The Necropolis could use a Quality-of-Life Pass

[Fefnir_2011]

I realize there's been a bit of love put into Necro in the past (constant tweaks to abbot, the relatively recent gear updates, making Litany a little easier to flag for), but it really does need more.

• The storyline. I've been playing off and on for three years, and I still don't have a darn clue about some of the plot points. I had to have another player explain to me who Kai-Teng Fairuza is, and why I should care about him. from what I understand, some NPCs were removed that made the lore a bit nonsensical.
• Along those lines, and specifically, I found myself running Litany of the Dead part 1 today. When I talked to Fram Redbones, he directed me to an NPC for more information about the Heretical Path. An NPC which no longer exists, as far as I could tell from a few minutes of running around Lower and Upper Necropolis. I'm going to bug report it once I can get back in-game for the specifics, but it's an example of missing plot points.
• Collectible turn-ins, specifically the scarabs. Maybe not everything needs to be a barter UI, but it's a bit counter-intuitive to run all the way to the Twelve or the Marketplace just to come back to Necro to turn them in.
• Also, Item descriptions need updated on Squire Rale. He still claims his Dalorent's Seal gives Devotion III and Radiance III.
• The Silver Flame NPCs don't quite match the new style used for the NPCs in the Web of Chaos chain. some of them, like Sir Rohine, still have that "totally-not-an-eladrin" look to them that the Silver Flame guards in Catacombs have.
• Lower Necropolis, Upper Necropolis, and the Orchard could stand the same kind of tidying up you gave Gianthold and Ruins of Gianthold as far as paths to quests, NPC locations, and overall look.
• Flagging is still all caddywampus for Litany of the Dead parts 1,2, and 3. I'm not positive, but I think these are the only chains left where you have to re-run the flagging quests every single time you want to rerun the final quest. Even if my plea for easier farming and streamlined questing falls on deaf ears, could you at least make the quest chain a little more clear about how flagging works?
• One last thing, would it be too much to ask for voiceovers for some of the dialogue? While running Bloody Crypt for the 197th time today, I realized that the abbot was in the room talking to Brother Salasso. I still don't know what he said. Why? Because I couldn't stop to read it while wights were beating on me, and when I tried to scroll through General to find it in chat, it was a mess with all the different channels. Partially my fault, but it would go a long way towards immersion if we actually got to see and hear the abbot before Accursed Ascension.

[Charononus]

Epic it

Epic doomsphere is epic.

[droid327]

Without commenting on the merit of your suggestions, here's a couple of my own I'd like to see for Necro:

-Add a Farshifter from around the entrance of Litany to the entrance to Orchard. That's a pointless run, especially for those who don't have Guild Airship access to teleport straight to Orchard.

-Make Burning Heart soloable. Really, there's no need to party-lock any content at that level, not when everything is so soloable and most people are just trying to get through their TRs, and only ever run it once to flag. I suggest adding 2 Skeletal Archers in each wing, so you can position them like you do in Xorian Cipher - not so easy as to make it trivial, but doesn't require Flesh to Stone or something convoluted as that.

-Abbott is a deprecated raid. Half the time it doesn't even work (like recently with the ice wand thingie), and even when its not bugged out, no one runs it. And even if you can find a group to run it once, you almost guaranteed won't get the reward you're after - I've had people tell me they ran it 100s of times (back when it actually was run) without a Quiver of Alacrity, for example, dropping.

Lastly, most of the Abbott items are twinking/leveling items at best now, since few really scale all the way to the new endgame - they're no longer worth nearly the time and effort it takes to acquire them.

Make the Abbott base reward items something you can acquire from solo play, like you did with Tome turn-ins for Seals of the Black Abbbott. Maybe add a new vendor that will take, say, 20 Tapestries and a completed Shield of Legend, for your choice of 1 Abbott reward item. So you could do a complete Tapestry, a complete Shield, and a complete Tome (for the Seal) and have an upgraded Abbott item.

[Soulfurnace]

Epic it

Epic doomsphere is epic.

Wait. Does that mean Ice Flensers will have EE-worthy polar rays?

Ah, bloody hell. Go epic delera's. I want an epic Voice of the Master!

[nibel]

I would like to add two quality of life things for necro 4:

1) Ditch the sigil. Instead, require us to run the four orchard quests to flag for litany.
2) Makes either the boss runs optional for Abbot flagging, or allow us to, after beating one of them, return to the central room and go to another boss without having to recall and run the first part again (Like the dragons in Tor: Kill one, you can walk back and go to another).

