EZ Server

Ok we have These items that are nigh on essential to progress and we have 13 progression zones. Thats a lot of content for new players to catch up with.

V1 upgrades used to only drop in LDoN and V2s drop in HoH. so a lot of farming in those zones, months revisiting the same to get UC1.

Ok now theres frozenshadow but thats a side zone and isnt for progression so yes you can go there but its not on the progression tree.

Heres the idea .. could we consider adding V1 upgrades to more zones ... Time, Qvic and Ct.

V2 upgrades to PoA boss drops.

Berries to Abyss to bring us up to Anguish.

UC2 11 clears of anguish per upgrade only way i can see to streamline this is to lower the amount of augs needed down from 10 to 6 or 7. or perhaps adding random armor drops to Mattas final 5 chests.
or could scrap the old quest and just have hand in 100 augs per upgrade.

UC3 Hello ToV make yourself comfortable and clear it 60 - 70 times per upgrade. scales only drop here but if they droped in Old commons would this be a game breaker?

I want new players to suffer but spending a month in a zone going back and forth doing the same drudge seeing the upper zones years away when they have proven they can do the content just seems cruel

Not to be a Debbie downer but this really doesn't seem necessary. You can also purchase prism upgrades from the Hive Queen, making these fairly easy to get without having to go to far out of your way.


UC2 is actually fairly easy. While i was farming them i remember thinking that UC2 was actually easier to get than UC1. Perhaps it was all in my head since there isnt much of a random component (since you are usually getting your non armor drops at a quicker pace than your armor drops). To me, these aren't hard enough to warrant a big change.


As i still have plenty more UC3 farming to do......i understand where you are coming from on this. When i sit down to farm some scales i do it with dread. However, UC3 is the best in game, it should be hard. I dont know if its been contemplated before but perhaps making scales droppable might help make it a little easier in the short run but not really make it that much easier in the long run. I say this because players could trade scales with others since i know green scales are my bane but player x might have plenty of green and be lacking in red (making you feel better in the short term). I wouldn't suspect too many people would farm scales just to sell so i doubt anyone is buying their way to a UC3 (effectively not making it any easier in the long run).


I can understand this but at the same time, newer players should understand that measurements have been put in place to make some of these things easier in the interest of helping them move along through content much quicker. UC1 is evidence of this (a  lot of players still have LDON nightmares). Its a tough balancing act because you dont want to make it too easy. Ultimate Charms are game changing as you outfit your crew with them. They are not meant to be something that you obtain as you progress but are instead items that require you to hang back in a zone and grind out.

I am not coming down on this issue one way or another, but I will say this, expanding item drops make getting an item easier.

There are a great number of players here that have done this quest so many times its mind boggling. To say to all the past players that paid their dues, "Sorry, but we are going to make this easier to obtain" is kinda a slap in the face imo.

Grinding to obtain is a good part of this server's history. This server rewards players that are willing to stick it out and do the "boring" stuff. A lot of players actually don't mind grinding, cause it's mindless and gives them a chance to chat while they play.

It's not so much of a "I did it so you have to do it too" mentality so much as it is a badge of accomplishment. I think when people do finally complete these long quests they get a great feeling of satisfaction from the experience. To look back and say you've done 12 UC3's is saying something on this server. And there are players here that have done quite a few more than 12. One of the most satisfying quests I ever completed was the Ring of the Ages 1000. It was painfully boring at the 800+ range, but that quest was made 10x easier with the addition of xp shards. What was the result? People made rings a lot faster and the quest lost some of it's luster of accomplishment.

The argument back from this point of view is that veteran players don't want newer players to have what they have, or something along those lines. That couldn't be further from the truth though. A vast majority of "veteran" or "older" players do indeed want to see the newer players with all the side quest items. They know how it felt for them when they reached the finish line and want the new players to have that same feeling. And if the quests are made easier a bit of that accomplishment feeling gets eroded.

Bottom line is I want everyone to have a great gaming experience here with our community. I want the game to remain challenging and fun to play. Instead of reinventing the wheel though my focus is toward new content and development as well as fixing the minor problems with existing content. I would rather see every tier work perfect, every quest work perfect and new, exciting content than focus on changing the existing content. I whole heartily believe our current "gut check" quests are well tempered and not meant to punish players, but to give players a great sense of achievement when finished.     

I think a big problem, is there is a difference between stopping progression to farm things like UCs, and spending time farming  because you are done with current content.  Im all for putting time in to gear, but it sucks not progressing to do it.

I'm not going to lie, I want UC3 to be streamlined so I can get it on all my toons. HOWEVER if I got everything I wanted then the server would be rather boring and I would have nothing to do when I log in.

maybe an little scales drop rate increase are helpful ... sometimes i do an full clear and gain only 4-6 scales inclusiv Vulak... maybe 1 scale per boss + that chance of trash drop + the old Vulak rate that will give u 21 Scales for sure and some random ! that u need around 20-40 clears max per UCv3 i would say that is not to overpowered ...

sorry for my english by  the way

that is still around 3x more clears need as Anguish for UCv2

I do not think any changes should be made on any UC quests.

