Make Velah Relevant

[Uska]

It doesn't matter that people don't level up in a week. If you play less, you'll necessarilly raid less. Seriously.. how many dragon completions do you have on your non-capped guy? 1? 2? 0?

It's an honest question.

Is there anyone that has more than 5 completions and isn't permanently parking their character at a lower level?

Hell.... does anyone even have 5?

I have 6 on a level 12 just dont have enough time to play him enough, and no I am not parking him and a low level of completions per character doesnt mean it needs to be raised for higher level people they already have the shroud,SoS, Reaver,Abott(lol) and whatever is in mod 9 there is absolutely no reason to touch this quest other then flagging and lowering the timer maybe. Midlevels need fun to.

[Uska]

A level20 Velah would get more use than the level10 one does today (that's assuming that the flagging quests are either made optional, or bumped up to close to level20 themselves)

The majority of all Velah raids involve at least a few characters within -1 of the level cap. That will stay the same regardless of what level the raid is moved to... but if it's advanced to L20, then at least the rest of the group will also be close to the level cap.

There is plenty of other things for them to run I am tired of the fully cap'd people crying to steal content from people who enjoy playing at mid level or or play much slower and relaxed then the power gamers.

[sephiroth1084]

There is plenty of other things for them to run I am tired of the fully cap'd people crying to steal content from people who enjoy playing at mid level or or play much slower and relaxed then the power gamers.

How often do you run the dragon on Hard or Elite while in the level range?

[Uska]

How often do you run the dragon on Hard or Elite while in the level range?

at least once on every character I have and some more often like my clerics and rogues. and high level people still dont need to steal another raid.

[sephiroth1084]

at least once on every character I have and some more often like my clerics and rogues. and high level people still dont need to steal another raid.

I don't think I see more than 1 or 2 VoN runs in the 8-12 range per week. I know that I don't see any in the 10-14 range (for hard and/or elite) more than once every other week. I also don't see more than 2 or 3 runs for capped characters in a week.

In my experience, I've had trouble getting new characters into the raid once before hitting level 12. I've also noticed that I'm not at all excited to open the chest on anyone but a barbarian, simply because the rewards are so mediocre. Sure, some are great at level 10, but there is the knowledge that I'll be at level 13 in another week or two, and then early +6 stat items and such will be freely available.

I don't see it as "stealing" as much as I see it as breathing new life into an increasingly dusty raid. Besides, there are many more quests to run at that level than at 16, or presumably 18 and 20), so removing the higher difficulties isn't such a shame.

[Auran82]

Because no one addressed my first point, I'll ask again:

What about altering the level of VoN 5&6, DQ, Titan, so that on hard and elite they are higher level quests with slightly different loot lists? (think Devil Assault)

That way, the players who enjoy running raids at level 10 still have that option, while keeping the quest somewhat fresh and relevant for those at or near the cap. Insert some appropriate loot for the 2 higher difficulties, and suddenly we'll see people running these again at higher levels for more than just favor.

Just give the same items (well almost) escept make them slightly improved for hard, and more so at elite.

Like giving the boots 15% striding on hard and 30% striding on elite.

And someone asked earlier why there weren't more dragons to fight.

[sephiroth1084]

Just give the same items (well almost) escept make them slightly improved for hard, and more so at elite.

Like giving the boots 15% striding on hard and 30% striding on elite.

And someone asked earlier why there weren't more dragons to fight.

Yeah, that's sort of what I had in mind.

As for the fight itself...I find VoN 6 to be fairly dull. Many of the various ways of completing it have been removed by the developers, and most groups want to go with the hero method. My experience in VoN 6 across my characters has been my bar by which I measure how bored I am in other quests: Man, scroll-healing this WF tank through VoD was even more dull than VoN 6!

There is virtually nothing for ranged characters, mages, rogues or defensive tanks to do in VoN 6, so we're not exactly speaking about depriving the lower level community of some gem among their quests. Sure, it was the first dragon in the game, but each progressive dragon fight has become more interesting--I much prefer dragons that move around and jump and such.

[Riorik]

In fact, the quest has become so irrelevant that I have a level 11 cleric and level 13 sorcerer who have never run it (both are flagged) because there are better quests to run (XP, Favor and loot wise) and very few PUG groups for them.

I was all about agreeing with you on relevance until you suggested it's not worth it for experience. Yes, back when this was the raid I'd probably ran it 60 times (and a lot of people ran it even more) but only a couple dozen times since then. However, for a level 10 character, VON5 is worth 20-25K experience. It's VON6 that's barely worth anything.

Even for a level 10 character, VON5 requires a whopping 30-40 minutes to do.

[redoubt]

The items may be useful at level 10, but how many times does someone run VoN while still in the 8-12 range? And how useful are they once their out of the range? Even barring the desire for the items, I don't know anyone who runs this raid more than twice before they are outside the level range. It's just too difficult to get a group together, and the rewards are just too slight.

What do you think about the suggestion I made above? It would keep VoN and the Titan and DQ accessible to the players in the level range that it was originally intended for, but will give the raids some longevity with characters who have passed that range.

Well, the boots are useful at all levels. Sword of shadows is still a good weapon. The delving suit is still pretty good, though it is someone eclipsed by the new stuff.

As far as changing the way the quests scale, I'd rather they did not do that with the old stuff. The last time they did it (Reaver) it created what I consider to be a mess and no longer consider that quest level appropriate.

