EZ Server

Wondering about the possibility of making the starting mini-dungeons kinda tiered....since are 3 levels to the dungeons, have the first level drop qvic/Ct esse...level 2 drop podragon dminor/majors...and level 3 drop airplane godminor/majors.  Loving the way the recent upswing of the essences are bringing the server economy back into a balance...just thinking that adding the first two essences would help as well.

There will be more dungeons, just a matter of time to add them. Next (after Halloween), will likely be T6, then T7, then QVIC/CT.


-Hate

If loving another man wasn't wrong.........so I will just say, I like you Hate!  I really really like you!

Loving the dungeons, Hate.

One point of concern on the order of the upcoming itinerary:

Abyss was the worst for getting stuck in. Getting a leg up in airplane is always a good thing.

It's all made sense so far: less stuck progression, less people giving up and playing some other server when stuck in the hell of abyss..

That said, I'm not really feeling T6 as the immediate 'need'. No one on god's green earth is short on essences in there.. The weapons (outside of the special bow + monk weap with a 2nd aug 8 slot...) are lackluster, and the whole concept of t6 is: 'beat grenlok... win'. I don't see a mini dungeon really helping there, unless you can seriously score all 14 augments in the mini dungeon. Then god knows what that would do to uc2 farming, etc.

T7 makes a lot of sense. Loping essences are always fairly annoying to farm (for the first hour till you get the chains started, depending on trash drops), and everyone falls behind a couple toons on a certain armor piece. Having a shot at armor in there and spells would make a huge difference in flagging toons for t8 and filling out character inventorys and spellbooks. Shots at epic stones like the gators/crocs or worgs/bears (every time you run t7 you'll get bears and worgs from traps stuck under the world eliminating a chance at a clean sweep SD pop on them.. its by far the worst bug in the zone) rares would be nice. I get t7.

T8.. heh.. any shot at armor is a welcome sign. Any shot at essences would be appreciated. Spells are hard to come by early on in progression. Weapons are welcome too. T8 lends itself well to a one-and-done pinata format.

Qvic and Ct ARE mini dungeons. Anyone asking for them is trying to farm their 3rd UW while hiding behind a 'help the noobs!' mantra. Don't be fooled. There's no weapons from CT... No spells worth scribing.. Theres NO CONTENT to put in a CT dungeon besides the essence candyland that matches Dranik.

I know you pondered UW nerf for a long time. I know you took feedback, you weighed things out carefully. Two weeks of mini dungeons has already ruined the T1-T5 essence player economy. Don't add Qvic/CT to the mix. It's the last cawkblawk you got in reserve to making UW... easy.. to obtain.

If anything ponder a difficulty slider in these dungeons to match player level and take another look at drop rates.

I'm just looking out for server integrity here.. Believe me, the two worst mindless chores  on EZ server is farming lightstones and farming dminors, You've incorporated a fun, amusing way of accumulating both items. Thank You. :)

I just came back from a nice little break and found the Mini dungeons one of the best additions I have seen. The only request I have is if possible they reset at a set time, say at the server restart instead of the 23 hour count down timer.

-Scorpien

Not every day someone tries to sharp shoot me AND try to put words into my mouth at the same time.  So I say fuck you.  I clearly stated my reasons for adding CT/Qvic esse to the mini dungeon, and I don't need you to try to speak for me as I can do that myself. For starters if getting 2-4 essences per day is "game breaking" than we have larger issues (which it is not) and the new dungeons have not done anything but correct the cost of essences anyway.  I mean come on 2-3 million per Gmajor, that's just a ridiculous price. They are currently around 350k and gminors are around 150k...that to me is not "ruining server economy" but correcting it!

