So I decided I would love to have a complete library, or at least as complete as I can get based on what's still in the game. But I am increasingly getting frustrated at the extremely low drop rate that many of the books quests have, mostly in the old school zones like cazic-thule, permafrost, obelisk, etc.. now I know people have slaved over getting these quests in the past so I don't want to take anything away from that but I feel like given that each book requires 10 steps to complete and sometimes rare mobs you must kill 10-30 times that they could be made a little easier to obtain. And given that it's old content. Old school heritage quests have been made less grindy in recent years so that less mobs are needed for many steps, and I did them when they were super hard but I definitely appreciate that they are more streamlined now. It seems though that book quests continue to be super rare even though many other things in the game have been improved. As it stands I am trying to complete the cazic thule ones and have been coming night after night and am still missing one book, while all the others I got that is just one zone out of many with books I would like to obtain. I think on average the drop rate from what I have read is %0.1 to a max of %0.5 but mostly in the 1/1000 to 1/500 mob range. So I've been lucky with some books and very unlucky with others and I would love an increase in the drop rate or a smart loot system for books that checks if you have the quest already. I know it's a small thing but I love that there are so many books in the game and this is the first time on all my characters I've decided to actually start a collection and now I'm wondering what have I got myself into? I've never had to camp anything this hard since eq1, and these are just books not epics thanks
Books that take an item count are extremely rare, i've got 5 or 6 of them on more than 100 books earned...
exactly, and it's beside the point anyway.. no ones forcing anyone to stick books in their homes even if they all had an item count, I just happen to want a library that won't take weeks or months to get the older books for
I gave up on those book quests a long time ago, I might go back to them if I could finish them in a normal amount of time..
you got pretty lucky then! But there's about 9 in cazic, my second to last took about 4 nights of camping and clearing the zone dozens of times and I still don't have the last book. Also permafrost looks to be even harder since the drop rate is lower and the giants are fewer.. I've been killing green cons mentored but I haven't tried grey yet, does anyone know if they would drop faster greyed out? That might be a solution so anyone camping books could go and get them without disrupting anyone in the zone who is actually there to get xp or do other quests
I've got the 6 or 7 book quests from cazic, i've got 2 from a long time ago (8 or 9 years ago). I was doing the achievements for self and guild for shattered lands, so I was auto-mentored to 45,mobs were yellow / orange. I miss 7 quests, as seen in my logs and EQ2Wiki...
When I did Permafrost (and Feerrott for other quest starters) I randomly switched between green and gray runs out of sheer boredom. My post from last August will give you some idea of how much hope you can hold on to about getting those books quickly.
Yeah I've realized that quick is not a term to be used here! This is like old school eq1 grinding at its worst, boring and mind numbing as heck, and just for BOOKS! I'm still doing Permafrost and Obelisk, I Have one book left in Perma and both my husband and I have gone back separatly several times on different characters, we have been camping the grey con because there's so many chests and it really slows it down when you camp green plus it doesn't drop any faster it seems.. I've just come to listen to audio books or podcasts while I mindlessly kill giant after giant, if I had done it all on one character I am sure I would be destroyer of giants! Obelisk haven't done as much but the first 5 dropped pretty quick, I still have 4 to go that are harder to get so far.. knowing my luck I will end up with 1 left that will be harder to get then all the others. Same thing happened in cazic it took about a week to get the last book. I really wish this was altered .. it's a pretty minor change I would think for a dev to fix, (but of course not many people would care enough to raise a stink about it..) even if they increased the drop rate times 10 they still wouldn't overrun people with books, who even camps those zones anyway that would get annoyed with books dropping? If it was 1/100 instead of 1/1000 or 1/500 that would still be more reasonable and you could get the books in a few hours of solid grinding, not several DAYS of solid grinding. edit: for the record I am missing "age of monuments" if anyone has the BOOK for sale on antonia bayle I'll buy it! I know the starter is no trade but it looks like the book is tradeable, I'm not worried about quest count on my character I just want the completed books in my library eventually.
So here I am almost a year later having the exact same problem. I hate to necro an old thread but this is exactly the problem I am having. Some people put value on raiding, others on social aspects of game, some on achievements, but me.. I have been trying to collect all the books off and on since I started playing 7 years ago. Given this hasn't been a full time endeavor, but I have sunk more hours into it than I care to think about. Over the past few days I spent on average 3-8 hours per book in Temple of Cazic Thule.. and this is of course what was mentioned, just trying to find the quest starters. After a nearly 18 hour marathon I still haven't found the last book. I had the exact same experience in Varsoon a few days ago and same in Permafrost before that. This isn't end game gear or flashy game breaking items we are after, its books. For those of us who value the lore of EQ and enjoy having a piece of it of our own these books are a wonderful addition to the game, but it seems like whoever designed the drop table for them didn't want anyone to ever actually find them. Please take a look at this issue. It may not affect a majority of the game's audience but it does have a huge effect on some of us who have wasted time beyond imagining trying to capture what has amounted to nothing short of Ahab's white whale. --------------------------- 5 Minutes after Post and 18 hours after start of search -- Found "The Amygamalion - The Four That Are We" in Sanctum of Fear for anyone stuck on that one.