UC1 is easy with tofs and the charm prism upgrades.

UC2 is very easy.  10 runs with some luck on aug drops.

UC3 requires some effort.   Once you get your team to a point of strength you can bust one out in 6-10 hours.   

As Rent said, the addition of the XP crystals as well as the XP mask really trivializes the RoA.    I think I have 26 ROA 1000s without even using XP crystals.

Some reworking could definitely improve the experience for non-neckbeards.

Adding drops to somewhere else, that drop at about the same rate, doesn't make anything easier, or faster. Just more interesting.

Hmmm..

You should delete your accounts and rework your life.   

??  

It takes 6-10 hours to finish a UC3.    You can get 10-15 scales per clear and clear 4 per hour.  (once you get your team to a point of strength, minimum of T9 maxed out tank with some heals)

RNG gods must love you as I don't get anywhere near the 10-15 scales per clear (7-10 perhaps?)

T9 and nearly maxed out geared (897 ROA), sadly, fastest I can clear is 20-25mins.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not advocating to any changes to this zone. I like the way that it is. I'm currently 2/18 toons on UC3 and I will be here for a while. Was just abit taken back when you mentioned finishing UC3 in 6-10 hours  :o :o

it might take that long if you have 25+ toons with max UW and full T10, Roa, Earring etc etc...

I get about 5-6 scales per clear, including Vulak. takes about 45 mins to an hour, depending how much I get interrupted. (I'm not poopsocking here).

about 30-40 hours, is a more realistic figure for mere mortals... right now I'm working on my warrior's UC3, who already was about 1/4 done from doing T8 on my full crew (got Paladin's already). I'm on day 4, spending about 6 hours a day (with some breaks of course). I figure it will take 1-2 more days to finish. 6x6=36. yep about right

30-40 hours is about average I think.

However once you reach the point that you can single pull all named in the zone (minus Vulak) the 45 min clear rule is reduced drastically.

Last I played I would do one "trash" run through the zone pulling as many trash mobs as I could, kill them off. Then I would go back and pull all the named, again minus Vulak, then run up to vulak, call the raid and kill him. Total Time, maybe 20ish mins.

The bottom line on this is once you understand NPC paths and a good route to run, timing, etc the time it takes to clear the zone is very short. Can you do this right off the bat? no. Can you do this after your characters are well geared with multiple toons fully side quest geared? yes.

Maslow is one of the server's seasoned farming veterans. There are many players that have developed a routine for farming, its a real art and science. So with these players we need to take into consideration their years of farming experience and note that while they can do it in x amount of time its by no means the standard.

Everyone plays and farms at different speeds. I know plenty of players that can zone pull and farm extremely fast, but they don't. Half the time when they are farming they are watching a movie or listening to music and just zoning out in RL. During double loot most all farmers put on their focus hat and really get down to business!

run to vulak.
summon raid..
get withen melee range of vulak
hit hotkey to fire off 10 dt clickys
loot vulak

it only takes 3 clickies, but they have a 3 hour CD, so at best that's 3 scales - random scales, maybe not the ones you need, every 3 hours
at best.

Except most people have more than 3 clickies in their raid.

so... if you have 10 of them that's still only 9 scales every 3 hours.

which would take you... 100 hours.

More farming = more gear = faster farming = more gear faster until you don't need gear anymore.  But of course, you have to put the time into getting the initial gear to end up benefitting from the subsequent gear.

As far as ToV clears, I was doing sub 14 minute clears with 2 groups of decked out characters, only 5 had UW though.  Nobody, I hope, would be stupid enough to gimp Vulak with dt clicks and wait 3 hours for the click to refresh and do it again while solely relying on this method to farm UCv3's.

I have 24 so that's 24 scales for about 15 minutes of work. I get there is a cool down but i wont sit at my computer waiting for it to come up.

with perfect drops thats 3.125 hours of playtime 37.5 hours of real life time of sitting at my computer watching my cool down expire.

I think it is fair to say a lot of people who have been through the Halloween event where they were able to mass clear it have suited their entire crew (average size of 12) with DT clickies. So double the numbers above and you are still looking at about 6 hours of play time without really having to have a tank that can pull the entire zone.

I got 5 of them during the "whoops this is wayyyy too easy" event last year.
we all hope they never repeat that mistake..
assuming everyone has 20 of them is a bit much.
yes, if you have a few sets of them it makes UC3 a tiny bit faster.
not quite as easy as "get 10 clickies, camp at vulak = WIN" I was responding to...

I only assumed people had 12 but not quite as grim as the 3 scales per 3 hours i was responding to...