19th Anniversary: Dreadspire Time Sink

Don't get all worked up just now about a ban or no ban (which i am quite sure would not be a ban but a suspension at worst if it came to that in the first place). We'll see what happens, and what happens, happens. At worst, people will loose their new aug and have to go with the other one for yet another year and some more guilds will be hindered farming RoS or in their progression through a expansion.

That said, there isn't much brainpower involved after the hints in this forum and the clearing up of which unlabeled area is called what in the dialogue. The real difficulty of this mission is the above-mentioned need for a "good" tank and even moreso of a puller that knows what he's doing. Which is a lucky find these days, because as some MNK said above, people hardly find opportunities to hone these skills in "modern" EQ, and consequently aren't found in as much abundance as used to be.

I also do not see how non-SI orcs "suddenly" see invis (and someone above reported mobs even seeing through SoS, though if he meant SoS1 or SoS2 i dunno - i did not take my ROG there yet) when, as he said, their abilities weren't touched. That ability alone makes the ballroom the deathtrap that it is - and for that room it does not matter that individual mobs hit like trucks, their numbers are doing it already, even if the individual mob DPS were tuned down by 1/3rd. Clearing them takes the time mentioned (it gets much better after the ballroom) and is what, surprises on the first three-pull aside, causes the majority of wipes (well, for us).
On the upside, that clearing gives us ample room to pull/split the rooms afterwards.

The above-mentioned problems aside, this mission is "fun" - and i love the zone, spent much time there at the time and it brought back fond memories. Fond memories that sadly were tainted somewhat by the drag of the mission in it's present state. As i said above, AFTER the "fix" i will check it out again and then decide whether i take my ALTs through as well or if i shall abandon the task alltogether for a year or two.

I wonder if the devs have ever considered careers in meteorology?

If the mobs keep their hit power and next expansion has no level increase i would NOT recommend doing it next year as their hit power likely to increase.

One step after the other
In a year, the current difficulty of mobs might not be felt as worse as today, as player-power also goes up. And if the next expansion is no level increase (which should be the case, since we just had one in the current one), mobs should not scale higher either.
But we'll see - que sera, sera.

Ran it yesterday afternoon for guildies who had not yet got it. I take various afks so it was 2.5-3hrs to clear all trash and weapon racks only for 1 item not to drop at all. Murder room / class known just final item didn't drop (supposedly shouldn't be able to happen). All mobs dead, track checked and all rooms checked multiple times.

No big deal tell my guildies will run it later when I put my 4 kids to bed.

2hrs + into 2nd run where all 6 people (including alts) in the group need the Aug, murder room and class known and still 2 items have no dropped. 10min warning for hotfix zone repop. We literally plow as fast as we can. Get last drop AFTER 2min zone repop warning. Blur mobs and evac. Boom bonus option completed kill accused. Accused at 40% and zone repops and screws the task for us.

Next time more than a 20min warning would of been nice before pushing the hotfix. We all saw you say don't rush to do it before hotfix however most took that as don't cheat it warning with no real idea of when the hotfix was being pushed live.

One more thing. On the zone repop the trash still seemed pretty plentiful in the hallways. Still 2 orcs in opposite door. Still 3 shadowmanes at end of that hallway opposite door. Still 3 mobs to right hallway before it turns left.....

Haven't run it yet today but if you did indeed reduce trash and the drops now don't populate as a result I'll lose my damn mind.

Spend easily 20hrs on test with this crap and far too much time on live already.

Garbage *** missions

FWIW: Having done only one augment quest ever (PoW a few years ago for the Nimble stone), I readily joined a guild group for the EBS. It goes in the Charm slot after all! It went way too easily, even if I did wipe to the mob at the dinner table.

Then I read this thread and realized that we had skipped a lot of killing and hours it should have taken.

So, I decided to destroy the two augments I have. I may have only one augment, but I earned it.

I may take an extended break from EQ anyways. Enjoyment issues. YMMV.

IF hot fix went in Devs failed on communicating it to players, still want to know what we all are sentenced to for "exploiting"

I see what you did there

We should have known better since they fixed Eye of Zomm pulling, pet pulls, illusions through doors, etc... years after the fact. /s

Using a vision ability that all wizards have since the beginning and is lore wise, that the only thing it can do is search the environment cannot be labeled as exploit. If they didn't wanted us to do the task like this, don't put a ground spawn that it's exactly the same as the one in the table in front of the murderer, the same that the npc take as proof. It only took me a ride with the Eye to get the conclusion that the murderer was X, and the crime was commited in Y. They developed the task like this, seems really legit. But for me doesn't make any sense to kill every dinner guest in the manor that is assisting to a marvelous ball to find who the murderer is. Damn, you have to kill how many, 20, 30, 50 guests to find the murderer who only took ONE life? That's absolutely ridiculous. We as players should go to prison for that butchery.

I destroyed the augment. Perhaps I'll do that task, perhaps not. Telling me that using a vision ability in combination with a li'l portion of my brain to find the murderer in an investigation task is an exploit makes me sick. So, for every task we have we just need to kill everything in line of sight to solve it. A murder has been commited? No worries, we, the adventurous norrathian police shall solve it killing everyone that is enjoying the ball, the party and the dinner! And maybe we can kill the murderer, too. Want a puzzle? Nah, no brainer, just kill, kill, kill until you find some items, even if you know the answer before killing the first assistant, to discover the identity of the murderer that you knew beforehand.

Nonsense! Devs, you should punish yourselves for that development, not us players that want to enjoy the anniversary. It's not fair, not legit, not funny at all to be punished for your mistake.

Of all the threads and observations and cries of what should or should't be on this task so far, this is the only conclusion that makes any sense to me

I know at least 2 people for whom a suspension would equal a ban.

Gotta love preemptive obedience and self-censorship.
It's what all dictatorships - no matter if we're talking US or russia or other places - want!
Resist!

Me likes this summary of the situation!

*holds out the whip and is curious on which Dev will be the first in line to receive his well-deserved punishment*

Considering people can "Recover" destroyed items . It probably will not matter, you already did the dirty deed.

I thought of that, so obviously can the Developers. You're missing the point of my post. I don't care if they suspend the accounts. I didn't want the augment knowing that it was not really earned. YMMV

meh define earned. Most of all the clicks out of anniv tasks were "bonus" items and not necessarily items received for having to complete said task. Hello Drunkard Stein hell new trophy....could go on but why, point is there.

It appears the exploit is no longer working. At end, we are getting the message, come back after you have collected all of the evidence. This is after room was correctly guessed and murderer killed.

Definition of "earned?" It's what I feel about my interaction with the game in this quest. As I said, YMMV.

I was being sarcastic

I remember this post and i remember him saying be social and group with people... he never said solo