Adepts - Revisiting the 72 hour respawn

[Salarus]

Loot on the lower ones could probably use a look at. But more so the droppables out of Ikisith probably need a looking at >_<.

This, a thousand times. I've been selling iksith loot that is easily t4-5, and with everyone killing these zones, there are many of these items and the prices are being driven down (i'm looking at you BQ.)

Honestly, I like the idea that I can farm almost as much money in a good BQ group with some friends as I could just duoing by myself - so maybe it would be a good idea to simply put the vendor prices high up.


In terms of adepts, I used to love killing these. I recnetly rolled an alt simply to finally get around to killing nalia since she wasn't in the game when I was hitting every adept on the way to 65. I do, however, think the loot should be looked at for the pre 55 adepts. While some choice pices are nice, I really think adept loot should be well above the tier of the adept as a little bonus for finding one up, or locking to kill it. Most of these items will still be lackluster at level 65 anyways, but they would definatly help in the leveling process.

 

[Rorne]

Why do they lock there? Is it because the loot off of them is useful going forward? Is it just a mini game? Are the fights that fun? I don't know but would certainly like too.

Easier to be the big fish in a smaller pond.

 

[Moraelintz]

There is a lot of content available that is fun and challenging and rewarding all at the same time. Also a lot easier to find groups when you are the big fish in the little pond.

 

[darksabbath]

Jarl, I'll give you a hint, I am no where near top notch. I can't play 24/7 to be that way. And I am ok with that. But I keep plugging away. I am blessed to have an awesome guild, willign to help out and do stuff with.
By your logic, the 55-57 adepts should drop any 61+ spell, and maybe even eldritch scrolls also. Then they can stay locked at 55 until they get all the spells they need, plenty of cash to buy the best gear the adepts don't give you, a big charm, and have no reason to do any mob of say, Tier 5 or less. That will be great for player retention, as they jump into the middle of the raid field, and get their a$$es handed to them, because they haven't learned the various tactics involved in beating those lower tier bosses.
And when I first met Dragov, he was a level 51 with about 30 aa's, slaying Lasanth non-stop. He finally headed to 55, and started tradeskilling around then. I heard he wanted to be the first 55 with his 1.2mil charm, lol.

Cyzaine: The answer to you million dollar question, why do people lock at 55 and do aa's, and kill those adepts? It is a simple answer really. There is a large number of zones a 55 can get exp at, that the old zone modifier means little. Most of those places, give decent cash drops, or drop items that sell to tradeskillers for good cash. So, it becomes an easy level to earn good quantities of cash, to buy decent gear/charms, and to get lots of aa's. So that way, when a person decides to level up, they can get to 65 easy, and then pop into the raid game with all the earned aa's. Or, at the very least, it is easier to get in good level 65 groups.

 

[vistachiri]

pretty much, at 55 or 57 gear that makes you a god for your level is pretty much dog shit at 65. Imeriaz for example was pretty much a minor deity in level appropriate zones at 57, pulling it much like I pulled harthuks at 65. All at once and all of them. Pretty dammed good xp when all of the mutants are dblue at that point. Also the amount of mod maps they dropped when I was doing that was pretty hilarious.

Reasoning for staying at that level? What's so hard to understand? Here are the most common current reasons.

A) Never did that particular stuff on the way up
B) Twinks: Crushing old content is fun for most of the people I've met on this server, that is a considerable amount of people.

Very rarely is it about the loot, since said loot usually sucks (there are exceptions, the occasional monk who wants a sensei's gift for example). Of the original killing crew of the pounders (who were also of course beating the hell out of traekoth), well over half of us were thaz level and up on mains, most of the rest were just transitory people who happened to be at the right level at the right time. Most of us also did not need the loot.

Another motivation that was completely removed (along with the fun that went with it), and is irrelevant but for anecdotal purposes were people who made twinks to get a particular clicky they missed on the way up because it wasn't in, they didn't know about it, etc that there were no real replacements for. That was a biggie.

