Solo Shard Instances

[Suppler]

<p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">Hi Everyone, </span></p><p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">I havent played hardly at all during the new xpac, but I heard something about solo instances for shard farming possibly being on the horizon. I was wondering if this is true, and how difficult they might be? I would like them to be very difficult, so you have to work your booty off and possibly not get a reward every time. Anyone know any details?</span></p>

[Wingrider01]

<p>believe it was mentioned in passing for GU52 (I think) so at probably a couple months down the line. It also mentioned a 1 a day restriction</p>

[Suppler]

<p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">Thanks Wingrider. Glad to hear a 2nd person has heard of this thing. Hopefully that 1 day lockout is 18 hours, and hopefully the instance(s) will be a signficant challenge. Now if we can just GU51 to go live so we can get to 52.</span></p>

[denmom]

<p>The dev, Kander, confirmed it in passing in another thread.</p><p><span ><p>Quote:  "FYI: Stay tuned for the <em>Shard of the Day</em> solo quest, with some additional solo content. Cannot say more, but keep your eyes peeled for GU52."</p><p>Kander also remarks later in the thread that it's supposed to take as much time as running a shard instance with a group.</p><p>This is from this thread:</p></span></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=225&topic_id=436214" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=436214</a></p>

[Xil]

<p>In a game where all classes are not created equal it will be impossible to make solo content challenging.  It has to be mickey mouse enough so that every class can solo it.</p><p>So that means it'll be a challege for shaman, cleric, and warriors, but for everyone else it'll be completely trivial.</p><p>Really they need to make group content more compelling instead of trying to stifle boredom with solo content in a group focused game.</p><p>Large open "NON-LINEAR" Dungeons would allow challenging solo content for strong solo classes and a dynamic grouping mechanic for people who don't have much time.  Instead of having to build a 6 man group to run through an instance that you can't stop in the middle of you could have groups constantly cycling players in and out during the course of a dungeon crawl.</p><p>Like Chardok and Seb.  Only more spread out and add more main targets.  Linear dungeons are boring and only make it harder to find groups.  Sure they take less time.  But you have to spend all that time again to find a group.  So you get nothing as a casual player out of it but time spent waiting for a group to do a quick instance rather than time spent killing mobs in a large dungeon.</p><p>All the things people keep clammering about to make the game mroe enjoyable for casual players are just making things harder and more boring...</p><p>Ironic.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Xil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So that means it'll be a challege for shaman, cleric, and warriors, but for everyone else it'll be completely trivial.</p><p>Really they need to make group content more compelling instead of trying to stifle boredom with solo content in a group focused game.</p><p>Large open "NON-LINEAR" Dungeons would allow challenging solo content for strong solo classes and a dynamic grouping mechanic for people who don't have much time. Instead of having to build a 6 man group to run through an instance that you can't stop in the middle of you could have groups constantly cycling players in and out during the course of a dungeon crawl.</p><p>Like Chardok and Seb. Only more spread out and add more main targets. Linear dungeons are boring and only make it harder to find groups. Sure they take less time. But you have to spend all that time again to find a group. So you get nothing as a casual player out of it but time spent waiting for a group to do a quick instance rather than time spent killing mobs in a large dungeon.</p><p>All the things people keep clammering about to make the game mroe enjoyable for casual players are just making things harder and more boring...</p><p>Ironic.</p></blockquote><p>Shaman, clerics and warrior solo as well as others. If you say Guardian and Defiler solo slow its closer to the truth. Mystic, SK, zerker, brawlers and pally have no problem at all.</p><p>Well, the days of contested dungeons seem to be over. I miss the mix of heroic and solo content as well. Heck, i even miss the old access quests <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Now we have scripted mini raids <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Reminds me of an RL friend who was in love/ addicted to WOW. One day he said: "I cant hear the word instance anymore". Then he quit WOW after 3 years and never went back <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Heed my words <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Nighrbringer]

