Solo shard aquisition

Giland · 01-02-2009, 05:27 PM

Here is my idea to help people get shards when they just don't have time to group.

Before responding, read the whole thing.

Part 1

Put in a quest NPC that gives out 5 quests. Each quest can only be completed once per day. Basically, make this quest giver like the faction quests. "go kill x number of mobs" in some far off area, then come back. Each quest grants 30 gold. That is an income of 1.5 plat per day not counting drops.

Part 2

Near the shard merchants in TSO, put another quest giver. This guy gives 1 shard for the small donation of 5 plat. Making this a quest allows the shard to only be aquired once per day.

At 5 plat per shard and 1 per day, it would take approx 100 plat and 30+ days to get a full set of T1 legendary. So even if someone was swimming in plat, they STILL couldn't get a full set of t1 legendary shard armor for over a month. T2 shard armor would take over 3 months and cost over 500 plat. . Factoring in everything, it would take someone well over 1000 plat and 9ish months to gear up this way if they were so inclined. Personally, don't see a problem with that if that is how they want to spend their plat. The lowest cost shard piece would be 20 plat if created by a tradeskiller. T2 would be what, 90 plat per piece not counting the original t1 price?

This creates a great money sink, but with the part 1 quest giver, gives others the ability to "make money" to spend it this way also, but at a reduced rate.

What this might actually do is help folks "gear up" a bit faster. if they were a shard short or so, they could buy the shard to get the piece. The real goal is to get drops from the zones themselves, not live forever in shard armor. At the point someone is working on getting shard armor, they are past tradeskill created items and probably had already purchased handcrafted/mastercrafted to get to 80 anyway.

I am interested in hearing others take on this idea.

erin · 01-02-2009, 05:34 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

Here is my idea to help people get shards when they just don't have time to group.
Before responding, read the whole thing.
Part 1
Put in a quest NPC that gives out 5 quests. Each quest can only be completed once per day. Basically, make this quest giver like the faction quests. "go kill x number of mobs" in some far off area, then come back. Each quest grants 30 gold. That is an income of 1.5 plat per day not counting drops.
Part 2
Near the shard merchants in TSO, put another quest giver. This guy gives 1 shard for the small donation of 5 plat. Making this a quest allows the shard to only be aquired once per day.
At 5 plat per shard and 1 per day, it would take approx 100 plat and 30+ days to get a full set of T1 legendary. So even if someone was swimming in plat, they STILL couldn't get a full set of t1 legendary shard armor for over a month. T2 shard armor would take over 3 months and cost over 500 plat. . Factoring in everything, it would take someone well over 1000 plat and 9ish months to gear up this way if they were so inclined. Personally, don't see a problem with that if that is how they want to spend their plat. The lowest cost shard piece would be 20 plat if created by a tradeskiller. T2 would be what, 90 plat per piece not counting the original t1 price?
This creates a great money sink, but with the part 1 quest giver, gives others the ability to "make money" to spend it this way also, but at a reduced rate.
What this might actually do is help folks "gear up" a bit faster. if they were a shard short or so, they could buy the shard to get the piece. The real goal is to get drops from the zones themselves, not live forever in shard armor. At the point someone is working on getting shard armor, they are past tradeskill created items and probably had already purchased handcrafted/mastercrafted to get to 80 anyway.
I am interested in hearing others take on this idea.

If you are willing to pay 5pp per shard, there's already crafters on every server selling shards for money. No game mechanic needs be added.

Sprin · 01-02-2009, 05:37 PM

Very interesting idea... though maybe i missed it, what is the part 1 have to do with part 2? you get a shard at the end of the quests in part 1? or just that you get 1.5 plat to purchase the 5 plat shards?

Unless its required to do these 5 quests to "unlock" the NPC that you can then purchase the shard through..... using the money you just got, or using some sort of reward you obtained through finishing all 5 quets... which you could then trade in for a shard... which may be another idea... so that time is required and not just plat... but at least you would be able to get shard gear through solo means, and it may take you 1-2 hours to kill these mobs... then you may solve a bit of the problems with people having just being able to get shard gear for doing nothing... yes it would take a while to get a piece of gear, but by people doing instances AND just being able to buy a shard, they could get the money by doing the instance, then just turn around and go get yet another shard...

I think if were gonna make this a solo option, you'd have to make it take time so that the groups cant just take advantage of that too... solo or group, its gonna take a while to do... and say for those instances that are hard and Pick up groups cant get through, they can say, ok screw it, i want a shard still, lets go quest to unlock the shard NPC and buy one... or something like that...

