes to shit.

The RoA 1-100 isnt the hard part. 100+ is. Even if people manage a 1-100 in an hour, they still have to pay the piper on the new 101-500 stuff.

If Hunter's intention is 60 mins then that's kind of the point.

If it's a dedicated zone and the intention is that it take you 60 mins to complete then Hunter just needs to adjust the exp accordingly (taking into consideration an unbuffed toon) so that the cycle can be completed in that time-frame.

Would love to hear some other options on this that don't involve disabling high end buffs to stop people Power leveling toons.  This seems pretty close to answering Hunter's requirements while not needing to adjust high end buffs.

Two years or so ago I suggested limiting the amount of ring runs by time. A forced 60 minute wait between turn ins. Adjusting mobs so the exp is fast enough so that no one can do it in less than an hour means that lower geared toons will spend half a day in there trying to level.

I have way to many words to speak on this subject as im currently working on roa - and one night I went to bed without finishing my mains ROA run, so he is prob 20, and now figuring all the stuff its looking like I have to do, ridiculous. BUT - I saw a few good ideas, a ROA LDON type deal, each level has a certain level range. But also like to point out the obvious, nerfing every class and everyone because of this is just counterproductive as it can get. Set the timer, let people do it in 10 minutes and be done with it. They have 50 minutes until they can do it again, no harm no foul. Nerfing 1-100 does not make sense after making the ring go up to 500

I am in the position of the above poster. Regardless of what is was intended for at least a year the time it takes has been to complete ROA has been about 30 to 40 min. If the pain is the 100-500 just make the aa's needed higher and leave well enough alone. The time required to catch up is high enough already. Why double the time it takes to even start let alone force it to be done in ways no one has ever had to do. If the Roa is not working as it was intended take it out, or change it so you have instanced zones for 101-500. You could even work this into a new tier. This way people still have the ways every one else has used to a) level alts and b) do roa.

The completely stupid stuff that I don't want is a level 1 person with 300k HP in an unrestricted or unfinished zone killing level 70 mobs fast and easy with either super dd proc buff or super damage shield, or using some super pet to do all that work for them effortlessly, to gain 70 levels in 10 minutes.

I think we can work out a timer thing on the RoA allowing only 1 turn in per hour and max of 5 per day, then ease up on other stuff such as increase exp rates on zones, more exp potions, and allow reasonable buffs for DS, HP, Regen, etc.

With that system in place, then I wouldn't mind damage shields much anyway. I don't know if or how I am going to change damage shields in the future. I know the new source code allows for 0 exp from DS kills but I also know players would exploit their way around this by doing a combo of DS and themselves casting an AoE to get credit as well even though DS did most of the damage.

I understand the want and need for power leveling by using other classes buffs to help out, but this has gotten way broken to the point that its not even a challenge anymore due to new spells and clickies that have become available in the last 2 years. Things have actually gotten easier (not harder) since people figured out ways of doing RoA that wasn't intended. Now people are too spoiled by the unintended exploits, or jealous that other people got to do the exploit before, and now its getting fixed after being brought to my attention.

In between polishing old content and creating new tiers, we have new stuff like the Shield of the Ages Rank 40, Ring of the Ages Rank 500, Exp Potions, Mana Necklace, Halloween Items, New Mounts, New Spells, New Clickies etc. In addition to that stuff we've already added, I'd also be in favor of new alternate zones to do RoA and Charms in to make the grind less boring and not stuck in just 1 zone. ToFS is one idea that we're working with. Maybe some sort of quest or bosses to make the grind a little bit faster or at least seem faster. A possible earring quest is being brain stormed as well which might have ranked percentage Divine Save, another new clickie toy to make things easier.

This is not WoW, and I'm not going to streamline these grind quest for RoA or Charms. Maybe the gap between the noobs and the veterans is getting bigger but thats cause we're getting more content, items, quest, tiers, etc. Causal players will take longer to get the best gear. If everyone could get max rank everything in a week, or month, then there would be no more reason to play. I am actually trying to make more content than players can do, even though there are the few hardcore veterans with more hours to play than others that must have best gear. I consider these players the carrot on the stick, advertising to the newer players what they could have if investing enough time on the server, to become super godly like with all those tier armor and quested rank clickies etc.

