Sam loves you, but here's his gripes

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Hey! We never stop building the game up (!) so here are my gripes and suggestions.



gripe:
The tower of the 12 quests of White Plume Mountain are too difficult on heroic, or reward too little xp, to be worth doing. The gear is nice though. They average under 2k xp/min on r1. Price of freedom is the most not good: it takes at least 20min and rewards 20k xp. Relative to other quests at that level, that means they are going to be ignored by TR veterans.
Suggestion:
Up the experience rewards. I can totally see that the gear might be worth it for some people---however, a lot of people get their heroic gear by running at cap. I think the quests are awesome, but they aren't going to be run in heroics except for some good old' flower sniffing goodness. (I definitely flower sniff, but if I've just bought a sov pot, then I don't.)
~date August 18, 2018

gripe:
The tower of the 12 epic leveling quests of White Plume Mountain are much more difficult than quests of that level. Specifically, how hard the mobs hit. Compare them to even the hardest quests of their comparative level (e.x., the house D chain) and you'll see that mobs are hitting twice or even three times as hard. On my at cap monk its like 200 a hit, vs 400 or even 600 a hit. The quests also have experience rewards that are much lower in terms of xp/min than other quests of their level. I can average about 5k to 10k xp/min in epics and these quests are at about the 2k to 4k xp/min mark. (Again, Price of Freedom is the most worst offender.) The quests are not meeting the hype about them entering the epic leveling routine. They are harder than some ravenloft quests (!) while being many levels lower.
Suggestion:
Bump the xp a little and reduce difficulty if you want to see these quests enter the normal routine of epic bravery bonus leveling.
~date August 18, 2018

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gripe:
Suggestion:
~date Month Day, Year

[Qhualor]

There are plenty of xp/min quests in the game. I am fine if White Plume Mountain is not one of them. It's still fairly new, so as power creep continues to grow and players run it more often, time to complete will eventually decrease.

I ran White Plume Mountain after release at level on elite solo on my Vanguard with hire and even posted a video of my first time experience. I found the quest easy but with moments of bad spike damage.

Named loot is subjective. Some care, some don't. I pulled the DW clickie and the bow. I'm happy enough with those, but as long as CC gear is comparable or better than named loot, I'm not too concerned with the loot when I typically get a level per day. I can't remember what the xp was when I ran those quests but I think WPM was around 20k and I think that's pretty good.

I do think those new level 6 quests are a little challenging solo on elite. I only ran 2 of them and was xp capped after running other level 6 quests first. Not sure how I'm going to handle my standard leveling when hires work terribly in there. I spent more time babysitting them than anything else and they died way too easily.

Running at cap for lower level gear is nothing new. This has been going on since I first started playing.

It's by design that new content is more challenging than older content. Devs have said they won't go back and update old content and rather have new content more on par with overall current character power. I don't disagree with that approach, but, as I have said since the devs said this, it makes for content to be very uneven and influences the way players play.

On Lammania I soloed EE WPM on my barb with hire at level just completing the right corridor. I didn't think it was that difficult. The rest of the quest may have been, but again, as always judging past experiences, content gets easier over time.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Hey Qhualor! You're certainly entitled to your opinion but you're wrong about xp not being important: people chase carrots, and the devs like giving them to us when its the thing to do. Right? Aren't you concerned that these quests won't be run, or that people won't feel rewarded? I'm glad you were able to solo a couple of the quests. I'm sorry that I didn't more clearly specify that I was talking about the other quests in the pack. I agree that White Plume is generally fine. I'll update the OP. Thanks for the feedback.

[psykopeta]

Some quests give nice gear, some quests give nice xp, from my pov there should be a balance, so awesome gear qjests can't give awesome xp (so nerf RL epic xp pls)

The thing SSG would d have to do, right after releasing a new pack (and assuming it outdates the gear from a previous pack) is update the xp

So after release you have ppl grinding the new pack at lvl or not, for gear, and once it's outdated you keep running at least for the xp

If not it just becomes another obsolete and forgotten pack that nobody runs, nor pays tp for it, which is a bad business model from my pov

Same way from my pov is giving both good xp and good gear in same pack, that makes the other packd a bad investment do SSG is devaluating itselt their own product/pack

[Qhualor]

Hey Qhualor! You're certainly entitled to your opinion but you're wrong about xp not being important: people chase carrots, and the devs like giving them to us when its the thing to do. Right? Aren't you concerned that these quests won't be run, or that people won't feel rewarded? I'm glad you were able to solo a couple of the quests. I'm sorry that I didn't more clearly specify that I was talking about the other quests in the pack. I agree that White Plume is generally fine. I'll update the OP. Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't say xp isn't important.

I know those quests are being run because I have seen lfms for them and I always see at least several players hanging around by the quest givers whenever I run through the Twelve. how much, only SSG knows.

um, I was talking about the same quests you were.

