Unintended difficulty in some LDoN hunter achievements.

Discussion in 'Bug Reports' started by Cheopis, Jul 6, 2021.

  1. Cheopis Journeyman

    Well,

    I hope the difficulty to get the "Arena of Chance" hunter achievement is unintended.

    Currently, after completing the Hunter acheivement lines in Miraguls and Takish, my character "Bigchoppa" is ranked 74th on Firiona Vie for "Total Wins" and 14th on "Total Win %"

    Please bear with me, there's a point to that information.

    Currently, I have only 5 rare mobs left to complete the Rujarkian Hunter acheivement line. ALL 5 of them are in the Arena of Chance.

    The Arena of Chance itself is a rare map to get. Worse, it shares a chance with the Hidden Vale map, when you try to get the map using the most effective method, "Slay <X>" type hard quest.

    Now, there is a trick that can be used to make getting the "Arena of Chance" map a bit more likely. The LDoN mission generator won't give you any of the last five missions you accepted.

    So, what I have been doing is completing mission kill quests 50, 51, 53, and 56 (Slay 53 can give one of two maps, both common,) and then I refuse 58 and 60 a couple times until it gives me slay 54.

    So, that's 5 map completions and then a sixth before I can reliably get a slay 54 in a reasonably short time frame.

    Then... the "Slay 54" quest can go to two maps, either "Arena of Chance" or "Hidden Vale."

    Fortunately, the map chooser seems to either flip between maps when 54 is chosen, or it's roughly 50/50 which you will get.

    So, that means every 12 Rujarkian maps I attempt, I will see the "Arena of Chance" once.

    Once you get into the map, then mob rareness for spawning needs to be considered.

    I have done Arena of Chance several times now, after 45 successful missions, and still have 5 rare mobs left.

    In order to get credit for these 5 rare mobs, I will need to complete 12 missions for each and every TRY to see the 5 rare mobs in that mission.

    The tactic I have read people using to complete the Rujarkian hunter achievement is basically to have a tracker at the mission entrance, grab eleven missions, immediately abandon them, and then when the Arena mission pops up, zone in the tracker. If no rare that you need, abandon the mission. Otherwise go in and kill the rare.

    I would like to submit to you that the original intent for the really rare mobs on the rare map was for fun. Rare mobs with different abilities that might show up every now and then add spice.

    However, you have now added achievements for these creatures, and the only way to reasonably finish those acheivements in ancient content is to change from "Having Fun" mode to "Assembly Line Boring Drudgework" mode.

    I suspect that if you examine the LDoN stats of any player that has actually completed the "Hunter of the Rujarkian Hills" acheivement, you will find hundreds of abandoned LDoN missions. It might be possible that "Saitton" on the Firiona Vie server actually managed to get the full acheivement while actually doing the missions, but nobody else has anywhere near enough wins, as far as I can see.

    Does the Dev team really want players to measure how dedicated they are to playing EQ based on how many times they abandon missions?

    I would like to suggest a couple possible ways to resolve this.

    First, you could make the mobs that ONLY spawn on the "Arena of Chance" map more common. There's still only a 1 in 12 chance to get the map even if you know what you are doing, so even if the rares themselves are made a lot more common, the Arena of Chance hunter achievement will take a significant chunk of time to complete.

    Second, you could potentially make the Arena of Chance capable of respawning, a lot like the Discord Expeditions. No idea how difficult that might be. I'd suggest the first solution.


    TLDR; There is a rarity compounding effect happening here. Rare mobs in places that respawn are one thing. Rare mobs on Rare non-respawning Maps turns something challenging into an enormously painful chore that most players are going to severely dislike.

    EDIT ADD : Please note that I am attempting the LDoN hunter quests in Rujarkian Hills during the summer event, with 76% increased chance of seeing rares. And It's still horrible.
  2. Aanuvane Augur

    :) I'm down to two rares left for Arena of Chance. I feel your pain. However, I'm pretty sure I've gotten the same "map" twice in a row and certainly more than once every 5 that I do. Since I can slay 50+ in about 3 - 4 mins, I'm not abandoning them - I'm enjoying the gem and research drops.
  3. Cheopis Journeyman


    I am also collecting all the tradeskill materials other than gems. If I weren't, it certainly wouldn't be worth it.

