EZ Server

Can we please have a serious discussion about Dranik?

TL;DR - Dranik and T7 mini both suck. Scale the mobs to avg raid/group lvl and fix loot tables/bb. Also thanks Hate and Akka for all your hard work - on behalf of the server I'm sorry we exploit cool shit you guys come up with and ruin it for everyone  :)

1.) I understand a large number of high lvl people were "exploiting" Dranik in one form or another with mixed results. Those who did it effectively probably walked away with multiple UWs along with UW augs - which for the record - shouldn't even exist on the server. Was anyone even punished for this? While I didn't do it myself (not that I haven't done shit I'm not proud of in other cases), I personally didn't see using multiple toons as an exploit (I've said this before), but I can see how the rewards were clearly skewed if done in excess by the elites. Why couldn't the zone flag an IP address or a specific client location or something to resolve this? Whatever, it's in the past. Any other exploits I'm sure were particularly bad, and probably should have been punished if they weren't.

2.) Dranik as it is now totally and completely sucks. I haven't done the zone in forever, but I just recently went back in with low expectations in order to work on my UW augs and maybe some SLS. As low as my expectations were, it was much, much worse. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind doing this three-part event 150 times (that would be 450 zone clears with zero loot) in order to get their UW aug to max - doing so is definitely not worth the minor benefit you receive from the underpowered aug or the upgrade of it. It's okay for SLS, but spending berries on SLS prevents you from making UW augs soo... The fact that we can do it all over and over again is irrelevant - it's totally unproductive to spend any time in Dranik. The only players capable of doing this quickly are really ripped toons with no need for small plat bags and two charm prisms.

3.) Back in the day, Dranik was awesome. Spend a little time doing your daily, walk away with a lot of essences, some charms, and a lot of exp. Now, you're lucky to get even ONE essence the entire trip (after clearing three zones!). The bosses still drop the charms... sometimes. I don't even loot the small plat bags they're so worthless considering the amount of plat on server.

4.) Am I imagining this (I might be) or was the cost of the UW augs actually increased? The zone has no loot, provides less berries, and the UW augs cost a fortune. Something is not right here. Considering the UW augs are supposed to be an end game item, this should be resolved.

5.) We don't even have the option of doing abyss mini anymore, so we're left with the bad T7 mini, and the bad T3 mini for UW augs. Since they can be done over and over, and since T3 mini is easier, that leaves us with one zone for buzzing berries. Shoot me.

/rant off

Proposed solution (for Hate since I know you always want solutions!): Forget about T3 mini and T5 mini and T7 mini being solely alternatives to T3 and T5 and T7. Now that they aren't dailies, just leave them as regular zones and make the mobs scale to the tier of your group/raid like housegarden. This way folks in T5 or T7 can still use them as alternatives, as they will appropriately scale and drop real loot, but the mobs will also scale up for higher lvl players. These mobs should be conning blue white yellow or red. Right now they're a very, very light blue to me which makes this so so so much worse. It wouldn't be a problem if the UW augs weren't an end game item - but they are. Put the original loot table back in so we can get some essences instead of nothing and add rare crystals and gsoa. Pump the berries back up to their original values or better. Put charms back on the bosses. Bring the T5 mini back and remove the boss flags. All three: T3, T5, and T7 should be doable as much as you want with real loot tables, and the zones should scale to player level (scaling should be strong enough to prevent folks from soloing the whole thing).

I say this knowing a.) this will vastly slow my ability to obtain UW augs (and others) but also b.) this will make the zones much more enjoyable and actually make sense for progression instead of mind-numbing / completely tedious / silly.

Please please consider this change. I miss the old Dranik, not because I exploited it, but because it was awesome and fun for those who didn't exploit. Scaling the mobs and fixing the loot table would solve this problem and make Dranik fun again. Right now all we have is a bunch of toons with UWs and augs they don't deserve, and a couple terrible minis no one wants to do. No one is complaining because most of them already have their UWs and their UW augs. Clearing light blue zones 500 times with zero loot is not EZ - it's not fun. As it is now, the only ones being punished for the exploit are the people who didn't exploit (which, I might add, encourages more exploiting in the future)...