<p>I would love to see massive non-instanced dungeons similiar to the ones in Vanguard.</p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Xil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In a game where all classes are not created equal it will be impossible to make solo content challenging.  It has to be mickey mouse enough so that every class can solo it.</p><p>So that means it'll be a challege for shaman, cleric, and warriors, but for everyone else it'll be completely trivial.</p><p><span >Large open "NON-LINEAR" Dungeons would allow challenging solo content for strong solo classes and a dynamic grouping mechanic for people who don't have much time.  Instead of having to build a 6 man group to run through an instance that you can't stop in the middle of you could have groups constantly cycling players in and out during the course of a dungeon crawl.</span></p></blockquote><p>QFE</p><p>Although realize that it took folks a lot of time to get geared up sufficiently that Sebilis is not a deathtrap. Even now, Chardok is a pretty tough place.</p><p>A casual open shared dungeon that has some really easy areas and then ramping up in difficulty would be great. I could see them putting in a casual open dungeon with lots of wide open space and various quests that complete in there. But SoE will never put names in such an easy zone because then they would just be farmed permanently.</p><p>I'm really looking forward to the x2 raid zone.</p>

[Loolee]

<p><cite>Eugam wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Heed my words <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Dooom!!!!!</p>

[Yimway]

<p>Can we get a solo dungeon in RoK and previous tiers that gives me a percent chance at heroic/group content loots as well?</p><p>Cause really, we can't be bothered with grouping in the rest of the content either...</p>

[Nighrbringer]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can we get a solo dungeon in RoK and previous tiers that gives me a percent chance at heroic/group content loots as well?</p><p>Cause really, we can't be bothered with grouping in the rest of the content either...</p></blockquote><p>Because we all know your playstyle > anyone else's.</p>

[Gilasil]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span>Kander also remarks later in the thread that it's supposed to take as much time as running a shard instance with a group</span></p></blockquote><p>Thank you.  I'm really looking forward to that.</p><p>Of course my next question is: Will it take as long as running a level 80 instance with 80 toons?  Or as long as a  greyed out level 50 instance with 80 toons where people can EASILY and at no risk whatsoever get 9 shards in an hour or two.  11 if they can exploit the daily double too.</p><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p><p>Anyway, I'm looking forward to a soloable shard instance.  I hope they make it fairly difficult and require a couple hours to do.  I REALLY hope it isn't exploitable.  A few instances (for when I have more time) would be pretty cool too. </p>

[zaneluke]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p></blockquote><p>I agree. I dont not think yu should be able to get shards out of a grey zone. As more and more people figure out this work around you get less and less groups running.</p><p>Its easy to spot the people who have gotten greyed out zone shards though. Same people who do not understand the encounters. You have tons of people running around with T2 shard armor 120 AAs. Not that it matters.  </p>

[Jaffa Tamarin]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p></blockquote><p>/agree also.</p><p>A level-scaled instance should force any higher-level characters that enter to mentor to the level of the instance.</p>

[Dimhammer]

<p><span >I would NOT like to see more open dungeons.  Ok maybe 1 or 2 more but that's about it.  I had enough of them in EQ1, and it sucks having to camp spawn points or compete with other groups in the zone over the same Named spawn points.</span></p>

[Brinelan]

<p>I seriously hope they put in more open dungeons..  instances are nice but they are seriously getting to be overdone.</p>

[Sharakari]

<p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The dev, Kander, confirmed it in passing in another thread.</p><p><span><p>Quote:  "FYI: Stay tuned for the <em>Shard of the Day</em> solo quest, with some additional solo content. Cannot say more, but keep your eyes peeled for GU52."</p><p>Kander also remarks later in the thread that it's supposed to take as much time as running a shard instance with a group.</p><p>This is from this thread:</p></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=225&topic_id=436214" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=436214</a></p></blockquote><p>Let's just hope they aren't built off the same idea as those boring and tedious solo crafter instances.  All that work for 1 token...... I quit doing them. </p><p>Heck, why do a Void Shard solo instance for 1 shard anyways when they completely leave it open for you to mentor down to 50, unmentor once in the zone, and take that Void Shard in 15-30 mins???  You can get 8-10 Void Shards a day(depending on where the DD is) in about 3 hours!!!  Solo Void Shard instances just don't sound like they are worth the time.  Guess it's a wait and see situation but I am looking forward to the Lavastorm revamp.</p>

