A Big Ol' Crumbling Map Thread

[DodoBot]

A couple weeks after my thread about adding the Vah sword to crumbling maps was posted, another crumbling map thread popped up - this time asking for tomes to be added as an incentive to do these maps. Thinking back, crumbling maps have always been "iffy loot if you have absolutely nothing better to do," and a quick search of the forums revealed years of periodic comments in the same vein.

Despite this, I think they could be a nice stopgap for raids on target-poor nights, and they offer a chance for some developer experimentation. As the issue isn't new, I thought I'd recap the most common complaints (and suggestions to fix them) here...

What's Bad:

• Difficulty for its odd place in progression - Tier wise, these things seem to sit right on top of the tier of some highly accessible and farmed zones. Why deal with the difficulty of the maps and hassle of moving each encounter, when easier zones (Valor, Prison, Rust, etc) are just a port away?
  
• Poor Loot Itemization -The loot tables on these things are all over the place. Some of the clickies are fantastic, and there are a few really unique and cool items (mez pole anyone?), but there are also some bad items as well and not a lot of consistency...
• No Non-loot reasons to go - Crumbling maps offer neither the possibility for progression nor quests to bring people to them. There isn't really any lore to them, and the content seems rather uninspired compared to the cool boss mechanics people are used to seeing at that level of the game.
  
• Not Tradable (not sure if a con or not), but the people who benefit most from the loot on these don't spend a ton of time in the places where they drop. If they were made tradable, there might be a market for lower tier guilds looking to gear up, assuming they were toned down a little.

What Could be Done to Fix This:

• Reduce Mob Difficulty - The consensus seems that the maps are awfully difficult for the rewards available. Either tone down the difficulty of the mobs or perhaps tone down the number of mobs per wave...
  
• Improve Itemization - The bad items could be adjusted to put them on par with the better loot, and potentially more cool clickies could be added. Those seem to be the best items from these maps at present.
  
• Add tomes to the loot table - I like the idea of a guaranteed tome drop in lieu of cash. It was previously mentioned that this would be an ideal place to lower the bottleneck on Class 2 tomes... I don't think that a guaranteed Class 2 is a good idea, but an automatic tome drop with a chance at Class 2 would be great.
  
• Add quest items - I know Vah Sword has been brought up multiple times in the past - how about chances at Runic 1 Pieces (Spell Rune Core, Shell, and Glyphs) or random bits from the Murk and Refuge quest lines?
  • As an aside here, all other maps have quests tied to them - lower tier ones have the antiques quest, ED maps have the Vah, and any old world map can drop Halloween gems if in the right zones.
• Wildcard - Zaela had previously mentioned adding some scripts to treasure maps to spawn a boss instead of a final wave. At least from a gameplay perspective, this would certainly make these things feel more like a raid than just larger waves...

Thanks for reading!

 

[Haenir]

Would be neat to see these incorporated into Gruplok/Refuge somehow (e.g., gruplok treasure hunting quest to further upgrade the other treasure map quest pieces past Vah maps).

 

[Ludovician]

My guild back a year or two ago farmed treasure maps a lot. D Maps, VD Maps, ED Maps, all of those played a big role in our early progression.

We never ever did a Crumbling map. There's probably still some rotting in my bank. When it came down to choosing targets for the night we never got desperate enough to dip into these.

I think the Tome 2s is a great idea, because the labor that would go into rebalancing the loot for the encounter itself would likely be unappealing to the staff.

 

[Pecannius]

Reduce Mob Difficulty - The consensus seems that the maps are awfully difficult for the rewards available. Either tone down the difficulty of the mobs or perhaps tone down the number of mobs per wave...

I disagree. Our guild has been doing them for quite a while and I think the difficulty from ED > Crumbling is fair.

Improve Itemization - The bad items could be adjusted to put them on par with the better loot, and potentially more cool clickies could be added. Those seem to be the best items from these maps at present.