As more tiers come out, I do make previous tiers slightly easier with better drop rates, spawn rates, rot bots, etc. The hardcore original players had to do it the hard way taking more time to spawn bosses, to kill bosses, having rots didn't need without rot bot, etc. Its the new players that actually have it easier, and more tools (rot bots, spells, strike augs, clickes, ranked items for hp, etc) to get through the tiers easier. Just recently I made T5 Anguish bosses spawn faster, and T6 Anguish drop more epic pages and essences faster, as well as some other tiers dropping essences slightly faster now. I actually got an email recently that essences for Anguish were now dropping too fast, so I had to adjust it again slightly. As newer tiers come out, previous tiers get slightly faster to catch up with end game players a little bit, but I'm not going to streamline too fast for the casual WoW players.

The players that have been around for a while will tell ya that there has been nerfs in the past, and some times I undo them, or make them less painful. Some people say grinding is not their thing and quit the server. That is fine, and I'm still not going to stream line it cause someone was butt hurt over the time required to get best gear on the server. Everyone here posting on the forums are doing good, expressing your opinions about the changes. This is the feed back I need from both new and old players. I am trying to make this fun, but I don't want to give away max gear in 1 month. Personally I love the idea about being able to brag about gear that you have and is hard to obtain.

I think 1 hour per RoA Rank is reasonable. I'd be willing to make the RoA faster again (without stupid exploits) if we have say a 1 hour timer for turn in and limit of 5 per day. We'll brainstorm some more ideas on alternate zones as well for RoA and Charms. The goal will be to make the grind more fun by using different zones, maybe slightly faster, but not 10 minutes per rank.

This is sadly like politics, expressing just one side of the story. So the RoA is getting nerfed? Yes, sort of. Don't forget all the other stuff that have been added as well that made things easier.


 

I think the time limit is a good solution to the RoA problem.

True.

I do seem to recall my first 10 or so levels of RoA taking close to 2 hours before deciding to make a tool kit for it.  I never used a bard for any of mine so the average time it took was about 40 mins per round. 60 mins seems about fair either on a timer or dedicated zone. If Hunter is adamant about no buffing on the cycle I can't see how the timer addresses this.

/shrug

With the new system in place tonight i was able to get the RoA run down to about 50 min.  That's as best i could do it.  So the one hour turn in timer is a great idea.  I don't think there should be a limit of 5 turn ins a day, because of days off for people that don't get to sign on everyday. Someones day off could be purely dedicated to an RoA grind if that's what they decide to do.  Could we have an 8 turn in limit instead, like an 8 hour work day?

If one starts in a low level zone with kraken then the ability for the proc to work starts immediately, then move on to a higher level zone, etc etc etc.  There are a ton of low level zones and mid level zones to work with without having to create any zones for just RoA's.  Less work for Hunter and the dev team. 

After thinking about it more i actually disagree with a limit on amount of turn ins.  Why limit a person on turning in the RoA if your going to put an hour timer on it?  That's like a double whammy. Even if someone plays until their eyes bleed you get maybe 24 to 36 turn ins in a session then the person sleeps for a day to make up for the lack of sleep.

Yeah - the more I read this the more I can't see how introducing a timer alone is going to stop people from: "...killing level 70 mobs fast and easy with either super dd proc buff or super damage shield, or using some super pet to do all that work for them effortlessly, to gain 70 levels in 10 minutes". 

Given this:



It seems that the following spells are also problematic (in a similar fashion to Incinerating Aura):

- Kraken
- Druid DS line
- Mage DS line
- Bard DS + Tempest Blade Line

Are we seriously talking about removing DD procs and Damage Shields from the game because of RoA ranks 1 to 100??  All of these spells are highly valued t5+ and are a really fun aspect of the game.

I don't think the timer is a good idea at all if this is going to be the follow on effect.

i think 1 per hour is good time maybe bit faster but is okay to me!!!

5 per day is stupid if u ask me if anyone will do 23h farming RoA have fun and do ur 23-24 turnin 's per day !!! and make 100 in 5 days u got a lot of Cocain XD


limit per day suxx, when i got an feeling today i farming whole day RoA's i need to pass and can do only 5 ! and other day i dont wanna do more then 2-3 times

I guess both sides can be debated about high level buffs, ds, proc dd, timer per hour/day, etc.

Hopefully we can agree either that live or emu, its still not intended for a level 1 player to wipe a zone of level 70 mobs. That just gets stupid.

High level players love their special spells and buffs such as regen, hp, ds, procing. Power leveling is fun, and players will find every avenue to make their leveling go faster. Obviously it will be difficult to regulate all the classes and their special buffs from casting on low level players (Unless I find some new methods which I'm currently working on).

