Am I a total nugget or is Kael Drakkel rediculous and not fun? It is not impossible to run through it, but it isn't fun whatsoever. I don't want carebear, but I do want fun/challenging, not death/challenging. If it was meant to be for better geared groups, then why not put it out in Part 2 of velious. I am really disgruntled about the difficulty of the zone vs. reward. AND, the faction is +5 per kill. Yes, +5. Really? And let the flames begin.
KD trash needs to drop some loot as well if nothing else, faction gain could stand to be higher especially when compared to the alternatives (PQs giving 500-1000 each, instance daily quests giving 350 faction each) but isnt as horrible as alot of people are making it seem. the amount of trash is insane, and it really annoys me that they drop NOTHING
Kael. It's not a pickup group friendly zone, and that's ok. It's hard. It takes a well rounded group of people who work well together. I'm sure the aquisition of gear and AA over the next 11 months will soften the requirements some. The real question here is what purpose is Kael supposed to serve? The loot is decent, maybe slightly better than decent. So perhaps it's intended that this be a minor stepping stone above instance gear. That's fine. It's probably decent for that, but the zone seems awfully big and "epic" for just a minor gear upgrade location. However, as a grind spot, Kael is terrible. The XP rewards are barely better on a per minute basis than an instance, and the risk factor is much, much higher. Given it's level of difficulty, Kael should probably be awarding four or five times the XP you see elsewhere, and that is definitely not the case. Kael has an identity crisis, one that will have to be solved on the Developer side.
I fully agree. KD is having an identity crisis and I am not sure why I would go in there. I would have expected the mobs in there to have a smoother transition. If it was supposed to be as hard as it is, then the drops should be better, imo. I won't be going back in there until I have some raid gear. But, i'll already be 300 AA and have raid gear. So, why would I go in there?
We've been in kael without DoV raid gear, we had SF raid gear, but honestly that just meant our crit was low. The only issues we had, were that the zone required you to be quick on your feet about things, mezzing was required due to our gear not being good enough to take more than one, careful body pulls, learning the agro range of mobs, fast cures for that cruel frontal and a few pulls to understand the mechanics of the named. All in all i enjoyed my first visit here with a well put together group, it was difficult. Second group wasn't so well built and was a bit more of a failure but that just highlights that you need to pay attention, from the building of the group, right to the end. As far as faction goes, at 5 per mob killed, thats 70 mobs to equal a mission, or 100 mobs to equal 1 faction shard. This however, is 5 for both ry'gor and thurg, something that neither shards nor missions do, and you can kill as many mobs as you are able to in a day, while maximum of 4 shards a day or 3 missions per faction per day. They don't want us to be max faction already, though i would wager some people already are, so they can't adjust the faction gain. In addition to the killing faction, apparently the statue quests also give faction, so it's not a huge issue imo.
Kael is a disaster - its the new icey keep. anyone that can do anything in there, loses interest in the zone, cause well, 1 word.... ornate. everyone that does need to get in there- cant even live 10 minutes, let alone kill a name or two. the zone is a massive waste of space at the moment, cause it really takes raiders to do anything in there - and most have little to no interest in going in there, after a hour in there, and the rest of the population, can barely do anything in there, so its largely ignored right now.
There are more reasons than loot for a zone to exist! Faction? Sure, that's a good reason. Unfortunately, the time it takes to kill the faction equivalent number of mobs to that of doing a single mission is out of whack. You'll complete a mission in FAR less time, with FAR less risk. XP? Sure, another great reason for a zone. Kael fails in this regard as well. Once again, huge hit points, huge risk, inferior rewards. Loot? Yes, that's also an entirely plausible reason for a zone to exist. In fact, there have been numerous threads about the loot in Kael with Developer response saying that at least that portion is being looked at for slight increases. Still the time and risk investment probably won't be what anyone is looking for in terms of payoff with only a slight increase in quality. I'm sure there are other reasons people could list. As I said, Kael has an identity problem. There is no overwhelming reason to go to Kael. It's not the clear frontrunner for the purpose of anything, and that's a shame. It is a massive dungeon, with some challenging content and no reason to exist.