Were the fights fun? Not particularly so, don't get me wrong they were alright. More fun was doing them halfassed in ways that would seal an appropriately geared raid's fate.

 

[Otcho]

Now that we're past that, my thoughts.

The logs over the last seven days show that not even the choice adepts with good clickys haven't been killed, aside from the 55-57 ones. It's wouldn't appear that respawn time is the big stopping point. Checking on snowskin in particular, since June, I can only confirm 6 kills.

Thus I don't think dropping the spawn rate of adepts below 55 will make much of a difference. The reason people are doing the 55 block, I think, is because of the 'lock culture' mentioned before. I don't personally see anything wrong with this. If people have fun doing that more power to them.

Why do they lock there? Is it because the loot off of them is useful going forward? Is it just a mini game? Are the fights that fun? I don't know but would certainly like too.

Loot on the lower ones could probably use a look at. But more so the droppables out of Ikisith probably need a looking at >_<.

Most of this has probably been said but most classes have certain routes to farm monstrous amounts of aa at 50-56 with or without the assistance of a higher level character, the characters give a purpose to excess loot players cant sell (see: half the shit from kaesora/whatever that completely flooded the market, and all the fabulous rec 55 items).

Alot of the lower adepts are definitely significantly harder on players than the 57 ones, Windhag, maggot corpse can be ridiculously hard if your not twinked out and unprepared to deal with the adds. The one in mielech b is a nightmare to get to and apparently a nightmare to kill, I haven't ever attempted it because I am afraid I would kill myself trying to lead a newbie raid down there, especially with the white level 54~ wizard mobs creeping around.


Snowskin of course is not going to be killed, hes hard and his main attraction is the doll which has been nerfed and the rules were adjusted to forbid bringing higher levels for the doll. The dolls mega good for everyone but really the effort involved is not worth it for most people. If you were serious about a new tank/monk maybe you would go for it. I might be forgetting but the only other pro clickies were the flitter dust which is basically a jerk item for red name players and the belt from the griffon which is basically for antisocial labyrinth campers who don't have a druid.

Also its alot easier to be awesome at 55 than it is at 65.
Also Also Where did all the serious business bards who went apeshit over that dragonskin drum go to??

 

[darksabbath]

phrog leads raids (see open raid section) with his mage alt to kill LCR in mielech. If the adds are killed off by a higher level toon, he's not nearly as difficult. Though, the info on the wiki for him is old.
I have the doll from Snowskin on my druid adept killer alt, that thing is very nice still.

 

[Renshu]

People should be able to buy adept loot that they missed with fame points.

 

[JarL]

Jarl, I'll give you a hint, I am no where near top notch. I can't play 24/7 to be that way. And I am ok with that. But I keep plugging away. I am blessed to have an awesome guild, willign to help out and do stuff with.
By your logic, the 55-57 adepts should drop any 61+ spell, and maybe even eldritch scrolls also. Then they can stay locked at 55 until they get all the spells they need, plenty of cash to buy the best gear the adepts don't give you, a big charm, and have no reason to do any mob of say, Tier 5 or less. That will be great for player retention, as they jump into the middle of the raid field, and get their a$$es handed to them, because they haven't learned the various tactics involved in beating those lower tier bosses.
And when I first met Dragov, he was a level 51 with about 30 aa's, slaying Lasanth non-stop. He finally headed to 55, and started tradeskilling around then. I heard he wanted to be the first 55 with his 1.2mil charm, lol.

What? This has nothing to do with being top notch. It has to do with encouraging players to venture to 65 and ultimately continue playing the game. I said nothing about adepts dropping Relics... so please don't put words in my mouth. Ancients aren't game breaking and with a low drop rate you wouldn't see many of them anyway. Ancients were a big deal when only Relics existed. Now you have Runics, Archaics, and Ikisith spells. There is no reason for ancients to remain a road block for new players. There is no reason that a fresh 65 should feel overwhelmed.

