Old raid mobs with long respawn timers.

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Goth, Dec 10, 2013.

  1. Tavi40 New Member

    Why can't you all improve the spawn time on Phinny and some of the other old raid mobs. I mean come on this is stupid. We try and do our Epic's and kill and kill and kill and he has a chance to drop the item. if not its 12+ hours of BS that SoE should have fixed along time ago with all these expansions they have come out with.
  2. jiri_ Augur


    No. They aren't raid mobs anymore. They're mobs I can solo by getting aggro and going to make lunch I can solo them with nothing but Ripostes and damage shields. This argument is stupid. It's so stupid as to be insulting. Literally no one ever has made the request that you're putting in their mouths.

    I was one of the first few people to log into The Rathe after the most recent patch. When I logged in, there were eight people in general; it's usually full. My Ranger was camped in Kael in Tormax's room. He was already dead when I logged in, and there were ten people in the zone. I was just there because I wanted to be a bit greedy, and fortunately Tormax doesn't drop anything you really need. I can't imagine the PoF golems were any different, except they DO drop pieces people need for epics.

    Don't talk to me about being unwilling to put time into stuff. I've killed Quillmane a dozen times, and I raided Kunark when it was current.

    The absolute fact is that the game has changed, and for the vast majority of content to be meaningful, it needs to be changed. When was the last time you got a Raincaller?
  3. Questoften32 Augur

    My opinion is the respawn timers for the epic 1.0s should be the same but they should be made unkillable unless its by a player on the quest with the right flags or such a player is in the group. Also mobs that drop no loot but are required for epics should be unkillable to prevent abuse as its already hard enough to find them as many despawn after talking to them. Your only compatition should be other people going after there epics, and the quest itself. That said I dont think the only challenge left that makes the epics epic, and makes you feel like you really acomplished something should be taken out. This may require with cetain mobs that there be other versions of them made for the epic quests that are the same but concerned with the epic.
  4. Random_Enchanter Augur

    If peopel are worried about epics, why not introduce a non-killable quest mob in the zone that when given items or hailed by a person with the flags spawns the said mob if said mob is not up. Said mob would be of full power, but would ONLY drop epic peices. No inflation into other markets, easly repetable mobs that drop epic peices. does this not remove the bottle neck required for epics?

    As far as wanted clickys go from "old" world mobs the items were put in on the mob with that spawn timer requirement for a reason, the power level of the items that mob droped determined it. The fact that current level people are going back for the items meens that the items are still plenty powerful to be desired, hence the orginal respawn timer is still at least somewhat resonable. If it is demmed unreasonable by Devs they can make the "illusion" mob I mentioned have a rare chance to drop the items as well. Rare being defined as 1 in 2000 kills. Since you would be able to kill the mob back to back it becomes more of a grind to obtain the item you want, or wait for the real verson to spawn and try to obtain it from them with a higher chance.
  5. jiri_ Augur

    So let's do a quick comparison of two epic bottlenecks.

    Phinny has a 12-hour respawn timer and drops pieces for four different epics. He's a bottleneck because he's moderately challenging to get to if you don't know your way around, he's involved in so many epics and isn't guaranteed to drop anything. Yet Phinny also doesn't drop much worth killing him for otherwise; I don't think Enchanters are fighting over the Wand of Mana Tapping. So Phinny, despite the challenge of getting the piece you want, is fine as-is (though I wouldn't complain about a shorter timer).

    Terror is probably the mob that gets complained about the most. He doesn't DT, he's on a 3-day timer and he drops pieces for three epics - Necro, SK and Warrior. Unfortunately, he also drops eleven pieces of more-or-less desirable loot. Probably no one gets that thrilled by a 10/21 1HS exclusive to Warriors and Rangers. The Amulet of Necropotence, meanwhile, gets people all hot and bothered. It's got terrible stats by today's standards, but it's a tradable All/All Skeleton illusion clickie. So people want them. On my server at the moment, you can instantly sell one for 25k; if you're looking to buy, prices are 45-175k. And it gets worse, because the piece for the Necro epic is the Slime Blood of Cazic-Thule, which you can sell. 80k to sell in /barter, and ~500k to buy. Fright and Dread require someone to eat DTs, which is less of a problem for the professional farmer and more of a problem for the guy just trying to finish his epic. They're perma-down too. People have been complaining about this situation for more or less eight years. The mobs stopped being relevant content probably ten years ago. All of their drops, with the exception of the AoN's clickie, are roughly the same as or worse than totally fungible Defiant pieces.