But i would definately agree that there should be more solo content in the expansion... questing is one thing, but it doesnt get you shards for gear... if you are a casual player and cant stand around for 2 hours looking for an instance group, just to finally get one and take anotehr 2 hours finishing or not finishing the zone, depending on the level of players you got during your search... This would give you a way to get shards with the same amount of time that a full group would take to get it done... but you dont have the oportunity for AA or drops from the instances, which would be the "punishment" for soloing it...

Giland · 01-02-2009, 05:58 PM

The idea behind part 1 was to allow someone to make some money in the game. Wasn't tied specifically to the shard merchant, but that idea is valid as well.

I know people are selling shards, been doing it for awhile now. I believe that would fall under consignment issues if they wish to stop it.

I would say that each expansion pretty much requires you to have progressed through the previous expansion. Running TSO instances with lvl 72 mastercrafted gear would seem pretty tough to me. They are more geared for people who have ran ROK instances and received the legendary gear. Same goes for raiding to about the same extent.

However, the zones in TSO are pretty large, and take a decent amount of time to complete. Some people find it difficult to run the instances very frequently. I personally find it difficult to finish a TSO zone on a weeknight. With about 2 hours to play from login to logout, it feels like I am hurried to get a group, rush to the zone, burn through it and log out. I am playing less now during this expansion than at any time since I started playing. I want to, I just don't have the time during the week to ccmplete an instance. It would love it if they made some smaller zones, even if they only had one named. Pawbuster and widow mistress type zones would be great for those who don't have a lot of time to play, but getting a shard from such a short zone would invalidate the larger zones. No one would want to do large zones if you could do a 30 minute to 1 hour zone.

I know some folks can burn a zone in 45 minutes, but pickup groups seem to take a minimum of 2 hours from invite to disband.

It is my belief that the long zones are stopping a lot of folks from being able to get shard armor and actually putting them behind the gear curve. When the next expansion comes out, will they be undergeared to keep progressing forward?

Thunndar316 · 01-02-2009, 06:17 PM

5 plat for a shard? I can get 14 in a day just grouping.

Giland · 01-02-2009, 06:25 PM

My idea was more for an alternate way for some folks to get shards Thunndar.

Aquiring shards via an alternate method should not be "easy" or "fast".

My idea handled both of those by limiting how many a player could get per day and imposing a monetary requirement so they would need to farm mobs to get it. Players who can and are getting 14 a day would not use such an alternate method, or if they did, they would already have every possible shard item by this time anyway, so it wouldn't help them now.

Soefje · 01-02-2009, 06:33 PM

What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4.

Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa.

There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative.

simpwrx02 · 01-02-2009, 06:35 PM

Kraace@Everfrost wrote:

What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4.
Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa.
There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative.

Why do you need shards to do solo content?

Grumble69 · 01-02-2009, 06:37 PM

You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story.

If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have *something* over time.

simpwrx02 · 01-02-2009, 06:41 PM

Grumble69 wrote:

You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story.
If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have *something* over time.

Why do you need shards for solo content?

Rijacki · 01-02-2009, 06:53 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

Aquiring shards via an alternate method should not be "easy" or "fast".

So why do you present an idea that's both?

simpwrx02 wrote:

Grumble69 wrote:
You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story.
If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have *something* over time.
Why do you need shards for solo content?

I presume it would be to allow a jump to group content without being too far 'behind'.

One a day for a solo mission is still a bit much unless that mission really were more difficult and took up more time/effort than just kill 10 of or 20 of. If the minimum amount of time a solo mission would take is 2-3 hours and limited to a maximum of taking 1 every 24 hours and gave no coin with the shard, then I think it begins to approach reasonable as an alternate path and wouldn't be likely to be done by those who also group (there is no way, and should be no way, to limit someone from doing solo content who also does group content.. other than the time it takes to do both).

Note: I have been working on code for website and haven't played much at all since shortly before TSO launched. I have less than the number of shards needed for the lowest cost bit of armor -and- I've missed most of Frostfell.

Giland · 01-02-2009, 06:53 PM

simpwrx02 wrote:

Kraace@Everfrost wrote:
What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4.
Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa.
There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative.
Why do you need shards to do solo content?

Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?

Noaani · 01-02-2009, 06:56 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?

Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no.