Sure you have a guild, but not everyone wants to raid. Not everyone can find a guild either. Like this poor sap that has since quit the game: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=21629

Neither character even made it to 65 yet if you look at another thread of his "goals" you can tell he really wanted to enjoy the 65 content. I hate seeing this happen to players and it is far too common here.

http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=21599

I've met 30+ people over my last 3 years here that fall in this same category. They love the game, love it up to 65, and then are just overwhelmed and frustrated by the lack of entry level content.

 

[Loxo]

Could all adept loot from 1-51 be adjusted to fall in at t1 gear? Something between the warpmetal/ghostmetal/exq. silk/VE-Mod tmap gear we might expect a fresh 60-65 to be wearing and the shadowsilk/deepmetal/t3+ gear they will eventually replace it with.

Levels 1-55 go so fast, and there is such a glut of t2+ items available for twinks from level 1+, that this would not overpower anyone's character any more than is already commonplace.

Any adept under Nalia is still normally a many-hour endeavor just to find enough people, even with adept difficulty being adjusted to 12 characters from 18. Then comes the feat of organizing and delivering.

At the end of all that having a chance to roll on an item that could last to 64/65 seems a more appropriate award for a successful adept slaying.

 

[JarL]

Agreed Loxo. Players need to be awarded for taking the time to kill adepts. Especially since the content quickly is unavailable.

 

[Thade]

Neither character even made it to 65 yet if you look at another thread of his "goals" you can tell he really wanted to enjoy the 65 content. I hate seeing this happen to players and it is far too common here.

He didn't quit on my advice he rerolled a ranger.

 

[neonovas]

I've met 30+ people over my last 3 years here that fall in this same category. They love the game, love it up to 65, and then are just overwhelmed and frustrated by the lack of entry level content.

There is hardly a lack of entry level content, there might be a lack of people doing it, but the content is there.

Could all adept loot from 1-51 be adjusted to fall in at t1 gear? Something between the warpmetal/ghostmetal/exq. silk/VE-Mod tmap gear we might expect a fresh 60-65 to be wearing and the shadowsilk/deepmetal/t3+ gear they will eventually replace it with.

Levels 1-55 go so fast, and there is such a glut of t2+ items available for twinks from level 1+, that this would not overpower anyone's character any more than is already commonplace.

could make the items "rec level" so they gain some stats and would continue to be "pretty good" as you leveled.
edit: i dont think you get the focus effect until you meet the rec level though? So that would kinda suck since thats the good part of most items.

 

[JarL]

There is hardly a lack of entry level content, there might be a lack of people doing it, but the content is there..

There really isn't. Unless you are misunderstand what I mean by "content". Cmal would be amazing if the drops were reworked into a token system, but that is really the only entry level content that exists for players aside from spamming tmaps. Players need more options.

could make the items "rec level" so they gain some stats and would continue to be "pretty good" as you leveled.

That is a REALLY good idea.

 

[Otcho]

Could all adept loot from 1-51 be adjusted to fall in at t1 gear? Something between the warpmetal/ghostmetal/exq. silk/VE-Mod tmap gear we might expect a fresh 60-65 to be wearing and the shadowsilk/deepmetal/t3+ gear they will eventually replace it with.

Levels 1-55 go so fast, and there is such a glut of t2+ items available for twinks from level 1+, that this would not overpower anyone's character any more than is already commonplace.

Any adept under Nalia is still normally a many-hour endeavor just to find enough people, even with adept difficulty being adjusted to 12 characters from 18. Then comes the feat of organizing and delivering.

At the end of all that having a chance to roll on an item that could last to 64/65 seems a more appropriate award for a successful adept slaying.

You are dreamy and so are your posts.

 

[Mr_V_Light]

Could all adept loot from 1-51 be adjusted to fall in at t1 gear? Something between the warpmetal/ghostmetal/exq. silk/VE-Mod tmap gear we might expect a fresh 60-65 to be wearing and the shadowsilk/deepmetal/t3+ gear they will eventually replace it with.