With those two points, I think a good way to control the rate at which people level up even with some of the high level buffs is to create min and max level that a player can be in certain zones. We've already had this for some zones including most of our custom zones, but since we updated the zone table a few weeks ago the exp multiplier and min level required needed to be re-edited again. I've already combed through 95% of the zones that needed to have a minimum level requirement to enter, including almost all the Planes of Power zones.

So player would still get their power level buffs, and probably killing mobs up to 20 levels higher, which is more acceptable and realistic than killing mobs that are 50-70 levels higher than yourself. It would still go very fast to gain levels, just not obnoxiously fast like 10 minutes. This would also force players to zone around a bit more which in itself takes time. This server is about time invested, even though some things will be 'easy' due to high level buffs on a low level player. I even created the custom BD armor with super HP tradeable and wearable at level 1 for this purpose of enjoying a power level. But power leveling doesn't mean instant max level in 10 minutes.

New power level zones:
I'd like to lower exp in most zones (and they already are) and increase exp rate in the custom zones (although trains still not allowed). Then we could come up with a new list of zones to power level in that have level ranges of 10 levels per zone, which higher experience rate than any other zone including higher than regular custom zones. These zones would have minimum and maximum level limits to be in.

New rank armor grind:
Maybe this list of 7 zones at 10 levels per zone can (all together) have some sort of ranked armor that players can work on. I'm not sure how the ranks would work, maybe combine 2 of same rank together to get next rank? Maybe just find a rare upgrade like the charms? Since players are going to do this 100 times to get RoA 100 then it can be paced at getting full suit by time you get RoA 100. It'll be something to work towards, looting stuff to get more HP gear, while doing your RoA 100 at the same time. If the gear was good enough, then I'd have to allow even maxed out veterans to delevel themselves to attempt this armor. Its just an idea to make the re-leveling to 70 x 100 a bit more fun with more rewards, keeping the people doing RoA in certain zones for 10 levels per zone, faster exp than any other zone, etc.

Feel free to tell me if you hate the idea, or would modify it in a certain way to make it better. This might be better than going after all the classes and buffs. My goal is to make RoA about 45 - 90 minutes per rank depending if your solo or got high level friends in a way that is fun but also doesn't nerf too many classes.

I think a system similar to how live originally had its 'newbie' gear back in PoP days.

There would be 3-5 (depending on the armor slot) random items that would drop in the said zone.

Collect and combine with the pattern to make the piece of armor.  Kind of similar to qvic but a bit more complex since you'll definitely have the time to build that set.

It would be cool if the pieces of gear were maybe "offset" items so they wouldnt over lap with the crafters guild armor.  (Earrings / necklace / belt / rings / etc)

New power level zones

Hunter, that seems like it would work way better than putting a timer on the runs.  It keeps all the spell lines as they are and ensures that people aren't going from 1 to 70 in 10 mins (agree that's just stupid).  Great concept :)

The exp modifier also sounds like a good way to encourage people to use the custom zones over the non-custom.  I wonder if all the high end non-custom zones should be modified slightly also with a level entry requirment to ensure people aren't just bypassing the intended game design?


New rank armor grind
Sounds interesting.  In the teired amour scale, where would this armour sit for values like hps etc?

It would be cool if this could be an alternative method of making the BD armour (as a compendium to the crafter's guild method).  Rank 100 Armour = current end level BD armour stats.  Armour moves in stats every 10 ranks.

Just a thought :)

Daily cap isn't cool.

Timer sounds neat and easier fix


Still honestly asking 100hr grind for a subpar item is questionable. Glad I'm done...

another way to see us, the casual player, the high end game getting almost out of reach. when not all but most of the hardcore player dont realy mind those change cause they already have thier ROA.

I'm really upset at the changes to ROA... I feel screwing with the ROA was not a good move...

We were fine when it was set to 100... and the rest of us can catch up...

No let's change it to 500 and make it tougher to catch up... I created an instance of Fire to avoid the crowds (20k is not that cheap for a player struggling to pay for strike augs)

Just to find out I can't even enter the zone anymore at level 47...

Had we kept it at 100 we wouldn't be having these stupid issues with server lag

And now talk about limiting buffs... Strats about fast ROA runs have been on the boards for over a year, if this was such a concern, why wasn't this done ages ago... Now all of a sudden it's an exploit, really...

Undeterred, did you even read my last post?

I'm thinking about un-nerfing some stuff, and create another way of doing RoA at a reasonable rate.

I still say just put a 30 min timer on it and be done with it.