[Krystara]

<p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Let's just hope they aren't built off the same idea as those boring and tedious solo crafter instances.  All that work for 1 token...... I quit doing them. </p></blockquote><p>Those weren't supposed to be solo instances.  Those were supposed to be group instances for crafters.  The solo quests take 10 minutes once a week for your token.</p><p>Domino was nice enough to make it possible to solo the group instance - even if it does take a couple of hours.</p>

[Zehl_Ice-Fire]

<p>I had a blast in KoS in Sanctum, even Palace of Awakened was fun, racing for the names and quest updates. The RoK open dungeons rarely had more than 1 group in them that wasn't forming for a raid. I think the zero loot when RoK hit soured karnor's castle, for many people, then they added nothing but junk loot and no one still went there, Chardok had little to offer but PITA getting to any names with like 1 good item to go for, and Seb was very challenging, with some nice loot. I'd like to see a few open dungeons added with a reason to go in them (good loot, really good quest rewards). I'd also like to not have shards trivialized by being able to mentor to 50, zone in and unmentor.</p>

[Zarador]

<p><cite>Lysari@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sharakari@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Let's just hope they aren't built off the same idea as those boring and tedious solo crafter instances.  All that work for 1 token...... I quit doing them. </p></blockquote><p>Those weren't supposed to be solo instances.  Those were supposed to be group instances for crafters.  The solo quests take 10 minutes once a week for your token.</p><p>Domino was nice enough to make it possible to solo the group instance - even if it does take a couple of hours.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, they can be awesome for crafters that just hit 50.  I think it took me just about two weeks to get from 50 to 80 and my Crafting Epic by doing the instances solo.  By the time I hit cap I had a full set of crafting gear, the faction recipes and a rather nice mount.  Far more rewarding and interesting than the usual path of craft leveling.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Loolee wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Eugam wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Heed my words <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Dooom!!!!!</p></blockquote><p>LOL, no. Not doom, but the instances start to wear on people.</p><p>Sometimes i miss those dungeons where it did matter which wall you hugged, where respawns caused havoc and where it mattered how the tank pulled. RoV was a very interessting dungeon and SoS to some degree. Fond memories of the access to the back entrance to the living tomb or even everfrost <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> The new zones are ok or even fun. But somehow static and instant accessible instances <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Its not the same "epic" feeling like it was when you gained access to the mirror into Shimmering Citadel or Cauldron Hollow. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I d like to see a huge contested dungeon with solo and group content mixed, where it matters how you sneak past the heroics to do your solo stuff.</p><p>Frankly speaking , i want the old everQUEST back. Where raid was the icing on the cake and not endgame. Where you did a raid once or twice to help guildies. Not where you raid for the sake of raid and fabled. Raids like Cauldron Hollow or godking that have been doable by legendrary equiped people. Raids that have a purpose like MoA. Compared to the EQ2 that once existed the new content is a joke. Raiding monday to clear trash and friday for nameds ? LOL isnt that silly ?</p>

[axl_2baz]

<p><cite>zaneluke wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p></blockquote><p>I agree. I dont not think yu should be able to get shards out of a grey zone. As more and more people figure out this work around you get less and less groups running.</p><p>Its easy to spot the people who have gotten greyed out zone shards though. Same people who do not understand the encounters. You have tons of people running around with T2 shard armor 120 AAs. Not that it matters.  </p></blockquote><p>So do I ... The spmiâw cade could be used, where a too high lvl character would not get update for quests ...</p>

[Moussie]

