LDoN Could Really Use a Revamp

The hardest LDoN raids are definitely harder than some of the Time fights even if you know exactly how to complete the LDoN raids, and those easier Time fights are significantly more rewarding than any LDoN. If you can take Ritualist or Sunken Library with 25, that crew is going to steamroll the majority of Time. Just because you can't take every single boss in Time with 25 doesn't change that.

Nice try not only quoting the easiest, but also some of the least rewarding LDoNs and trying to compare them to the Zeks. P1 can be done with 6 and gives better loot than both of those LDoNs. Why don't you compare each encounter by similar difficulty level and rewards instead of cherry picking something so irrelevant.

Do you just like to argue, lol? I'm agreeing that the reward of ldon loot is out of whack compared to the time investment. What I'm disagreeing with is the difficulty of ldon raids. You can tell me all you want that Ritualist is harder than most potime fights, but it's not. Ritualist is easy af. My guild does all these ldon missions, start to finish in like 20 minutes, some under 20 minutes. I have YouTube videos of it. I play on Agnarr and we've literally been raiding Time and LDON exclusively since 2018. I'd be willing to bet I've raided these encounters more than almost anyone. Been doing 5-6 ldons per week for 3 years straight (lol).

You can disagree I guess.

My point is I was literally just commenting about you saying ldon raids are harder than potime. I don't care about reward vs. difficulty comparisons. We're no the same page, lol.

Potime is a significantly more efficient use of time in terms of the loot it drops and the quality of loot it drops. Yes. Congratulations on this amazing insight.

However, when you're doing LDON on a TLP, your guild should be incentivized to raid ldons as much as humanly possible, because as others have mentioned, some of the augs that drop are actively usable for multiple expansions PAST LDON. Up until this point in EQ, Aten's neck and Dark Hand Wraps are some of the only items actually valid for users past their current xpac. Some augs like AC ones or whatever will be viable/good for... 1 year after LDON? Maybe more?

And... On Agnarr we have nothing else to do. Would it be better if there were more Aug drops? Or if drop rates were adjusted to make some of the more valuable pieces drop more, or make a point system to allow a user to buy raid augs with raid points? Sure. Those would be great changes. 100% agree.

So while we're at it, fix Spider Den so the 3rd chest drops.

The fact the only people who complete the charm do so using automation is a sign you should probably re-think the charm progression.

Lol, keep dreamin.

uh...what? I completed it without automation, not in era mind you (maybe that was your point?), but something to pick away at while bored because believe it or not, every expac gets boring on the back half and some have less to do than go back and grind LDoNs for the aug.

yea, definitely not everyone who completed it did it with automation lol.

They are extremely rewarding if you focus on the six or so ldons that give items that are best in slot for 8+ expansions. There are maybe 2 items total in time that have the longevity of any of the +spec augs or the 30/35 ac tank augs, and one of those (songblade) has an upgraded version in GoD. As a tank I'll take a 35 ac shield aug over any time item, any day. Likewise, if I'm playing a healer, I'd pay more dkp or whatever for a +spec alteration aug than I would for any time item.

The best items don't drop every ldon raid, but neither do the best time items.

The spec augs don't get replaced until Veil of Alaris, typically ~2.5 years after ldon at the normalish tlp rate.

Sounds about right. And ya a smart guild would basically grind ritualist, curse, prison break, hidden vale, compact, folly, progeny, and frozen nightmare. The other ldons are mostly useless or have at best 1 niche item/Aug.


I really enjoy ldon. I think the idea is that in a given raid, you're getting 6 pieces of loot, most of the time 4-5/6 are complete . The idea is that more items from time are useful for more people.

But again, I think people hugely underrate the value of augs, even in era, people just hate ldons. Never really understood it.

@vedian I have to completely disagree with you on LDoN experience being well tuned. The group content in LDoN is mediocre for numerous reasons.

Average leveling down to get the arrow summoning pouch on warrior/knight and the +atk ring from Takish theme are the only items worth chasing as drops.

The evasion aug. from Miragul's and the proc augs are the only point items worth chasing as the other items cost way too much to assemble more than a fill in piece or two for non-raiders to be willing to chase, and raiders won't need to, especially on mischief loot servers.

