One players take on sig quest

[Sylvermune]

I am a level 110 Ranger running the Plane of Innovation sig instance/quest. My gear is roughly half KA, heroic-level with the rest being PoP items.<br /> <br />After taking 5+ hours to get about half way through the first sig quest (Innovative Approach), I quit beta. I got tired of having to Escape, run for the zone, get caught in the furnaces, rez my merc every ten minutes or so, take three attempts at those extremely annoying, huge groups of scrapyard trash (at least they didn't respawn during the runbacks), and, yes, dying. Oh, and that was all from trash; the nameds for most part were doable in reasonable amounts of time. This was nowhere close to fun which I get beta isn't necessarily meant to be. But if it reflects anything close to what live version will be like, then I suspect I will finally give up completely.<br /> <br />I see that the developers are struggling to balance between making it too easy for well equipped players (I heard unverifiable reports of nameds being close to one-shot) and too difficult for casual players. I wish the developers the best for everyone's sake.

[Uncle]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Sylvermune"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Sylvermune said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6476963#post-6476963" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">I am a level 110 Ranger running the Plane of Innovation sig instance/quest. My gear is roughly half KA, heroic-level with the rest being PoP items.<br /> <br />After taking 5+ hours to get about half way through the first sig quest (Innovative Approach), I quit beta. I got tired of having to Escape, run for the zone, get caught in the furnaces, rez my merc every ten minutes or so, take three attempts at those extremely annoying, huge groups of scrapyard trash (at least they didn't respawn during the runbacks), and, yes, dying. Oh, and that was all from trash; the nameds for most part were doable in reasonable amounts of time. This was nowhere close to fun which I get beta isn't necessarily meant to be. But if it reflects anything close to what live version will be like, then I suspect I will finally give up completely.<br /> <br />I see that the developers are struggling to balance between making it too easy for well equipped players (I heard unverifiable reports of nameds being close to one-shot) and too difficult for casual players. I wish the developers the best for everyone's sake.</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div>if this was done today... your dps is going to be lower cause your hawk is doing 0 damge on beta atm

[Sylvermune]

This was yesterday; it took me till today to calm down enough to post.<br /> <br />You have, however, intrigued me in that I have ignored my hawk for a long time (measured in years). Are you using your hawk to pull or expecting it to do significant dps or both? Or ...?

[Shmogre]

The good news is that the devs have said that mercs are going to be buffed in the zones as well, so that will make them more useful. And everything in beta is in flux, pretty much nightly...what was a rage-quit-inducing fight two days ago might be more doable now (trust me, I was ready to punch my monitor when I was hitting double-digit deaths in some zones).<br /> <br />I'm sure you already were, but please be sure to /bug, /feedback, and/or use these forums (there are pinned threads for each of the instances). Getting more input from a variety of classes and players will help; what is easy for one class is likely to be tough for another, so the more variety in testing and feedback, the better.<br /> <br />One important thing to do: Reset your zones each day. I know it sucks to lose progress, but there are changes that are going in pretty much nightly that don't get reflected in persistent instances; starting in a fresh zone makes sure you are encountering the most current incarnation of the code.<br /> <br />Another suggestion: Run through the three faction lines. The gear you get from the quests and the merchants can help. Also keep an eye out for overland names and see if you can take them on, they can drop some helpful gear. Most T1/T2 KA gear (and even T3/T4) is pretty much replaced by PoP gear.<br /> <br />Hope we see you around...if not in beta, then when the expansion launches.

[Sylvermune]

Thank you Shmogre for this response and everything else you do and have done to make this a better experience. I will try again later and continue to /feedback as I go.

[Shmogre]

You are very welcome, Sylvermune...thank *you* for the kind words and the smile they gave.<br /> <br />(And you aren't alone with needing to take a break sometimes...I may have accidentally shaken a few things off my desk a few days back when I stomped my feet in frustration after yet another death to the two giants in Bastion of Thunder. That long run back up to the top just rubbed salt in the wounds. <img src="/images/smilies/tongue.gif" alt="Tongue" /> )

[Imilla]

<div class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeQuote" data-author="Sylvermune"> <aside> <div class="attribution type">Sylvermune said: <a href="index.php?goto/post&id=6476965#post-6476965" class="AttributionLink">↑</a> </div> <blockquote><span class="ae_quote_symbol">“</span><span class="ae_quote_content">This was yesterday; it took me till today to calm down enough to post.<br /> <br />You have, however, intrigued me in that I have ignored my hawk for a long time (measured in years). Are you using your hawk to pull or expecting it to do significant dps or both? Or ...?</span><span class="ae_quote_symbol">”</span></blockquote> </aside></div> <br />It's the epic 2 (Kunark Ascending epic weapon quest) permanent hawk pet...it's a big part of your dps.

[Sylvermune]

Waited a week since Shmogre's post and retried Gears. The trash is now a lot more trashy <img src="/images/smilies/smile.gif" alt="Smile" /> The poor merc is still kind of squishy but she lacks any of the new gear and has nothing in any of the new gear slots (none of which are available yet). So that might be somewhat expected. The furnaces <b><i>seem</i></b> to have a less powerful range. Overall it took a lot less time to navigate the zone than last week took. The new hawk is very nice and have gone back to religiously doing the Twark crafting weeklies hoping for the upgrade recipe book.<br /> <br />Much better experience. On to Plane of Disease!

[Sure]

You know you can put player gear on mercs right?<br /> <br />On live my merc is wearing like 3 myth relic armor items... which is funny as I can not wear 3 relic items but my merc can. /jelly of merc...<br /> <br />May want to throw some PoP beta gear on you merc even if it is player and pop some adorns on their gear too. May help. You can reforge that gear before giving to merc if you want to really go all out on customizing your merc within the game mechanic restraints surrounding them.

[Earar]

yeah, why keep KA gear when you'll be able to get base beta gear when coming in PoP ?<br /> <br />upgrade your gear ! it will be available at the start of PoP (I think)