I have to agree with Ponzi /Kiwis here, ct/qvic would fundamentally change the economy and uw grind - of course it's arguable whether that's for the better or worse. If making UW an essential item rather than an elite item is the goal, then it makes sense, but that's not what i thought was the point of the UW. Just by doing natural progession, you will get enough essences to fill your group's augs. T6 already drops essences like candy and is relatively easy to do, even for uc2... Lopingplains is not easy and takes forever to get essences, but isn't that the point? Plus it's still fairly late tier.

Anyway just my opinion. I'll be on board with whatever happens. The new expeditions are fundamentally changing the UW grind, and I feel like more (especially of the later tiers, 6 and 7) are not necessary.

Thanks Hate for all you do (not sarcasm, :))
Darpey

Only thing that needs changed about the dungeons is lockout timer.

Either 24 hours from the start or 23 hours from the finish

Or better yet, all reset at a certain time.

I just want to be able to do it everyday, and given my schedule I think at best I will be able to do them twice per 3 days.

Two more thoughts I had - one about the economy, another about the rate of UW farming.

UW Farming:
The dungeons are making the pace of UW farming much faster, which is what it is. However, the requirement of 10m plat per UW level kept pace with the old pace of farming, or was probably even slower than the pace of the old rate of essence farming (in that by the time you collected 100 essences, you probably wouldn't have 10m plat yet). With the accelerated rate of essence drops, you're going to have people with 5 tiers of 100 essences with only enough plat for one of them. Just a thought. (By the way, I only need 7m more plat to be done with UW11, so this does not affect me... except that I have done the farming, so I am aware of the pacing)

Economy:
Currently, most stable item in the economy is SLS - it has been 250k for the past many months, and it's always being bought and sold (this is a good thing, especially for new players). Currently, the expeditions are not selling SLS, but when they are, I fear that this might disrupt the economy in a negative way. I suppose this could be replaced with the selling of essences, but this can only be accomplished by players that aren't completely new (have to be t2-3 or so at least) - this would further aggravate the discrepancy between the rate of essence drops and the 10m plat requirement per UW for newer players.

Just my thoughts.

Danke
- Darpey

Some big assumptions being made here that the these dungeons are a set it and forget situation in terms of drops. 

Darpey,
As one not having any UW's and probably wont try until later on in T7, I think we have to be careful with assuming the UW farming is getting easier. I don't have the cash nor the SLS to aug up my current t6 group. I get a little day by day farming, let alone get enough cash or essence to get a UW like its on easy mode. I think people have shifted focus from progressing, to grinding UW's. The mini dungeons don't introduce any more essence into the game than if someone was farming for them. More are getting introduce because people are farming the berries and maybe the charms and the few extra essence are a bonus, which they should be. I think its perfect and is doing what was intended (fix the lockout timer).

Additionally the SLS on the hive queen is not over the top, you have to complete 2 days of missions to get one SLS, and thats what you get for have spent your  hour or so farming the 2 minis. same rate as if you were farming in Jaggedpine just less mind numbing.

Lastly and this is not directed at you, when I hear people talking of the server economy its usually top end players and its tends to be a self serving statement because top tier players have far greater access to cash. Its the top tier players that are driving up the SLS to 250k which is a silly price for 15 minutes of work, just because they don't want to farm them themselves (I don't either).

I really don't see anything wrong currently, I am seeing a lot of new faces, lots of returning players and they are loving the server. I am recruiting new players into our guild weekly and its refreshing.


Hate as a suggestion, can you add something to the effect that this server is a boxing server to the login message? I have seen quite a few new players soloing and then when they get to the real server progression they ask a few questions and get told to make more toons :)

Warbash, thanks for the response.

I agree with your statement about the cash - it's taking a lot longer to farm 10m than it is to farm the 100 essences, especially the t1-4 expedition essences.