Eh, they're certainly some really bad pieces but I think it's fine as is.

Add tomes to the loot table - I like the idea of a guaranteed tome drop in lieu of cash. It was previously mentioned that this would be an ideal place to lower the bottleneck on Class 2 tomes... I don't think that a guaranteed Class 2 is a good idea, but an automatic tome drop with a chance at Class 2 would be great.

Yes, as said before, this makes sense.

Add quest items - I know Vah Sword has been brought up multiple times in the past - how about chances at Runic 1 Pieces (Spell Rune Core, Shell, and Glyphs) or random bits from the Murk and Refuge quest lines?

Having a chance at dropping runic pieces is probably ok but keep the % pretty low imo.

Wildcard - Zaela had previously mentioned adding some scripts to treasure maps to spawn a boss instead of a final wave. At least from a gameplay perspective, this would certainly make these things feel more like a raid than just larger waves...

A fun idea but probably tricky for balancing issues and probably not worth promoting if we realistically want to make crumbling maps into something useful.

 

[DodoBot]

Our guild has been doing them for quite a while and I think the difficulty from ED > Crumbling is fair.

Glad to hear someone chime in that's actually doing them (relatively) on tier. Any time I've done these it's either been out of boredom with vastly overtier mains and a couple alts scrubbed in, or it's been an attempt on secondary nights with undertier people and an unmitigated disaster. If you think the difficulty is as it should be, I'll differ to you on this - there are easier adjustments to be made.
On the tome thing, I think everyone agrees it's a good idea in theory. However, how would you space out the drop percentages? Make it random any rank 1 or 2? More chance at class vs regular? r1 weighted higher vs r2? or just add in the table as it is for CC, Ofgats, etc?

Having a chance at dropping runic pieces is probably ok but keep the % pretty low imo.

For Runic QPs, I would like to think would never be guaranteed, but would drop often enough that if you do maybe 4 maps you'd probably see 1 - kind of like the lower lvl treasure hunting antiques quest. As for other QPs, I'd still love to get a murk or refuge tie in here.

A fun idea but probably tricky for balancing issues and probably not worth promoting if we realistically want to make crumbling maps into something useful.

Bosses stuff - probably just a pipe dream for now. And realistically, you're right about the loot too. A rebalance of the bad items will still sap resources to do - it sounds cool, I still think it would be great, but it's about hours put into this vs elsewhere.

IMO, bottom line is, I think everybody wants some tomes on these, and runic QPs would be fairly easy to put in at a say 20-25% chance and not going to break anything.

Maybe a murk / refuge tie in would be fun. Loot or difficulty rebalances might be appealing but might eat time we don't have. Vah - well some people would love to see that - others are pretty steadfast against it for lore or balance reasons. As much as I'd love to see it change, I don't think the devs will be on board.

Bosses and custom scripting would be super awesome, but would probably require re-doing the whole system, and would probably not even make the radar pre-Ikkisith 2 / SOD 2.5...

 

[Pecannius]

On the tome thing, I think everyone agrees it's a good idea in theory. However, how would you space out the drop percentages? Make it random any rank 1 or 2? More chance at class vs regular? r1 weighted higher vs r2? or just add in the table as it is for CC, Ofgats, etc?

There's a ton of different options on how to do this. Honestly, until we hear something from the staff along the lines of "Adding tomes to crumbling maps is a good idea, we might do this" there's no point in discussing the intricacies of how this would work.

 

[Silosobi]

100% chance for tome 1s
50% chance for tome 2s
50% chance for class 2

That alone would make them worth doing. Right now I see people (regularly) snipe the class tome 2 6man mobs with 2-3 people two boxing, because its an easy way to make $. I really don't think that is the intended way for things to go, but short of making class tomes no drop it wont change. Adding a new route for these to enter the game reduces the market control the people locking down CC/Ofgats have. And IMO the prices for tome1/2s is really high as well. Back in my day, we used our exp in COPs, and $ on charms, and by the time you got through COPs, you got enough tomes from groups that you hardly had to buy any. I talk to people now with a 100-200k charm, who spent 200k+ on tomes. They do help the server economy, but they really hurt up and coming players ability to get charms, which in the long run are a bottleneck for doing harder content.