50 hours is honestly still a ton of grind for an outdated artifact. This effectively keeps people from just being handed the item and limits viability on alts, pretty much each group will only ROA the tank, It's not practical for alts even at 50 hours.

Simple solution is often the best one and causes the least fuss and frustration.

I'm going to make PoFire level 46 again.

Exp rates on zones will stay same.

Will try to find ways to reward more with exp potions.

Incinerating Aura will remain pet only until I figure out what I want to do.

DS, Regen, and other buffs are not touched for now.

I agree that 50-100 hours is painful for obsolete item (We have bigger and better items now, higher tiers, etc).

At 10 minutes a rank, it would take 16-17 hours. Still too fast for 100 ranks IMHO.

Maybe the new goal should to be to throttle it near 20-30 minutes per rank?

I guess its the general population and casuals vs the multiboxer hardcore alts with buffs. Need to find a middle ground.

I'll continue to tweak zone exp values, give out exp potions, etc to reach a goal of about 20-30 min per rank. Maybe 20 minutes absolute best hardcore power level and 30 minutes casual power levelers.

Maybe 3 new custom zones (1-20, 21-45, 46-70) at a controlled rate of exp (20-30 minutes per rank) plus chance for new ranked armor similar to BD Gear, chance for charm upgrades (do 2 grinds for price of 1), chance for exp potions, etc.

I'm sure we can find an acceptable solution that does not involve 10 minutes for 70 levels.

Theres code on the forums to remove unwanted buffs from low level players... it will do it every 6 seconds


every 6 seconds could check for......
SE_DefensiveProc            323 // implemented

On players lower than 70

If time is the issue that youre wanting to address, why not keep it simple, and do as suggested to stick a 20 minute timer on turn-ins? Otherwise youre making far, far more work for yourself than you really need to.

Let people use their super buffs, unused zones, whatever. It still wont help them go any faster. First thing learned in medical diagnosis - treat the base problem, not the symptoms.

No matter what super-powered spells you introduce, it still wont affect the max speed in which they can complete their RoA. +1700% exp zone found and abused? Who cares? You still only get one upgrade every 20 minutes. +1,000,000 druid ds? Grats! You did an RoA in 30 seconds! Now sit on your ass for 19mins 30 seconds and go at the same speed as the guy in t1 with no weapon.

Tweaking difficulty will only complicate things down the line when all youre after is time spent.

I would have to say i LOVE the idea of the tiered zones designed for RoA grind with options to randomly drop exp pots and charms.  That would take away the repetition from LDoN grinds for charm and would make things easier for new players that havent perfected where to go for quick ROA.  You can give a player the best DS, regin, and BD gear in the world but if they dont know whats zones to go in to perfect the grind they are still gonna go crazy slow.  Having zones that are tiered for the grind makes it easy to figure out where to go and the order to go in.  Having required level sets to be in these zones makes sure you wont be lvl 1 killing level 70 mobs.  Having charm or exp pots and special gear drop in these zones means people will loot the mobs instead of just killing for exp like in fire.  This will slow down the RoA process even more and make it a fun time rather then a grind time.  And the charms dropping here help new players complete 2 objectives at once.  Like hunter said about killing 2 birds with one stone.  As a new player i for one would be very happy working RoA in custom zones that could drop exp pots and charms and wouldnt care how slow the grind is.  You cant get much slower then grinding charms in LDoN at max level anyway lol.  Even if it did take an hour to do RoA in these zones the chance for charms to drop makes it super worth it IMO.  Love the idea Hunter and hope it gets implemented.

Another thing to think about is that I assume these custom zones will probably have a no train policy like other custom zones.  If you have a 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, and 61-70 then there are 4 sets of zones you will have to go through.  If you do want to power buff and train that means 4 guild instances you would need to make.  That requires cash or makes the free waypoint even more popular.  I think this will give veteran players who have more money an advantage to newer players (an advantage they deserve for butting in there time) but still fosters an environment for new players where they can slowly pull and farm charms and exp pots.  Gives new players a good reason to farm FG/CG kits and SS to sell to older players so they can have the cash to farm there RoA faster.  Overall i think its a good money sink to get rid of cash and a good reason for people to want to farm cash which increases the servers economy too.  I am a little tired so not sure if im making much sense but ill just say i love the idea Hunter!!

I like the idea of having a duo purpose of doing the grind whch would give vetrans something to try for, but what about instead of a duo reason how about a trio?

