[Passenger]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So from my experience on Al'Kabor, here are a few other inconsistencies with spawn times and Variance between P99 and AK. I suspect most of these are correct in era, not some 2002 change:

HoT Symbol Drakes - 7 day respawn with 24 hour Variance
Dozekar - 5.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I imagine this coincided with the patch that changed his graphic from blue dragon to baby Sontalak)
Kunark Dragons - 3.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I would guess this was a change from one of the many Velious epic updates)

The number one issue that P99 has though, is there is no "uptime" Variance. Meaning when the server initially pops, there is some Variance window on when that mob will spawn. Some like the classic Nagafen/Vox had 0 Variance and were up instantly. But much of Velious and Kunark had a 0-24 hour Variance window where they could spawn after a server reset.

Granted... Sim Repops are basically the only time P99 Raiding is pleasant for anyone and this flies in the face of a full server Repops but, it is what it is.

I think the % thing is off to be honest. They're much more likely just applying 24 hour Variance to damn near everything. Which was fine on servers with very few top end guild and a bunch of casuals. But going from 16-24 hour Variance on this server just further will push casuals out of a raid scene they barely participate in to start with.

It appears the named drakes in Halls of Testing should be on a ~7 day respawn timer.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20011227...cID=2144.topic

Creadance
(6/18/01 5:51:12 pm)
Re: ToV Quests

The regular drops where do they drop from??? our guild was there for 2 days in a row for a total of 18 hours and we did not see any drops but armor? not even any rare gems. Is this typical or was there something wrong with this.

Hastur
(6/19/01 2:52:05 am)
Re: ToV Quests

The gems (beside the tears) drops from 8 named drake in th HoT.
Each drop one gem only (some being very very common others being rare) and they have a respawn time of around 1 week i think.

Apparently someone had them killed not too long before you spent some time there.

Creadance
(6/19/01 6:21:44 pm)
Re: ToV Quests

would be nice if they increased the named drakes spawns to 3 days and leave the big mobs at once a week.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020210...ndex_6_30.html

Dreadlock Rasta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 30, 2001 -- Tigole Bitties
...
Anyway, Pro-Dragon people want THINGS TO KEEEL. I don't care about the goddamned loot. The ToV quest loot is going to be so rare, it doesn't matter anyway. We're lucky to complete 3 quests out of 4 Dozekar kills right now (4 doze spawns = 1 month). What happens a few months from now when other guilds are Doze-capable? It's a fucking joke -- and even Pro-Giant people know it is.

Here are the solutions I feel would best address this gross imbalance:

A) Dozekar drops LOOT in addition to tears. And please, give us old Doze back. Likewise, the named drakes drop 4-8 symbols each time. These should spawn every 3 days AT LEAST, including Doze.
...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20011225...cID=3131.topic

Flapjax
(10/23/01 12:05:11 pm)
ToV/HoT quest items... common, rare, or non-existent?

I'd like to gather a concensus on the rarity of the quest items from ToV.

I am a level 60 rogue in a fundamentally level 58+ guild. We are dragon allied and have spent approximately three months in HoT equipping our people in SS armor. Aside of our casters and the relatively rare silk drops, our chain and plate classes are content (more so for the plate wearers).

Anyway my concern with HoT drops is centered on symbols and orbs from the named dragons. In just over 12 weeks we have YET to complete one ToV quest item. We are a small tight guild and work hard for these drops. The rarity of some of these symbols and tears is absurd. And these reason is it absurd is in those 13 weeks the entrance rate for items from NToV to Tarew Marr's player base has dwarfed the ZERO items from HoT quests. Yes the items from ToV quests are good, heh, but so are the items from NToV. In fact, many items from NToV are superior to HoT quest items but there seems to be no rate limiting step to power guilds (i.e., high number of members) simply farming NToV. Yeah those guidls will say, "Oh man NToV is so much harder than HoT." Fine, I agree it is harder but the fact is Tarew Marr has fundamentally ZERO ToV quest items (I know of at least two, the earring and the cloak). BUT whenever I inspect members of the Tarew Marr power guild (ahemmm, ED), some og them have not one but two NToV items. So, our "small, tight" guild spends ungodly weeks in HoT with nothing to show for it while power guilds int he same time are all decked out. I find this disturbing. I mean it won't be long before our guild is ready to move out of CoV/HoT... almost everyone in the guild has started a HoT quest but nearly noone has finished theirs.

I recommend that if anyone reading this has "connections" to people at Verant about zone item balance and drop rates should look over the HoT quest item situation.

My remedy to this wing imbalance is pretty straightforward and based on three months of doing HoT nameds every week.