One of the reasons I was able to get my Hatestomp IV is that I run 14 players through the expeditions - If I wanted to devote this to SLS's (at the price that they were before they were discontinued), I could beat the expeditions in 45 minutes with 14 players, and get an average of 255 berries, or 10 SLS's for 45 minutes worth of work (14*15 berries per run + average of 9 UC upgrades sold for 3berries each = 255 total berries per run of t1-4 and t5 expeditions)

I don't really need SLS anymore, but I certainly wouldn't be buying them from newer players if I was getting 10 per day every day this way. (Granted I can only buy them once my players actually get 25 berries, which would be every other day'ish... but an average of 10 per day)

Maybe I'm completely off-base with my concerns - and I am viewing this from the viewpoint of being past these tiers. As a newer player though, I would farm SLS to get cash, since you could make ~1m/hour this way. I'm not sure how a character in CT, QVic or T1 could make money if SLS was devalued, but maybe it won't be idk.

Thanks for the response and differing point of view.
- Darpey

oh nice, i did not realize you could sell the charm upgrades :) I still need way to many charms for that to ever happen in the near future but good to know.
What you say makes sense but you should also look at it from the point of view that you worked your arse off to box and gear 14 toons and they should all reap the reward for the minis. And yes you could focus those purchased SLS and send them all to one toon, but if you look at it on a per toon basis that's one SLS every 2 days :) not that much plus as you mentioned, you could sell the charm upgrades back and get a little more. Again you deserve it for the past charm farming you did :).

Please bring the SLS back to the Hive Queen :)

Edit - Wanted to add more smiles as my post did not have enough.
:) :) :) :)

I am sure SLS were taken off Hivequeen as you could sell SLS back to her at 25 berries per SLS....Hate said as soon as he could figure out how to make it so that you couldn't sell stuff back to her like that he would add SLS back along with more items.

Akkadius disabled the rule value today. With reboot, I'll likely branch off a new NPC for reward items, SLS, and other goodies. This way I can keep Hive Queen exclusive to new dungeon bits and Ultimate Augments (UA).


-Hate

Does that include not being able to sell the prisms back?

I think there is a new vendor which has SLS and other stuff that cannot be sold back to exploit the berry system.

I believe everything on Hive Queen will remain as it was.

Prisms are no sell back as well. Lame.

It doesn't seem like that was intended, maybe it will get reverted.

If it was intended then there is no need for a 2nd vendor.  I'm hopeful this will get changed back.

This was intended because I cannot put cheap credit items or high value items here as people could buy cheapo items and sell back for HUNDREDS of berries.

I'm going to create a separate merchant for the donation items and goodies, for sake of keeping things separate.


-Hate

Yes Hate, I understand that.

But will the berry rewards still not be able to be sold back like prisms etc?

Can't you have the other vendor not be sold back to, and the Hive Queen be left as it was?

I'm guessing selling anything back wasn't part of the original design. I would like the prisms to be sold back as its not game breaking. Those who have no need for them would have somewhat of a perk. Even if they were dropped in value.

By Design or not folks who had that chance for however long, even minus exploits are way ahead of every other person on the server who hasn't.

I need 893 berries to get a hate stomp IV for at an average of 7.5 per day(I can only do one of the dailies each day due to the lockout timer issue) staring at 120 days, to do something folks have done in a matter of weeks.

Sucks to hear that is working as intended.

Keeping the prisms sellable (i.e. keeping Queen as it was, and adding additional tradeable items to another NPC) seems to be a decent solution. Allows ONE character in each raid to get an added amount of berries IF the prisms are not necessary for UC (otherwise obviously they would be used for UC) - with current droprates at about 2-4 per t5 expedition and 6 per t1-4 expedition, this seems like a reasonable amount of berries... and not game-breaking, like the SLS, or fastest-travel sales. Then adding SLS (or whatever) that cannot be sold back for berries on a separate NPC would be Wunderbar!

Unless the intention is for Ultimate Aug to be gained at a 15 berry per day rate to achieve 950 berries. IDK.

Danke

The prisms are completely valueless to people who don't need UC1s.

They really should be sellabel. obv.. SLS/Fast Travel/etc... i.e. things that do not drop in the dungeon should without question NOT be sellable for berries.