One idea I had and dont know if this has been asked about, but even though some people say that the ROA is outdated or old, its still one of the best finger slots. What about a ROA 2.0 or more correctly a second version of the ring for the other finger? then people that have already done it could work on something besides just grinding out a set of armore and for people who may not get a complete set on there first run though could finish it on a second pass through on a second ring. The second ring could have diffrent stats or could be just the exact same as the origina roa with the ability to take it to 500 if a person wanted to (though i feel someone might just implode after 1 ring 2.... /shiver)

Just a idea..

One of the things that has deterred me from doing the RoA(I did 1 lvl) is the boredom factor. When doing a grind over 100 times where all u do is kill massive amounts of mobs it is rather boring. Why not make it fun.

maybe something like this and add a little strategy?

Like hunter suggested 7 zones, each zone has a random boss or event that spawns. Similar to T3/4 or weaponmaster but level appropriate. The completing of the task=10lvls(maybe each add gives 1 lvl and u cannot engage boss till your lvl 8 or whatever and boss dings you 2 lvls.) and entry to new zone(like ldon) but with trequired progression and at the end your given a ring to turn in for your roa. This would ensure a timeframe, and would give some fun to a mostly mundane task.

Also may be cool to see final boss have a possibility of a tier appropriate item (like Black unicorn stuff)

I would rather do something fun, take my time and work towards a goal then do something boring just to get it done.

Yes this I'm sure would turn into a grind as well but may add some interesting content.

Yes but why do this for a quest that is as old as the server? That noone wants to do more than once? Whatever happened to the idea similar to this that everyone has been looking forwars to for about a year....TOFS?
UC is  MUCH more compeling, desired item that all of us will do despite the massive timesink it is and have been asking for an alternative means of aquiring for years now. Why spend time on this when UC is so much more relevant?
As for the armor, there is already too much bd out there for so cheap a person can farm the plat for it way before getting this set, and the thing is all you need is one set of that until you start farming real armor cause it's tradable. I hate to say it, but about the only thing that will most fairly rid the server of the surplus is to make it attunable until next year when we can throttle back the drop rate.

Can't you just make a RoA character flag? Separate the nerfs and zone lockouts for people just playing from the ones wanting to "exploit" the RoA 101+ grind?...

Would recommended levels on BD armor, and all other 'roa' friendly armor solve the problem with the level 70 mobs be decimated at level 1?  For example:

Level 1 fully buffed(300k as was mentioned): 300k / 70 = current hp or roughly 4.2khp per level up.


It will still go a little quicker, just won't be able to survive more than a couple level 70 mobs at a time.  I am not sure of how hte PLing in popular zones is going to work out, but there is rules against pulling more than 10 at a time, so run the risk of getting banned(which really slows down your RoA speed leveling)

The 10 minutes per rank became an issue when people brought it to my attention and I now have more time to work on EZ Server. I used to work IRL 6 days a week at 14 hours a day with only 1 day off to work on EZ Server for just a few hours. Now that I'm on vacation, I'm practically working on EZ Server 7 days a week.

About the turn in timer, its not really about how often a player turns in the ring, but the time invested to get that rank. Hope that makes sense.

Now on to more positive stuff.

I like the suggested 4 zones with their level recommendations. I guess we'll have to vote which zones we'll use for that. Players would not be forced to use them but would be faster and more fun since we'll increase exp rate, and drop goodies like UC upgrades and Exp Potions.

RoA Zone Mobs:
I can make those zones 'leash' the mobs that heal, mem wipe, and teleport the mob back to original spawn location if dragged out side of aggro radius. I'll be able to tweak mobs HP, dmg, and exp rate to get exactly the roa speed we're looking for. Mobs would be fast respawn time with hundreds of mobs per zone. With mobs being leashed, you wouldn't be able to train 100 mobs, but I would like to make the exp as quick when killing just 1-5 mobs at the same time. With fast respawn the players really wouldn't need an instance, and could be in the same zone without fighting for spawns. Maybe put a boss in each zone with higher chance for loot and huge exp bonus. I can even write quest code to give bonus level or bonus exp for killing the boss to further make it just as worth killing it as it would be to farm trash. So the level 1-20 zone would have a level 25 boss and maybe auto boot you out of the zone if your above level 25. Addition 'kill quest task' could be created in Surefall rewarding with more plat for killing those trash and bosses.

I know that was a lot all in one, but basically leashed mobs with controlled stats and exp would allow for best exp rate (like PoFire) without having to make trains, which would hopefully reduce server load as well form all the RoA's. Instances really wouldn't be needed since the zone would be huge with a tons of spawns that have fast respawn.

