Vernal/Soulless curio discrepancy.

edited April 2015 in Ideas
I'm sure most of those who care have discovered the gulf between how easy it is to acquire Vernal Curio Pieces and Soulless Curio Pieces, but for those who aren't aware, these are the quests that provide curio pieces.

SOULLESS CURIO COLLECTION
o Raising the Eye of Zenos (Climanti Past)
o Completing Project Soulforge
o Opening Djarrakh
o Empowering the Slaghora'ruin (Tarpits)
o Dominating the Kephera Hives
o Raising the Avatar of the Dark Empress
o Summoning the shadow of Crazen
o Aiding the Goloth
o Slaying the Devourer of Destiny

VERNAL CURIO COLLECTION
o Activating Spire of Dionamus
o Destroy the Eye of Zenos (Climanti Past)
o Chancel of Clangoran Mysteries
o Crowning Ethilwin or Thoril
o Mirror of Tzaraziko
o Hand of Tzaraziko
o Urlach Catacombs Quest
o Closing Djarrakh
o Destroying Soulforge
o Kiakoda Nature Reserve Quest
o Defeating the Goloth

Numberwise, there are far more vernal quests to do. That in itself is not a great problem as the quests that hand out curio pieces should make sense thematically, and simply designing a few new quests isn't done with a snap of the finger. There is a problem that should be attended though. That is how much easier it is to generate vernal curio pieces than it is to generate soulless curio pieces. Vernal curios boost divinus damage and resists excorable, while the soulless curios do the opposite. As these damage types are deeply tied to certain orgs, it means that some orgs have a distinct disadvantage.

My proposal, which has some precedent in the Icewynd Curios, is that in the quests that have very clear subgoals, you introduce getting an additional piece of curio, rather than the only one you get at the end of the quest. Examplewise, for every keystone you return either to Ciarrus or to its spot in Djarrakh, you are given a curio piece. For every subquest solved after getting the device in Kryden Valik, you get a curio piece, and for every pedestal you corrupt for the illithoid, you get a curio piece.

Vernal pieces are still going to be easier to get than Soulless pieces, even if this is put in place, but it will make the discrepancy smaller.
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
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Comments

  • QistrelQistrel the hemisemidemifink
    The Vernal Curios emphasise divinus a lot, but, I always thought that Urlach and Tzaraziko played pretty close to the line between soulless and not soulless. Urlach used undead, and Tzaraziko had the Eye she pried out of Illith, which increased her power, but is hinted to have made her a little insane.

    Would it be possible to make the Urlach and Tzaraziko related quests have a chance to give out a soulless curio? Or put some sort of end choice in that allows the person to choose between the two?

  • EritheylEritheyl ** Trigger Warning **
    Disagree. Undead, questionably sane or not, Urlach and Tzaraziko were still both Vernal Gods. Not Soulless.
    Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."

    -

    With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
  • The Kryden Valik subquests aren't Soulless, they're helping aslaran. Quite quick too when you know what you're doing. The time consuming bit is influencing everyone.

    I'd say something like a piece per hour's work is fair, I'd want them to be an achievement, not as quick as the Waystations.
  • Indeed. Especially once you consider that most quests corresponds to a vernal with a seal, and each seal is represented by a different object being used to power up the main curio object.

    o Activating Spire of Dionamus (Life)
    o Destroy the Eye of Zenos (Climanti Past) (Justice)
    o Chancel of Clangoran Mysteries (War)
    o Crowning Ethilwin or Thoril (War)
    o Mirror of Tzaraziko (Chaos)
    o Hand of Tzaraziko (Chaos)
    o Urlach Catacombs Quest (Death)
    o Closing Djarrakh (Harmony)
    o Kiakoda Nature Reserve Quest (Nature)

    Knowledge and Beauty being the ones not represented.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited January 2013
    Easiest solution: up the reset rate of Kryden Valik. It is currently at 7 hours for a reset.

    By comparison, you can get 1 vernal an hour from the catacombs alone.

    Getting a piece for subquests would actually make them easier to spam than the Vernals, because the only one that can really be done in bulk is the Catacombs. The mirror is close, but you have to clear the mobs to reset it. The others all suffer from the same reset woes as the Soulless quests (or the difficulty). I do the whole Kryden Valik quest in under an hour which would be 4 pieces, plus another when each subquest resets, so I just can't see them going for that.

    Less easy; a quest to corrupt the Seals for the Catacombs, which would allow the same once-per-hour generation.
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  • Dys said:
    The Kryden Valik subquests aren't Soulless, they're helping aslaran. Quite quick too when you know what you're doing. The time consuming bit is influencing everyone. I'd say something like a piece per hour's work is fair, I'd want them to be an achievement, not as quick as the Waystations.
    Just make sure the subquests don't count unless you have the device, or have curio pieces handed out when the device makes a notice of how much power is in it. Kryden giving out four curio pieces all in all will still have it hand out less pieces per time than the Mirror or the Reserve.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    No it wouldn't, for the reserve at least. Unless they changed it in the last month, you can solve the reserve again quickly, but Albert won't send you off for the ink again until a sufficient period of time has passed (the reset woes).