[Iriale]

Good xp and a difficulty similar to other level quests is what make a new quest continue to be played actively once the novelty has passed. It is what makes a pack continue to be competitive and with good sales. So I have to agree with Sam. Currently there is no reason to make content more difficult than the old ones, since the best veterans can opt for a greater reaper difficulty if they find it easy. And a mediocre experience in a long quest will only make the quests ignored. It is a fact that the years have shown us repeatedly.

Balanced content to the rest of the level quests and competitive experience, devs. It is a lesson that you have not yet learned, but it is an important lesson. Competitive does not mean significantly better. It means similar to other quests of the level, so that the new quests are a real choice. And if you choose to increase the difficulty relative to the level, you need to increase the experience. It is simple logic.

[PsychoBlonde]

The tower of the 12 quests of White Plume Mountain are too difficult on heroic, or reward too little xp, to be worth doing. The gear is nice though. They average under 2k xp/min on r1. Price of freedom is the most not good: it takes at least 20min and rewards 20k xp. Relative to other quests at that level, that means they are going to be ignored by TR veterans.

Speak for yourself, hon, my TR group does them every life. And we've had under-6-minute runs on Price of Freedom on Reaper, although it does depend somewhat on where the first Dimensional Anchor is located. Not having the method of doing the quest quickly down pat is not the same thing as the quest itself being over-long. I've seen people take 20 minutes to run Bargain of Blood before, and I can do that quest in 3 minutes.

We added all five of the WPM and other tales quests to our TR list as soon as they came out. My group likes to combine activities, so we combine loot running and guild renown (sagas) with our TR's. Still only takes us about 20 hours per life. Kind of a Big Deal is the only one I'd describe as overlong, but it also has some of the best gear. The xp is fine. It's not quite as good as Three Barrel Cove, but nothing is. The WPM quests are substantially better than other level 6's like Redwillow's Ruins or The Bounty Hunter. The only other level 6 quest that even comes close is The Bloody Crypt, and you need flagging AND a group to do that one efficiently.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Speak for yourself, hon, my TR group does them every life. And we've had under-6-minute runs on Price of Freedom on Reaper, although it does depend somewhat on where the first Dimensional Anchor is located. Not having the method of doing the quest quickly down pat is not the same thing as the quest itself being over-long. I've seen people take 20 minutes to run Bargain of Blood before, and I can do that quest in 3 minutes.

We added all five of the WPM and other tales quests to our TR list as soon as they came out. My group likes to combine activities, so we combine loot running and guild renown (sagas) with our TR's. Still only takes us about 20 hours per life. Kind of a Big Deal is the only one I'd describe as overlong, but it also has some of the best gear. The xp is fine. It's not quite as good as Three Barrel Cove, but nothing is. The WPM quests are substantially better than other level 6's like Redwillow's Ruins or The Bounty Hunter. The only other level 6 quest that even comes close is The Bloody Crypt, and you need flagging AND a group to do that one efficiently.

Oh I wasn't speaking for you. If you can be bothered, post a screenshoot for Price of Freedom. If not I understand, but I don't believe you on that nice 6min run. I farmed the quests in epics, and in heroics the quests seemed all below 2K XP per minute. About what XP/min were you getting on the quests? Maybe we agree.

I generally stay in three Barrel Cove until Level 7. @7 I hit necro1. Then take 8 and do Bloody Crypt + Redwillows and Delera's. After that I just start moving up levels in quests since low-level quests are generally abysmal, as we agree. Why bother, when you can just hit better stuff a few levels higher? Pit, Spies, Von3, and necro2, are 3k+ XP/min and all those quests have easier mobs. There's already a ton of XP available.

If good XP is like 1 to 1. 5 k per minute for a veteran, then I think that's where the disagreement is. Cheers

[cave_diver]

Oh I wasn't speaking for you. If you can be bothered, post a screenshoot for Price of Freedom. If not I understand, but I don't believe you on that nice 6min run. I farmed the quests in epics, and in heroics the quests seemed all below 2K XP per minute. About what XP/min were you getting on the quests? Maybe we agree.

I generally stay in three Barrel Cove until Level 7. @7 I hit necro1. Then take 8 and do Bloody Crypt + Redwillows and Delera's. After that I just start moving up levels in quests since low-level quests are generally abysmal, as we agree.

If good XP is like 1 to 1. 5 k per minute for a veteran, then I think that's where the disagreement is. Cheers

Go to bed ya old man

[cru121]

If you can be bothered, post a screenshoot for Price of Freedom. If not I understand, but I don't believe you on that nice 6min run.

Well there's 12 min teaching video linked on the wiki, but there's a lot of talking and stuff, I can definitely see 6 mins possible, with luck.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Well there's 12 min teaching video linked on the wiki, but there's a lot of talking and stuff, I can definitely see 6 mins possible, with luck.

Ya I was thinkin' about it, and I'm wrong---but its like doing a 10min madstone---you need a full group frog hopping each other. On a separate note I did the book one today with a full group and got 2k xpmin, but that was with everyone going down their own corridor. I think a fair assessment is that if you're solo you should skip these on a heroic life for xp.