Random spawn timers have been apart of EQ for a very long time now. EQ was designed this way and that hasn't changed and they have no intent on changing it. That is the problem with a server with a population that is much higher than any server had back when this content was current. I would suggest asking your guild to help open new picks and keep enough people there to keep the picks open.
While I agree that the bottlenecks should be changed somehow, since when these quests were implemented servers had nothing close to the population of Agnarr or Phinny. However, I do not think that stating "Only XX people will complete this in era" is a good way of arguing for it to be changed. These are EPIC weapons. I think people forget that sometimes. They are not to be confused with ARTIFACT weapons from WoW, where everyone gets one. These items are DESIGNED to be LIMITED. Im not sure why this is so hard to comprehend. Are there obvious places where changes can be made? Yes. But I do not think that bottlenecks are a bad thing inherently. If any player, regardless of skill or association, can log in, do the quest and receive a Best in Slot weapon, then it isn't so Epic anymore, is it? The bottlenecks need to be BALANCED not removed.
First: They are "epic" because of the length and difficulty of the quest, not necessarily the reward. True, most (all?) are best in slot during Kunark. But most become situational at best a week or two after Velious drops and are decidedly "unepic" as far as power goes, but we still refer to them as "epics". Second: I agree the quests should be hard and that you should not by virtue of logging in to everquest be handed your epic. This is not what anyone is asking for and your mischaracterization of the request is annoying. Marl Kastane is a mob required for the Shadow Knight epic. Shadow Knights must visit him twice and hand in items, after which he despawns. He is on a long (36 hour?) respawn. He is also one of the first stops on the SK quest, so there is no "go kill a god" requirement first. The result is 20 SKs standing on his spawn point spamming their third party program/hand in script to be the one who gets to hand in. Even if you hand in once, there is no guarantee that your script/program/spam click will work the second time. He will spawn 60 times in Kunark. A maximum of 30 SKs will get their epics, but because of the broken-ness of the quest, its just as likely that 0 shadow knights will ever get their epics on kunark (even if you win once, you might not win the second). This is not a difficulty issue. Difficulty is getting your friends together and taking down a raid target. This is a dumb mechanic that makes the SK impossible, rather than difficult. Third: Epic quests might be the best idea that Everquest ever had. Even when they're not useful anymore, people still work on them because of how personal they are. These are quests that everyone should have a real shot at completing in era. VP will be cleared hundreds of times in era and will be fun and satisfying each time. The SK epic will possibly be completed zero times because a minor turn in mob in a minor part of the quest isn't up. This isn't "epic". This is dumb. Bottlenecks reduce availability in a way that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth, rather than a satisfying. Epics have been re-balanced though. MOTM and raid target buffs have greatly increased the difficulty of pretty much all of the epic quests without adding unnecessary bottlenecks. There is a fun way to make epics hard to find. Bad mechanics is not it.
Like I said the first time, and I suppose you were too concerned with the wall of text you would send my way that you missed it: I think that saying only a certain amount of people will complete the epic in era is a BAD argument and its is STILL a bad argument even after you waste your time with a wall of text that does not iterate the issue any better than your previous post. YES the bottlenecks need to be adjusted. SAYING only a certain number of people will complete epic in era is NOT an argument to change the bottlenecks. What you are actually saying is "This is more work than I want to put in for a weapon that will be possibly be replaced in Velious" I have a simple solution. Don't do the quest. If you think it is poorly designed, just abstain from doing it. You said it gets replaced in Velious anyhow, right? I am in favor of altering the bottlenecks to accommodate the server population. This does not mean I am in favor of them being removed. Just curious, if they reduced VT and MK spawn time by half, would that make you happy? My guess is that it would not, because then the argument would be "oh boo, only 2x SK/ENC epics can be made in era!"
It would not. There should never be anything in any game where only X people are allowed to complete a quest because of poorly designed mechanics. If someone goes down to camp raster and gives up because they don't want to sink the time in, fine. This is not the situation (no one is asking about monk epic). No amount of work will get you the Enchanter, SK or Wizard epic, because they are not about work, they are about luck. Were you lucky enough that your spam-click went off before the other 40 people there got theirs off? Bottlenecks do not reward work because everyone there is doing the same work. Luck definitely has a place in a game like EQ though. I was lucky on my monk with Targin and I got him on my 4th or 5th spawn. Luck reduced the amount of work I had to do. But I was unlucky with Raster and spent ~18 hours over 2 days camping 3 picks before I got him. Luck increased the amount of work I had to do. But in both cases I got the item not because of luck, but because of work. It was a matter of time. Bottlenecks are not a matter of time (at least not reasonably so). Bottlenecks are purely a matter of luck. Did any of the 20 people standing around VT get hit their "/pet attack Verina" in the quarter second between my taps of /pet attack? Was someone else using a third party program to target her before she rendered? These are matters of luck and given the server population there will always be 20 people standing on the VT and MK spawns in Kunark (20 at least when they're due). No amount of work can ensure I get VT or MK. It's 100% luck. Which is 100% bad.
It continues to amaze me that people can actually argue this and believe that they are somehow correct. Epics should be limited only by the points that were intended to the difficult parts of the encounter. All veterans know which points those were, and most of them were planar encounters. To suggest that people will be physically unable to complete their epics in-era because they can't get beat automated turnin scripts or can't find a 1-groupable mob up is rediculous, especially when actual raid encounters themselves were given reduced spawn timers.