If they want to add new stuff that does this, that's cool. It can be done in development and they can scale stuff smartly. Not just grant blanket immunites and raise the CR levels. My request with this would be to show the level of the quest on each difficulty. I.e. Under the check box for normal it says 10. Under hard it say 15 and under elite it says 20. (Or whatever the quest scales to.)

Still, don't mess with the existing content. Simply drop the flags and move on.

[redoubt]

Yuck... your flagging mechanism still sucks and is harder to code!!

As far as the timer goes... you'll really only run Dragon 1-3 times while leveling up... and then the loot is irrelevant all over again. At least nixing the timer on it would allow you to run von 5 a few times for quick leveling and some items that'll be nice for a while. I don't think the KDS, boots, and SoS are really nice enough to warrant the whole 3 day timer anymore.

Either that... or upgrade all the loot, raid the level... and give high level people another raid.

Mid level raids are a neat idea... but aren't great in practice. It gets terribly frustrating putting mid level dragon runs together. I'd say we run 1 in the guild per every 2 characters I level up. What's the point really?

You can already run von5 as many times in a row as you want. Just don't complete von 6. People do it all the time.

I say keep the mid level raids. Something cool on the way up.

The Titan, the reaver and shroud will most likely still be run in addition to whatever new raids they post. And honeslty, I can't keep all my character on the raid timers as it is... I don't need them to bump the low level raids up to "help me".

[redoubt]

Yeah, that's sort of what I had in mind.

As for the fight itself...I find VoN 6 to be fairly dull. Many of the various ways of completing it have been removed by the developers, and most groups want to go with the hero method. My experience in VoN 6 across my characters has been my bar by which I measure how bored I am in other quests: Man, scroll-healing this WF tank through VoD was even more dull than VoN 6!

There is virtually nothing for ranged characters, mages, rogues or defensive tanks to do in VoN 6, so we're not exactly speaking about depriving the lower level community of some gem among their quests. Sure, it was the first dragon in the game, but each progressive dragon fight has become more interesting--I much prefer dragons that move around and jump and such.

Dragons:

White dragon in tutorial.... well at least you get to see it and not get eaten!
Velah at level 10
3 more dragons in the Gianthold Tor. They move and with their giant buddies can kill ya quick if you are not prepared.
Talk to another one in the Litany pre-raid. No fight there though.
Dragons in human and dragon form in the refuge, though noone wants to play there... too hard??? For some, I think.
Prey on the hunter. You can fight two in there.
You get to see several more in SoS, though not to fight them.

Overall, I think there is a good number on dragons in the game. I like that you don't fight them all. I mean, we are still only crunchy snacks to most of them!

[Deadz]

Let me say i have not had a chance to run it yet.. but..

I am largely AFK all night long on nights i can not play "i log in, stand next to a Auctioneer, talk w/ guild alittle, look to see if i can mooch a favor run while bouncing the baby, and anywho..

I get ~4 tells a night from different groups looking for a cleric for von series..
Seems to be extremely active, i been stuck in my lvl range a good week or two, and for the last week or two, i could get a von group with very little wait if i had the time to run it.

Deadz

[sephiroth1084]

Dragons:

White dragon in tutorial.... well at least you get to see it and not get eaten!
Velah at level 10
3 more dragons in the Gianthold Tor. They move and with their giant buddies can kill ya quick if you are not prepared.
Talk to another one in the Litany pre-raid. No fight there though.
Dragons in human and dragon form in the refuge, though noone wants to play there... too hard??? For some, I think.
Prey on the hunter. You can fight two in there.
You get to see several more in SoS, though not to fight them.

Overall, I think there is a good number on dragons in the game. I like that you don't fight them all. I mean, we are still only crunchy snacks to most of them!

I believe that web comic was written before Velah came out. And honestly, dragons in human form whom you do not fight aren't dragons; they're humans who call themselves funny things for your amusement. And seeing a dragon is cool--Korthos was awesome, and I admit that I was a little jaded my first time through because I had fought the white dragon and her mate before doing the Korthos stuff, but fighting dragons should be awesome! Velah is not. The area looks cool as hell, but she's a big red dragon that just sits there, and seems incapable of truly dealing with a single puny warrior beating on her nose.

[sephiroth1084]

Let me say i have not had a chance to run it yet.. but..

I am largely AFK all night long on nights i can not play "i log in, stand next to a Auctioneer, talk w/ guild alittle, look to see if i can mooch a favor run while bouncing the baby, and anywho..

I get ~4 tells a night from different groups looking for a cleric for von series..
Seems to be extremely active, i been stuck in my lvl range a good week or two, and for the last week or two, i could get a von group with very little wait if i had the time to run it.

Deadz

Do you know that those groups ended up running it? I find that about half the time I want to run it, we end up not doing so because we can't find a cleric who is: not in group, who is flagged, who has the time to run it. Monks have made this a little easier, since they can often fulfill the Wis runes requirement, but then you need some very good healing bards. Got this done in this fashion recently, but that was after 5 or 6 attempts at getting the raid together unsuccessfully over the course of a few weeks.

Next time you get a tell asking if you can help on your cleric, send that same person a tell later and see if they managed to run and complete it.

[Deadz]

Will do, and no i do not know if they complete it..

[Sabotage]

No. It's a temporary deleveling*. Allows you to group with players of lower levels, run favor without being bored, etc.

*Anyone got a better sounding word?

I know its kinda late in the thread, but EQ2 calls it mentoring, i kinda like it.

[Deadz]

I know its kinda late in the thread, but EQ2 calls it mentoring, i kinda like it.

Best part of eq2 imo, i played it a good 8 months, then they screwed it up with one update .