I disagree but am not going to go into detail and start an argument but I will at least say that the minis were put in to give players a way to get the berries for the UW augs and NOT as an alternative way to get loot (the loot was a nice bonus hate and akka were kind enough to give us).
Instead I propose hate just add a second merchant next to the queen that allows us to buy an item that is tradeable that we can then sell back at half the cost. This way if we really want to make the grind faster (and are willing to sacrifice all the SLS we could be buying instead) we can dump all our toons berries into one at a reduced rate.
 

I understand that you're not happy with the change, but scaling is not the answer. I understand why he did what he did, people abused it.  As people have almost every time they try to give us something new. Hate tends to over react to an exploit or broken spell/ability. The only zone thats currently scaling was also recently exploited, and it is now unplayable. Pofire is no longer useful even for the 55-70 it used to be great for.

The nuclear option that removed the reason to farm essences from it but gave us back the ability to farm berries was a nice compromise, instead of leaving them locked due to people exploiting them. The loot table is real, its set to the same rate as the zones they are in. They don't need gems or rainbow poop to make them worth farming. People will grind them for the berries as they are.

I have some experience in the t7 mini ...i ground out from hatestomp1 to hatestomp 4 in 2 days....


I don't recommend this,  3 berries at a time was a lot of reps...

so now I have basicly 1 uw aug maxed on all of my toons at some point in the future....worth it?

hatestomp 4 is the same as hatestomp 1 as far as I can tell..

ulitmate rune is ....meh....like ... my paladin has it...the group rune proc....all it does is get him MORE aggro...90k group rune is a fraction of 1 hit per proc per toon...MEH

so it boils down to the run is like..mind numbingly insane......the ULITIMATE AUGS!! are ultimate augs that are super meh...

we need to figure out something about this proc/click stacking cause its super limiting ....wait..i guess...they should all just be procs so they can stack...

its a hot mess...

I am going to think on this and come back when I have it figured out...

Thats a good point about them being "meh". My HS4 holds agro, but so did my HS1, and the damage difference is not noticeable. On a side note, Bloodmoon (http://www.ezserverwiki.com/Bloodmoon_Temple) is worth 4 berries.

I always hear people referencing the dailies as having been exploited but nobody ever really says what about them was being exploited.  Were people somehow intentionally bypassing the lockout or something?

I think the intended purpose of the dungeons are fine and it's not the dungeons that need to be looked at, but the usefulness of UW augs.

I think it's both, but I agree the augs definitely need review. Clearing a light blue zone 500 times for no loot might be worth it if the max UW augs came with 200khps and a spell DMG boost or something.

Everyone on this server is willing to put in the hours for insane grinds, but only when there is a real reward for the effort. It's when the reward doesn't match the effort we have wasted content.

Leis, while i respect your difference of opinion, I rebuilt the lockout section with Akkadius three times. The fourth time is two times too many. If people were getting hundred SLS or aug rank 2 (from zero) in one pass, would you not consider that slightly... borked?

As for scaling, that's an idea honestly. Turn berry reward value up, provided you are the scaled average (i.e. scaled to 78, your goobers are 78) and increase loot table propotionally based on number of runs maybe?

-Hate

I think scaling could have huge potential in terms of giving other rewards while grinding berries. People talked about farming dranik though not even for berries, but a way to farm gods majors and minors. I think an issue that would now come up is would it still be better to farm dranik for these items or just go back to t3/t4 since the area now scales and maybe skill speed isn't as fast. This is why I bring up the issue of UW augs.

Now, I only have a hatestomp II, so I don't have much of an opinion of hatestomp though I personally love mine, but the general consensus of people who have a 4 seem to be it was a waste of time. They not only seem to express this towards hatestomp, but UW augs in general. If the design behind minis is for berries for UW augs, I still feel the augs should be looked at. Dranik could provide nothing at all, and people would still do it if the augs were worthwhile. Take a look at tofs. There doesn't seem to be much benefit out of farming essences, other than for UW upgrades, yet people waste days in there just for a master essences. Can the same mentality not be applied to augs?

Hate, I agree that it needed to be fixed, I was just pointing out that you tend to over kill. The Drake issue was a good example. You asked for feedback on how to fix it, and people proposed two different fixes. The first was a hit counter, the second a change to duration/recast. Either one would have fixed it but left it useful. You put in both.

I realize this sounds like a complaint, but you shouldn't take it as such. Its more an observation on your personality. Honestly you are nicer about it than I would be. If I found people doing half the things you say they are, I would let them start over with stripped down level 1's.

 ;D