Im pretty sure that luck is involved with ANYTHING to do with this game. When you resist a spell, its basically luck, even if you WORKED to get your resists high, you still have a CHANCE of that spell hitting you. I agree with you that part of the Epic IS LUCK. And it should be that way. You were LUCKY enough to get your epic. When you go on a raid, you are not PROMISED a drop of gear, are you? Don't you sorta sit around with 20-72 other people and hope you get LUCKY enough to get an item? Your argument that Luck should not be a part of it is as silly and misguided as saying everyone who participates in a raid should get a raid quality item. I really am in favor of these quests being fixed, and honestly I am only debating with you to point out that you are not the person that should be lobbying for a change since your arguments are sorely lacking.
Wow I see a lot of, "everyone deserves a trophy mentality". They are called epics for a reason not all can get.
You of course missed the whole point of me SIDING WITH YOU, did you not? If not and you just didn't have a good comeback, it would explain your lack of response. Your Idea of "If I put in the required amount of work, regardless of luck, I should be awarded an Epic" is laughable at best, and entitled, spoiled brat at worst. Time =/= Effort. Also, your anecdotal evidence with Targin and Raster works against you. If what you say is true, that luck helped you in one situation and hindered you in another, why are you not asking devs to change the mechanics in those situations? It is fundamentally the same. Some people will have luck HELP them to get the kill on VT and others, as luck would have it, will not get a VT kill. Some people will have luck with Marl spawns, others will not. Some people will get LUCKY and catch Broken Golem up at 4:30 AM. Others will get unlucky and never see him. I would like to know your solution, lay it out in detail for us please. How would you fundamentally change an almost 20 year old quest to best meet the standards of today on the Agnarr server? What would you do? I keep hearing very loudly from that you want it changed, so lets hear it hot shot.
Go back and read the thread. I've outlined the solution many times. Leave Marl Kastane up all the time. No other epic has a non-triggered depopping turn in mob that I can think of (happy to be proven wrong). You still have to do THE ENTIRE EPIC, now you can just do your turn ins. Make Neriak spawn picks (and ensure that VT spawns instantly in picks, like literally every other epic mob). There's no reason not to. Or drop her to a 1 hour spawn. Still have to do the rest of the entire epic (including plane of hate and fear and the hole). She's a duoable mob. Not notable in any way except for her bottleneck. Make broken golem spawn instantly in picks (or reduce spawn timer to be consistent with the rest of the zone). These aren't new fundamental changes to the game. No one is asking for a complete rewrite of any of these epics. Just a recognition that an otherwise minor part of the quest that is from a lore perspective indistinguishable from any other of the starting /middle parts of any other epic quest should not be THE deciding factor in whether someone gets their epic or not. Picks and instancing fixed literally every other bottleneck (except the bard epic, which was fixed). These were just oversights. Go kill a god. Go deep into a dungeon. Run the CoM reavers. Run dozens of errands all over the world. NOT EPIC. Kill a duoable mob in step 2? Hand in an item? NOW ITS EPIC! Nah. I'm confused about your "time=/=effort" thing here because it doesn't really apply. I killed something like 120 raster placeholders (there were breaks in there and times where other people showed up so I dropped down to camping fewer picks). I wasn't staring at this spawn point waiting for the 7am repop every time. What other effort could someone imagine putting forth? Should I have also been doing pushups? The game should reward effort. Luck can, and should, be an important component to the reward system. I am in no way opposed to giving Verina Tomb/Marl a placeholder/raster style spawn (but given that from a lore perspective these are minor parts of the epic quests and shouldn't be "the hard part"). But the balance of luck v time/work/effort/whatever you want to call it is so far out of wack for these epics that it detracts from the game.
Now that, my good sir, is a valid argument. I even liked your post Like I said, not opposed to it being changed, just opposed to some of the reasoning people are pointing to to justify it.
We've been gaming for 15-16 years since epics came out and most people playing now are pretty good about what made them difficult when they were new. That is finding information about how to complete the quest (Individuals are better at finding information, but also gaming communities are better at compiling it too), and organizing enough people to help us. Knowing that you had to find a little brown bag at the end of a certain hallway felt epic. Gathering 50+ people to slay a dragon felt epic. Waiting at the end of that hallway for 6+ hours to compete with someone else on who can click the brown sack faster is NOT epic. Sitting in a dragon's throne room waiting on it to spawn with 2 other raid forces is NOT epic. These things aren't just not epic, they're the opposite of epic. They take away from the quest lines and the experiences are immersion breaking (if you care about that all). Petty, tedious competition is not epic. Maybe everyone doesn't deserve a trophy; but nobody deserves to sit behind an artificial, not-epic, not-difficult roadblock just because some people like to feel special about having a limited quantity item. Which is honestly not something I've ever understood. Another player having something I do does not affect my gameplay in the slightest.
Dev's Please Fix This! The population on Agnarr requires these changes. Fix the SK and ENCH quests and make the Broken Golem spawn in instances! If Ragefire spawns in instances, why wouldn't the broken golem ?
In the mean time before they come to their senses use a script that scans an alts log file then sends a message to you via txt / email when the spawn happens. It's pretty much what a lot of folks are using at spawns like verina tomb.
All the Rogues sitting in LR waiting on their turn in NPC to respawn after another Rogue did their turn in and he poofed would like to argue this point with you.....