<p><cite>You saying that a lvl 80 char can group with a lvl 50, mentor down, enter a shard instance, unmentor, kill all the grey stuff and end up with 6 shards from the chest + the shard from the quest????  Your joking right.</cite></p><p><cite></cite></p><p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pheep@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span>Kander also remarks later in the thread that it's supposed to take as much time as running a shard instance with a group</span></p></blockquote><p>Thank you.  I'm really looking forward to that.</p><p>Of course my next question is: Will it take as long as running a level 80 instance with 80 toons?  Or as long as a  greyed out level 50 instance with 80 toons where people can EASILY and at no risk whatsoever get 9 shards in an hour or two.  11 if they can exploit the daily double too.</p><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p><p>Anyway, I'm looking forward to a soloable shard instance.  I hope they make it fairly difficult and require a couple hours to do.  I REALLY hope it isn't exploitable.  A few instances (for when I have more time) would be pretty cool too. </p></blockquote>

[Brinelan]

<p>you dont get the chest shard when the zone is scaled down.  The mechanic has been around for years, and it just being adapted for shards. it has been used for quet updates and nobody complained then.</p>

[Xethren]

<p><cite>Skrat@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Gah I wish they'd plug that exploit.  It's making a farce out of the whole thing.  They might as well give the shard armor away.</p></blockquote><p>/agree also.</p><p>A level-scaled instance should force any higher-level characters that enter to mentor to the level of the instance.</p></blockquote><p>Agree. Zones should scale to your level whether you are mentored or not to keep the challange consistent. But if you are mentored I believe shard chests dont drop in current TSO zones.</p><p>Im really looking forward to a solo instance that takes an hour, or two, with a shard loot at the end <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> even if you can only do one a day, that is still some progression.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Xethren@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Im really looking forward to a solo instance that takes an hour, or two, with a shard loot at the end <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /> even if you can only do one a day, that is still some progression.</p></blockquote><p>I know people getting ~40-60 shards / day using the mentor exploit.  It's a group of players with several 80 alts.  They do I think 4 zones with 5 mentored players.  So 5 players get the one shard for the quest that takes ~ 5 mins to do.  They do this in 4 zones, then camp to different alts and repeat this 3 more times.</p><p>Then with the heirloom tag, they transfer them to mains, then sell complete sets of T2 shard gear for large amounts of coin (using the commision system).</p><p>This is by far the easiest way to earn literally thousands of plat, providing you have the alts / accounts / friends to do it with. They invest about 2hours / day into this and pull down around 2-400p/day doing it.</p><p>Designing the system to prevent this would be difficult.  In fact, I don't even have a suggestion on how to stop it other than prevent the commision system from using the crafters materials on commisions for shard recipes.</p>

[Gromph]

<p><cite>Suppler wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">Hi Everyone, </span></p><p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">I havent played hardly at all during the new xpac, but I heard something about solo instances for shard farming possibly being on the horizon. I was wondering if this is true, and how difficult they might be? I would like them to be very difficult, so you have to work your booty off and possibly not get a reward every time. Anyone know any details?</span></p></blockquote><p>I really hope they make some kind of solo endgame. Then I would buy TSO at once.</p><p>And hopefully they would use instances. I, for one, don't appreciate when others come and interfere with my gamplay. (And some seem to think that is their purpose in life. And for some reason they always show up grouped).</p><p>But why not make one instance public which those who want to "interact" with each other can choose, and private instances for ther rest of us. Then everyone can be happy.</p>

[Yuglooc]

