please consider VT key revamp

Yeah, and if you remember, every guild from high end to casual complained about back flagging.

People are quick to forget that 85% rule and backflag items were added after the fact, in an attempt to satiate the angry mob.

Good thing I have an elephantine like memory to remind them.

And I do find it funny that when high end guilds complain about back flagging nobody claims they just wanted to get something for nothing.

They complained about the key quests/flagging more than anyone else. I wonder if these so called top dog eq players as they proclaim themselves to be were even relevant when this content was released or were they non-factors? I am guessing non-factors.

Nobody is impressed with EQ accomplishments in 2021. Nobody cares if you're first or last on these servers. There is literally zero reason to try to argue against a quality of life improvement for the people who just want to see the content.

I already laid out the reason they keyed the zones in the first place, its no longer a relevant reason.

But how else will I be able to prove how much better I am and how much of a whiny noob you are?!?! /s

If all you want to do is see the content and not bother with flagging then Luclin zones open up when Omens of War unlocks, until then if you want to see the zone you'll need to do the quests.

@Devs Don't you dare do a damn thing to this quest. Its one of the best remaining key quests in the game. It forces players to coordinate at the group level on Luclin launches, it forces players to put in effort to access an end game zone....there's nothing wrong with the quest.

@Op - You don't deserve to raid VT.

That's where I fundamentally disagree. At the end of Red Dead Redemption 2 you unlock the area where the first game was played, and the main character of RDR2, Arthur, dies and you take over playing John (the main character of RDR1.) At this point it is basically a fully open world game where you can do anything you want. This content is "gated" behind a long and elaborate storyline with lots of missions. I think you would genuinely lose out on a lot if you could just skip all of that and start in the end game. I'm not comparing the VT key quest to RDR2's main storyline as if they are equivalent (they aren't), but keying and progression are actual content that you play through and experience as part of playing EQ as it was designed. You would miss out on this if it was just removed. The fact that everyone has to complete it makes it a major activity that your whole guild does together, there's few other experiences like it in MMO gaming. I don't see it as "gating content" I see the journey as part of the content, and I think a lot of other people do as well.

did you mean to say sanctum somnium

I see it as gating content that wasn’t finished, when the expansion launched. Which is what they did, VT wasn’t complete and the VT key wasn’t even fully available despite SOE trying to claim otherwise. The Dev team screwed up and tried to hide their mistake by blocking access.

So why are/were you in favor of a ST 1.0 AoC? I mean.. if you want to see the content before it gets socked.. just do the access quest. You don't really need to see any of that in-era right?

Or the Epic 1.0 bottlenecks? Why speed up anything, you can just do it later.

I am in favor of the ST 1.0 AoC because you can't just go back at any point and see it at your leisure, you race to get in there before some jerk wakes him and its gone forever. VT does not do that.

The only epic bottlenecks I was in favor of changing was to have Vessel and Verina respawn quicker and Wraith and Broken Golem have a chance (not 100%) to spawn in DZ. Effort would still be / is still required to complete them. Same as access to end game content.

I mean, the whole point of the thread was about:

I know it's been derailed a bit. Part of the "Any" improvement discussion has included limiting if keys should be required and/or how many keys should be required. Part of it has been about increasing availability to the items.

But at what point does any of it truly matter? If they increase the spawns of key piece droppers (and ground spawns when talking about VP), at what point does going through the motion of getting the pieces actually accomplish anything? Is it 10%? 20%? 50%? 75%? 100%? At what point is collecting the key parts an "accomplishment"? Barring the rush to farm them and the griefing involved.. not one of the group portions is remotely difficult or challenging.. simply time consuming.

The same goes for Vessel and Verina or Wraith and Broken Golem. There's nothing difficult about them... outside of players being jerks.. so why change it? To lessen the impact of players being jerks. Same goes for the yearly requests to have the VP and VT keys altered.

