I'm sorry but I did not exploit a thing Tyrus, I have an awful lot of those hedges and 98% of them were gained before I even realized you could use aa etc to speed up the mount. I still agree that the achievement is immensely difficult to achieve, impossible when several players are racing, but I spent a very long and frustrating time trying to get it, I have given away some of the hedges I earned and sold others. When I was on my umpteenth attempt at doing it, before I had either managed to get a score above 65, I did not start saying that those on the scoreboard with 112 etc were exploiting I just figured it meant it WAS achievable somehow and kept on trying. If I race now, there are runs I will hit a high score easily, and the very next race even if I wait for them to respawn AND if there is no-one else racing I might only get 50.
it seem troubadors are only ones they can pass 100, all the other classes seem to get short straws with no innane speed buffs or not buff stacked.
I tried this again last night. I already had the tradeskill aa speed buff and the shadows aa speed buff for my previous runs - I was at 148% that would jump to 150% when getting a multi-colored heart. I added the cloak of the harvester last night - I was at 150% the entire time - no increase when getting the multi-colored hearts. I'll try the guild hall stable hand tonight. I also got the quest and waited for the hearts to spawn - I still only managed to get 60ish hearts.
There's definitely some issues with Commonlands now... Kaitheel, I hate to say it, but your fix made the heart spawns worse. Antonica on the other hand was fantastic, which I've never experienced in this race out there. The problem with the Commonlands is that there's at least four (4!!!) different places now where the hearts are stacking on each other, completely out of reach unless you can fly... which of course you can't while racing. I picked up the quest on my main and flew to as close as I could get for the locations (on the Everfrost server if you need to see them in person): -1087.39, -49.72, 11.18 (on the "tower" right next to the starting pad) -1097.94, -49.96, 57.60 (on the "tower" across from the starting pad) -1097.83, -52.65, 64.18 (also on the "tower" across from the starting pad) -1102.29, -49.30, 104.89 (on a broken wall south of the starting pad.. this was the only one I could land at while flying, but you cannot get here without flying, the jump is too high) There is also a heart spawn at -1097.79, -50.01, 92.35 that, while you can get there by scaling the wall, it takes far too long and is a waste of a heart spawn point. Simply put: hearts should not be spawning on these broken walls/towers at all. Now, as for Antonica... I don't know what changed, but it was for the better. When running these contests, it should be feasible for characters to have the potential to achieve their goals without them being required to have certain AAs or buffs just to speed them up *all* the time. If the goals for prizes/achievements are being set with the assumption that, for example, people will always be at at least 150% ground mount speed because they have ground speed AAs, then you are doing it wrong. If you are setting goals under the assumption that no one else will be running these races, then you are doing it wrong, because this is an MMO and it should always be assumed that some interaction will be present unless we are ported into a single-player instance. These goals should be tested using a character that has no extra AA/buff benefit and with at least 1-2 other people testing at the same time. All that said, I ran the Hearts a'Flutter races today on a newer level 25 character that does not have any ground speed AAs and had to rely on the multi-colored hearts for the speed-ups. She is a goodie-two-shoes so I started in Antonica and was surprised at how much better it was than last week. In Antonica every race I ran except the first had at least one other player running it at the same time. Here are my Antonica scores: 115 (only one running the race) 102 (this point on someone else started running the race) 91 (I tried venturing beyond the towers this run and it didn't pay off, my own fault) 104 107 As you can see, I normally consider myself decent at these races. I didn't hit the top leaderboard at all, likely because I didn't have the benefit that others have of constantly being at 150% ground mount speed during the race. Now I move on to Commonlands... here I still did well, even with the bugged heart clusters, but I had a miserable experience trying to desperately find hearts compared to Antonica. Other difference... no one else was running the Commonlands race when I was. Here are my CL scores: 85 90 91 89 87 82 89 Obviously I got the enormous prize with each CL run, but that's a vast difference from the constant 95-110 I was getting a week ago on this race (my main is #2 on the CL scoreboard from last week, though she did have the advantage of constantly being 150% speed and the hearts weren't bugged stacking). As a side note, I ended up doing the CL race 7 times instead of 5 because I logged out after my second race and apparently that resets the count toward getting the title.
Yeah. the original problems still remain with Commonlands, but now there are more heart magnet spots. Another one that happens often is by one of the NPCs that stands just outside the main gate to Freeport. I have seen inaccessible hearts clustered at his feet many times. When you look at what now makes the Antonica race doable sometimes, and then look at Commonlands, here is what the big difference is. There are more in-between lines of hearts in Antonica. Like on the road and along the hill ridge going from the merchants to the south gate. Compare that to how the hill ridges are almost devoid of hearts in Commonlands. Also, the areas with the higher concentration of hearts in Commonlands have a lot less hearts than areas of Antonica with higher concentrations. I have rarely done festival races in the Commonlands for high scores or prizes, just for the titles there, as it always seems to be the harder place to get a decent score.
I've been able to get into the 90s now in Antonica with the same effort that was only yielding in the 60s before. Still haven't busted 100 yet but I just chalk that up to bad luck.. and there were other people around. The Commonlands have been worse in every event/race. I just get the titles and don't put much effort into the CL race.