One, up the repawn rate on HoT nameds to that of Dozekar... every three and a half days. This would increase drop rates but more importantly allow multiple guilds the opportunity to share the HoT nameds.

Two, make the drop rate of a given piece off HoT nameds equal for any given named. In my honest opinion, the decision to include common and rare drops (e.g., dragon orbs are common while silver symbols are rare) is very poor. The time sink do complete HoT quests is already big enough. Simplify the quests and make symbol, orb, tear drop rates a equal across the board for all nameds.

I will gather a list from my guild as to what exactly we have obtained from HoT nameds just to make sure I'm not makign a mountain out of a molehill.

Before I close, how are other guilds fairing with HoT quests? Is our guild just having bad luck?

P.S. I do hope that the Serrated Dragon Tooth I've spent the past two to three months trying to obtain gets a face lift like alot of the NToV "farmer Brown" rogue weapons have recently received.

Trike
(10/23/01 12:43:15 pm)
Re: ToV/HoT quest items... common, rare, or non-existent?

Well first thing.. are you killing Dozekar? It may seem silly to ask, but killing only named will get you no where, as will just killing Dozekar.. you need both or your just wasting your time, and probably others.

We have been killing the named for quite some time now, and been killing dozekar since right before he got changed.. have completed roughly 15 or so quests, and have another 12-5 waiting.

Dozekar, at least on our server is a 7ish day spawn, just like the named. I agree, it sucks.. I myself think the named should be changed to a 3-5 day spawn, it seems to be the biggest blocking point. Mostly, because of the insane amount of glowing drake orbs.. and also because of the rarity of certain symbols.. /wave Ruby/Poison

Anyways, hope this is at least some help

Flapjax
(10/24/01 9:52:39 am)
RE: Hey Booker!

Yep you hit the nail right on the head... the reason you have not done much of the nameds is our guild has fundamentally 'owned' the nameds for three months. This is exactly my point... Tarew Marr has fundamentally zero HoT/ToV quest items and we farm it every seven days. It saddens me to think that our guild has had a monopoly on the spawns for so long with nothing to show for it. If your guild intends to start working the nameds then there is going to be even slower entrance of HoT quest items into the game.

VeRant needs to up the spawn rate on nameds. Or drop their fascination with common vs. rare symbols. its obvious there is an imbalance of high end CoV vs giant items. Look in the Back Alley and you can see dozens of posts about how "sucky" the NToV loot is by all the farmer Browns. Eegads its so sucky they have to use the daggers as situation loot or bank items. NToV farmers are complaining about their crappy daggers when they don't stop to realize that in three months of farming they've gotten one, two, three, maybe four uber items from NToV. While three months in HoT (all level 58+ in SS armor) have left us with no bank dust-collectors.

/bonk VeRant

See you in game.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020424...art=21&stop=40

Vincecross
(11/10/01 10:05:30 pm)
Re: Could we all be wrong?

The point of the Doz killing and SOT is this, to complete a quest from doz you need 1-3 different Tears for each item, then 1-4 symbols off 1 week spawning mobs that drop 1 tear.
Now lets say SOT wanted 10 specific quests to help thier Dragon allied members. This would require probably 30 kills of named to get the required symbols and any number of kills of Doz for the Tears required.
I can tell you I am on the list for the Test of the Emerald tear wich is a very nice Caster/priest shield, problem being after 6 months of killing Doz we havent gotten 1 emerald tear to complete one.

As far as Telk/Goz goes everytime a Statue or a Vindi has been taken down by a Giant allied guild and all our uber mobs are dead what else are we supposed to kill?

IF the Mobs that were Enemies to our faction (Dragon) we would have little reason to kill Telk/Goz, We would be happy with Vindi/Tormax and Statue, with maybe an attempt on the AOW every once in a while, but at this point we cant most of the time because they are dead.

Now as I hear it there are plans in the works to resolve some of these issues, but I can garuntee you wont see me at a telk or Goz killing if Statue or Tormax are up for us to kill.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020527...icID=293.topic

Eumin Enchantiflyer
(11/16/01 4:41:51 am)
Re: Lazreth

No one owns any mob. Tindi and NB do not own Dozekar, we all know that. But the problem *I* had with SoT trying to kill dozekar was this: In order to complete ONE Dozekar quest, and a 1 tear quest, at that, A person(s) would have to Kill dozekar, who can drop 2-4 tears. There are 10 tears, Silver being the most common. The chances of a person getting the one tear for thier quest is low. But say you got the tear you wanted on 2 kills. thats 2 weeks right there. NOW, you get to go deep into the halls of testing and kill named, to get the other 3 symbols. 8named mobs, 10 tears, 1 orb, 1 week spawn time. Orb is common, and again, the chances of the person getting the 3 symbols needed is low.