    You can get one from the mirror every two to three hours, and one from Kryden every seven. Getting four pieces from Kryden would outstrip it.

    The truly spammable (and easiest) vernal is the catacombs. One piece per hour for five minutes (if that) of work.

    The reason you are having so much trouble with Kryden is that it is one quest with a long reset that multiple want to do. And some of them are clearly obsessed with curios.
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  • Xenthos said:
    Easiest solution: up the reset rate of Kryden Valik. It is currently at 7 hours for a reset. By comparison, you can get 1 vernal an hour from the catacombs alone. Getting a piece for subquests would actually make them easier to spam than the Vernals, because the only one that can really be done in bulk is the Catacombs. The mirror is close, but you have to clear the mobs to reset it. The others all suffer from the same reset woes as the Soulless quests (or the difficulty). I do the whole Kryden Valik quest in under an hour which would be 4 pieces, plus another when each subquest resets, so I just can't see them going for that. Less easy; a quest to corrupt the Seals for the Catacombs, which would allow the same once-per-hour generation.
    That's not going to solve the issue at all. It makes one quest "spammable" for the curio pieces, but still to a far lesser degree than Vernal pieces, and it doesn't at all open up other quests as time-feasible means of acquiring soulless curio pieces.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • Xenthos said:
    No it wouldn't, for the reserve at least. Unless they changed it in the last month, you can solve the reserve again quickly, but Albert won't send you off for the ink again until a sufficient period of time has passed (the reset woes). You can get one from the mirror every two to three hours, and one from Kryden every seven. Getting four pieces from Kryden would outstrip it. The truly spammable (and easiest) vernal is the catacombs. One piece per hour for five minutes (if that) of work. The reason you are having so much trouble with Kryden is that it is one quest with a long reset that multiple want to do. And some of them are clearly obsessed with curios.
    Ignoring the troll bait, I'm pretty sure the mirror can be done every other hour if you're willing to alternate between helping Cheonbi and Taroch, giving you four pieces and still involving less actual questing work than Kryden, which was my point. I don't know the reset time on Albert sending you after Ink, but if you've got a few friends, that's a curio piece per hour still. And by your own admission the catacombs vastly outstrip Kryden handing out four pieces.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Er, what questing work is there in Kryden? The puzzles can all be solved by code, so the 'work' is nothing but influencing and finding basidions (which is the hardest part, darn those keph-lovers). If you're talking about using friends to up generation rates, you also need to consider how scripts can do the same thing.

    I'll agree that the mirror is easy, but Kryden is hardly any tougher; it just takes a little longer.

    My reset on Albert was something like 12 hours, it was incredibly annoying. I would solve it, go to bed, wake up and he still wouldn't talk to me. This is why I do not see the reserve as in any way surpassing Kryden.

    I never tried alternating the mirror quest. It probably would work, though. m. Still, speeding up Kryden's reset would help with that nicely.

    The best solution is more Soulless quests that can be done semi-reasonably without a long reset, but they take a while to implement. Speeding up Kryden is a good start! The reason I have not made a post on this yet myself is because I am anticipating at least one more as part of the End Of The World event, and I'd like to see how it goes.

    Also, if anything, my post is clearly trolling myself. :p
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  • QistrelQistrel the hemisemidemifink
    I never said they were soulless. It's just odd that Urlach and Tzaraziko give out stuff that boosts divinus damage. I meant that if Tzaraziko used a piece of a soulless god to fight the soulless gods, why couldn't her quest go 'Here's a piece of a soulless curio, follow in her footsteps by using it to fight the soulless'?

    It's not like the soulless curios were made by the soulless.

  • EritheylEritheyl ** Trigger Warning **
    Eh. Curios don't really tie into any part of lore/mythos the way it is, so I think that would be a bit of a stretch. Besides, if I'm actively working on Vernal quests in the hopes of getting Vernal curio pieces...I'd be pretty miffed if I got some Soulless junk!
    Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."

    -

    With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
  • edited January 2013
    The general theme for the Vernal set is Avechna (as all 9 vernals went into him). We'd considered doing 9 items in the set, or 3 sets, but ended up just doing one with this theme. Anyways, so it's 'Avechna', which lends itself pretty heavily to Divinus-theme, versus its opposite.

    To the topic itself, I don't inherently have an opinion about adding more bits to existing quests, but I don't think we'll add them in such a manner to make them 'farmable'. IE you might get more bits for raising Soulforge or releasing the Eye of Zenos or something.