Nobody (or at least it would be very rare) that anyone tries to farm crumbling maps for cash. Guilds will do the ones they have banked, and give the tomes to people who need them. Maybe rot stuff gets sold, but the cool thing here is that the same people who might want to do crumbling maps to begin with are the ones that will want/need to actually use these tomes, instead of using them to buy their alt's supreme.

 

[Daffie]

100% chance for tome 1s
50% chance for tome 2s
50% chance for class 2

That alone would make them worth doing. Right now I see people (regularly) snipe the class tome 2 6man mobs with 2-3 people two boxing, because its an easy way to make $. I really don't think that is the intended way for things to go, but short of making class tomes no drop it wont change. Adding a new route for these to enter the game reduces the market control the people locking down CC/Ofgats have. And IMO the prices for tome1/2s is really high as well. Back in my day, we used our exp in COPs, and $ on charms, and by the time you got through COPs, you got enough tomes from groups that you hardly had to buy any. I talk to people now with a 100-200k charm, who spent 200k+ on tomes. They do help the server economy, but they really hurt up and coming players ability to get charms, which in the long run are a bottleneck for doing harder content.

Nobody (or at least it would be very rare) that anyone tries to farm crumbling maps for cash. Guilds will do the ones they have banked, and give the tomes to people who need them. Maybe rot stuff gets sold, but the cool thing here is that the same people who might want to do crumbling maps to begin with are the ones that will want/need to actually use these tomes, instead of using them to buy their alt's supreme.

I love the cop changes personally.

I also think adding tome 2s and class tome 2s to crumbling would be a boon. It's not nearly as tough to get tome 2s as it was, but class tome 2s are either refuge token or pay the outrageous prices to the same 3 dudes who have the droppers on lock down.

The first useful shaman tome 2 I've seen in forever was canni, and dudes wanted 30k... I haven't seen the maul tome 2 yet...

 

[Silosobi]

Don't get me wrong, I 100% think the COP change was needed and a really good thing, an (unintended?) consequence is that newer players have to spend tons of money on tomes in order to have things to put exp into. The old system gave you a huge exp sink for very little cost, so it was easier to save for charms.

Giving on-tier players another avenue to get their tomes, while encouraging content that is already in game seems like a win-win to me.

 

[Pecannius]

My first thought was that class 2s in crumblings would be kinda too strong compared to the difficulty. But taking into consideration:

I talk to people now with a 100-200k charm, who spent 200k+ on tomes.

and that currently crumblings have extremely little incentive to do and are actually quite rare and there's no way to reliably farm them up easily, I'd say it sounds ok.

 

[Swiftur]

I always saw gear from crumbling maps being intended to be a step above ED maps, but looking at the table anyone can clearly see someone goofed on some of these items... My proposed changes:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Brigandine_of_Brawn Websters defines Brawn as: "Physical strength in contrast to intelligence." Not... I'm an alcoholic and need some water. Lets make that applicable shall we? No reason not to keep the percussion mod on there, only 1 class benefits from it and that class also could use the INT so its balanced. As for Yaulp IV clicky, there is an item from D maps (http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Krovexx's_Sparkling_Belt) that already has clicky Yaulp II. lets continue the trend. useful but not OP.