Rijacki · 01-02-2009, 06:58 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

simpwrx02 wrote:
Kraace@Everfrost wrote:
What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4.
Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa.
There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative.
Why do you need shards to do solo content?
Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?

Solo's progression is to grouping.

liveja · 01-02-2009, 07:01 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?

Get a group, & you'll feel that sense of progression.

Amise · 01-02-2009, 07:21 PM

Noaani wrote:

Giland@Guk wrote:
Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?
Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no.

What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable. Because that happens all the time.

See the thing is, without cross-over there is no progression. What do you think, that people suddenly, randomly, have the gear they need to raid? In the raid guild I was in when the game launched, we did the hardest heroic content to get the gear we needed to start the beginning raids.

That's how it works. I fail to see why it can't be applicable to solo/heroic as well.

I think one shard a day might be too much for a solo path, but I don't see why there shouldn't be any solo means for getting them. I do prefer to group, but I'm not afraid to share my toys.

Noaani · 01-02-2009, 07:25 PM

Amise wrote:

What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable.

No it doesn't, at least not in the manner the OPs suggestion would have solo progression crossing in to heroic.

I may be wrong about this of course, but I fail to see any heroic progression path, be it a mob to kill or a quest to complete, that gives me an item that I would otherwise get from raiding.

Giland · 01-02-2009, 07:27 PM

fabled items drop from heroic content all the time.

simpwrx02 · 01-02-2009, 07:30 PM

Amise wrote:

Noaani wrote:
Giland@Guk wrote:
Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?
Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no.
What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable. Because that happens all the time.
See the thing is, without cross-over there is no progression. What do you think, that people suddenly, randomly, have the gear they need to raid? In the raid guild I was in when the game launched, we did the hardest heroic content to get the gear we needed to start the beginning raids.
That's how it works. I fail to see why it can't be applicable to solo/heroic as well.
I think one shard a day might be too much for a solo path, but I don't see why there shouldn't be any solo means for getting them. I do prefer to group, but I'm not afraid to share my toys.

Personally I could careless about the shard items tbh it is more of the principle of what it will snowball into if this thinking is allowed. The next idea will be how about if I do x herioc zone 30 times I get a TSO pattern of my chossing, I mean it isnt like a raid that gets multi patterns per raid and it would take a long time to get it I mean 30 days for 1 piece...

simpwrx02 · 01-02-2009, 07:34 PM

Giland@Guk wrote:

fabled items drop from heroic content all the time.

And they are not the same as raid dropped fabled items, personally I wish they stayed legendary tagged. Lets compare the mage robe from maidens 4% crit and 100 spell damage woot awesome with a fabled tag now compare it to teh Robe of Dark power 9% crit 125 spell damage and a displacement proc... both fable tagged, even thought the Jarseth Robe of Royalty shoudl have been tagged legendary imho, it is just that people love to see a shiney tag and think that instantly makes an item better than it is. I can't remember how many mages I saw wearing the fabled neck reward with 25 to each stat and a heal clicky, it was such awesome dps to add... oh wait it was complete crap unless you needed to use the heal clicky.

nomatterwhat · 01-02-2009, 07:49 PM

There really is no repeatable solo progression.

Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said.

Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast.

There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though.

Giland · 01-02-2009, 07:52 PM

There are different levels of each "quality" tag. Some of these different levels overlap with each other.

Isn't T1 shard armor considered the lowest end of the legendary in TSO?

Why not allow someone to gear up by only aquiring 1 shard per day (IMO, a significantly slow rate)? 30 days of time to get the full T1 set is pretty slow, not counting the 150 plat it would have cost them if my idea was implemented in its current form.

the idea here as an alternative method. Not a replacement. No one is going to buy T1 shard armor and start raiding with it tomorrow. MINIMUM of 30 days AND 150 plat is a pretty big expense if you ask me, course I could just be poor.

It would take 5 months to get tier 2. No idea how much the jewelry costs, but that would be what, 9 more pieces?

If this went in tomorrow, no one would have a full set of t2 armor, jewelry, cape, and belt when the next expansion came out. It wouldn't be possible unless they did it with two chars, one giving shards to the other, then it would still be close and would cost somewhere around 1300 plat.

To me, T1 and T2 shard armor is there to help someone get geared for the harder TSO zones. It shouldn't be replacing the drops that are coming from those zones. The harder zones should be dropping gear that eclipses shard gear.

Noaani · 01-02-2009, 07:58 PM

nomatterwhat wrote:

There really is no repeatable solo progression.
Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said.
Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast.
There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though.