    I don't think we're really considering doing that, though. They aren't intended to be supremely easy to collect. If anything, my first thought would be to make Vernal/Soulless like city/commune ikons, ie you get 'points' based on the difficulty of the quest and at a given threshold you get a curio. That way it can be more 'even' across the board, with 'easier' quests giving fewer points.

    I really don't think we're going to hack reset times by 86%, though, on certain quests, just so you can get moar soulless curioz.

    They aren't intended to be 'easy' to collect, but to take time and effort (much like the pilgrim achievements etc). They're deliberately targeting a specific gamer personality type, people who feel the need to complete difficult tasks for the sake of bragging rights and some prize.
  • QistrelQistrel the hemisemidemifink

    Eritheyl said:
     I'm actively working on Vernal quests in the hopes of getting Vernal curio pieces...I'd be pretty miffed if I got some Soulless junk!
    And what about those wanting Soulless 'junk'? I may not be one of them, but I can see they have a disadvantage at present.

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Eventru said:
    I don't think we're really considering doing that, though. They aren't intended to be supremely easy to collect. If anything, my first thought would be to make Vernal/Soulless like city/commune ikons, ie you get 'points' based on the difficulty of the quest and at a given threshold you get a curio. That way it can be more 'even' across the board, with 'easier' quests giving fewer points.
    Yeah, making it harder to get them is pretty much exactly the opposite of what the thread is asking for. :P
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    And before you try to claim "It wouldn't be harder, just spread out!," it'll definitely be harder.

    Just look at the rate of Ikon generation for, say, the villages versus the Cities / Communes.  You get a whole ikon for doing a village quest.  You get points towards an ikon for doing an org-quest.

    Same with the elementals that you can get for doing things like the mirror quest; you get a whole ikon for completion.

    Trying to generate org-ikons is just a long and tedious process, and making this curio collection stuff even longer and more tedious than it already is would be pretty mean.
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  • Xenthos said:

    And before you try to claim "It wouldn't be harder, just spread out!," it'll definitely be harder.

    Just look at the rate of Ikon generation for, say, the villages versus the Cities / Communes.  You get a whole ikon for doing a village quest.  You get points towards an ikon for doing an org-quest.

    Same with the elementals that you can get for doing things like the mirror quest; you get a whole ikon for completion.

    Trying to generate org-ikons is just a long and tedious process, and making this curio collection stuff even longer and more tedious than it already is would be pretty mean.

    It wouldn't make it "more spread out", it would certainly make generating Vernal curios a bit harder. Granted, the quests tend to be fairly difficult for those not top tier, so it's probably not really necessary.

    I don't think the solution is making Soulless curio quests reset quicker nor making the easiest/least offensive Soulless quest spawn four or five per round and drop the reset time from 7 hours to 1, though, either!


  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited January 2013
    Eventru said:
    And before you try to claim "It wouldn't be harder, just spread out!," it'll definitely be harder.

    Just look at the rate of Ikon generation for, say, the villages versus the Cities / Communes.  You get a whole ikon for doing a village quest.  You get points towards an ikon for doing an org-quest.

    Same with the elementals that you can get for doing things like the mirror quest; you get a whole ikon for completion.

    Trying to generate org-ikons is just a long and tedious process, and making this curio collection stuff even longer and more tedious than it already is would be pretty mean.
    It wouldn't make it "more spread out", it would certainly make generating Vernal curios a bit harder. Granted, the quests tend to be fairly difficult for those not top tier, so it's probably not really necessary. I don't think the solution is making Soulless curio quests reset quicker nor making the easiest/least offensive Soulless quest spawn four or five per round and drop the reset time from 7 hours to 1, though, either!
    I'm reasonably sure I didn't suggest dropping the reset from from 7 to 1. :P

    I also argued against making that quest spawn multiple pieces-per-round.

    In fact, looking at it, the only quest I suggested be given a "1 hour reset" was "if there could be a Soulless-side to the Catacombs" which I even referred to as a "less easy option".  New quests are inherently so.

    While I didn't suggest a reset time for Kryden Valik, I'm not really seeing where you'd get the impression I want it to be a 1-hour-reset.  I was thinking more along the lines of 4 hours, because as I said I am anticipating other quest(s) being implemented that would also help fill the gap.
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  • Hmm! Swore someone said one hour. Ah well. At any rate, I consider a one hour reset rate highly unlikely! (/plant flag)
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Eventru said:
    Hmm! Swore someone said one hour. Ah well. At any rate, I consider a one hour reset rate highly unlikely! (/plant flag)
    Preeeeetty sure you're referring to me talking about the one-hour reset for the Catacombs quest and saying the only way I could really see a one-hour Soulless quest would be if that one was modified to have both a Vernal and a Soulless side.  But that's a completely different quest and discussion!

