Ok, its been said many times before. I'll say it again:
please decrease the spawn timer on mobs in Pande.
The recent SK bonuses for people in Inferno missions is -great-. I hated the grind. I had a doctor at 218 for almost 9 months because it just wasn't worth it to grind. I almost completely solo farmed 218-219 on bosses. I did 219-220 on the Inferno quests. I had a high level shade during this time and had almost decided it wasn't worth 220 even with the Inferno quests. Then the Inferno SK reward happened and he should be 220 quite soon. I love it.
BUT.
You've got some very specifically end-game content in Pande. Content that is key to many peoples' toons. And the only thing that made it feasible to get your Pande content was the fact that it took people a long time to get to the levels where they can raid effectively there.
That pressure regulator has been absolutely demolished. Its just plain gone.
The pain isn't being really felt yet (well, imo it IS starting to a bit in the form of people without a clue about Pande showing up in raids at a much higher rate), but it will be soon. You know most of your high level players require a cooperative effort to obtain the items. Whether it is in the form of multi-org points systems (like on RK2, only place I can speak 1st hand about Pande) or in the form of points or other reward systems that individual orgs implement to manage the loot, at SOME point every system will feel the pain that is caused by a doubling or trebling of the number of people who need the items and are high enough to participate.
You relieved a little of that pressure by making Beast stars into quest loot. You added a little more pressure when you made the Rebuilt Perennium weapons require Beast weapons. You MASSIVELY increased the overall pressure with the SK rewards.
Increase the difficulty in Pande if you want, whatever makes this seem justifiable to you. But if you don't address the problem, you're just fixing 1 grind and allowing that "fix" to create a different grind. One that is at -least- as nasty as the old one. It shouldn't take people -years- to win BoC, it shouldn't be so hard that MANY people give up on it.
...
While I think the best answer is instancing Pande, I admit, I don't think you have the resources to do this based on the past. So I'm not proposing that.
But, if Funcom really wants to keep this from becoming a game where only the "elite" can get the top twinking items (from everything I've read in the various leaks, you haven't added any comparable items in LE), you need to relieve the pressure somehow.
The only 2 feasible mechanisms are:
1) to lower the time it takes between the Pande mobs for spawning. This will have the effect of increasing the overall drops on -all- items.
or
2) make the various Beast armors a 100% drop, which will fix the biggest problem (Burden of Competence) but won't touch the other massive timesinks (Gyro, Mystery, Calculator, Red Belt etc).
I don't think 2 is a good answer, and I think it probably would require more development on your part. But surely the mob timers are simple enough to change? AO history has shown your ability to modify such timers (Tarasque for instance).
I'll suggest the new timers below, but I'm not stuck on these numbers. I just want to see the issue addressed.
Beast: every 10 hours. Not quite 1/2 of what it is now, not 9 hours (which could conflict with Tarasque), but close. Alternately, every 8 hours (meshing well with APF 7, Tara 9). Either would give alot of options for scheduling.
Zods/TNH: every 4 hours. Again not quite 1/2 of what it is now. Enough time between to get some stuff done.
PS. How about this one? Someone suggested this to me, I like it, I doubt it will happen ... have all 3 zods that -may- spawn at each point pop every round. Harder encounters, 100% chance that the Zod a person needs are up. But increase the spawn time to 8 hours instead of 6, and make the Beast an 8 hour timer.
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Originally Posted by Doctorhyde