    The result is that if I figure out when Phinny was last killed, I can bring a character out with a reasonable expectation of having a shot at him. Maybe he won't drop the piece I need and I'll have to go back to waiting. Maybe there will be someone else there and they'll get him, but I at least know they're killing him to progress in their 1.0, just like I am.

    If I figure out when Terror was last killed, I can bring a character out with the reasonable expectation that someone else will have killed him for an AoN. They will have done so not because they need it for anything, but because either it's valuable and they want to sell it, or they're already selling them and want to keep the price artificially high. This despite the fact that the item is totally worthless as far as actual play, and various All/All illusion clickies already exist. I think I have three or four sitting in /claim at the moment. If I'm lucky, whoever's farming the golems will let me loot whichever epic piece I might happen to need, if it drops. If I'm a Necro, I'm doubly screwed because the piece I need is a valuable sale item itself.

    --

    Again, it bears repeating that none of the items that drop off any of those mobs matter even the slightest to EverQuest as it is today. Your play experience before a certain breakpoint isn't relevant to the modern game. That breakpoint varies by class, but it's somewhere around level 85 with some key AAs. You aren't a modern Ranger without some levels in Headshot and access to Vinelash Cascade and Flusterbolt. You aren't a modern Necro without having access to some swift DoTs, Death Blood and swarm pets. The same is true for every class. Restricting access to mobs because they drop gear which is too powerful is ridiculous. It's ridiculous because no, the gear isn't too powerful; all of it is worse than Defiant. It's ridiculous because the window it's useful in is really, really short. Leveling 45 to 75 can be done quite fast these days, and even if you stop for AAs, they roll in (over the weekend, a friend was getting nearly 50% AA xp a kill). And it's ridiculous because that small play period (where you already have Defiant gear better than any raid drop from 2000 starting at level 5) doesn't really teach you anything about playing your class. You don't have the tools you'll rely on later.

    It used to be that the Magician epic was one that people complained about. Now, it's one of the easiest, because none of the mobs require competing with plat farmers. There are still timesinks galore. You need two drops from Kedge, including one off Phinny, and you need to get a drop from Quillmane. There's still old-world dungeons you need to crawl through, including classics like Najena and Kaesora. It's rewarding as all heck to finish because of the work that goes into it. It's a good feeling. Finishing my Necro's 1.0 isn't going to feel particularly good, because the primary challenge has been struggling with other players, not working through content. It feels gamey, and that takes away most of the satisfaction.
    Foliax and Ratbo Peep like this.
  6. Rauven Augur


    Pretty well said.

    There is an issue however. The average EQ player thinks that waiting for a mob to spawn for hours or days is a 'skill'. They think its way more important than dealing with combat mechanics against named or raid mobs. Your typical EQ player would rather wait 36 hours for something to spawn that has 20% more HP and does 10% more dmg than the mobs around it, rather than something that makes them think about what they are doing.

    The issue is breaking that mindset. This mindset that somehow camping some mob an A3 merc will two shot (at level even), is considered hard and makes an item rare. These same hypocrites who will sit in HOT and Grounds and gobble up every piece of Abstruse and Recondite armor they can get.. rather than camp a specific named for a specific armor drop. Or complain about a PoP style drop to progress in a PoP zone called Plane of War.

    Funny thing about that. Epic questers are told to suck it up and wait it out. But when it comes to progression, camping a grey mob for a few hours is deplorable?

    As I said before, the solution is an instanced version of these zones that scales with level. Heck, give Phinny, the dragons, Innoruuk, Dread/Fright/Terror, all new abilities and mechanics to deal with. Make the epics have epic fights instead of epic waits.
    Sinestra and Retty like this.
  7. Barudin_Phinigel Augur

    I'm glad to see this thread resurrected. I hope it gets more attention.
  8. Ratbo Peep Augur

    Well said.
    1.The mechanic exists already to make a MoB drop "the thingie" only when the player that 1st aggros it has the quest. It's used right now on the Gnolls in Oceangreen Hills for example.
    2. If you were just to ignore the progression servers (and let the kill difficulty be their bottlneck) - it take very few "man-minutes" to up the respawn timers of mobs. Not a "lot of resources" by a long shot.