I think the 950 berries thing is intentionally meant to take a while at 15 berries per day. when he adds more dungeons it may be possible to do all of them for ~30 or so berries per day. That's 30 days of dungeons. Not bad considering it's supposed to be "ultimate" and should take a while to get.

There will always be the few people that get everything first and way sooner than most before things are fixed or tweaked. It happens. Don't be bummed about things like that or upset or let it affect your play time, because it is going to happen Every time.

-Anuli

LoL I love it how I overlook one thing, fix it, and then "That's not how it should be!".

New dungeons are coming, don't worry. Halloween takes priority as it's pretty much the biggest annual event for this server. It will also be our best opportunity to draw new and old players in to show them all the shenanigans we have to offer.

In addition, there are a few others...surprises...coming. ;-)


-Hate

Hate I would ask you to consider the slight reduction in lockout timer to 23 hours.  I think the majority of the server would appreciate it and would only allow folks to do the dungeon once a day.

hailing the gnome and being locked out for 41 more minutes last night is a kick in the pants.

Especially with the change in selling things to the vendor.

For example, I can play from 9-11 est, and basically am stuck doing one or the other each day because i am locked out from the other and I don't think I am the minority.

Hate its constructed criticism and honestly it wasn't a wah wah wah. Here is a suggestion and why is better than wah wah any day. *kisses*

I meant make the prisms swappable for lightstones and rewards stuffs, etc.. Not necessarily that they had 'berry value' linked directly to the game-breaking UW augs.

I wholly understand leaving the berries separate with the queen designed only for the augments. We just obviously have 6-12 toons each day accumulating berries and prisms, most of which don't have UWs to augment in the first place.. If they have no UW, and already have a level 1 or better UC.. Those are wasted berries.  We just would like a little side vendor who sells/buys things. :)

/agree. I'm about 2 years away from UW. I still have a lot of work to do on UCs for my team, so it really won't affect me for a while, but it would be neat to have some options besides the prisms. Don't get me wrong though, the prisms are awesome!

should make all the prisms sell back for 1 currency that is called a berry but has a different id and Troll all these people with it

 ;D Ok am I the only one who saw this little spoiler and popped wood? ;D

The 100 mob kill quest is not being updated by abyss mini dungeon, I assume that this is improper, from your previous post about a having a new "alternative for getting bosses".

It's is updating, just don't get the pop up window. I confirmed yesterday.

I can confirm it works as well, got several flags for some newbies my group is bringing up.

Yes I also noticed that the task does update in t5 mini, just no pop up window.... also, for a suggestion to the t5 mini.... would it be possible to add an exit that takes you to stonehive maybe right near the miner for the final hail?

Only one toon needs to hail him and be in stone hive. Port out to nexus with everyone except main, click your belt and go hail miner.

True guess ill just make a button so all can click their belts :D

Maybe it was fixed?  I know I killed mob that dropped shaman legs (new toon I am making) but I didn't get the credit until I killed it in t5.....even though I had the legs on my shammy.

What about a quota system for the mini dungeons? Say three dungeons a day (when the rest are added) the biggest benefit would be the fact you could do the same dungeon over again. (IE if you were only interested in T5 could group or solo it 3 times in one day lock out and no others)

I would also like to see the refresh timer at a set time of day instead of a 24 hour cool down timer.

Scorpien

Interesting point raised there. How will that be handled ?

/bcaa //itemnotify waist rightmouseup

I'm not sure from a programing stand point how it would work but my thoughts where say an hour before server restart every char would be awarded say 3 tokens but could not hold more then 3 at any given time. The tokens would be consumed anytime that a instance is started even if you're just one of the group members. I would think the token would have to be a non inventory item kind of like the Berries.

Frankly this is becoming a non issue.. not sure if anything has been changed but the last few runs I have gotten 1 or 2 essence total from the dungeons....none from the last 2 t5 runs...my time is better spent doing other things

Yeah, I tend to agree. Got finished with t5 on my extra alts and see no need to go back in there. If SLS are added back I may do a few more here and there.

