There have been countless threads already made. I emailed in seeking more information and was only directed to create more for the meanwhile, so here we are again. The shady goblin quest for the Royal Ring of the Balthezid needs to be updated for TLP servers. The respawn on this has been tracked relentlessly. Roughly 19 hours which is once a day at best. The goblin is only up for a mere second before despawning at any hour of the day. I've camped at 2am mid day any time. The lowest number of people I've seen surrounding him was 4 with the highest being 10. This is nearing the velious launch and it is STILL a big problem. This needs to be updated for TLP servers. There have been a ridiculous amount of suggestions and any of them would be acceptable at this point. 1) Let him take turn ins for 5 seconds before despawning. You still get to brag and say you camped him for 19 hours but at least several people can turn in and move on. This is practically a joke and serious at the same time. ---This allows all the dedicated people a chance to "Experience true Everquest" while still having people be able to ACTUALLY get to complete a simple quest. 2) Decrease the spawn timer to anything reasonable. 6 hours. 1 hour. Literally anything so people can actually do the quest. ---Obviously the most requested. This isn't even the final turn in but it's the bigger bottleneck. Mainly because it's much less of a task to get people to spawn a pick for the last portion. 3) Decrease Warsliks woods number needed to spawn a pick. Currently, at 60 this is absurd for 60+ people to gather in a zone and not even guarantee the mob isn't taken by someone else who had a quicker PC load time ---This allows dedicated guilds to get their sense of community and have their players be able to partake in the quest Time to address all the people who hate seeing other people be happy or wish to feel smug about succeeding in an outdated game mechanic not meant for TLP servers "You wanted the classic EQ experience, well here it is!!" Yes. Genious, we all want to experience Everquest. That's why we are currently playing a game over 20 years old. However, Standing at a single spot and just hoping to beat someone to a turn in that is up for less than a second every 19 hours doesn't work for TLP servers. The expansion is around for a certain period of time. People want to complete quests and obtain loot for the time period appropriate for the quest. Not being able to complete a quest because luck wasn't on your side doesn't help people experience the expansion for the time period in question. In fact, it means there is content they don't get to complete because only a fraction of the server was lucky enough to nab him in time. Please, I welcome constructive feedback and comments. Let's keep a thread healthy and deliberate. These have been posted since the dawn on TLPs. We want to either this oversight to be updated or to hopefully gain the attention of a dev who can give a reason as to why they feel this is not an oversight for TLP servers. Let's have healthy discussion eh chaps?
If you ask enough times DBG always gives in. See instances, epics, picks, VP keys x2, HS keys, Agnarr etc. Within a few years this quest will be somehow made simpler along with the (already easy) VT key, the coldain quests, Enchanter epic, two versions of the ST instance and we will see a FV TLP server. The only thing totally off the table is no krono.
I would agree with this 100%. I only played on one TLP, but there were so many things that people were hounding to have implemented, and it always seemed like their responses were always no. People were begging for clicks within bags and bandolier on TLP's for ages, and their response was always "No, that's tied to expansions" and sure enough, they gave it. They even recently gave in to dialing down Marl recently. It seemed like they were never going to be willing to do that. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the enchanter epic would not also be improved soon. Getting back on topic though...here's the thing about the goblin quests...the ring is really not that big of a deal. The ring is required to obtain SWC of course, but if you can trust your friends/guildmates...only one person needs the ring since you can cycle the ring around if everyone does the turn-in for SWC at the same time.
I agree with the original post. I would have targeted both the goblins though. I mean shady is annoying and all, but the angry goblin spawn rate is 3x as long with a dps race after hand in. If you want this quest completed you need to drag 60 people for two different goblins. The only other way is to camp out the night before on a patch day. Waiting around days for angry goblin just to get a timer is waste of time. I'm not sure how many TLPs it will take for Daybreak to understand these quests should be changed for the enjoyment of its players. I'd be suprised if you even get an answer tbh. The changes to Merl for the SK epic, and the VP key was a step in the right direction. There are several quests that need timer tweaks, but in the end they are not game breaking loots.
We asked for offline trading and progression servers once upon a time too. Some of the asks are silly, some are super reasonable. If it makes playing the game more fun for more people, have at it. There is also the difference of tedious time sink versus difficulty. Sometimes the right fix could be an alternative harder but more expedient route to do something. Sometimes it is blind optimism with no basis in reality (i.e., my long held hope for another start to end expac like TSS with a new race --this is unrealistic for a number of reasons).
The Regal Ring of Bathezid is a very non-mandatory item for progression. The Spirit Wracked Cords, on another hand, are a completely different story. This item is useful into Luclin and is arguably the most lasting piece of gear out of Kunark. If you research the Spirit Wracked Cords quest, you will see that the turn in requires Undead Dragon Sinew, Spirit Wracked Urn, and Regal Ring of Bathezid. A funny trick is that you can actually parts of this quest. The person that completes the quest gets the ring back. That means if person A, the ringholder, turns in ring, and person B turns in Spirit Wracked Urn and Undead Dragon Sinew, that means that person B gets back Spirit Wracked Cords and Regal Ring of Bathezid. Why does this matter? So instead of banging your head against getting tons of Angry Goblins, why dont you get one guild ring and utilize passing that ring around to get everyone their Spirit Wracked Cords... I make no warranty for the accuracy of these statements as it relates to updated patches -- I havent played since Phinny then later Agnarr where I completed the quest via this methodology on both. KTHXBAI!
Funny story about Laerek, just the other day he was standing at the Shady Goblin spawn point telling people that it wasn't due for several more hours and that they were wasting their time because it wasn't even close to it's spawn window. It spawned 15 minutes later... So he lied to try to get people to leave.
We spawned like 5 picks of WW the other day. There was only 1 person waiting for it to spawn.Not convinced it is as big a problem as you make it out to be.
@Laerek: You have my sympathy on this quest. I wish you luck getting the spawn behavior changed. The Undead Dragon Sinew required for this quest originally dropped only from Trakanon. Servers typically had 3-4 guilds capable of taking him down, which meant this quest was only for raiders and had no spawn timer bottleneck. This later changed -- a very rare sinew drop was added to juggernauts to permit players who didn't raid (but who did high-end group content) to obtain the item. Drusella Sathir's spawn timer was lengthened such that the rarity of the urn made it possible to only obtain it a couple times per week. Players waiting for the goblins to spawn at this time had very little competition. The players knew the others who were waiting, and had an expectation of GM intervention if player conflict became an issue. Picks and AoC instances are a great thing, but they completely screw up this and other long respawn quest mobs. The de facto requirement that players seeking these items have 40-60 guilded toons to assist them is garbage, as is the player DPS-race inherent in these quests under the current ruleset. Your first option makes a lot of sense for Shady. Angry Goblin should probably get a 20 minute timer which causes him to repop every minute after the initial hand-in. A similar mechanic would greatly improve player experience with the enchanter epic, and with the 8th Coldain ring, although different timing is called for.
Yeah they're running a business. These changes are made to keep people interested in playing the game rather than burning out pointlessly.