It isn't some right of passage to force people to deal with a poorly planned mechanic. The VT key didn't stop people from finishing it early in Luclin.. it being purposely not finished, then altered later did. There wasn't a mass rush for VT access in Luclin, because Beta guilds were really the only ones with prior knowledge of things. Additionally, all guilds at that level kept information like that as quiet as possible to reduce competition. Fast forward 20 years, all the information is online. Everyone makes a mad dash for limited spawns with variable (bad) drop rates and yet another year's TLP dramafest ensues. The same goes for the Epic 1.0 bottlenecks. To a lesser extent, the same happens with Epic 1.5/2.0 bottlenecks. But it's ok to address those, yet not this?

I don't buy the line being thrown around about it being "content" unless they want to go back and enforce every player to complete every quest for their race/class/level. Because all of those quests are "content" also.. the difference being you are given a choice to complete them without being blocked from seeing other content.

This is a joke right?

1. If you are trying to solo this, you are gonna have to find a group to do the key. Let's say you have a guild group that you run with the whole expansion for shards. Unless they are just giving you the shard, you're gonna still sit 3hours x 6 = 18 hours. That's just for ONE group and that's if that group consistently showed up so you didn't have to get more than 6 shards per camp. And that's only time camping the shard, not the time waiting/competing/waiting for a pick.

2. If you are only worried about "your" shards and get the key in 3 hours great. But I suspect that a person with this mindset won't be doing VT very fast with their guild since you need more than one key.

This key quest is terrible. At least most of VP is soloable so the main issue is getting a camp. This not only requires getting a group and the camp, but also spending the time to get it. I spent 10 hours in FG for my 13 characters.

And for the people that keep mentioning the 36 hours to clear, you have to remember that this guild was literally speed running. I would suspect that they sent out groups everywhere to camp the shards and then filtered it to a specific amount of individuals. Which is great if you are one of the people that gets to do the speed run, but for the rest....

Look, I'm open to saying that VT needs a key. Whatever. But some of the shards could definitely use some fixing.

And this is coming from someone that completed the key.

I made the speed run comments to rebut keys being used to slow down progression. They haven't, they don't, and they never will.

I did they keys when the content was new. I did the keys when I rolled on a TLP six years ago. I don't really have a dog in the fight. They could remove all keying and it wouldn't impact me in the slightest. They could make it even harder, still no impact.

I just don't see championing the need to keep the greifing around. I suppose it is because with AoC's, guilds can no longer block other guilds by keeping Trak (for VP) or Emp (for VT) locked down. Now they have to focus on griefing the group drops, causing drama, etc.. Just be done with it already.

If I had to choose, I'd vote a big NO on needing keys at all. But I'm also OK with a compromise of increase drop rates by quite a bit too.

It's too time intensive in it's current form. It has been for years.

People concerned that easier keys would prevent people from seeing content is silly. You can get on live to see that mobs die out of era. The only thing that slows this down on TLP is artificial already (MoTM).

My guild flagged ~60 people for VT in under a week. We didn't steal camps or bully people out. We worked together on a massive scale, spawned picks, held the camps, and helped each other constantly. We didn't speed run, and we mostly didn't even raid outside our regular weekly scheduled three nights a week. But we coordinated well and worked together. I know the pain of FG camp in particular, as I spent a solid two days there getting half of those 60 shards for guildmates.

The push was one of the most fun and energetic things we have done as a guild since the server launched. These things bring guilds together as a team, if they are approached as a team challenge, with good leadership. It was far more satisfying to roll into VT after putting in all that work together as a guild than it would have been to roll in on night 1 with no flagging required.

And flagging those 60 people, in 2 weeks, was due to...... What?

Adding AoC's, making the access to Glowing Orbs much more plentiful and Emp Rifts not blocked.

So why is it an issue to increase availability of the shards?

Making a change that benefited you and your guild, in terms of not being blocked from progression and adding access to loot etc was "good" but somehow this is "bad"? That just shows the hypocrisy of "I got mine."

I don't have an issue with increasing availability. I have an issue with eliminating the quest or increasing availability to the point that it is trivial.

And that was 60 in <1 week, not 2 weeks, TYVM.

you're correct. they should probably do the same thing as the aoc system that allows a large number of people to spawn several versions of the same zone concurrently, all of which can potentially drop those vt shards. that would dramatically increase the rate at which they can be acquired. maybe they can call those zones "picks".