You can do fine in EZ and go all the way to end game without ever looting a rare weapon skin.

Yes - and everyone does.  I'm simply pointing out that they are so unbelievably rare that no one who is in that current tier will ever see one, so they really don't even need to exist. 

Those rare weapon skins don't mean *anything* other than entertainment, they are going to get replaced as soon as you move to the next tier.  But it would be nice if their rareness was adjusted so that you could actually have a chance to loot one before you "outgrow" it.  I remember hoping really hard one would drop when I  entered HoH for the first time, but one never did.  Since them I'm UW'd up and can round up the whole zone and smash it down solo, and I've done it a thousand times.  I *still* havent seen one of those rare epic skins.  I remember Kiwis blowing up in /gu because he saw one drop in the Dranik daily and he hadn't seen one before, they are that stinking rare.

The rare epic weapons skins are just an example, I don't care specifically about them anymore.  You guys are arguing that rare should be rare, I dont disagree.  I'm arguing that it's broken in this specific instance and for the new folks in those zones we might as well remove those epic skins from the wikis so they won't even know about them.

Increase the drop percent of the rare epic skin weapons (ex: Vampiric Blade in HoH).  They are so low now that most people wont see one till they are flagged tier 503.

I was dreaming up ideas for a new zone that I would find fun, and decided to post it for amusement.   The numbers below may be way off or need tweaking.  Please forgive the awful formatting, I'm at work and they block lots of web sites so I have to post this using my phone. I will fix the formatting soon. 




Howling Stones Daily

 

-        A dungeon crawling alternative to traditional EZ mass pulls

-        NPCs are slightly tougher than corresponding tier equivalents and should take longer to kill to encourage longer fights and rely more heavily on group healing

-        Higher npc power plus aoe will encourage smaller pulls, emulating early EQ playstyle with fd pulling, pacify, room breaking, etc

-        A straight-forward simple zone with no complicated scripts

-        Must be daily to prevent essence farming exploiting

o   Success = death of 4 wing bosses.  reward = 10 buzzing berries

o   After all 4 wing bosses are defeated, rare chance at named spawning in pit

-        CoH enabled, no real reason to disable it

-        No respawn

-        Traditional Howling Stones locked doors / keys remain unchanged with exception of Tallow-marked Candle (see Pit section)

-        Prevent mass pulls by:

o   On aggro, every npc casts unresistable aoe of 5% player health and then at regular 6 second intervals

§  Ie:  aggro 2 mobs and each mob aoe's for total 10% hp reduction, recasting every tick

§  Ie:  aggro 5 mobs and each mob aoe's for total 25% hp reduction, recasting every tick

§  Ie:  aggro 10 mobs and each mob aoe's for total 50% hp reduction, recasting every tick

o   The constant unresistable aoe damage should be low enough for groups to handle a few npc's simultaneously, but will completely prevent players from rounding up the whole zone in the traditional EZ server mass slaughter.  The zone is meant to be a slower, traditional EQ dungeon crawl


 

Zone in and Pit (T1/PoD)

The pit is T1 in difficulty and trash can drop dragons minor essences rarely.

Trash:

-        Clone of PoD trash (ie Silver Dragon) with +25% extra hit points and damage output.

-        Can rarely drop current wing essence, and more rarely other wing essence.  Rare plat chance and charm upgrade chance

-        Since there is no respawn, one npc in the pit should always drop the Tallow-marked Candle (key to North Wing)

 

The pit boss can spawn rarely only when all 4 wing bosses killed.

-        The pit boss is T6/Anguish in power.

-        Pit boss drops:

o   1 anguish essence

o   1 charm upgrade

o   1 Plat bag

o   1 T6 spell

o   10% chance at rare weapon drop from tier 6

o   Rare chance at random floor ToFS essence.  This is the hook for all level players


 

 

North Wing (T2/PoD)

The North wing is T2 in difficulty and trash can drop dragons major essences rarely and other wing essences even more rarely.

 

Trash:

-        Clone of PoD trash (ie Gold Dragon) with +25% extra hit points and damage output

-        Can rarely drop current wing essence, and more rarely other wing essence.  Rare plat chance and charm upgrade chance

Named npc's drop (Bile Sentient, Crypt Worm, Golem Master, Spectre Sepulchre):

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        Rare chance of 1 random item from any wing boss loot table (excluding pit)

 

The Wing boss (Crypt Keeper) is always up due to needing flag to complete daily quest.

Wing boss drops:

-        Sigil of the Calendar (key to West wing)

-        1 dragons major essence

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        1 T2 spell

-        1 random T2 armor piece

-        1 random T2 weapon

-        25% chance of additional random T2 weapon (since there are no rare T2 weapons)


 

West Wing (T3/HoH)

The West wing is T3 in difficulty and trash can drop gods minor essences rarely and other wing essences even more rarely.

 

Trash:

-        Clone of HoH trash with +25% extra hit points and damage output

-        Can rarely drop current wing essence, and more rarely other wing essence.  Rare plat chance and charm upgrade chance

 

Named npc's drop (Golem Master, Spectre Sepulchre):

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        Rare chance of 1 random item from any wing boss loot table (excluding pit)

 

The Wing boss (Skeletal Procurator) is always up due to needing flag to complete daily quest.