    As for the 5-map no duplication rule, if you are doing any map type other than Kill <x> mobs, then there are alternate maps for the same layout. Every named mob present is it's own map, so if you are choosing to kill named, you might see the exact same layout, but since it's a different named, it's considered a different encounter map.

    The collect <x> maps might work the same as the kill <x> but I suspect that they will not count if you do a kill, then a collect. I don't have access to the code, unfortunately, so I can't say for sure.

    However after a couple hundred completed LDoNs, I have yet to see a repeat map within 5 picks.
  4. Aanuvane Augur

    I only do the Kill (x) missions unless I mess up while selecting them.

    I got 2 Wind Bridges in 3 sequential missions just last night. It seems like Wind Bridges and Bloodied Quarries may not adhere to that 5 rotation rule. Those are the ones that appear more than once in 5 for me. I also wonder if a bug I've been encountering influences that at all. I leave one character in Commonlands and I have one character doing the mission. Sometimes, when I gate out after the mission is done, I get dropped from the group - my merc doesn't, but I get dropped from the group so that the character standing in the Commonlands has to reinvite me. I don't know if that could be influencing why I sometimes get a duplication within 5 or not. I'm not keeping close track as to when this bug happens.

    Edit: and I at least got the Infiltrator yesterday, so I'm down to 1 rare needed to finish LDoN hunter :)
  5. Aanuvane Augur

    Oh and if you're interested....out of 55 LDoNs yesterday - this was my distro:
    10.9%Arena of Chance
    9.1%Barracks of War
    12.7%Blazing Forge
    5.5%Bloodied Quarries
    10.9%Drudge Hollows
    9.1%Fortified Lair
    9.1%Gladiator Pits
    10.9%Halls of War
    9.1%Hidden Vale
    12.7%Wind Bridges
  6. Soulbanshee Augur

    LDoN goes by layout, not by zone, with a layout being the combination of zone and requirement. So you can have Arena of Chance with kill X and Arena of Chance with kill Y and they count as different layouts so you can get one of each within the last 5.
  7. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

  8. Aanuvane Augur

    In the 55 that I did yesterday, I also tracked the "kill" number and confirmed the "maps" were the same. I got two Wind Bridges in 3 LDoNs - both were kill 50. There was zero variance in the number of Kills and the zone/map associated to them for all 55 I tracked.
  9. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    Yea try it like i did without a rare bonus boost lol. i ended finishing up on my wiz around 450ish adv and my ranger got lucky and did in 260ish. I got all the hunters in arena minus the ones that only spawn in arena which was annoying and didnt seem possible. Least with rare bonus you get more chances of there being more than one named. Abandon missions is for the weak actually with the arena with my ranger i had to move in to see if any named are up because if there real far up my tracking wouldnt see them at zone in. I never abandoned one mission people that do that just want easy mode. Im number 1 on the list and my ranger is 1 on %. Next you will want them to change twilight and scarlett spawns!

    Andarriel
  10. Aanuvane Augur

    :) I've only managed to clear one rare so far during the bonus spawn period. I'm at 375 Rujarkian done with one rare to go.....yay RNG
  11. Janakin Augur

    Do the rares spawn right away or after a certain time or number of mobs killed?
  12. Ishbu Augur

    You can select specific missions to hedge your bets on getting Arena of Chance. If memory serves after 3 of them though you have to do other maps up to a total of 5 or something before it will recycle the missions in.

    That said, Arena of Chance was by far the biggest PITA to get the hunter in of the LDON zones.
  13. Jumbur Improved Familiar


    There is a clear difference between fighting the content of the game(defeating mobs, completing quests, navigating dungeons, avoiding traps, etc), and fighting the mechanics of the game(manipulating the RNG). The fact that players choose the latter approach, is a clear indication of bad game-design imho.