I haven't read thou all posts I read a few and I think what I have noticed are already posted. Post patch there seams to be a few heart flutters on tower and walls in commonlands. Heart flutters seams to take long time to appear visually. I really wish they appeared faster cause I like to explore the areas while doing race to find new spots but it don't really work if I pass a hill and has to wait a minute before I can see the hearts. This feels much longer then I remembered it to be past years, have to facts to back it up tho. The race steed don't remove other speedbuffs so for my crafters who have spent there tradeskill AA and prestige the have a 150% speedbuff throughout the entire race. My non-crafter characters have the disadvantage of slower speed compared to my crafters, I guess it might be a bug that speedbuffs affect this steed (other then the multi coloured heart flutters)? I would like the race to not have a speedbuff it limit the race a bit. some spots have heart flutters clustered while other locations have it more spread out, if you explore areas and you find a spot where flutters are spread out you not only get disadvantage of collecting less heart flutters you also have trouble keeping run speed up if hearts are few. So if you explore and find yourself in a low spawn area it's not fun being bound to lowest runspeed while you try to move to a better area. Suggestion: I would rather like multi coloured flutters to count as two points or that every heart flutter except multi coloured gave you a 3 seconds speed debuff and base speed be %150 or 200% for everyone.
multi-color hearts give debuffs? what this? it seem devs created this race to be more frustration than intended to be fun...
They do NOT give debuffs. It was a suggestion proposed by Emms. She even has the word suggestion before it. I personally don't like the debuff suggestion, but I do like the "multi-colored hearts should give 2 points and everyone should be the same mount speed during the entire race" suggestion!
oh okay, i was bit confused. anyway, i tried again. this time, i did 76, 76, 74, 74, 70, and 66, and then went to antonica, 58 and 55, there still few players racing around. i feel scammed by devs, there no way i could get 100 or able to get rose bush walls. it would have been "HOTFIXED" instead of waiting out til lame patch and let it expired on 20th. problem why i left commonlands, some are unreachable, and i was "locked for 5 seconds" after Go-Go countdown and cant move, i lose my 5 seconds that would hit 80's, and i was scouting for the hearts i see the hearts spread far as CL's wizard spire and Marr's ruins, that is over 3 mins run, wonder why those hearts spawn so far away. isnt those suppose to be spawning near freeport's gates??? i have seen a few by druid stonehedge. that is so wrong. antonica's heart race, i have seen those in archer's woods, that is way out of bounds as well. i felt devs must be sick and mean. it is a game meant for fun, not PURE frustrations as my fingers getting tired trying to reach unattainable 100, see the scores that going down? i am not young person, more i tried, the more my fingers get shaking. this blows as one of the worst festival event...Not fun anymore.
In Antonica going beyond the two guard towers or the SQ bridge is generally a waste of time (sadly, since like you mention they are further out) and you'll take a nosedive in heart count. Stick around the beetle/scarecrow fields and the grassy area between the teleport pad and the SQ bridge.
I really hope the devs can get the Commonlands worked out before the next races that use the same spawning. The walls near the race quest giver were pretty much completely lined with tons of inaccessable hearts last night. Up on the sides of the towers there too. I'm pretty good at these races & at times (like when there are so many hearts up on the wall) I am having issues breaking 80 in Commonlands if there is anyone but me there.
I've finally gotten up to 90 in Antonica - that's with usually at least one other person running it. Commonlands with no one else running it is a dismal 60ish. Is Erollisi day over on Thursday? I haven't spent any of my coins yet - and I need to gather a ton of roses up...
finally got my "100th" hearts, gosh, i hate it. i was mess around with my other alt, and hit 102, but he not my main, i was trying to unlock my conjy's access to SoL's weeding the corruption quest so he can level grind. that took me by surprised, then i tried my dirge and paladin, but avoiding commonlands because it too buggy. i had to race few times and wait until i am alone, there still some folks racing it. my main, paladin hit 109 hearts in 2 tries, had someone cut in my pathing near the end of race. then my dirge finally got his own 100th (107) in 3 tries, i was still cut by other racer when i hit 92 and 95 near the end of race, 3rd time when i race, but click cancelled as soon other racer jump on pad, so i waited for fresh respawns as i got new quest, and i was able to make 100th on that race when other racer was way out of sight. not looking forward to this race with my remaining alts, forget it, and wont do it again on next year, if i see another poor excuse of bugged race, i may send a moldy stale pizza to SOE's HQ to show how unhappy i was. my suggestion, Add other low level zones for racing, or create "instance zones", too many players at the race, i dont mind Aether races with others, but not for node grabbing events when the "achievement" seem impossible to beat. we need one of the candies to be perma loot drop in current SoL zone for out of festival seasons for craftings until next erollisi events.
Yeah, most racers are just focused on their routes and getting the 80 or 100 score. They may seem to cut one off, but usually it is just something that happens sometimes. But a number of times for me there were players who seemed to be trying to drive off competition for the hearts. They would deliberately follow me, dogging my heels, and would not let up even when there were nice big groups of hearts they ignored. I would not let them intimidate me, and kept working on getting some hedge pieces. Eventually the griefers would give up, but it was still an unpleasant experience. I did get enough hedge pieces on two of the extremely quiet servers I play on. But did not even bother to try for them on Freeport or Guk. Better to be able to make a nice little hedge maze on Permafrost, than to waste many more hours on a busy server to get that elusive 80 score enough times. Just too many players doing the races even in the wee hours of the morning.
I ran races in both Antonica and Commonlands this morning. Antonica was fairly easy to get 80+ hearts. The hearts had a fast respawn, and were plentiful. In Commonlands, I got 64. The hearts were spread far apart, with some in unreachable areas such as up the side of a tower, in trees, and on walls. Hopefully they can get it right for NEXT year......