Wing boss drops:

-        Broken Sacrificial Dagger (key to South Wing)

-        1 gods minor essence

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        1 T3 spell

-        1 random hoh armor piece

-        1 random hoh weapon

-        10% chance of rare hoh weapon


 

South Wing (T4/Airplane)

The South wing is T4 in difficulty and trash can drop gods major essences rarely and other wing essences even more rarely.

 

Trash:

-        Clone of Airplane trash with +25% extra hit points and damage output

-        Can rarely drop current wing essence, and more rarely other wing essence.  Rare plat chance and charm upgrade chance

 

Named npc's drop (Crypt Spectre, Spectre Sepulchre, Embalming Fluid, Crypt Feaster):

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        Rare chance of 1 random item from any wing boss loot table (excluding pit)

 

The Wing boss (Spectre Spiritualist) is always up due to needing flag to complete daily quest.

Wing boss drops:

-        1 gods major essence

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        1 T4 spell

-        1 random airplane armor piece

-        1 random airplane weapon

-        10% chance of rare airplane weapon or loot (angerbomb, rebuttal, zerker haste, pincer attack, etc)


 

East Wing (T5/Abyss)

The East wing is T5 in difficulty and trash can drop Abyss essences rarely and other wing essences even more rarely.

 

Trash:

-        Clone of Abyss trash with +25% extra hit points and damage output

-        Can rarely drop current wing essence, and more rarely other wing essence.  Rare plat chance and charm upgrade chance

                                                           

Named npc's drop (Reanimated Plaguebone, Crypt Excavator, Howling Spectre, Undertaker Lord):

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        Rare chance of 1 random item from any wing boss loot table (excluding pit)

 

The Wing boss (Drussella Sathir) is always up due to needing flag to complete daily quest.

Wing boss drops:

-        1 abyss essence

-        1 charm upgrade

-        1 Plat bag

-        1 T5 spell

-        1 random abyss armor piece

-        1 random abyss weapon

-        10% chance of rare abyss weapon


 

Summary:

-        Relatively speaking, players do not stay in tiers 2 through 5 very long, and typically never see the rare weapons from those tiers.  This daily gives a higher chance at looting and using those weapons before they are made obsolete by higher tier weapons / ultimate weapons

-        A full clear would guarantee 1 essence from each of the corresponding tiers.  The trash and named mobs should provide additional chances for essences, averaging a total of 2 to 3 essences from the corresponding tiers on a full clear.  This provides a nice alternative to abyss essence farming

-        On successful clear, guaranteed loot of:

o   10 buzzing berries per player

o   4 plat bags

o   4 charm upgrade

o   1 dragons major essence

o   1 T2 spell

o   1 random T2 armor piece

o   1 random T2 weapon

o   1 gods minor essence

o   1 T3 spell

o   1 random T3 armor piece

o   1 random T3 weapon

o   1 gods major essence

o   1 T4 spell

o   1 random T4 armor piece

o   1 random T4 weapon

o   1 abyss essence

o   1 T5 spell

o   1 random T5 armor piece

o   1 random T5 weapon

Some ToFS mirror are messed up.

(with group of 6)
- zone into tofs1, click on mirror to port to tserrina's room: all toons port fine
- click mirror to go to floor 6 with character 1 : ports fine
- click mirror to go to floor 6 with character 2 : ports fine
- click mirror to go to floor 6 with character 3 : character wont port.  clicking with toons 4,5,6 wont port them either

Some amount of time has to pass before the mirror will start working again for any toon.  Once it starts working again, it usually will only work for 1 or 2 more toons and you have to wait for it to start working again to port the rest of the group.

The mirror to port to Vhal Sera's room works the same way - meaning that it's not a group port, every toon has to click it individually.  But it doesnt suffer the same problems as the previous mirror, all toons port the first time they click it.

Is there any chance of getting the spell research components (runes /pages) removed from tofs7?  And also the shovel thing, unless of course you want to make it worth looting by upping its merchant value.

- a fixed Enchanted Geode in the Bloodmoon Temple daily
- stackable and non lore ores (EoN quest)

Get rid of UW clones and Charm Prism upgrades all together from special events like Christmas and Halloween.  Replace them with EoN and SLS.

That is simply awesome, thank you!

I enjoy the event so far, my group of 6 is finishing up uc2's and will start ToV soon.  I can kill the gobs but its slow going.

Two changes would be awesome:
- remove goblins from public Nexus, if you are bound there like a lot of people you risk a death loop.  Lower level toons have no chance to escape.  I got stuck in a death loop with 5 of my 6 for a long time before someone cleared out the group of gobs camping the bind spot. I'm bound elsewhere now but it wasted a lot of my time trying to break out of the loop

- I love the idea of the presents but the no drop aspect of the "good stuff" means that my warrior is going to have an inventory of stuff he can't use. I don't dare loot a good gift on another toon and risk losing that beautiful X weapon (like deamon looted).  I just wish there was some alternative to allow the items to go to the toon that can use it in your group

It would be fantastic if the Ultimate Weapon quest line scaled correctly.  As it stands now, you arent powerful enough to start the quest until T5/T6-ish.  And when you do finally start the UW quest line, the rewards are not worth using until you level the UW to 5 or 6ish.  No one actually uses the lower levels of the UW's, they just bank them until they get worked higher and are worth using.  Seems like such a waste.

