lets talk about Valkor

[Dhalin]

This is simply out of the question. Nerfing old items, that people worked hard for, have paid their dues, paid their subs over all this time being the true supporters of this game all the while you have not?

Put yourself into the shoes of a hardcore istaria gamer... Take into account a $15 a month payment to a game over 8 years (could be longer), and you suggest to nerf old hardcore items? $15x12mx8y= $1440 dollars.

So if you paid $1440 dollars to a game, would you want them to nerf your stuff?

Nope.

I understand the defensive tone, truly.

Please don't misunderstand me -- note where I said "which would make said old-time vets unhappy".

That's why I didn't elaborate or speak further on the topic of removing or nerfing those items.

And I agree -- nerfing or removing those items is stupid, even if said items are likely causing part of the problem.

That's also why I went into detail about other ways around it.

In the end, I think they're just going to have to balance these encounters around fewer people (so that Order can get kills done) and around people not having old "epic" items, again, because Order just doesn't have as many of them floating around.

Trying to make an encounter difficult for Chaos is only going to make it obscenely difficult (if not outright impossible) for anyone on Order, and you're only going to end up punishing people for playing on Order. Why should they have 10x more difficulty than Chaos does?

Other than making the servers different (again, that's not an option for more reasons than one), I see no other way of fixing the problem. People don't want to have to transfer servers just to experience epic mob kills, nor should we continue to make endgame content that makes players feel like they just can't get it done.

I've read the threads in which players on Order speak of long hours trying to kill this stuff only to come up dry -- these are old, skilled vets and they still can't do it. Something is obviously wrong with the system and it needs fixed. Plain and simple. "Throw more bodies at it" should never be the answer.

[hallucin8]

Not to point fingers, but I think we might be getting a bit off topic here.

I don’t think this has anything to do with ‘old items’, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with “One shard (Order) gets punished because people on the other shard (Chaos) camp him?” Not too sure where this came from…

I note Finklebody brought up this possibility, but this hasn’t happened since a particular guild (read: one/two persons with multiple accounts) got the boot a long time ago and even then, that was only really possible with Valkor when the pieces dropped from the guards as well.

I haven’t heard of any camping of any of the Epics in a very very long time… if there were, then I would imagine more groups actually occurring SoG is very much the puppy, easily doable with one ped and one dragon, I’ve dual-boxed him on many occasion, but camp him, certainly not. I don’t have nearly enough logins to sit around and wait for him to spawn.

Back on topic (I think):-
Valkor is very much a PIA and the only thing Chaos has an advantage over Order, is a higher population (although with my time zone GMT +10, I’m often out of luck to begin with). But making Valkor or any other Epics easier, is a big no-no in my books (except where their behaviour is unintended). As it has been pointed out, they are the end-game, so they need to be ridiculously hard. With the right group, all mobs are killable (cept when the celery stalks spawn their own army, or the Queen goes on a blood-rampage ).

Beside the issue of smaller pop for Order, making it harder to get a group together, the suggested improvements regarding Valkor seem to be:
- Reduce his path
- Make the respawn more stable i.e. smaller respawn window, perhaps 30min-2hrs with mean time 1hr (Poisson dist, but if Normal is the only option, then stick with 1hr mean time, but still reduce the window).
- Tweak the guards. I wouldn’t normally say it, but these buggers are OP IMHO.

Again (not meaning to take quotes from just one person), "Throw more bodies at it" is quite often the solution for epic mobs… that’s kinda how they are meant to work, that’s why we have grouping. Finding the right combination is half the fun Like deciding to have Sorcs and a Ranger when fighting the Queen turned out to be a fantastic idea! Perhaps using Sorcs for CC against Valkors guards might be the next step.

Hopefully, if we present suitable suggestions and legit reasons, some tweaks to Valkor might occur

Happy hunting, see yas in Istaria!

[LOVWYRM]

There is NO need to change something about the bosses personally.
There is NO need to nerf old mighty items- cause that would not solve Order`s probs.
You will not automatically kill Valkor with BHM or PVS.

It would help if all bugs are repaired (Queen, Anchor), and maybe Valkor`s route or followers would change a bit.

A group (!) of perfectly equipped (!) (that does NOT imply rare items) and experienced( !) players could kill them all.
They were never ment to be soloed
or done by unexperienced, bad equipped players.

Lots of our probs on Order are home- made.
But need to be solved.

Still I do not know how Chaos people experience bosshunts- but as someone said before: If a boss is bugged and hard to kill- they only need to throw more players into the fight.
An option we on Order do not have

edit: upps hallucine- did not see your post, when I wrote mine.
So as it is obviers^^ I agree to what you`ve said.
Thank you for infos about Chaos!