1. I am allowed to vent here, its the gripes forum after all.

2. You are allowed your opinion but mine is just as valid.

Now on with it:

I am torn about veeshan's peak being changed. If I were still playing I'd have been bumped out of yet another place I could go simply because I couldn't get to the elemental planes. I had soloed the entire bloomin VP key quest except for the tooth and never got the chance at the tooth because, well, I work odd hours and you can't solo that dragon. IE: time restricted. Getting into VP was one of the few things one could do if you didn't have the luck of being in a big guild on our server or if you played the odd hours that none of the successful "open raids" occurred.

I am torn because I realise that things should be changed to give these elemental planed people something to do. However the bottleneck still exists to actually get access to such a level of difficulty.

Oh well, no one likes to be marginalized and I guess that's why I left.

you can't solo that dragon

Yes you can :)

Yes you can :)
Only if you already have elemental + gear, which would kind of sidestep his point.

I'm in a quote unquote family guild, and the only thing keeping us from getting into the elemental planes is numbers. We're growing our guild more and more lately, but there have only been a small handful of times we've had more than 40 people on a raid, and that includes probably 5-7 folks that aren't even level 65.

Now, with that said, the re-tooling of Veeshan's Peak as an "Elemental level" zone excites me because our guild can finally move up to Elemental tier content without having to grow to 70 people per raid or make an alliance.

Trakanon was the bottleneck for VP keys, (plus the fact that gear there became mudflated out of everyone's wish list) but I think it's too much to hope for to expect the new key quest to not have its own bottlenecks as well.

I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this new zone, at least for a while, and to me that makes it worth it. Sure, it sucks to lose old "classic" content (Plane of Mischief is one example), but when nobody ever goes there, it's time to move on. Even if you lose something, you gain something else.

Any idea what is required to gain the 'new' key to VP, and where does having the 'old' key come into play .. does that key allow one to simply bypass the first part of the new quest, or is the old key used to initiate a side quest that doesn't involve the same encounters as the new quest?

~Firemynd

I've heard you need either "Old key" + "Raid-part" to get into VP, or "new quest" + "Raid-part".

The old key quest was heavy on the bottlenecks and multi-day camping of trivial mobs, and light on the creature difficulty, with the exception of Trak. Trak dropped 1 tooth for the quest every time he died.

Trak usually drops quite a few teeth. Are you sure you're not thinking about Sleepers dragons?

i have to say VP is the one zone i have not been to besides the elemental planes in PoP or some of the sewers

It's:

a) Old key + Raid Part
or
b) New quest (involves grouping.)

Zajeer designed it specifically so that you can do it however you like, and the new quest (when fully revealed) will probably be just fine for the time restricted players, so long as you can dig up a couple friends.

Even if you are doing the new entry quest part, you still need to kill that dragon. Not too hard, but still, (as it is today) a raid.

You also get a different aug if you have the original vp key. 30/30/30 instead of the 'new' essences 15/15/15 one.

Sea!

Mm. You seem to be correct.

To be fair to Zajeer, the original VP involved a raid mob (Trakanon) to get into, plus one group key bits.

But it doesnt seem appropriate to release an alternative "casuals" Elemental zone only to those who can field an elemental+ raid force to kill that dragon.

I'd hoped this wasnt another one of those Sony idioms "You must have better gear than what drops in here or be able to zerg me to get in" sort of gatekeepers...

They still dont get it.

If youre talking about trakanon, hes hardly an elemental+ raid force type mob. Elemental+ solo mob, or a dozen bazaar equipped characters should be able to do it.

trakanon, hes hardly an elemental+ raid force type mob
He was when VP was the end game zone.

This is what I think they are trying to accomplish here. The new VP has Elemental style gear but doesn't require the same progression that is takes to enter elemental. So it will be easier for Time+ guilds to bypass back flagging in the planes to gear up new members for GoD/OoW. Since theoretically it will be easier just to obtain the new VP key then to do all the PoP back flagging. So basically this is in effect a short cut to progression. It's important that they put stuff like this in or attrition in high end guilds would negatively impact the delicate house of cards they have built in this raidcentric game.

i think he's talking about the new dragon in Sky Fire you need to kill to get into VP. Trak has been solo'd and easily 1 -2 grouped...

Logilitie, correct.... but you're missing Tiane's point. When Kunark was released, Veeshan's Peak was the "end game" of that expansion. Trakanon was *not* soloable or one-groupable; back then, it required a raid force. Also, most of the lesser pieces of the VP key were not solable, a group was needed for some, and duo/trio for others.

Point is: this is exactly how the VP 2.0 key is acquired; combination of group encounters and one 'raid' encounter.

(btw I'm counting the first retuning of VP as 1.5).

~Firemynd

I think it is a good idea for them to upgrade the "High End" zone each time they raise the bar. If the zone was designed originally for the end game (such as VP, Sleapers, etc.) it should stay end game level. Upgrading end game zones is good for two reasons..

1) It expands the playing field for the end game players so an entire expansion (like GoD) does not have to be dedicated to them.

2) It upgrades the zone that wouldn't be played by the average player to gear that is still useful to people that would hunt there.

I prefer they upgrade raid level zones more than adding new zones and letting the old zones be wasted because nobody will hunt in them.

the new quest is posted on allakhazams...

you can do the key quest in either manner .. new or old....

you are still gonna have to kill a dragon for either.....

if you go after the new key, you will need your HS key to be able to get the essence from there (interesting way to get peeps back into HS).

and the new VP may be elemental but I am wondering about the quests that will come from there...

will be interesting to see over the next few months..

dekkon

I think it is a good idea for them to upgrade the "High End" zone each time they raise the bar. If the zone was designed originally for the end game (such as VP, Sleapers, etc.) it should stay end game level. Upgrading end game zones is good for two reasons..