    No reason not to fix this... especially when you "fixed" all the J merc progression quests - only to supplant them all with easier Feerot versions. (nice use of resources there!)
    -Rat
    Sinestra and Sumonerr_Tunare like this.
  9. Rauven Augur


    My suggestion wouldn't affect the progression server. A new instance would be accessible by a flag, just like HA's are not accessible there. Besides the progression servers are on SoD aren't they? They're years beyond the epic camping thing anyway.
  10. Edrick Augur

    I'd like to draw attention to the fact that nothing is broken, so nothing needs to be fixed.
    Mithrandyr likes this.
  11. Brohg Augur

    I don't consider beating another player out of a rare spawn, thereby preventing them from "tackling the content" (in quotes since we're mostly discussing entirely trivial encounters), to be a game achievement worthy of respect. Anyone proud of the proceeds of an endeavor like that should reexamine their priorities and join the good guys in asking for instancing of pre-GoD raid content.

    Removal of all salable/etc loot is assumed.
  12. Ratbo Peep Augur

    Good point!
    -R
  13. Rauven Augur


    Waiting 36-48 hours for a grey-light blue (for most) mob that dies in one swing, isn't broken to you? Mind explaining that? Even doing these quests in the 50-55 range are trivial. The hard part is the wait, nothing more.

    My suggestion would actually make the epic fights.. well epic fights. You would never fight a grey mob, even if you were level 100 when you attempted the quest. But you knew that. That's why you'll dodge this question and ignore my suggestions.

    As I said before, some people just can't handle current level content (whites, yellows, and a smattering of reds). I dare say the opponents to this are people like that. Ones that steer clear of Heroic Adventures and COTF content in general. Ones that don't want to see complex fight mechanics on named or raid bosses. This is evidenced by the fact that they would rather wait 36 hours for a grey mob to spawn, rather than instantly spawn a white or yellow.

    I mean they haven't given any other good reasons why.

    Only a weak argument such as "people back in the day worked hard to get theirs under these conditions." Yeah.. back then those respawn timers were a primitive form of raid lockout. That's been changed so that only the group/raid that participates in it are affected, not the server. So in an essence, all we're asking is for those encounters to be updated to modern mechanics.

    I'm actually asking for more than that. I want the epic fights to scale with the level of the group so they are actually challenging and maybe even take a group again. But that's a scary proposition apparently.
    Retty and Sumonerr_Tunare like this.
  14. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    Does any know if unplanned server crashes reset mob spawn timers? I have noticed that there is a mad rush for PoF, AoW, Lord Seru, Emp SSra, VT, and NToV after servers come up.
  15. Torriadore Elder

    Plane of fear golems are up immediately. Most the rest of these have a delayed spawn in a window of X hours after server up.
  16. Urgthock New Member

    I would only support your suggestion and agree with you IF they also made the gear and quest rewards more relevant. I think we both know they wont do that.

    I think they should just make all Epic 1.0 quest mobs respawn every 2 hours and make all loot from the notrade. Problem solved.
  17. Rauven Augur


    I'm ok with just getting marks of valor. Since you're right I doubt they'd update the loot.
  18. Melanippe Augur

    Merely because a player didn't do their epic at the appropriate level does NOT mean that because one may have to be "Waiting 36-48 hours for a grey-light blue (for most) mob that dies in one swing,..." assuredly does NOT mean anything is broken. May I remind you that, even "back in the day", one had to wait, so having to wait is a part of the Epic now as it was then. As for the Epic 1.0's being "trivial" in the 50-55 range, hardly. That is unless, of course, one has a high level Main or friends with some that make it "trivial". Respawn timers a "primitive form of raid lockout"? What "modern mechanics"?

    I rather doubt it is a simple matter to alter 16 Epics ( times 3, if you count Epic 1.0, Epic 1.5 and Epic 2.0 into the mix.) What you are asking for is 16 (x3) Epics to be scaled from level 46 through level 100, various mob respawn timers to be altered, in addition to having player flags added for 16 Epics (x3). All in all, a rather weak argument for "I don't want to wait for anything, I want it now."

    If it ain't broke, it don't need fixing. ;)
    Khat_Nip likes this.
  19. Tarrin Augur

    Its broke.
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  20. Stabbies Journeyman


    It's not broke. It's just too old school for the new generation of players who are into instant gratification so they want it changed. Their toon was late for the party so they want to get caught up as quickly as possible. I get it.
    Melanippe likes this.