<p><cite>zaneluke wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I agree. I don't not think you should be able to get shards out of a grey zone. As more and more people figure out this work around you get less and less groups running.</p><p>It's easy to spot the people who have gotten greyed out zone shards though. Same people who do not understand the encounters. You have tons of people running around with T2 shard armor 120 AAs. Not that it matters.  </p></blockquote><p>I was a bit surprised when I first read about this last week.  I had been away from the game for several months (video card issues), so I wasn't involved with my guild's push towards getting full TSO shard armor.  Now that I've returned, they're giving me rather strong hints that I need to get to work on it.  Assuming I did go ahead and use this 'exploit', I would eventually get my armor.  With 119 AA, having full TSO shard armor would mean I might be a viable tank in some of the 'medium' RoK raid zones.  Without the experience in knowing the encounters, I wouldn't last more than a few seconds longer in high-end encounters (whether TSO or RoK).</p><p>I do agree that learning the encounters is a big part of it.  That can't be done fighting level 50 Heroic MOBs (even if they are a bit underconned) as a level 80.  If I have any chance of being considered as a main or secondary tank (guardian), I not only need to get full T2 TSO armor, but I need to understand each of the encounters.  This can be done only by running each one multiple times with a full group.</p><p>I'd much prefer to run the shard instances the way they were designed - that is, with a full group of characters at my level.  If that means mentoring down to 50 so I can run it with a full group of low 50s, that's fine - it would still be a challenge.  Granted, it would not be quite the same due to differing MOB abilities and the way gear and abilities are scaled when mentored...</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>An overblown issue imo.</p><p>1)  The majority of the folks that are mentoring are doing it as a duo/trio.  And they're typically getting 3-4 shards / day since the DD is usually not in a dungeon they can solo (even when mentored).  That's actually a pretty good pace imo.  It doesn't trivialize the process yet you can get still make progress at a pretty good clip.</p><p>2)  The main reason why a lot of folks mentor down is because they can't find a full group of their own level.  So I have a hard time believing that you've got a lot of L75+ people that are mass farming shards.  Turning down AA and xp.  Turning down masters and other loot.  All for a bunch of transition gear?  I'm sure you can come up with anecdotal stories.  But there are a ton of other things I would be doing in a full high lvl group than a grey dungeon.  <yawn></p><p>3)  Then again, maybe they are trying to fast-forward a little bit so they can get into raiding.  That's not a bad thing imo.  TSO has a ridiculously slow pace imo for the casual player / guild or the person that has a lot of alts.</p><p>It's a bit of a clumsy system, but I think it's working just fine.  It solves a number of problems.</p>

[Moussie]

<p>Which one of the shard instance can be mentor down to level 50?</p><p>I know that the 3 in Everfrost can, anyone else?</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[Gilasil]

<p>I see no need to tell people how to do this exploit I so detest, but I REALLY wish the devs would do something about it.</p>

[Gwynet]

<p>I'm looking forward to this, although by then I doubt I'll even need shards anymore... They need to add things to spend them on really... heck, even fabled items that takes 100 shards (let me buy the items that never drop after 30 runs for 200 shards please?).</p><p>But at this point any solo content would be good, being lfg all day is getting really old... too bad it won't be for 2 months <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Pricia@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm looking forward to this, although by then I doubt I'll even need shards anymore... They need to add things to spend them on really... heck, even fabled items that takes 100 shards (let me buy the items that never drop after 30 runs for 200 shards please?).</p><p>But at this point any solo content would be good, being lfg all day is getting really old... too bad it won't be for 2 months <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Coercer is straight forward <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I still need shards to upgrade to T2 warden. When its done i ll try to gather a T1 or even T2 leather melee dps set for the warden.</p><p>I am curious how he performs as dps/heal hybrid <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I see no need to tell people how to do this exploit I so detest, but I REALLY wish the devs would do something about it.</p></blockquote><p>Look at it like you are in a small guild with a not so good set of classes. Like having 2 healers and 3 summoners. They do it green or grey. Some missions are even hard for unbalanced groups when grey. What are you going to do when nobody wants a summoner in his group ?</p><p>Actually its more efficient to no "exploit" them. You get more shards per run and shinies. Noone with a sane mind exploits them to collect shards faster. Its not faster. Once solo shards are available only very few will trick the instances.</p>

[kreepr]

<p><cite>Moussie wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Which one of the shard instance can be mentor down to level 50?</p><p>I know that the 3 in Everfrost can, anyone else?</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">The Lavastorm and Commonlands instances can be scaled to level 50.</span></p>

[Gwynet]

<p>I think that 'exploit' is just a short term issue. Give it a couple months and nobody will need shards anymore. At this point most of the people I know run instances for drops, not shards. They don't need more shards. I had 150 of them in my bag before they were made heirloom, and only been using them on an alt I solo with because I don't know what else to do with them.</p><p>As I always mention though, I agree that it's really hard to find groups nowadays, but it's not due to the exploit, but due to people not logging on anymore because they don't need shards anymore and there is nothing else to do. IMO.</p>