Not a non issue for the folks who didn't get hatestomps yet and now have to grind em out.  The RNG is strong, I got 12 essences one run 2 the next.  Only 800 berries to go

I didn't get one either :) not that it matters it's not game changeing. And I guess I really meant that its a non issue due to the fact that they currently have little value for anything more that getting a chance at t5 named, it's a cool additional task for that and as a bonus for taking time out to play you get a few essence and some charm augs. IMO it's not worth the time for anything else. Maybe if you are at end game and then want to grind out hatestomp sure. Don't get me wrong, I'd like the timing changed to be more user friendly but don't really want to beat up hate on the matter anymore as he is working on Halloween:)

Imo just alllow a combo of 10 prisms into a magic box to make a SLS and be done with it.

Id probably pass on that too, can be progressing and make the 250k at the same time relatively quickly.

Can we change the lockout timer to 18 hours this way if it takes 6 hours to complete it is still 24 hours from the start.

The lockout timer isn't an issue anymore, for me at least. Only because I hardly remember to do them each day. Just because currently the berry amount each day you get does not seem worth it, right now.

I second something similar to this, I was thinking more of a 20 hours lockout. Something to assist in being able to do these things at the same time everyday. For example, I would like to be able to do the dungeon at 4pm PST everyday, rather than starting it at 4, clearing at 5, and not being able to do again till 5 the next day. I don't feel something like this could be abused unless people are running some sort of bots to spam it every 20hours. Hell, maybe their should just be a reset ever day at server reset.

I just started doing these a couple days ago though, so my opinion is probably irrelevant.

500 posts suggesting we change  lock out timer...


i think they get the point..


any OTHER thoughts?

Similar feedback in a suggestions section of a forum. Who would of thought.

This is kinda why its frustrating to run this server... The whole concept of the mini-dungeon is to aid the casuals flag thru t5 and grind UCs. And yet its the casuals constantly ranting about the lockout timer. /giggle.

How about make a second non-lockout timer version of the dungeons, that have a normal drop rate on essences and do not give you berries to complete. Would give the casuals a chance to grind t5 bosses, and grind UC's... and since you can't sell prisms for berries... gives no advantage to the ubers since they can't roll through these just to hoard prisms to sell for berries etc. 

redundant and t5 is a  progress check.  Fixing the lockout timer is way better fix for the majority of the server.

Using the word fix in reference suggests that the timer is somehow working in a way other than intended.  The dungeons are bonus content and do a good job of offering an alternate path for the appropriate tier(s) they were implemented for.  Without seeing an official statement concisely stating that they were meant to operate as they currently do, coupled with the lack of a response to all the clamoring that they need to be doable at least once per 24 hours regardless of lockout timers makes it seem as if it's working as intended and there's no need for a fix.

I don't see where this is a big deal, you may not be able to do them as often as you want but it's also not the only way to progress through the content despite being the only source to attain berries.  None of the berry rewards are required to progress since nothing was designed around the idea of people having them.

If it is intended to be done daily, then the lockout timer should be changed to either start time of the expedition or made to be 23 hours.

Add in the changes to selling  back berries and augments being made changed to no trade, it should really be tweaked to allow for daily completion.

That quote simply states once per day, not daily.  I could care less either way, I'd benefit as much as everyone else if it were adjusted but I also don't see the problem with it as is. Again, there have been plenty of people clamoring for a change and there has been no response from above, not much point in bumping this thread with redundancy.
 

Prob cause they dont want to go back and read 5 pages of someone else bitching about how the suggestion was made before and the 100 posts of how something isnt or is a good idea.

Doubtful, you'll find that offering a different viewpoint and backing it up with legitimate reasoning goes a long way to getting the point across as opposed to standing on a pulpit and repeating the same thing over and over.  Try it sometime.