    I'd say that setting Kryden to a 1-hour reset is not just highly unlikely, but just Not Going To Happen.  I don't usually suggest things that silly! :P  A 4-hour reset seems reasonable to me, but I'm waiting until all the year-end stuff settles down before I really get into assessing the disparity between the two types (as noted earlier).
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  • edited January 2013
    And regardless of one-hour or seven-hours, the premise of this thread, which I haven't seen an argument prove wrong yet, is that soulless curio pieces are harder to get than vernal curio pieces. Leading to the request that soulless quests either give out more soulless pieces or be made faster/easier than they are now so they can be brought to equity with vernal curio pieces.

    Personally, I feel that "difficult to collect" should not be "all but impossible", and that generating either vernal and soulless curio pieces (much less successfully forming either curio in its entirety) are simply ridiculous and unreasonable for the average player. This isn't on the level of the old ascendant special snowflake stuff. We at least have more than 10 ascendants in the game, active or not. I'd not be surprised if Xenthos is the only one with a completed vernal curio.

    But I digress. That's not the point of this thread, and I'm not looking to start a discussion about that. We can all take Eventru's word that the current rate of generating vernal curio pieces is reasonable (lol). The problem that soulless curio pieces are more difficult both in the number of quests and the difficulty of the quests, however, remains a glaring point that has not been proven false yet. I believe the suggestion to make soulless curio piece generation easier is more than reasonable.

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I'm the only one with a completed Soulless curio (and that's because I won the contest to get a free Soulless curio).  There are a few other completed Vernals because they are much easier to gather.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with a complete Vernal set right now though, and I'm within 6 pieces of completing the Soulless; but as anyone who's put curios together knows, 6 pieces remaining means you're only a fraction of the way there. :/
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  • I don't really take to being mocked not words being out in my mouth, so I'm going to say one last thing then quit the thread.

    My post should have implied not that I thought Vernal rates were reasonable, but that I think they may be too plentiful. Maybe the problem isn't "soulless are too rare because they can't be farmed like the Catacombs quest", but rather "the Catacombs quest shouldn't be spitting out curios so quickly".

    Thus my thought for a "point" accumulation system akin to getting ikons, in that some quests (that are very easy and "farmable") would be toned down so it would require repeated completions to get the curio (2 or 3, in the case of Urlach, which seems the only farmable one AFAIK).

    I readily dismiss "only one person has completed a Vernal set" as an argument, particularly when we're only a few months in and that person is Xenthos, who got most if not all of them by farming an event quest and trading.

    They're not meant to be easy, nor common.

    Beyond that, all I'm offering is my opinion based off of conversations when we were making and setting them up.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Eventru said:
    I readily dismiss "only one person has completed a Vernal set" as an argument, particularly when we're only a few months in and that person is Xenthos, who got most if not all of them by farming an event quest and trading.
    I can't believe you just said that.

    I spent that entire time spam-hammering the quests as well.  I did Kiakoda every time it reset and allowed me.  I did Catacombs every hour, religiously.  I did the Mirror every 3 hours, killing the mirror mobs every time they respawned and re-doing the quest when the quest-NPC respawned.

    Sure I spent a lot of time trading and getting pieces from others, but I'd say I generated more pieces by questing than from the event itself, and I'd thank you not to put down / summarily dismiss my efforts out of hand.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I mean, I did Kiakoda often enough to write out in detail what the bug with the quest there is (note that it's not fixed yet), and figure out how to solve it with a 100% success rate despite that bug.  I put in a huge amount of time and work on it, and I just don't appreciate you implying that I didn't, or that my working on it was somehow "less" than the people who are trying to complete them now.
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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    I can't agree more.
  • I disagree that making vernals harder to collect is a solution, so much as making both sets of curios out of reach, especially if there's an insistence on having a "rare" type of curio piece that has a tiny, puny rate of spawning and can't be rubbed for. Theoretically you would have to do a quest at least fourty times in order to generate enough curios. But to have those 40 pieces be exactly the ones you need just ain't going to happen. Trading only becomes an option if others are aiming to complete the same collection you are, and the harder it is to complete a collection, the fewer will want to bother with it.

    The suggestion for Kryden was just that, a suggestion. And as shown, at a 1 hour completion time and 7 hour reset, that even with four curios per completion, it breaks even with the mirror when focused upon, and produces less total curios per hour than the Catacombs and Reserve. (The reserve can't be completed every hour by the same person, but it resets about once an hour for other people to complete it, and it's easy enough to complete, even an alt fresh out of the portal could do it.)

    So... yeah.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • I would really, really, really like soulless curios but I just don't see myself spending 40+ hours working on it. My frustration threshold is low enough to make questing not super fun for me and skeezing walkthroughs from people is even less appealing.

    It looks like this is just something I'm going to skip out on. I can appreciate wanting to make them special and something people just can't buy off without any effort or anything but this does place them out of my reach and I have no doubt I'm alone in this.

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