I know they have made some changes over the last year or two. I don't recall exactly what they were. Anyone have some anecdotes and information from the latest TLPs on (a) for the specific drops that have been improved, how much did it help? (b) how much time it took to finish keys on average for you and your guild? Veeshans Peak (particularly ground spawns) Emp Ssra VT shards: Maidens Eye, Fungus Grove Bastion of Thunder (PoStorm drops)
For VP the real gate is Trakanon, ground spawns are easy. The only other issue on mangler was ancient jarsath in FV, it was essentially perma camped by a handful of krono lords. I camped it myself for about 25-30 hours before just paying 4kr to jump to the front of the list lol.
Holy crap, thats outrageous. 25 hours of camping and still needed to spend 4kr in the end? I wonder if it will be any better on Aradune.
Probably worse since the krono lords (as he put it) won't have as many things to farm with the 2-toon limitation.** ** I suspect they will find a way around that tho but still use it as justification to hold what they can more hostage than before.
what his stopping you from getting a guild group or the guild to out dps the krono lords on the camps you need ?,also if no one paid them they would not be there.
I would say Ancient Jarsath is more of a problem than anything else for the VP quest line. Huge spawn radius and very random. You can see 3 in 10 minutes or none for 8 hours of mass slaughtering the zone and even when he does pop, there's no guarantee you'll be anywhere near him to get the kill. Literally everything else in the quest is obtainined just by spending a set amount of time at a spawn location. Ground spawns and all the other mobs that carry pieces spawn in static spots. Sit there and you will eventually get your piece. Even Trakanon is simply a time-sink but you're guaranteed teeth with each kill and your guild will have people with teeth before they have the Ancient Jarsath medallion. AJ is going to be a nightmare on Aradune and Rizlona, just like it was on Mangler. The only saving grace is going to be that certain classes can no longer charm gate him to their bind and sell the piece for Krono, but nothing about that makes the chances of anyone getting the kill anymore consistent.
The real problem with AJ is that that zone takes like 60 to spawn a pick. At best you'll have 2 picks open.
Emperor Ssreashza and VT Shards are both very easy and not terribly time consuming. W/ Emp all the camps are also decent AA exp camps as well, so really nothing is lost. VP sucks and has always sucked. They mostly fixed the ground spawn issues from previous servers but they could probably stand to increase the number of potential AJ spawns in FV. The biggest problem with the whole VP key imho is that VP loot sucks so why bother doing a tedious quest for basically no reward? Agree that Storms could use some changes too.
VT key is fine, FG and ME shards come quick enough. BoT key is fine as well, I know people don't like the early competition but after two weeks, it clears up. Ancient Jarsath is still a huge problem, and needs a completely rework. Not just an adjustment to his spawn timer. VKR and the Comms could probably use a slight boost to their spawn rates but really aren't terrible either.
There are many things on TLPs that just aren't worth doing due to the headache to benefit ratio. VP key is certainly one of them, and quite possibly the worst game play experience for the least reward in the game for most classes. Camping Ssra for key parts isn't bad if you are willing to just sit in there and camp a room. VT shards will be a pain (especially ME), but VT is worth it. Same with PoStorms medallions. Signets for Anguish access weren't too bad at all. After PoP, access quests seem to move into instances, so it's just a matter of having the motivation to do them (admittedly that gets hard during the 70 stretch of lameness). In all, if you like to play EQ most of these key parts won't be too bad.
I personally think the ST key is the worst. It requires too much of velious raid time, and has too much drama over assignment. Only the top end of guilds really have the personal that can split Zlandicer and Klandicer heavily enough to produce a large volume of keys quickly. At least with Trak's teeth you can prioritize the player that put the time into camping the medallions. ST is a poorly balanced loot zone with little incentive for non-melee classes to bother with. Whatever difficulties you have with the VT keys, the pay out is worth the effort. PoS key isn't that bad as long as you working to hold multiple picks open.