That alone might make me consider flagging all my alts to Abbot. I think two thirds of them don't care about completing the sigil. And some of them are first life characters that I do not intend to TR. Ever.

[QuantumFX]

Make the flagging for Bloody Crypt and Shadow Crypt the same as for the Cursed Crypt. (Flag once, repeat as much as you like.)

Update all the loot to match the new standards of loot. (And don't give us a bunch of Bull**** on doing upgrades.)

[SirValentine]

/signed to your suggestions

Also:

- Necropolis should have been the first thing with a Saga reward.

• Flagging is still all caddywampus for Litany of the Dead parts 1,2, and 3. I'm not positive, but I think these are the only chains left where you have to re-run the flagging quests every single time you want to rerun the final quest.

?

Only parts 1 & 2, actually. You can re-run Cursed Crypt from Part 3 without having to re-flag. But, yes, it's dumb that Bloody Crypt and Shadow Crypt are like that.

[SirValentine]

-Make Burning Heart soloable. Really, there's no need to party-lock any content at that level, not when everything is so soloable

Opposed. It's nice that there is some variety in quests. Most don't need a party, but it's good that a few do, just for a change.

-Abbott is a deprecated raid.
<snip>
Make the Abbott base reward items something you can acquire from solo play, like you did with Tome turn-ins for Seals of the Black Abbbott. Maybe add a new vendor that will take, say, 20 Tapestries and a completed Shield of Legend, for your choice of 1 Abbott reward item. So you could do a complete Tapestry, a complete Shield, and a complete Tome (for the Seal) and have an upgraded Abbott item.

What is that supposed to mean, "a deprecated raid"? Abbot is an awesome raid, that is still fun and challenging for level 28 characters. Some of the loot is still well worth pursuing, too.

If you haven't got the raid loot you want from Abbot, run it more. If you can't find a group, get some buddies and learn it. Instead of asking for an easy-button raid-loot-give-away.

STRONGLY OPPOSED TO GIVING AWAY RAID LOOT.

[SirValentine]

allow us to, after beating one of them, return to the central room and go to another boss without having to recall and run the first part again (Like the dragons in Tor: Kill one, you can walk back and go to another).

That's a good idea.

[Fefnir_2011]

Epic it

Epic doomsphere is epic.

That would be optimal, but for now I'd settle for not feeling a little sad every time I'm out in necro...

-Add a Farshifter from around the entrance of Litany to the entrance to Orchard. That's a pointless run, especially for those who don't have Guild Airship access to teleport straight to Orchard.

I think a nice solution would be to put a handicap-accessible ramp up to the Orchard from behind the barter NPCs. It does get a little tedious making that run up the Black Mausoleum every life.

-Make Burning Heart soloable. Really, there's no need to party-lock any content at that level, not when everything is so soloable and most people are just trying to get through their TRs, and only ever run it once to flag. I suggest adding 2 Skeletal Archers in each wing, so you can position them like you do in Xorian Cipher - not so easy as to make it trivial, but doesn't require Flesh to Stone or something convoluted as that.

Burning Heart is soloable. I dual-box it every life. And I don't even need the dualbox when I'm a wizard or cleric. It just takes a bit of metagaming, like most part-only quests.

Lastly, most of the Abbott items are twinking/leveling items at best now, since few really scale all the way to the new endgame - they're no longer worth nearly the time and effort it takes to acquire them.

At this point, I don't think abbot can be updated any more. And most of the difficulty of Abbott comes from the puzzles, not the boss itself. It is a level 17 raid, after all, and level cap is now 28. Epic Abbott is probably the best solution for loot now. But I don't think updating loot is a quality-of-life matter.

1) Ditch the sigil. Instead, require us to run the four orchard quests to flag for litany.
2) Makes either the boss runs optional for Abbot flagging, or allow us to, after beating one of them, return to the central room and go to another boss without having to recall and run the first part again (Like the dragons in Tor: Kill one, you can walk back and go to another).

This is probably the best solution for Litany of the Dead part 4, even if it does do away completely with the nostalgic old method of flagging.

@SirValentine: Most definitely yes to the saga! Right now, there is no rhyme or reason to the Litany of the Dead chains, in that you don't have any reason to run it all the way through, or even run it in order. Also, I didn't know that about Cursed Crypt. Probably because I've never run it...