This quest is very problematic. I see a lot of suggestions here like "make the medallions drop off dragons" or "remove the key altogether" or "make the AJ piece drop from Drolvargs in the zone" Literally none of this stuff needs to happen. The only thing that needs to happen is increase the spawn rates of almost everything. Look, this key quest made sense back when Kunark was a year long, and Veeshan's Peak was a single zone with no picks or instances. It was SMART to make this key difficult to get, so that fewer guilds would be stepping on each other's toes and contesting content in the zone (which CAN be fun though). However, this isn't live we're talking about. This is a TLP which is VASTLY accelerated in its release schedule compared to live, AND a server that has its own Dynamic Zones (DZs), so that any guild can create their own version of it. It's not contested at all (or, rather, it doesn't have to be)! There is LITERALLY NO reason why this key should be this difficult to get, or take this long. And the solution is very simple: JUST INCREASE THE FREQUENCY! THAT'S IT. You don't have to change around loot tables, you don't have to add medallion pieces to other random mobs, you don't even have to increase # of drops (like, for example, having the ancient jarsath drop 4-5 pieces, one is still plenty). I'm 100% all for players still having to do this exact quest line, just change it so players can get it done much faster! SONH and Kaesora ground spawns: change it from a ~50m spawn to a ~5m spawn. Speed this up by at least 10x! ancient jarsath, pained soul, rotting skeleton, verix kylox remains: increase their spawn rates by AT LEAST double, but honestly should be more like quadruple burnished wooden stave + Niblek's gems: these actually are working plenty fine. All the quest turn in pieces are tradeable and players can pretty easily get their hands on them for the turn-ins. These two medallion pieces are a non issue. Bloodguill Marauder: cut his spawn time in half AT LEAST Trakanon: double the teeth drop, at least! Check out how many teeth are in that dragon's mouth, why are only 8 dropping? In looking at a screenshot, I count NO LESS than 40 teeth in that mouth. These are brutally simple changes that will literally REMOVE almost all the toxicity around this quest, and will still require players to visit all the locations, see all the zones, and still put in the legwork of doing it, but NOT put in the hours and hours and hours of waiting in lines or participate in the stupid toxicity of KSing and bad behavior. This will save the player's sanity, it will save the dev's sanity, it will save the customer service people's sanity. JUST DO THIS ALREADY Again, I reiterate, there is NO REASON to gate this key this hard! The expansion is short, the Agent of Change can open up instances of the zone to anyone with a key, there is no forced competition, let players complete this with WAY LESS time invested! I do realize that changes have been made in the past to these spawns to make it better, but it's still just not good enough. FIX! THIS!
I'd like to give my support to the idea that the VP key needs changing. It is quite the time gate still and the current situation makes for a very unpleasant experience. Quite a lot of people need to go through all the objectives for the key and it wont just be your guild doing it so it'll take even slower than you'd think to get done. With the time we have for Kunark being short, it makes little sense to gate people so hard.
Yeah, lets get all my friends together to sit in Swamp of No Hope waiting on a stupid ground spawn with everyone else there. Sounds like pure enjoyment. I can't imagine the people that think this is some sense of accomplishment?
Adjust this quest. As many have already pointed out. Its a useless time sink. When you have people sitting in a line for 5hrs hoping for a piece, then waiting an additional 6 without a spawn, there is a huge issue. 8 weeks, its in era content. What kind of world are you devs living in that you think this is acceptable play for your community? I came back to try and experience content I never got to see (thanks for the DZs this has made that possible) but gate keeping a zone that you have a DZ in for is absolutely bonkers. Devs know this quest is terrible, why hasn't it been adjusted. I would LOVE to hear from a Dev.
Easier time acquiring no-trade, no destroy, key pieces = loot pinata. Typical Everquest mind at work here.
This doesnt even need giant paragraphs of reasoning. It’s obvious a change like this would be positive for TLPs and the players. Please help more people experience and enjoy the content.
Coming from the guy who constantly whined about the Yelinak/Vaniki rulesets while not even playing on the server. Something something pot meet kettle. Or is it raven meet crow? Nah, he's just an instigator.
A lot of good ideas to fix this time sink. Personally I like the dragons idea, but making the respawn times 5 minutes on ground spawns and decreasing the spawn timers on the NPC you have to kill is also a viable option. The way the quest is now even hardcore players are having problems getting this done! If you are a tank/cleric it almost isn't even worth trying to kill. You will never win a dps race and almost no one respects others trying to camp things.I think 99.999999% of us can agree for a TLP with only 8 weeks this quest line really needs to be fixed!
I don't care what they do as long as its not "nothing" - Give an intern a starbucks and let em figure it out. Anything is better then the current toxic mess.
I agree, something needs to give. Literally the worst part of a kunark release is all the nonsense around vp key =/
I would argue that it makes literally NO sense. "Little" is giving it too much credit. It's an absolutely horrible experience. I said to many people while I was doing this quest on Aradune that I have literally never had less fun in EQ. And now on Yelinak, history is repeating itself. It's terrible.
History would be that Pogonip fella charm gating AJ's to the top of the statue to confirm kills to sell for LR.
Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You're partly to blame for the situation you put yourself in. Nobody forced you to go to a new server to replay the exact same content you did not too long ago. And surely nobody is forcing you to do the key again, after you already knew how terrible it was from previous experience. If you knew the content was bad...why did you do it again? *points to brain* That's the equivalent of sticking a fork in an outlet, electrocuting yourself, going into the kitchen, getting another fork, and sticking it in the outlet to see what would happen this time.
Well I won't next time, if nothing changes. My guild is making the key a "requirement" and this is the only raiding guild on the server that fits my schedule, so I would like to stay in good standing with the guild and continue playing, seeing content, and experiencing the content like the TLPs are designed to allow us to do. But if nothing changes with this quest, I won't do it again.
Despite myself and guildmates spending many hours on this key, I believe only a few people have been able to finish it. Everyone is stuck at various points and are still farming for hours and hours. I've been slowly working on the key too. Everytime I've gone out there is a group of people waiting around for the spawn. Its been like that at all hours of the day. All you can do is stand there and hope the random spawn location favors you. At the mob targets I get a couple of weapon swings off before the mob is deleted. Its fine to have to group for stuff, thats not a complaint, but the total man hours that are involved for this is just going up and up and well past appropriate for the time we have available in this expansion.
Please change the key, it's an absolute nightmare and many people are going to get left out of VP due to krono farmers selling loot rights. I have seen people constantly trying to buy AJ LR for 2-4kr. I had the opportunity to join a pained soul camp one time, spent 3 hours there and 1 person got a key before it all fell apart.
Yea, jerks run in and steal the mob I'm engaged on just to turn around and sell the drop to someone else... No one enjoys that kind of crap!