1) It expands the playing field for the end game players so an entire expansion (like GoD) does not have to be dedicated to them.

2) It upgrades the zone that wouldn't be played by the average player to gear that is still useful to people that would hunt there.

I prefer they upgrade raid level zones more than adding new zones and letting the old zones be wasted because nobody will hunt in them.

I've gotta disagree with ya, for two reasons. ;)

1. Maintaining the same degree of difficulty for 'end game' zones allows guilds to follow the same progression path as the cutting-edge guilds who got there first. It also allows less raid oriented guilds (especially smaller guilds) to eventually experience that expansion's content in its entirety, as they benefit from new spells/AAs/levels and the encounters don't require as many people.

2. Everyone who buys an expansion should have ample time to make their way to its end-game zones, should they so desire. Just because the top guilds are done with an expansion and ready to plow through the next, doesn't mean everyone else is. Moreover, a new expansion delivers a new end-game... I doubt most 'cutting edge' guilds would want to keep going back to the same zone after they've just finished farming it to death for six months.

The VP revamp can potentially be a good thing, since most servers have become increasingly top-heavy. However, I do feel bad for the folks in pre-elemental casual/family guilds who never got to see the original VP. Now they never will.

~Firemynd

Be realistic Fire... the original VP, with 2 minute wurm respawn timers and NO way to get out (short of the double-res trick which was a PITA) was never ever designed for casual players to visit. This new version is, if nothing else, better that way (though the raid level block for entry needs to go... what happened to the promised quest-groupable entry path?)

Don't misunderstand. I think the first retuning of VP (elimination of no-gate/no-port) was a good thing. And I don't mind this new revamp very much either, because there are now several places of comparable difficulty for less hardcore folks to go, where they can see loot that is as good or better than old VP's. Over the past two years, VP has become increasingly under-utilitized and is certainly not required for progression, so revamping it makes sense.

y contention was with the idea of revamping end-game zones as soon as they're no longer end-game .. before people have a fair chance to get there. I'm not against revamps in general.

~Firemynd

Mm. You seem to be correct.

To be fair to Zajeer, the original VP involved a raid mob (Trakanon) to get into, plus one group key bits.

But it doesnt seem appropriate to release an alternative "casuals" Elemental zone only to those who can field an elemental+ raid force to kill that dragon.

I'd hoped this wasnt another one of those Sony idioms "You must have better gear than what drops in here or be able to zerg me to get in" sort of gatekeepers...

They still dont get it.

*sigh* - Yep would be working on some of the quests inside VP right now, but good damn luck me getting in on that dragon kill any time soon. Promise a revamp for more casual people and make it so you need a raid to get in. Wow - that sounds strangely like THE ELEMENTAL PLANES - good work SOE for giving us more of the same.

*sigh* - Yep would be working on some of the quests inside VP right now, but good damn luck me getting in on that dragon kill any time soon. Promise a revamp for more casual people and make it so you need a raid to get in. Wow - that sounds strangely like THE ELEMENTAL PLANES - good work SOE for giving us more of the same.

I don't recall anyone from SOE saying that VP was being revamped for more casual people. But yes, the new dragon is sort of a bottleneck right now.

I'm hoping GMs will keep an eye on Skyfire and take swift action against any guilds whose members intentionally blow the encounter to reduce the number of people gaining access to VP2. Before the revamp went live, I had really hoped this would be made an 'instanced' encounter, so there would be less chance of cockblocking and such.

Perfect example of how instancing *could* be used to alleviate some of the game's more aggrevating negative social elements. Don't know whether SOE is just shortsighted, lazy, or whether they actually rely upon bad behavior to slow down the playerbase's consumption of content.

~Firemynd

I just realized that I have only been to VP 2 times total. Both times were GM events. One was the event where I earned my title.

The new VP is definately not easy to get into...

You have to camp mobs that take about 10 hour's worth of phs to spawn and when they show up they take a mini raid of 12-18 or so to kill. and then they only drop 1 piece.

It's less overall stuff to do than flagging for ele's but keep in mind - in pop when a god dies, the whole raid gets flagged. Here you're doing 10 hours of camping and a mini raid just to get 1 person 1 part of a 4-piece quest.

As for the dragon you need to kill he's not incredibly tough and has been killed by pickup raids. I don't know exactly how many flags he drops but when my guild killed him there was enough for everyone who wanted one.

They really need to change it if they want to see guilds in VP 2.

I don't recall anyone from SOE saying that VP was being revamped for more casual people. But yes, the new dragon is sort of a bottleneck right now.

In the statements where they talk about being a raider and killing the dragons or being a non-raider and doing the quests is where they speak of the raiders vs non-raiders content. The implication from SOE was that you wouldn't need to be araider to take advantage of the zone. They forgot to mention that you had to be a raider to get in. Oops, slight oversite/omission on their part I guess. Forgive me for the slip of the tongue and using casual instead of "non-raider".

The point is you can't get in this zone without (most likely) being a raider and that defeats the purpose of putting in the that non-raiders could do.

See the point? Its like the elemental planes. You don't have to be a raider to get the stuff for the elemetnal trade skills, but you can't get the stuff without raidng. You don't need to be elemental to do the Aid Grim quest - yet they put a self imposed unnescessary unrealted impediment on the quest by making flags and elemental access required. These are things that non-raiders could work to do, yet they can't reep the reward of non-raid quests and contents without doing raids to fulfill some stupid SOE self imposed artificial "raid requirement".