MQ Improvement Suggestion #1 > CoI > Goblin Scout Beads

boegany

Dalayan Beginner
Hello, I am going to start with a bit of an introduction because this is my first post here. I am not sure how active the developers are these days as I know this game has been around for a long time. I recently returned to this game for nostalgic reasons and I am glad it is still around. I'm really enjoying the seasonal content and think it is an excellent addition. It has been good fun encountering red ghosts in blessed zones.

I want to help improve however I can. If we effectively collaborate, I will be happy to continue posting my thoughts as I progress through the world of Dalaya.
I am working on the Main Quest and I am up to the point where I have chosen Council of Innovation. All prior stages of this quest line have been entertaining, engaging, and spot on. However, I am now encountering some rough patches and would like to share what they are as an opportunity for possible improvements.

Goblin Scout Beads: Junior Researcher Thurkin needs us to clear out the scouts in the forest before they report back to the king! He wants 10 goblin scout beads as proof of their demise. We charge out to the forrest and clear all the goblins. There were about 10-15 of them and only 1 bead dropped. It became clear that we are going to have to wait for several respawns to complete the quest for one of us. As all members of a group need to collect 10, I think this stage would be much more enjoyable if the drop rate was in the range of 90-100%. It feels like it is around 10%.

Please let me know what you think. I will be doing the other factions with alternate characters in the future and let you know my thoughts there as well.

Thank you,
Owlron - High Elf, Enchanter
Madai - Wood Elf, Bard
 
I know they've re-done some of the drop rates for MQ stuff recently so it's certainly possible this could be looked at if it wasn't already. For example, there's now something like 4 or 5 times as many corrupted centaurs in South Badlands for collecting their manes for Silver Crown. And the Tarxan Beaks were increased to 100% drop rate too. On the other hand, the Silver Crown Soldier Badges still seem to have about the same drop rate as those goblin scout beads.
 
I think all the heartlands drops could use some uptuning. My seasonal shaman went blackscale and both the above mentioned goblin scout beads and also drops from the heartlands spiders were low and inconsistent. What especially irked me is that there are two types of spiders, silkspinners and lurkers. Silkspinners spawned disproportionately more frequently than lurkers, and also dropped carapaces at a much higher rate, yet the faction quest requires two sets of two for a turn in. Maybe a small sample size but Lurker spawn rate should turn up and lurker carapace drop should turn up as well imo.

would also like to say generally -running the risk of a derail here- that the chain quest design of having to massacre hundreds of low effort mobs to get the 20/40/60 drops across various faction quests is just unfun. Would be nice if there was a raid type boss mechanic where a boss dropped x number of heads/tokens a raid could loot to advance in rank with certain factions more quickly. Even if it was just say 50% of faction value so you skip half or 60% of the quests. Thematically, it's interesting to me that these factions have x number of rote gathering tasks (for the most part) but don't have high priority targets you could instead kill to prove your mettle quickly at a certain rank. Maybe tinkering with the main quest is off limits but it's food for thought.
 
Goblin Scout Beads: Junior Researcher Thurkin needs us to clear out the scouts in the forest before they report back to the king! He wants 10 goblin scout beads as proof of their demise. We charge out to the forrest and clear all the goblins. There were about 10-15 of them and only 1 bead dropped. It became clear that we are going to have to wait for several respawns to complete the quest for one of us. As all members of a group need to collect 10, I think this stage would be much more enjoyable if the drop rate was in the range of 90-100%. It feels like it is around 10%.
What especially irked me is that there are two types of spiders, silkspinners and lurkers. Silkspinners spawned disproportionately more frequently than lurkers, and also dropped carapaces at a much higher rate, yet the faction quest requires two sets of two for a turn in.
Consider these drop rates buffed next patch!
 
COI , Blackscale , Silvercrown I am going to try again and post it here rather than make a new thread but many years ago I suggested these be removed from the pre requisite to go further into refuge factioning and further mainquesting via brother Kromtash. It is a large reason many long term players just do not want to make new characters having to slog through this process everytime and at some point the players that play for an extended amount of time will just go back and do these trivial killing gathering quests to obtain max faction aug will still do so but it should be at their leisure and not forced. It would be a good thing to discuss amongst the new staff and overall a good thing for the server for us long term players making newer toons to join leveling up with newer players outside of seasonal events. The game loses nothing by doing this change but gains a great deal of potential interaction of old and new players.
 
COI , Blackscale , Silvercrown I am going to try again and post it here rather than make a new thread but many years ago I suggested these be removed from the pre requisite to go further into refuge factioning and further mainquesting via brother Kromtash. It is a large reason many long term players just do not want to make new characters having to slog through this process everytime and at some point the players that play for an extended amount of time will just go back and do these trivial killing gathering quests to obtain max faction aug will still do so but it should be at their leisure and not forced. It would be a good thing to discuss amongst the new staff and overall a good thing for the server for us long term players making newer toons to join leveling up with newer players outside of seasonal events. The game loses nothing by doing this change but gains a great deal of potential interaction of old and new players.
One thing to remember, the "forced" feeling was the requirement to have this quest progressed in order to translate class tomes. This is no longer the case with class tomes being converted to AAs. I doubt players are not making characters because of this, especially in light of the recent improvements to these quests.
 
None of my guild has ever said man I wish I could get to class tomes quicker over nearly 11 years, although many have said how they despise having to redo coi blackscale or silvercrown just to progress mainquest and access runic spells. Surely it has come up in other guilds chat. One solution Ishlana has discussed in the past with me and the guild is that players should get a token or perhaps something that can be sent to a new character that shares an email much like you guys have done with seasons rewards that allows a free pass into refuge questing and beyond once you have done one of these coi blackscale or silvercrown to max aug/faction status at least one time. changing mainquest is probably harder but surely there must be a common ground in between to lessen the gap between new players and old like a /rewardsend token.
 
Consider these drop rates buffed next patch!
Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts on this and I really appreciate the interaction of devs here. You guys are awesome. I am personally really enjoying the MQ and I just finished the undercaverns step. I needed to recruit my guild for help as I play an enchanter and the stalker double pull was getting me killed due to their immunity of charm, mez, and root on top of their counter spell. Once the cavalry arrived, we had no problem overcoming the task and the drop rates there are all very reasonable for a dungeon crawl. I also really appreciated that the boss mob drops 3 copies of the Prototype Codex II. Well done!
 
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