Champion Spawns

[Liam]

I know this might not go over well with the more wealthy players on the shard, but I believe with the uptrend to our player base it is time to give serious consideration to either 1) increasing the number of champ spawns or 2) reducing the respawn rate.

The one thing that players (crafter and warriors alike) want and need are Power Scrolls. For new players it takes a very long time now to get enough money to buy the better ps. As things stand it is very difficult to get what you need because of the long trek to the champs and the no mark in Felucca situation. If a player is able to do a champ if becomes frustrating to constantly have to check in on them and see if you get lucky and it's running.

I understand that this will reduce the price on PS in general and I am not asking for a huge increase, but I do think if we don't adjust soon, you are going to see some people getting really ticked and confrontations will happen.

This shard is growing and we do want to keep that up..frustrating players isn't the way to maintain a friendly growing player base.

I would appreciate replies on either side.

Liam

[Harabakc]

On average let's say... 6 of them spawn every 6 hours(yes there are more in total but not all of them have 6 hour respawns). With the current situation the way it is the 2 MOAs will drop 2 scrolls per person(I think at one time or another I may have been able to milk 3 solo out of MOA but I don't know if that's how it current is, or is common). The others will drop 6. I'm going to speculate that none of these 6 stay up for more then 2 hours. So let's speculate that in a given 32 hour time frame(4 spawns x (6 hour respawn + 2 hour up time)) 96 powerscrolls (4 spawns x 6 scrolls each spawn x 4 respawns in 32 hours) enter the economy, these are all non-crafting scrolls. If both MOAs are solo'd in the same time period 16 crafting powerscrolls (2 spawns x 2 scrolls x 4 respawns) enter the economy in a 32 hour time period.

Now since we're in real numbers we'll make adjustments as to what is actually happening. I would expect the easy MOA and Baracoon to stay perma-killed on respawn, they probably don't stay up more then an hour, the harder to reach one probably stays up for long periods of time. I suspect Neria is only done twice a day, and some of the other slightly harder to reach ones are only done once a day because people won't walk there.

There was a lack of powerscrolls when I was first starting too, because people only killed the easy ones and never did the farther out/slightly more difficult ones(and like 14 of us all started at once, which is sort of similar to things now with the large influx of people). I stay out of the powerscroll market, I have a supply that I sell on the cheap occasionally when I feel like helping someone. I usually am on the cheap side of the market, but some people really do have some nutso prices. If people don't pay the crazy high prices that will do more to lower the market price then anything else.

Champs are an ok way to make money, but there are a lot better sources, and I don't mean really hard uber stuff that people expect only me or other old vets to be able to kill. I have what I have because I kill thousands of things everytime I play, I just walk around slaughtering stuff, that's how you accumulate gold and tokens. With a mediocre cu sidhe or hiryu you can wander around killing all kinds of stuff.

In any event, that's my rather lengthy theorycrafting on how it works.

[Grace]

IF weaker players want to get stronger we need the ps...IF we cant do the champs..our only option is to farm money to buy the ps we need..to just sit idle farming gold is quite boring, I for one want to improve my character..and the champ times are making that very difficult..only a small percentge are 120 that we need to max our skills..so several champs are required to get them

[Harabakc]

I've heard that argument before, and it's just not the case, you can solo farm most of the easy champs with GM most skills. The only one you may want higher is taming at 110. And all the others are done the same way too, some of them just need more then 1 person to keep the flow moving.

It's more about gear and know how then it is skill caps. You can take 3 people and kill MOA with nothing but energy vortexes, hell that's a really fast way of doing it. Hell you can take 3 people with 5 energy vortexes and do half the champs at least part of the way through.

It's more about picking the right gear and/or pets then it is anything else.

Believe it or not, I have been in your shoes. This is just like any other MMO, it's time investment above everything else. If 2 people are of equal skill the one with more time available will have a better outcome. You either stick it out through the "tough" part or give up. The difference between myself(a stick it out person) versus all of the other people that started playing the same week I did is I wanted to keep playing, they didn't(with the exception of 1, but even she doesn't play anymore). I'd wager most people that have been here for 6 months or more would agree.

Edit: It's intended to be difficult to get large numbers of 120s.

[Liam]

How difficult? I play every day for several hours. So far I have 2 120 skills, both as a result of purchase. The point I was making is not about money, time, ability, or whatever...It's simply that we have grown incredibly since I have been here (49 days) and the current champs imo are not sufficient. We have hit 5 new milestones in that short time alone.