Brigandine of Brawn
[MAGIC ITEM] [LORE ITEM] [NO DROP]
Slot: Chest
AC: 44
Instrument Modifier: Percussion Instruments (2.1)
Effect: Yaulp IV (Must Wear Clicky, 2.0)
STR: +30 STA: +15 AGI: +15 DEX: +15 INT: -25 WIS: -25 HP: +200 MANA: +125
SV FIRE: +10 SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +10
Stun Resist: +4%
WT: 10.0 Size: Large
Class: RNG MNK BRD ROG BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1 type 5: empty

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Magi's_Sharkfin_Helmet What does overcap Offense even do? Let's give this thing Double Attack +1, some more well rounded class applicable stats, and a big AC reduction and some hp/mana gain. And add Necro since this looks like it was intended to be for all pet classes.

Magi's Sharkfin Helmet
[MAGIC ITEM] [LORE ITEM] [NO DROP]
Slot: Head
AC: 33
Focus Effect: Companion Health VII
Effect: Ferocity V (Worn)
Flowing Thought: +1
Skill Mod: Double Attack +1
STR: +18 DEX: +18 INT: +18 WIS: +18 HP: +190 MANA: +175
SV DISEASE: +25 SV COLD: +25
WT: 1.4 Size: Large
Class: RNG MNK BRD ROG MAG BST NEC
Race: ALL
Slot 1 type 5: empty

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Adversity This item... I've never actually even seen anyone use this item because it's so bad, and not only because the proc can and usually does nuke the user many many times but also because it's stats SUCK. A T9+ 2 hander with no AC, 100hp and negative resists lolwut? The ratio is fine, people can gripe about the use of high delay weapons but I see plenty of people running around with Spirit Harvest and Brainsucker so it's not a big deal. Below is my recommendation to bring this item more in line with the 2handers of it's "tier". My thoughts are this should be slightly worse than Divus but not that much so.

Adversity
[MAGIC ITEM] [LORE ITEM] [NO DROP]
Slot: Primary
Skill: 2H Slashing Atk Delay: 68
DMG: 111 AC: 20
Fire DMG: 5
Effect: Scintillation (Melee Proc, 5.5%)
STR: +30 STA: +30 WIS: +20 INT: +20 HP: +250 MANA: +180
SV FIRE: +20 SV COLD: +20
WT: 2.2 Size: Medium
Class: WAR PAL RNG SHD
Race: ALL

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Crystal_Cactus_Pod I don't even know what do say about this item. If it were up to me I'd completely get rid of it, just wipe it from the table. Does anyone even know what the produce clicky on this item makes? I couldn't find it listed on the wiki.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Dannisin's_Discarded_Galoshes I like where the Devs were going with this item, but how the fook did Dannisin's shoes get to Ikisith? Anyway, item is good, needs better proc. I recommend Plague Shock http://spells.shardsofdalaya.com/search_spells/detail?spell_id=3429 w/ the same proc rate. It fits the item lore and is more useful than gimmicky.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Wax_Deathmask Honestly this item isn't terrible. Add priests and casters and it could be well utilized. Maybe give it a low impact focus effect like Mana or Reagent Con 7. Other than that it's ntb.

The following list are the items which I feel are in a good place and don't need any changes except the minor/flare things noted:
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Taldorian-skin_Jacket (Targetable clicky "Illusion: Taldorian" for neat flare that gets use after item is replaced)
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Flowing_Black_Silk_Sleeves (Honestly this item is amazing...)
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Ja-ed_T%27al,_Storm_of_Sand (This one is pretty darn good too, my only gripe is the over-utilized Scythe graphic/icon)
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Ancient_Buckles_of_the_Forbidden
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Shelter_of_Sugilite
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Pole_of_Puccalo
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Wicked_Rapier_of_Agony (Add "Magic" item tag for undead use (if that's still a thing)

To close up, yes please add tome drop chances to the maps. runic pieces ehhh.. they're not hard to farm in exp groups anyways, can take it or leave it.

 

[Pecannius]

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Adversity This item... I've never actually even seen anyone use this item because it's so bad, and not only because the proc can and usually does nuke the user many many times but also because it's stats SUCK.