Levels 1-55 go so fast, and there is such a glut of t2+ items available for twinks from level 1+, that this would not overpower anyone's character any more than is already commonplace.

Any adept under Nalia is still normally a many-hour endeavor just to find enough people, even with adept difficulty being adjusted to 12 characters from 18. Then comes the feat of organizing and delivering.

At the end of all that having a chance to roll on an item that could last to 64/65 seems a more appropriate award for a successful adept slaying.

i'm trying to think of a phrase that means i agree with you more than "i couldn't agree with you more"

 

[Budizzle]

Why does it bother me? Well...

This happens EVERY YEAR. Since before either of us started playing, and will likely continue until the last dev or player gets sick of this server and leaves.

Every summer, there is an influx of new players, and an exodus of old players. Donations drop all around. By fall, some of the old players return, and some of the new players quit. General equilibrium is maintained, but the donations haven't quite yet. The built up money from the first quarter of the year begins to dwindle, so we put out a call for more donations. We get a nice out pouring which sees us through til next summer. The cycle then repeats.

A cursory glance at the donation list, doesn't show any correlation between tier and money given. And most important we do NOT make decisions about content based on donations. Where in the world did you ever read such a thing?! Let me squelch that one right now.

The lack of 6 man encounters is because 6 man encounters are as a rule, unfair towards certain classes. The lack of entry 65 content is due to most people skipping it.

So no. I don't appreciate attempts at being strong armed into content change with the misguided idea that it will somehow improve donations. People donate because they enjoy the game and (more important) HAVE money to donate. People stop donating primarily because they can no longer afford too or they quit the game. Will adept changes help either of those? No, at least not measurably. Will they make the game better? Maybe. But if you don't think your idea is strong enough to stand without throwing in 'people will donate more!' than I wouldn't suggest bringing it up.

You're being stubborn.

The quip about donations bothers me as well, but the central idea is not without merit despite the fact that it's just an undertone in the OP.

Why does this happen every year? It's frustrating that you're actually content with such an extreme fluctuation in the playerbase on an annual record. Disregarding donations, there is absolutely plenty of ways to make this game more appealing for people who are not among the elite without "selling out." I'm sure anything implemented in that vein would have a drastic effect on the "equilibrium" throughout the entire year... if not a consistent influx of new, lasting players.

You're blind if you honestly don't think the low end (even before 65 and AAs) needs an overhaul of interesting and rewarding cooperative content. Shards of Dalaya's pride is its ability to maintain a social atmosphere, but that atmosphere honestly doesn't become very "fun" until raiding, which doesn't exist at all before 65 outside of adepts. And at this point, most adepts are just a piece of novelty for high end alts.

The question I pose is two fold: (a) How many players actually quit the game before they even reach 65 or make a serious dent in any of the tiers after?; (b) Why?

The implication I've inherently embedded in that question is not without reasonable solutions.

 

[jew_nose_it]

He didn't quit on my trolling he rerolled a ranger.

Wow what is his ranger's name, I'll try to help him out.

also budrick, people have other things to do in the summer than sit inside all day and play SoD. This summer I was not one of those people, last summer I quit Dota completely and played a ton of tennis and got a girlfriend. Idk maybe ppl go fishing and shit.

 

[Thade]

Wow what is his ranger's name, I'll try to help him out.

also budrick, people have other things to do in the summer than sit inside all day and play SoD. This summer I was not one of those people, last summer I quit Dota completely and played a ton of tennis and got a girlfriend. Idk maybe ppl go fishing and shit.

First off I Wasn't even trolling. He wanted to know how shaman soloing was, so I told him. He wanted to know what to play so he could solo effectively and still raid. I told him ranger or bard and he didn't want to play a bard. He told me he was going to roll a ranger and would be messaging me within a few days and I never heard back.

 

[Boehm]

I enjoyed the war events when I was a new 65. I would still attend if I had more time to play.