I have been able to get a few 120s thus far killing baracoon and MOA. Nothing I needed, but to be fair yes...I have got 3 or 4 max.

I think you have stated your opinion well and I am not surprised as you are not new to the shard. After playing on dozens of shards for several years I am of a differing opinion. It will be interesting to see how others feel after they have gone to Fel dozens of times and there is no spawn to do. It will also be interesting as the competition heats up over the champs and as more people realize just how difficult it can be to get the PS you need. I expect lots of arguing. Let's hope it doesn't come to that because after all the shard is here for us to have fun, all of us.

Liam

[Zodart]

Like Hara mentions, I can guarantee you that all but maybe 4 of the spawns are active at any given time. The MOAs, Barracoon, and Neira are done often, a) because you can get to them very easily and b) they're the easiest by far to beat, thus the reason they're done so often, so quickly.

Any time I ever feel like visiting Mephitis, Frost Giant, Semidar, or even Rikktor usually, I can be all but certain of finding any of them available, and it's not really that much further to reach them once you learn the various travel shortcuts. But all of those, while maybe not maddeningly difficult (except Blood Clan, cripes) are decidedly harder to do than the easy-kill, get-scrolls champs we all know about, thus taking more time and effort to finish, thus people don't do them as often. But even so, they ARE available. Pass 'em all the time while I'm out hunting.

And to be honest, you don't need a ridiculous amount of power to take down those among the 6 basic champs. I know, I know, old player, has a lot of power already, but hear me out. After finally working up just enough power to begin taking on champs (moa first, with some effort, then Barracoon), Llexa and I worked our way up to to taking on the tougher ones, in no small part to her breeding us some decent (heck, not even really close to maxxed at that point) pets to help us take them down. The stupid things would even rebel and attack us half the time, but with practice, and time to develop our tactics, the two of us managed to two-man all but the worst of the champs. (Looking at you Doc Apocalypse and Krieger...) By developing certain select skills, even before we got many powerscrolls to surpass 100, we were beginning to do well against them, just the two of us. Discord, peace, provoke, taming, spirit speak...by learning to use these and other skills effectively, you can take down some of the less-often done champs, even without high-ticket items like druid books or full 120s on your skills, and through that get those very scrolls you seek and build up from there. You probably shouldn't expect to solo them, maybe not even two-man them immediately, but if you gather others who feel the same, you can definitely make headway. Remember, champs were never meant to be done with small groups back on the OSI shards, we just happen to have the advantage of...fewer power restrictions that let us build up higher here.

All incoherent rambling about what you can do under the current setup aside, I see where you're coming from. It'd be nice to get some more practice on the "wimpier" champs before moving on to the rough ones. Unfortunately, by their very nature of being easy, they're going to be done over and over, so lowering the spawn time might not help, whoever does them will just do them more often. Having them spawn extra places might be nice, or new ones of similar difficulty spread out here and there, but again, there are a lot of other champs out there, just admittedly not quite as easy as the farmed ones. Really, I wouldn't mind those two more recent OSI ones, Twaulo of the Glade and Ilhenir the Stained, and that one sea-based champ I suggested a ways back being added, just for a change of scenery.

Personally, the one thing I'd really like to see happen that could clear up a LOT of the problem would be the Valor virtue being active. That was what the OSI guys used to clean up the issue of "too many people, not enough champs" problem. Kill enough spawn creatures, get enough Valor to activate any inactive champ you like. While one is down, you work a bit on another to build up enough Valor to do an easier one. Unfortunately, I don't know how possible it is to add a virtue like that, so who knows if it'd show up anytime soon, if ever.

Sorry about the walls of text. I figure if I'm gonna say something, I might as well use the shotgun method and get it all out there. If you slogged through that all, hope it made some sense and sounded equitable.

[Llexa]

The other thing with scrolls is:
You can get them by doing BOD's, let's not forget And you can do those as often as you turn them in.

And another thing:

When I first started, and Zodart started soon after, it still took us months to have most things at 120. It's def not an insta-satisfaction kind of concept. Like he said, we worked our bums off, trying things over and over til we found the best technique. I still remember when we were excited about beating barracoon as a team And we def didn't have Druid Books back then, OR excellent armor/weapons.

Another thing is:

If there was a way to pay to have something spawned. Like, 1mil gold for a insta-champ (if you are just wanting scroll chances and not worried about the gold).