IF you were extreemly lucky, you could finish 1 dozekar quest
in 2 weeks. So think if you were in TL or NB. You are in a guild of 70+ active members, all working on a dozekar quest. knowing that 1 dozekar kill brings 2-4 people 1 step closer to finishing a great quest. Then a giant guild comes in, a guild that can kill in ToV-N for items similar/better than dozekar quests. a guild that can walk right up to vindi's door and kill him, then statue, then walk to tormax and wax him, and walk away, with ease. It just wasn't fair to us, and lot of us got pissed.

Your right, though, we all picked our factions, and that doesn't mean we have to stop killing certian mobs. But common curtosy would be to leave dozekar as the exception. Of corse, no giant guilds made any attempts on dozekar after the last one, so it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore, but i wanted to post *MY* thoughts on the subject.

Eumin Enchantiflyer
Walking Corpse
Beguiler ~ The Rathe
email Tindi'Losi profile

Falconus Dawnlight
(11/16/01 12:01:50 pm)
Re: Lazreth

Actually Umbali we went into HoT knowing fully what was required. We even drew up tables for Quests and people signed up before hand for the items they wanted. We also knew that VI messed around with Doz a few times adjusting the tear drop ratio, before he was killed on The Rathe he could drop upto 8 Tears (LoS was one of few people killing him) then they changed him to dropping just 2 tears, then they adjusted his tears to what we have today, any number between 2 and 4. Before we killed Doz we killed the other HoT named many times (Who incidently only drop quest symbols / Orbs). In that time we gathered enough quest items to make 2 or 3 HoT Quest rewards ONLY if Doz dropped the tears.

Since killing Doz we have completed what? 12 or so quests maybe?? Not sure on actual numbers but its not alot, we have put in months of work killing Doz and the named (Who are ALL on a 7day spawn btw) and as you can see the rewards are very drawn out. HoT stuff is comparable to NToV i would say, but theres alot of NTOV stuff that beats HoT gear.

The main problem we have is knowing how hard it is to complete a Doz quest and how much effort it takes, and seeing an NToV capable guild walking over us in yet another zone to get what they want, when there is comparable and better stuff to be had elsewhere. Sure i didnt pick your faction for you, i dont make the rules, but atleast have the decency to ask for a rotation and not simply try to Take by force as thats going to piss off many many people.

Falconus
Knight of The Rathe
Noble Blade

- https://web.archive.org/web/20021018...icID=122.topic

Borick
(9/16/02 4:48:07 am)
Re: Come on folks !!!

As a note:

Dozekar and the drakes are all on seperate RANDOM spawn timers. If you see a named drake up when Doze isn't up, it's because A) Doze hasn't spawned yet and the named has or B) The named hadn't spawned when the rotation mob killed Doze.

That's WHY those drakes stay up. We have to wait for a full spawn to clear them. Now if a guild leaves a full spawn up, then it passes to the next guild in the rotation.

This is simple. This is how it has worked. For months when it was just NB and Tindi doing Doze, NEITHER guild EVER took a named drake from the other. It never happened, and we did a lot of armor farming in those days.

Yes, Noble Blade and Tindi Losi both killed named drakes before we could kill Dozekar, but at that time there wasn't anyone else killing Dozekar. If BOTS had been killing Doze then, we would have respected the drake spawns.

Guys, there are levels of competition, and rules do get broken and sometimes guilds get nasty, but for the most part we do manage to fairly distribute the mobs on the server. THe 'big three' do not exist to put other guilds down, and as time passes and all of the guilds mature, the rotation guidelines have become less competitive and more open and friendly.

Just respect it. If you're a non-doze guild, you don't kill drakes. If you are a Doze guild, you get one full spawn of drakes for every doze kill. That's the only fair way to distribute the quests.

Borick Ascid
High Priest of Brell
Noble Blade
The Rathe

Stylina
(9/16/02 7:00:10 am)
Re: Come on folks !!!

My 2cp. Disclamer: I am not in any official position in either the RTA or in NB.
...

I don't think you have an accurate idea of what being on the Doze rotation means. You and all your guildies will not finish Doze quests. NB has been killing Doze for about a year and a half now with 2 and a half guilds on the rotation (bots passed it more often than not) and has gotten 39 quests completed. There are now 3 times as many guilds on the rotation. With that math, your guild will complete a Doze quest every month and a half. If you do Doze diligently for the next 2 years, you will finish 18-20 quest items, and having guilds KS the named drakes out of turn will slow you down signifigantly. Doing a doze quest is basically like doing the Ragefire part of the cleric epic 2 or 3 times. (pre-spawned Rage) Named are a once a week spawn, usually drop less than useful symbols, and have 6+ guilds waiting in line for them.
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