The charm requires an insane number of wins even if you can blast through them in a few minutes and have extra toons set up to request missions for you. It isn't a good chase item even for most hardcore players with massive play time, let alone normal people in the time frame of a TLP.

The content itself is actually fun. There is enough variety to the places you go to keep things interesting, although the eye-bleed inducing brightness in Miragul's is still an issue, as well as the fact that the rewards aren't really balanced between mission types.

In my opinion tuning up the group content would by making it have a competitive or slightly lower experience rate than paw/pof would be a major step in the right direction. The request timer and zoning time would prevent it from being completely competitive even if it were fully equal, but it removes a lot of issues with minimal content options for experience in the lower ranges.

Late players who actually join a TLP server won't have to choose zones that are dominated by power levelers.

I am operating under the assumption that if they could change the number of missions for the charm aug. without major coding it would already have been done, so this is probably not in the cards, but if it CAN be changed it should be dropped by 60-70%. It would still require a fair amount of time in LDoN content, but if the xp were good and the goal were attainable within an xpac or two, we might see more than a handful of people on Free-trade who want to mint their own krono or people with 24 hours a day to play chase the thing. Accessibility of content IS a thing. If you want evidence of how bad the balance on the aug really is, consider the fact that you see quite a few people every TLP who complete BDiC, but rarely more than a handful who complete the charm and most of the ones who do won't do it in era.

Others have already stated the issues with the raid game succinctly and this post is already too long.

That is so completely wrong and just shows some insane bias. I know people who were burning through them in 4-10 minutes. Not every group can be that optimized, but there's plenty of tryhards and no lifers that get it done in era without cheating.

On Mangler, there were roughly 60-70 people who completed it in era. If you think they were all cheating, you're wrong.

LDoN is good. The players just need to be educated on how good those augs are.

Lol, right back atcha buddy.

You and Machen seem to have this idea that I'm claiming all of LDoN is harder than all of Time or something, and just keep strawmanning this ridiculous claim.

The hardest fights in Time are more difficult than any LDoN, obviously.
You seem to be implying that the hardest LDoN is easier than the easiest part of Time. Not even remotely true. Some LDoNs are definitely harder than some of Time.

If I had to break down the scale +/- a bit depending on the composition, I'd say:
The easiest LDoN is close to P1, with the LDoN probably being slightly more difficult than a P1 trial.
The hardest LDoN ranks similar in difficulty to some of the P4 and P5 fights.
The hardest Time fights are harder than any LDoN.

The Curser Keeper is a beast of a boss. I'm curious to know what you are doing to trivialize it to make it easier than P1, or which boss in Time you think is most similar in difficulty.

I don't know why they don't just release LDoN and GoD at the same time on TLPs. GoD can and will be the focus, and LDoN can just play a downtime role.

This is not to say that nothing in LDoN is worth doing, but it is the definition of a downtime expac, so let it be that.

Why not just release LDoN with LoY at the beginning of PoP? The raids might be too tough at that point but so is Plane of Time. Guilds farm/flag and gear into them.

At least then people have 3 months(or 4 even if you add the month for LDoN still) to farm missions as something different to do instead of PoFire for AA. It's still a garbage expansion in that most of the drops/content isn't worth using at the level/strength of toons it takes to get it but at least then you can space out the missions and more people might complete that aug while waiting for Gates/etc...

From my very first post in this thread:

No one is saying the hardest ldons are easier than a p1 trial (although the easiest ldons are.)

Define considerable. The difference between 4 groups or 5 groups as a bare minimum? It definitely isn't double which would allow a bare minimum Time crew to split LDoNs.
Unless you are making a point of doing both with the absolute minimum number of players the difference is irrelevant anyhow since the same Time force is going to move into LDoN. And if you have the numbers to split LDoN you were probably breezing through Time.

LDoN should release in classic but have the raids and certain items locked until PoP.

GoD is one of the best expansions on a TLP and deserves to stand on its own. Release LDoN with PoP instead of if possible, classic with raids locked until PoP as noted above.

LDoN I think is fine on its own. Its for augs and for non main characters to round out their gear a bit.

I would suggest that they move some of the zone revamps that come with LDoN to LoY release though. Paw, ChardokB, the Hole, Droga/Nurga, Veksar all LDoN.

With the newest TLPs just doing 4 weeks of LDoN, move the zone revamps up a bit so people can make some use of them.