About champs not being frequent enough:

I could see puting the same champs now, in multiple places. Like, the easy ones duplicated but at a more distant location.
And new ones are always fun But I think 6 hour spawns are good. On my old shard, it was Pay-as-a-group-active (no less then 6 players) OR, randomly when staff, unannounced, opened a specific champ gate, in which would close once 6 people were in, + the champ would be disabled if less then 3 people were in. So much more rare. And we had the same average of players on that shard.

And about "wasting time checking champs":

Yeah it might seem like, "omg I have to go all the way out here to check this champ", but in actuality, haha, we are all just lazy Myself included, when I stroll out there and sigh at it not being active. But really, they aren't so inconvenient (most of them).

Also:

There was a post about a PS trade in system, and once that is out, it will be pretty fun to turn in all the low end scrolls we havent donated, to work at getting the 120's.

Ok that's all my book for today, lol. I always write so much

<3 Llexa

[Lyandrin]

I must agree with the older chaps here to be honest. Most champs are up rather often I believe, you just have to learn their respawn times. I started playing here about 1 month ago and I'm at 9 skills 120 atm, bought animal lore 120 for 1 mill and was given 120 ps from alewar after doing moa once, the others ive killed champs like a madman to get, farmed moa up to 4 times a day and barracoon aswell. when Guildies were online we did rikktor and neira.. Its all about perserverance tbh. First thing I do when I log on is head over to moa marble, then moa mainland, after that barracoon, these are the ones I can solo, if they arent up i often check rikktor, if he is upp i try to get a group there.. simple as that

Work and be rewarded..

[+Colibri]

Well the champs as they are now, i admit, were toned to about a 20-30 online shard.

I could add 1 more coon and 1 more MOA, BUT!
Right now it's 1:31 AM shard time, saturday, we're at 55 players online (today's milestone), i see that these champs are available:
Moa marble island, niera, rikktor, Frost giant, serado, ... not all of them are easy, but well, they're available for whoever wants to do "champs".

The moa near cove is always down because it's so easy to get to, and coon is the easiest classic champion, that's why when they respawn it doesn't take long for someone to come do it.

[Repose]

Could the staffers make a lower end champ for the newer population? I don't know how tough it is for staffers to make their own custom spawn (I'm sure Old Man would love to tackle this), but it would need to have these qualities imo:

• 1. Doable by a couple low end characters (maybe 2-3 at the minimum)
  2. Somewhat lowered respawn time (Like 2-3 hours)
  3. One in Fel and one in a Tram facet

Then for rewards do like 1 scroll apeice 110's being the most common (as usual), with 115 being the rares instead of 120's (again I don't know how hard it would be to script/code/program w/e a custom spawn to give custom loot and such).

This would accomplish several things:

• 1. It would introduce newer players to champs without scarring them for life
  2. It gives newer players a way to get scrolls and build up their characters for bigger badder champs
  3. It would also not affect the ps market very much, because 110's and few 115's would be given out

Whoever worked on it too could even be nice enough to eliminate the less sought after scrolls (like chivalry, lockpicking, etc. unless the general consensus was to leave those in)

I don't know, that's just my two cents, some feedback would be nice, and obviously the coder in charge could tweak as they see fit

[+Colibri]

I think MOA is already easy enough. Altho it wouldnt be bad if there was an extra champ that would have even easier monsters.

[Repose]

Well I just mean a champ aimed towards lower characters, so they don't have to feel like they are competing with the vets for spawns. I agree though MOA is really easy, but it's like we talked about earlier that they are usually down, and a lot of people might not even want crafting PS's.

[+Colibri]

Ok will add one in the approved features.

[Harabakc]

It's nice for the sense of accomplishment of the newer players, but overall doesn't address the issue presented here.

They're looking for 120s, there are *tons* of 110s, and large numbers of 115s out there.

The problem here is there are currently a large number of people going through the same stage of the game at the same time. I'm of the opinion it will work itself out in before much longer, especially with the addition of the PS exchange bag.

[Sorgon]

Just moving this up for more debate. Im now an old timer here yet but not "new" either. I woudl love to see some out of the out of the way MoA's and barracoons. I would also love to know what spawn's are on what difficulty. If someone could update the Wiki that would rule .
Also it woudl be cool if somehow we could get you vets to say take some of us newer guys with you whne you go to a tough one to teach us how to beat it. I love the idea of going to a new champ and dieing....i mean trying it