So which zones are we going to vote for? We'll have to narrow it down to 4 zones. Make it something pretty or worth looking at if players are going to spend a lot of time in there.

Maybe even the RoA 101-500 players would end up spending time in the level 61-70 zone for fastest exp rate, unless I made a special level 70 only zone for that purpose which would be our 5th zone.

So you want people to invest time into the ring, but the thing your overlooking is the time it takes to get a group together that can support and do that ring run in 10 minutes. Trust me, someone brand new to this server is not going to be doing 10 minutes runs, even if they get buffs in the nexus or surefall. I've been on this server for 2 1/2 years, I've got many days played across multiple characters, I did my first 20 or so levels of RoA with a 3.0 shaman, 3.0 druid (pre epic nerf) and a 3.0 Paladin doing the power leveling in PoFire, it was taking me over an hour per rank and it fucking sucked, it actually burned me out of the game for a while.

This server is great, its a lot of fun and the first character you level to 70 is tons of fun, seeing high end loot drop in low end zones, getting your epic 1.0 from a vendor, even the 2nd or 3rd character as you try out different classes is lots of fun. By the time you have your group set and you get to the point of RoA, the 1-70 grind is just that a grind. I eventually got enough support to do a RoA rank in about 35 minutes and got my RoA to 60, got burned out again and put the game on the shelf for a while and haven't touched RoA since then.

At 30 minutes per rank your still talking 50 hours to complete the original RoA quest, that is a serious investment in a 13 year old game, making it take any longer than that is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I kinda doubt it, when you can just AOE Qvic at level 70 in an instance and get stupid amounts of AAs there.

Qvic is probably the best mob hp per exp ratio of any zone on the server.

idk i might..... i'd love to see antoher zone other then fire to that has good xp rate just b/c im tired of seeing fire....

My biggest complaint with the Ring of Ages (as a player who started here in August 2011) is that the benefit simply does not offset the time invested. When I started my first few ranks at T2, I was very proud of myself for getting a turn-in every hour or so, using SHM 3.0 and druid DS. Then, I did the math and decided to focus on progression, as that would give the same increase to hitpoints for ALL of my toons for the same time investment.

RoA struck me then, and now, as an item which only the uberest, most frustrated, or most ignorant players spend time on. Either there is nothing left to farm, and it makes sense to edge out a few more thousand hitpoints on a tank, you simply cannot take another round of (insert current grind here) and need a mindless RoA break, or you can't do cost-benefit-analysis to figure out that your time is best spent on progression (unless you actually like RoAing, in which case, you probably aren't wasting time reading page after page of players bitching about RoA taking too long. You're out there living the dream, mannn!).

Perhaps at the time it was implemented, the item was superior enough that the hours spent doing the 1-70 grind made sense. But, from my point of view, we're talking about spending an intended 50-100 hours to push Bubbin from 950k hp up to ~970k.

I'll pass.

The only thing that made the darn thing worth attaining was that solrotower could be used with pofire to turn in a ring every 13mins or so. Rank 100 would only have taken me 20-24 hours of playtime per toon, with the promise of putting unused AAs to work past rank 100. In short, I was weak. I got caught up by the shiny potential of RoA500.

So, I am actually thankful for these changes. They have made me reevaluate where my time is best spent--focusing on Anguish clears and finishing 5.5s. Unless you're at the gear ceiling and are tired of farming essences for the next big thing, there are too many better things that Hunter has created for you to do with your time on EZ, in my opinion.

It's a catch 22.  With the addition of ROA past 100 and the new use of unused AA's, it is now almost mandatory to get one, lest you let your unused aa's go to waste.  The longer you are without a roa 100 the more and more you lose out on it's potential benefits.

That's the big reason for people scrambling to complete their ring.  For min/maxers who want to maximize their time, going without an ROA is not an option.  It has definitely become a "milestone" item now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

How about killing two birds with one stone? Have the named mobs drop sceptre 5's. Would still take quite a few to combine to 10, and would make that actually viable and allow those who lucked out on the draw to upgrade their sceptres.

This would add relevance to revamping both quests. IMHO charms should not drop, leave this for TOFS which we have been wanting for a year.

How about he just has uc2s drop to? Grind it out like it was intended slacker  :-X

ToFS yes yes yes!

-Hate

+1

I'd love to see ToFS as discussed, but I don't think I'd pass up another exp zone that also drops V1s if that can be implemented faster/easier.