It would be great if you could actually earn your UW as you progress through the tiers:
- Progress characters to Qvic
- UW1 quest is obtainable at this tier, and the reward is useful (ie better than epic at this tier)

- Progress characters to CT
- UW2 quest is obtainable at this tier, and the reward is useful (ie better than epic at this tier)
- etc

The only way I can see this working is replace the EoN for the first 5 tiers of the UW with something obtainable at that level.  And moving the EoFS to the appropriate zone (ie: EoFS1 should be moved to Qvic with same spawn/drop chance).  This would make progression more linear on the server, instead of working your characters to tier 5/6 then stopping and going back to backfill the missing UW.

Here is my little demented poem about how much i hate hunting for superior light stones
(I admit I got lazy at the end and stole some Metallica lyrics)
*******************************************************************


Pretty little wisp, glowing so bright
So beautiful in this still dark night

I've been sent here on a quest
It's a terrible thing to put you to rest

Why cant we just make a trade, an agreeable deal?
It is not your life that i wish to steal

To take your life breaks my heart and makes me sick
Please hold still and i'll make this quick

Hundreds of these stones i need before i can rest
Curse the man that sent me on this quest

Kill one, kill two, kill three, then four
Oh how this pains me i do not wish this any more

Your corpses never have what i desire
He said you have great light stones, I think he's a liar

Just give up your stones and i'll be on my way
In this accursed forest i do not wish to stay

I've got much better things to do
Give me your stones and then i'll be through with you

I see you hiding in boulders out of extreme fear
My fury grows every second i have to wait here

Dont make me chase you all across this place
I'm going to rip out your skull right through your face

Your bones I will crush as if they were glass
Then I'm going to fuck you in the ass

I'll kill you once, wont that be nice?
Then I'll rezz you to kill you twice

Crushing skulls, ripping skin, tossing body mannequin
Mangle flesh, snapping spine, dripping bloody valentine

Split apart, split apart, split apart, spit, spit it out!

I ate too mucch, its hardd to type with theese fat fingerrs.

Not a bug, but it sure would be nice if the 100 boss kill list for Abyss was alphabetized.

[Hate]

Enchanted Geode is broken hardcore.
If you can't kill him fast enough all of your characters have a good chance of getting disconnected from the server, BUT the clients all still show as connected so you have to close them out.

Noted. Will fix in the morning.


-Hate

I'm pretty sure this is still broken.  I just recently started Loping Plains, and I tried Bloodmoon Temple for the first time the other day.  Everything was going pretty good until I tried Geode, and when his health got to 41% all my toons desynced.

I dont really have a dog in this fight, i dont give a shit about the xp mask I just *really* appreciate players giving out buffs (oak, VT, crab, etc), but I do have a solution:


First disable any new xp masks from being created.  Anyone that is possesion of the current xp mask will be grandfathered and allowed to keep their mask but the mask is limited to group only and non-MGB-able.
 
Second, create a brand new xp mask that functions as explained below.  Grandfathered users can turn in their old masks for an equivalent new mask if they so choose.

- The new mask is rank based, not percentage based.  This will allow the devs to set the actual XP percentage based off their judgement for the health of the server.  For example, instead of a Mask of Experience 360%, it would be a Mask of Experience Rank 360.  

- The click affect of the mask will spawn an npc just like the banker clicky.  ideally the npc wil be *very* tall so it can be interacted with by a large number of people, if such a model exists in the global file

- the npc will stay spawned for X minutes (5 or so)

- the name of the spawned pc will depend on who cast it, example:  Rymo's Rank 830 Experience Pet, or Kiwis Rank 330 Experience pet.  This will allow the caster to broadcast its existance and not have to wait around for everyone to show up.  They could say something like "/ooc %T pet up in nexus for 5 mins"

- the xp buff persists through death

- the mask clicky has a much longer cooldown.  One hour seems like a good start

- the xp buff's DURATION depends on what rank the mask is.  for example, a Rank 100 mask may last 15 mins, while the Rank 1000 lasts the full hour duration.  This gives incentive to keep increasing the mask to not only have a higher xp bonus but a longer duration.  

- the buff is tier based.  all of our toons are already flagged for each and every tier, so the buff could be customized to the person hailing the npc.  lower tiered people getting the buff have a higher percentage penalty.  We already have this functionality from the buff bot, it gives out buffs based on your level.

- pre level 70 would have the highest penalty.  since they have no tier flags at all, the buff could be penalized by 80%

- each consecutive tier flag would reduce the base penalty of the mask for the person hailing the spawned mask npc.  Example, a T5 flagged toon hailing the xp buff pc would only be penalized 30%, a T9 flagged toon by 5%, etc)