[erin]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xethren@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Im really looking forward to a solo instance that takes an hour, or two, with a shard loot at the end <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /> even if you can only do one a day, that is still some progression.</p></blockquote><p>I know people getting ~40-60 shards / day using the mentor exploit.  It's a group of players with several 80 alts.  They do I think 4 zones with 5 mentored players.  So 5 players get the one shard for the quest that takes ~ 5 mins to do.  They do this in 4 zones, then camp to different alts and repeat this 3 more times.</p><p>Then with the heirloom tag, they transfer them to mains, then sell complete sets of T2 shard gear for large amounts of coin (using the commision system).</p><p>This is by far the easiest way to earn literally thousands of plat, providing you have the alts / accounts / friends to do it with. They invest about 2hours / day into this and pull down around 2-400p/day doing it.</p><p>Designing the system to prevent this would be difficult.  In fact, I don't even have a suggestion on how to stop it other than prevent the commision system from using the crafters materials on commisions for shard recipes.</p></blockquote><p>I call bull.  1.  Mentoring an instance is not considered an exploit, the devs have already said this several times.  Its a perfectly acceptable game mechanic.</p><p>2.  No way anyone is pulling in 40 shards doing this.</p><p>There are 8 instances (I think) that can be mentored to 50.  Assuming you get 1 shard for doing the instance plus 1 shard from the chest at the end, and this only works if you truly mentor the zone, that's 16 shards.  Most likely, you mentor, go in, unmentor, and get 1 shard per instance.</p><p>Where are you getting 40 shards from?</p><p>Even if you did all the instances in the game that give shards you can't get 40 shards in a day.</p>

[erin]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I see no need to tell people how to do this exploit I so detest, but I REALLY wish the devs would do something about it.</p></blockquote><p>Its not an exploit if the devs have explicitly stated that its an acceptable game mechanic.  Which they did.</p>

[axl_2baz]