Who cares if someone parses every trash fight? Maybe they are trying out a new spec or a new casting order or something, what affect does it really have on you? Why would something as small as that have any affect on your enjoyment of the instance? I seriously can not see how someone posting a parse of every fight would matter at all to anyone else in the group unless that particular person lets it get to them (in which case its your own [Removed for Content] fault for being so easily [Removed for Content] off).

Raiding can be boring at times, but the vast majority of people do it for the social aspects of it. If your not into hanging around with other people then yeah, I can see how you would think raiders are braindead.

What I don't get is... why do soloers think that the answer to a lack of solo progression is in the ability to obtain heroic rewards solo? would not the addition of solo content with its own rewards be more appropriate?

(FYI, that is exactly what the game is getting in GU#52)

nomatterwhat · 01-02-2009, 08:03 PM

Noaani wrote:

nomatterwhat wrote:
There really is no repeatable solo progression.
Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said.
Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast.
There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though.
Who cares if someone parses every trash fight? Maybe they are trying out a new spec or a new casting order or something, what affect does it really have on you? Why would something as small as that have any affect on your enjoyment of the instance? I seriously can not see how someone posting a parse of every fight would matter at all to anyone else in the group unless that particular person lets it get to them (in which case its your own [Removed for Content] fault for being so easily [Removed for Content] off).
Raiding can be boring at times, but the vast majority of people do it for the social aspects of it. If your not into hanging around with other people then yeah, I can see how you would think raiders are braindead.
What I don't get is... why do soloers think that the answer to a lack of solo progression is in the ability to obtain heroic rewards solo? would not the addition of solo content with its own rewards be more appropriate?
(FYI, that is exactly what the game is getting in GU#52)

sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items.

As far as the parsing goes... it's just hard to keep track of the conversation when you got to scroll that much. And yeah, it is irritating to me. You right it shouldn't be, but people who parse trash mobs every single fight irritate me. SMILEY

Noaani · 01-02-2009, 08:18 PM

nomatterwhat wrote:

sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items.

So, what you are suggesting is a merchant to be added to the game that sells solo gear for a new currency that is to be added to the game. A merchant which will have nothing in common with the void shard merchants save the fact that they share a mechanic that has been used in a half dozen or so places...

nomatterwhat · 01-02-2009, 08:30 PM

Noaani wrote:

nomatterwhat wrote:
sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items.
So, what you are suggesting is a merchant to be added to the game that sells solo gear for a new currency that is to be added to the game. A merchant which will have nothing in common with the void shard merchants save the fact that they share a mechanic that has been used in a half dozen or so places...

Well I'm a little confused at what your point is. Too much work? too plain? whatever the point is, you can tell me. just to try and pre-empt what you might be thinking, if you think it's too much work... you don't actually think TSO was worth $40 do you? cause I don't. this new proposal (don't have to be mine, can be the op's) would go some ways into making it worth its cash.

that said, maybe you are over complicating my point. What I am suggesting is a repeatable solo progression system at lvl 80. That's it. I pointed out the heoric shard system works pretty well, they can model it after that if they want. don't have to, but it's relatively straight forward... go on a mission, spend a couple of hours doing something, come back for a reward... rinse and repeat.

This solo system can have a lot of stuff even group players would want, like more house items etc... along with actual MC quality gear of course.

Gisallo · 01-02-2009, 08:33 PM

Noaani wrote:

Giland@Guk wrote:
Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?
Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no.

There are already examples such as the Thugga line, or even items purchaeable or simply a reward once you have grinded enough faction (Wastes Hunter as another example). EVERY character I have gotten to 80 (admittedly just a ranger and a zerker at this point) has been able to solo that but it was far from easy and took forver. I think if you simply had a quest reward of 1-2 shards for completeing a Thugga line style quest series (that had some random steps) that was repeatable say once every 14 days would be a nice balance.

Now some people say these things were part of the problem with RoK, but I think with the time it would take you would have the balance. Last night I got 6 shards for 2 hours worth of instancing. I will probably be able to do the same today. 1-2 shards for doing how many hours of quest grinding and then only being able to do it effectively twice a month? Still seems the groupers have a severe advantage BUT the people who prefer solo play don't feel completely alienated.