Before the nerf to weapons not proccing on ripostes, this was actually the best AE farming weapon for killing low level stuff (pre spirit harvest obviously). Those rains used to really make AE pulls fun and synergized well with ogre warriors and the bloodlust skill. But yea, now I agree it sucks. This is one of those items that suffered too much from the riposte proc nerfs to be useful at all.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Crystal_Cactus_Pod I don't even know what do say about this item. If it were up to me I'd completely get rid of it, just wipe it from the table. Does anyone even know what the produce clicky on this item makes? I couldn't find it listed on the wiki.

This is theoretically one of the best crumbling drops. Summons instantly (not 30 seconds) a 20ac/20MR drink. The stats however do NOT show up in the client, so it probably doesn't work at all. But theoretically pretty cool.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Dannisin's_Discarded_Galoshes I like where the Devs were going with this item, but how the fook did Dannisin's shoes get to Ikisith? Anyway, item is good, needs better proc. I recommend Plague Shock http://spells.shardsofdalaya.com/search_spells/detail?spell_id=3429 w/ the same proc rate. It fits the item lore and is more useful than gimmicky.

I always thought this was just a troll item. The ability to spread rotting plague to any raid.... I'm pretty sure we deleted these instantly when we saw them.

There's (at least) 1 item you missed on the loot table but honestly it's rare enough that it doesn't matter too much.

 

[AngryCow]

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Crystal_Cactus_Pod I don't even know what do say about this item. If it were up to me I'd completely get rid of it, just wipe it from the table. Does anyone even know what the produce clicky on this item makes? I couldn't find it listed on the wiki.

This is one of the best items on the loot table IMO. it summons a low duration drink that gives you +25MR and is listed as giving extra AC as well (like 20? mebe), but its unclear if the listed AC actually adds in or not.

 

[Swiftur]

This is one of the best items on the loot table IMO. it summons a low duration drink that gives you +25MR and is listed as giving extra AC as well (like 20? mebe), but its unclear if the listed AC actually adds in or not.

Ahh ok, still... being regarded as "the best item on the loot table" because of a drink summon clicky... gross. +25MR is cool i guess. As for the AC, AC from foods has been confirmed by several people to not work.

 

[Swiftur]

Before the nerf to weapons not proccing on ripostes, this was actually the best AE farming weapon for killing low level stuff (pre spirit harvest obviously). Those rains used to really make AE pulls fun and synergized well with ogre warriors and the bloodlust skill. But yea, now I agree it sucks. This is one of those items that suffered too much from the riposte proc nerfs to be useful at all.

Aye this definitely needs improved. I never saw it used before the riposte changes but I can definitely understands its use there. Players still had to be nuking themselves like crazy though?

There's (at least) 1 item you missed on the loot table but honestly it's rare enough that it doesn't matter too much.

Possibly, I used the wiki as my info source so some things might not be on there. I did intentionally leave out the deck of cards.

 

[Swiftur]

having looked at the ED map items again i buffed the bp and hat a little more. I had made it worse than Circlet of the Fused from ED maps heh. The chain bp is interesting because there are no other BPs to compare it to in the map lineup so i most closely relate it to Anos Chestguard of Stealth, and feel it should be better than that.

 

[Faylahs]

Ahh ok, still... being regarded as "the best item on the loot table" because of a drink summon clicky... gross. +25MR is cool i guess. As for the AC, AC from foods has been confirmed by several people to not work.

i remember asking about this in ooc and one of the GM/Devs said that food ac works but doesn't show client side. i dont know if this is still "true" however.

 

[Swiftur]

i remember asking about this in ooc and one of the GM/Devs said that food ac works but doesn't show client side. i dont know if this is still "true" however.

Maybe a staff member/dev can chime in to this subject... @Taryth maybe? /wink

 

[Swiftur]

Bump. I'm surprised more people aren't interested in talking about this subject. It would be a nice and simple change as well as give reason to do all those maps we all have banked.

 

[DodoBot]

It's cause everyone's hyped about rumors of incoming finished Marza content! (WOOT!)