Wullail@Splitpaw wrote: you can get masters from anywhere. kael needs something to make you go to kael for kael. The challenge is fine, the reward is not there Kael was meant to be harder and more rewarding than instances... yet killing trash in a zone like shadowed corridors can yield more loot than spending 2-3 hours in kael. somethings wrong there imo. One named mob that i managed to kill dropped a charm that was .2% better on the critbonus and potency vs a charm from iceshard keep... which was far easier than getting to that named
Raviel@Guk wrote: The other thing to keep in mind about Kael is that it re-pops. If you wipe on a named, the penalty is harsh. You not only have to re-clear, you must FIND the named again AND hope that someone else doesn't find it first and kill it. I like that Kael is hard. Love it. But it needs a reason to exist, it needs a heavy draw.
Banditman wrote: There are reasons to go to Kael, but none of them are worth it if you aren't prepared for the zone. Faction? I got nearly 5K faction (for 2 relevant factions, so you could say nearly 10K) the first week of the expansion. This was nice, since I was able to buy the rune I wanted from Ry'Gorr a few days earlier than I otherwise would have. It's not enough to make people say "I need to go to Kael to grind faction," but it is a nice bonus if you're there for other reasons. XP? At launch, the exp was pathetically low. On double exp Saturday, it was ridiculously high. I can't really comment on the increased exp rate without bonuses, since I (and most of my guildmates) capped AA in there when we were getting 9-12% AA per trash mob kill on the bonus exp day. Loot? Ok, I haven't really gotten any upgrades there, but I've sold several of the Legendary drops for 250-300p EDIT: Also, the drop rate for masters there is very high. As I wrote in the other thread, I hope they make the statue quests repeatable and maybe a bit more rewarding. That could make Kael a solid option for people who are after shards.
Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote: Changes made and being made. PoI Quests have been made repeatable once a day (6 quests) and grant faction and shards Trash drops, including rare fabled drops are being added to the zone tables. Bosses now have a chance to drop shards. Trash now has a chance to drop shards. The experience has been raised significantly. Most if not everything loot oriented is tradeable.
Kael Drakkal is by far, the best EQ2 content I've seen for years. Zone layout and graphics are simply outsome. Music does fit the atmosphere. Plenty of corridors, rooms and giants. It's HUGE. Several loot quests that rewards shards. I even enjoyed the named respawn somewhere not that far when you wipe. We spent 3 hours there on Sunday and I made 3 AAs, which is quite good. That's right, you cannot travel in this zone easily. That's right it requires a good group and quite some care. But each meter of discovery is a reward in itself. I haven't seen such an enjoyable zone since... Kael Drakkal and Velketor Labyrinth in EQ1
Nice zone, PRO: - Very huge zone, has a lot of different paths and corners; very fun to explore - Has alot of content and quests in there. - Plenty nameds throu the whole zone with all kind of difficulties. - Challenging for now. - Requires CC again. Its actually nice to see chanters having to use their mezzes more often again (im no chanter btw) CON: - A little bit too much of trash, wouldnt hurt cutting down the trash population by 10%. - Could use more longer and harder quests that actually give sweet rewards, this way not everyone has to rely on the RNG ingame. - Could use a higher fabled drop chance on nameds, spending a whole day in there gave us zero Exquisite chests from nameds, but atleast we got one or another from trash to make that up. - I just dont like the ability from nameds to spawn in another area just because you whipe once. It should have a higher chance to stay where it is and just a smaller chance to respawn somewhere else. Maybe thats just me tho. - Some stuff is still bugged.
Kander wrote: Looking forward to seeing how these work out. I love the idea of a really hard contested zone where you can't just run in with any old group and succeed. I hope these make it worth the trouble.
0ppression wrote: Unfortunately, due to the hotfix schedule, we should have everything listed in by Tuesday March 15th. The stuff in bold is in now and the rest will be in next Tuesday. Also all named in Kael Drakkel are now flagged to give AA experience every time you kill them. That went in this morning I believe.
It was late so we tried Kael with a Tank in SF legendary ( + some QP stuff), warden subju and wizzie. Tank got almost one shot on first trash mob. Then a group passed by, i examined the tank (monk) he was wearing a full SF rank 2-3 set. According to its buf they had a templar + a fury. He kept hitting the red very often. So Kael is apparently hard, harder than many instances. It does not seem to be the place for a pick up group or a non optimal/non full group. The hole was too easy (solable at 90, 2-3 people group at 80), Kael is certainly too hard. An open zone should not be designed for optimized group or raid gear people.