<p><cite>erin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I call bull.  1.  Mentoring an instance is not considered an exploit, the devs have already said this several times.  Its a perfectly acceptable game mechanic.</p><p>2.  No way anyone is pulling in 40 shards doing this.</p><p>There are 8 instances (I think) that can be mentored to 50.  Assuming you get 1 shard for doing the instance plus 1 shard from the chest at the end, and this only works if you truly mentor the zone, that's 16 shards.  Most likely, you mentor, go in, unmentor, and get 1 shard per instance.</p><p>Where are you getting 40 shards from?</p><p>Even if you did all the instances in the game that give shards you can't get 40 shards in a day.</p></blockquote><p>And absolutely no-one have more than 1 lvl 80 character ...</p><p>Read what was said. Full set of instance with one group, camp alts, and back again.</p><p>I've seen it myself, without the selling part. An alt was stuff with a full T2 set less than a week after he turned 80.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>That's not a issue with the grey instances; that's an issue with the heirloom tag on shards.  As stated earlier, it's an inefficient method.  You miss out on a lot doing it that way. </p><p>But lets talk what the person ultimately ends up with--better armor.  Are they going to start solo'n named mobs now with this gettup to get their T8 masters?  No.  Can they do amazing things that they couldn't do before?  Not really (especially not as a solo person).  At best they end up with a char that's better equipped for group content. </p><p>Now if this "farming group" can't handle the easier TSO instances without being grey, the joke is ultimately on them with the T2 armor.  But my guess is that they're trying to fast-track a needed character that only occasionally gets played to fill-out a guild group.  It's not an exploit though.  Aside from shards, the dev team has several different explicit bonuses in the game that make it easier to have alts.  That's the whole purpose behind heirlooms, like it or not.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>erin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote></blockquote><p>I call bull.  1.  Mentoring an instance is not considered an exploit, the devs have already said this several times.  Its a perfectly acceptable game mechanic.</p><p>2.  No way anyone is pulling in 40 shards doing this.</p><p>There are 8 instances (I think) that can be mentored to 50.  Assuming you get 1 shard for doing the instance plus 1 shard from the chest at the end, and this only works if you truly mentor the zone, that's 16 shards.  Most likely, you mentor, go in, unmentor, and get 1 shard per instance.</p><p>Where are you getting 40 shards from?</p><p>Even if you did all the instances in the game that give shards you can't get 40 shards in a day.</p></blockquote><p>1) Mentoring to set the instance down, then unmentor to run around free of agro to get the quest update in less than 5 minutes.</p><p>2) 5 players with 4 level 75-80 toons on each account.  8 instances * 5 players * 4 alts = 160 shards in a day.</p><p>I know 2 people that 3 box doing exactly this for 2 hours every evening.   I'm also quite certain they aren't the only 2 people in game doing it.</p><p>You reach ~40 shards on one account, byrepeating the process across alts and trading them up to your main via heirloom.</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>erin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xethren@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Im really looking forward to a solo instance that takes an hour, or two, with a shard loot at the end <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /> even if you can only do one a day, that is still some progression.</p></blockquote><p>I know people getting ~40-60 shards / day using the mentor exploit.  It's a group of players with several 80 alts.  They do I think 4 zones with 5 mentored players.  So 5 players get the one shard for the quest that takes ~ 5 mins to do.  They do this in 4 zones, then camp to different alts and repeat this 3 more times.</p><p>Then with the heirloom tag, they transfer them to mains, then sell complete sets of T2 shard gear for large amounts of coin (using the commision system).</p><p>This is by far the easiest way to earn literally thousands of plat, providing you have the alts / accounts / friends to do it with. They invest about 2hours / day into this and pull down around 2-400p/day doing it.</p><p>Designing the system to prevent this would be difficult.  In fact, I don't even have a suggestion on how to stop it other than prevent the commision system from using the crafters materials on commisions for shard recipes.</p></blockquote><p>I call bull.</p></blockquote><p>Sadly, Atan is correct.</p>

[Eugam]

<p>5 Minutes works only on a few, very few missions. In many cases you have to spawn nameds and get access to the next level. It is almost the  same timesink as if it was unmentored.  A good group  can do almost as much instances as a mentored. Plus you get the 2nd shard, loot and shinies.</p><p>I have no doubts that a few groups power farm and sell them as comissioned craft. I have never seen or heard that on my server though. Personally i d never buy anything. Playing two healers and an Illu i can find a group quite easy. I would only help to farm if a guildie like brawler or summoner is in need and cant find groups in a sane amount of time.</p>

[Kendricke]

<p><cite>Eugam wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Noone with a sane mind exploits them to collect shards faster. Its not faster. Once solo shards are available only very few will trick the instances.</p></blockquote><p>Even with a great group in good gear, I generally take anywhere from 15-20 minutes to finish out Deep Forge. </p><p>Alternatively, I suppose if I wanted, I could get either daily quest for Deep Forge and simply take a mentored group in for 5 minutes of collecting books (since we just walk past all of the grey encounters) or just open the waterfall and go collect the different rocks needed for the other quest (again, just walking past the encounters).  We then could potentially swap in other characters we have, get the same quest, and run it again.</p><p>If we wanted, we could do the same with Miragul's runs (walk past everything to click only on the items we need to) or the Befallen runs.  In less time than your "sane" crew takes to clear two dungeons and earn four shards each, I could potentially run an insane group through 7 full dungeons with multiple characters earning around 15-20 shards each.  The more high level characters I have, the more shards I could earn per day.  The less geared/skilled a group was, the more efficient the mentor/unmentor method becomes, since ungeared/unskilled players would generally take longer to clear the dungeons legitimately. </p><p>Yeah, I could see how even sane players might see this as a faster method, especially since the "solo shard" mission is supposed to only be available once per day (so far as I was aware).  If someone wanted to blow through the dungeons mentored, it would be a fast, easy method to gain a great deal of shards. </p><p>If someone wanted to turn around and sell those shards through the commission system, I see no way to stop this.  It's not against any of the rules to charge someone for a commission combine.  The only way I could see to stop this would be to remove the ability to craft shard armor/items in the first place.</p><p>That wouldn't stop the mentor/unmentor method, though.  The only way to do that which I can think of would be to have the server continue to check to see if someone was a higher level than a scaled zone was intended for...which is something SOE has stated in the past would be very resource intensive.</p>

