Well, it may be two years, almost three too late in complaining about it but I went to level the Bloodmetal Inlaid Gnollish Totem and I realized you can only shroud to level 70. This is quite an issue for grouping with the current max level players. Now I understand some people may say the purpose of a shroud is to play it at that level (so playing a 70 shroud at 70) but the gnollish totem is too large of an upgrade for a tank and too necessary (imo) to force such restrictions. For most solo players finding someone to help PL you while you're shrouded down is enough work! Let alone finding multiple groups at 70 to raise it. So, that said, I think we need to raise the level caps on shrouds so they can always group with the current max level. As for now it seems like a nigh impossible road block leveling the shroud unless I kill members of my box team down to level 100, and regear them for level 100 only to relevel them to 105 and re-replace the gear once I am done.
Orrrr you do what the rest of us did, shroud to level 5 or 10 and mangle newbie gardens with a damage shield on
The shroud system could use an overhaul. I'd like to see it go up to 85 and become more robust but I doubt it will ever happen. Gotta spend all revenue on H1Z1 and Planetside 2 instead.
Unlikely to happen indeed but I'm all in for this. Really loved the shroud concept, used it way too much after I buffed my friends to play with them and visit old zones even if it meant nearly zero reward for me. Definitely would love to see it expanded/reworked
Honestly that method of doing it never even occurred to me. That would probably take half the time of doing it with a group of 100s too. I'll have to give it a try soon
I'm not sure the shroud system passes the "smell test", certainly not of the "original vision"... -barely, even when new, uses as intended to allow low-level grouping with higher levels -really was only used to level up the shrouds (in newbie yards as already described in the thread) and then usually never revisited by the player (see below) -mostly used to store pets for their gear, before that was patched in as a game feature -Otherwise, mostly used to circumvent quests (rogue shroud and evil eye charm) which is ironic with other ability nerfs over the years (i.e., alliance line). Shroud system looks like it was a complex coding project. Anecdotally, most players seem to prefer to "play as themselves". I highly doubt extending this system makes the cut of priorities, look at it this way: if they made "extend shroud system to level 100" an account-wide unlock for $5 in marketplace would it pay for its own development? My guess is no. That means it wouldn't be a "sell" as an expac feature either. Odds are, more people would see an extension of this as a "forcing me to play it" as some viewed certain eras of monster missions and such. Maybe someone can spin a situation where shrouds are fun, but until then I hope this remains an orphaned feature.
Codes already there, adding 5 more levels (and doing nothing else) would be copy and paste and an integer change. Adding more of those AAs for each shroud would be where all the work is and since no one really uses shrouds anyway, I doubt anyone would care that the level 75 one is as weak as the 70. As far as I know you can't really kill anything with shrouds 50+ anyway, they all aren't very powerful. It would be a waste of time expanding on the system for devs which is obviously why they haven't continued doing it. However, that's not the point. I didn't say anywhere I wanted the shroud system to be re hauled, re tuned or remade. The point is there's an important upgrade locked away behind leveling the Gnoll shroud. It doesn't occur to all of us to DS PL a shroud to level it up and even if it does, alternatively, shrouds (more specifically this one) should be able to group with the current max level and still benefit from XP. Also, DS PLing can be an inconvenience to other players that are in the zone looking to level while you're pulling and killing the entire zone. At least on the TLPs I have gotten yelled at by a GM for "Monopolizing a zone" by pulling all of Misty Thicket for DS PLing. Very very very unlikely this is going to happen on live, in fact I would say the likelihood is next to 0% on live considering there's more zones and leveling is faster and more people are spread out in the level range... Regardless, more than one option for completing this task and acquiring this upgrade would be preferable.
My personal method of choice for shroud leveling is using the Brazier of Elemental Summoning combined with a lvl 5 shroud and mage pet gear for the lvl 11 fire pet... its great for grinding low level trash to level a shroud with. Just find a spot with very fast respawns (hatchling caves in FoB) and go nuts.
I see your point... "An alternate way of getting the reward" is something I believe should often be done, particularly once a reward's era has passed.
Maybe 'just' 3 new shroud lines that start at 70 and go upto 105. New Tank that's almost as good as a tank merc, dps shroud 50/50 melee. (maybe a dot using shroud as there's plenty of wizzy shrouds), and a healer/CClike shroud. There's so many cool models in the game, sure some neat things could be done. Wouldn't mind a 'tinkered shroud' type thing, where you have to quest around to get the bits to assemble a gnome clockwork that's the new shrouds. With occasional item drops to upgrade them. We've got the bank spaces/bigger bags to have one or two bags dedicated to 'Shroud Armoury' perhaps. It IS niche to play with shrouds, but there's plenty of other non-raid/mission progression stuff to do in an expansion.
This wouldn't fix the issue the thread is about considering you HAVE to level the gnoll shroud in order to acquire the item. Adding new shrouds would be like revamping the shroud system which would be a waste of dev time. You could exploit this reallllllllly easily. Level 5 shroud with 105s would probably get an insane conversion ratio
I thought the idea of shrouds was to level down so you could level with low level friends as opposed to PLing yourself. That still works doesn't it?
If only there were lower level friends on regular servers... Alas, can't get into the tutorial as a lowbie shroud now either.
If they bumped the grouping limit from 30 to 35 levels, people would still be able to use the level 70 shroud, and it would be no different than the <Level + 50%> rule that's been in place since the first day of Everquest. The only possible "downside" is that levels 70-75 would go "too fast". This should be a 5 minute fix, it's a no-brainer.
That was only part of it. It was ALSO to allow you to switch your roles to fit whatever was needed at the current level. Can't find a Cleric LFG but there are 20 rogues? Have one of them shroud into a Cleric and become the group healer. Can't find a tank but there are 10 Wizards LFG? Make one of them shroud into a Warrior and tank. It was actually a really ingenious and ahead-of-its-time system (this was 2005 remember, meaning they probably came up with the idea 1-2 years prior), it was just completely and totally botched by the implementation. The problem with this was that it relied on 2 things that were never really added: 1) Shroud gear. Shrouds cannot equip normal gear because people cried to high heaven that players would take gear that they needed for their main characters and use them for their alts, so normal gear was disallowed for shrouds. Instead you were supposed to obtain special shroud gear to improve your shrouds so that they were actually useful in level appropriate content. It was never added. 2) Shroud Abilities. Shrouds were supposed to get more Abilities / stronger as you progressed them farther, but their power gain is basically nil, and they were never ever close to even a casually group geared player trying even the most basic content at max level (70). This was due in part to a massive amount of crying on the part of tanks and healers (mainly clerics as I recall) because they didn't want the competition from everyone suddenly being able to transform into a Tank/Cleric on demand. Generally speaking it was the shittiest players who complained the most, but it was enough to keep the shrouds grossly underpowered. The same thing happened when mercenaries were added, which in part led to the "Master" level mercenaries never seeing the light of day because they were "too good." It is still happening with the laugable one-offs of Merc AAs and Merc Gear, neither of which have been improved since their introduction and contribute to the fact mercs are the worst they have ever been vs the current content. Both systems offer promise and would give us SOMETHING TO DO/WORK ON but since they have been seemingly abandoned are nothing more than a joke at this point.