[Gilasil]

<p><cite>Pricia@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think that 'exploit' is just a short term issue. Give it a couple months and nobody will need shards anymore.</p></blockquote><p>Because all the exploiters will have T2 shard armor, which is better then some fabled.  Once you've maxed it out no need to do it anymore.  Ordinary folks (i.e. not raid geared) who don't exploit.  will have a tougher time getting slots in raids because the exploiters will have better gear.  I.e. people will be forced into exploiting the game just to stay competitive.</p><p>Is it actually possible the devs didn't see this exploit?  Or did they just not care?  Then, to make it worse, they gave the shards the heirloom tag so that people can rack up even more in a day by using alternate toons.  It's almost as if the devs are TRYING to make exploits.</p><p>Way to go devs.</p><p>Getting rid of the exploit is utter simplicity if the devs would just do it.  Make it so the quest doesn't update unless done in a level 80 instance.</p><p>--------------------</p><p>Solo quests HAVE to be instanced.  Otherwise people will do them grouped.  Even a duo would find them easier then intended for solo.</p><p>Do so many players suck so bad that they feel like they need to exploit? </p>

[Grumble69]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pricia@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think that 'exploit' is just a short term issue. Give it a couple months and nobody will need shards anymore.</p></blockquote><p>Because all the exploiters will have T2 shard armor, which is better then some fabled.  Once you've maxed it out no need to do it anymore.  Ordinary folks (i.e. not raid geared) who don't exploit.  will have a tougher time getting slots in raids because the exploiters will have better gear.  I.e. people will be forced into exploiting the game just to stay competitive.</p><p>Is it actually possible the devs didn't see this exploit?  Or did they just not care?  Then, to make it worse, they gave the shards the heirloom tag so that people can rack up even more in a day by using alternate toons.  It's almost as if the devs are TRYING to make exploits.</p><p>Way to go devs.</p><p>Getting rid of the exploit is utter simplicity if the devs would just do it.  Make it so the quest doesn't update unless done in a level 80 instance.</p><p>--------------------</p><p>Solo quests HAVE to be instanced.  Otherwise people will do them grouped.  Even a duo would find them easier then intended for solo.</p><p>Do so many players suck so bad that they feel like they need to exploit? </p></blockquote><p>You're off your rocker.  This is the perfect mechanism for "ordinary people" (which I am).  When I can't get in a full group to do one of these instances @ L80, I can at least duo or trio with someone and make *some* progress at getting better gear (usually 2-4 shards in an evening).  And for some of my guildmates, the heirloom tag allows them to get shards when they need to play a class to fill out our group (e.g. when we need a healer). </p><p>I'm not a raider.  My full time schedule doesn't allow me to do that on a regular & consistent basis.  But I would like to occasionally go on a raid without being a drag on everyone due to my MC gear.  Shards & shard armor is the perfect way to do that.   That's why I don't think the devs will ever consider this an exploit.  It's a way to narrow the disparity between the hardcore player and the casual gamer without trivializing everything.</p><p>Now if the mass farming becomes a problem, then simply cap the number of shards an account can earn in day.  But don't penalize the "ordinary person".  They are not the problem.</p>

[Eridu]

<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: #008000;">Since the "exploit" is not an exploit, are the Devs going to put an NPC outside the paltry one solo instance to let people "mentor" it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: #008000;">With that not-an-exploit going on this only one per day for two or three hours "play" solo instance is below underwhelming.  Still glad I haven't bought TSO.  Still not going to.  Honestly, why bother?</span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: #008000;">  Lame in the extreme, just lame.</span></p>