Noaani · 01-02-2009, 08:39 PM

Gisallo@Lucan DLere wrote:

There are already examples such as the Thugga line, or even items purchaeable or simply a reward once you have grinded enough faction (Wastes Hunter as another example). EVERY character I have gotten to 80 (admittedly just a ranger and a zerker at this point) has been able to solo that but it was far from easy and took forver. I think if you simply had a quest reward of 1-2 shards for completeing a Thugga line style quest series (that had some random steps) that was repeatable say once every 14 days would be a nice balance.
Now some people say these things were part of the problem with RoK, but I think with the time it would take you would have the balance. Last night I got 6 shards for 2 hours worth of instancing. I will probably be able to do the same today. 1-2 shards for doing how many hours of quest grinding and then only being able to do it effectively twice a month? Still seems the groupers have a severe advantage BUT the people who prefer solo play don't feel completely alienated.

Point 1: Thuuga was a single quest that rewarded a single item for a single slot. That item barly even warrented a legendary tag on most of the items, let alone a fabled tag. What the OP is talking about is not a single item, nor a single slot. On top of that, the only way to get the Thuuga questline rewards was to do the questline. The OP is talking about a second means of access to shards, not the introduction of a new set of gear.

Point 2: the answer to a lack of solo progression does not lie in making heroic progression more easily avalible, it lies in making solo content with some progression to it.

Kendricke · 01-02-2009, 08:51 PM

simpwrx02 wrote:

Giland@Guk wrote:
fabled items drop from heroic content all the time.
And they are not the same as raid dropped fabled items...

Exactly.

Shards are rewards for group level content. If you want to create an alternate system of rewards for solo content which can be exchanged for solo rated rewards, I could accept that. If, instead, you're trying to create a system that allows you to bypass heroic content but still gain heroic rewards, I'm most certainly against.

erin · 01-03-2009, 12:11 AM

Considering that most raiders cried heavily that the T2 TSO Shard gear wasn't worth their time, can we all agree that T2 Shard gear is primarily for grouping, maybe an entry into Raiding but definitely not raid gear?

So being able to aquire T1 shard gear makes you able to group instances, being able to aquire T2 Shard gear makes you able to do all the group instances in TSO, even the harder ones.

Yes?

So what's the big objection to being able, over a very long time, to aquire gear? It requires 150 shards to get a full set of T2 armor, not accounting for the jewelry, swords, shields, etc.

At 1 shard a day, at least 6 months. So in 6 months your dedicated solo player can aquire the gear to do the harder group instances.

So what's the big deal about that?

01-02-2009, 05:34 PM	#2
erin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,834	Giland@Guk wrote: Here is my idea to help people get shards when they just don't have time to group. Before responding, read the whole thing. Part 1 Put in a quest NPC that gives out 5 quests. Each quest can only be completed once per day. Basically, make this quest giver like the faction quests. "go kill x number of mobs" in some far off area, then come back. Each quest grants 30 gold. That is an income of 1.5 plat per day not counting drops. Part 2 Near the shard merchants in TSO, put another quest giver. This guy gives 1 shard for the small donation of 5 plat. Making this a quest allows the shard to only be aquired once per day. At 5 plat per shard and 1 per day, it would take approx 100 plat and 30+ days to get a full set of T1 legendary. So even if someone was swimming in plat, they STILL couldn't get a full set of t1 legendary shard armor for over a month. T2 shard armor would take over 3 months and cost over 500 plat. . Factoring in everything, it would take someone well over 1000 plat and 9ish months to gear up this way if they were so inclined. Personally, don't see a problem with that if that is how they want to spend their plat. The lowest cost shard piece would be 20 plat if created by a tradeskiller. T2 would be what, 90 plat per piece not counting the original t1 price? This creates a great money sink, but with the part 1 quest giver, gives others the ability to "make money" to spend it this way also, but at a reduced rate. What this might actually do is help folks "gear up" a bit faster. if they were a shard short or so, they could buy the shard to get the piece. The real goal is to get drops from the zones themselves, not live forever in shard armor. At the point someone is working on getting shard armor, they are past tradeskill created items and probably had already purchased handcrafted/mastercrafted to get to 80 anyway. I am interested in hearing others take on this idea. If you are willing to pay 5pp per shard, there's already crafters on every server selling shards for money. No game mechanic needs be added.

01-02-2009, 06:35 PM	#8
simpwrx02 Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 919	Kraace@Everfrost wrote: What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4. Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa. There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative. Why do you need shards to do solo content?

01-02-2009, 06:41 PM	#10
simpwrx02 Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 919	Grumble69 wrote: You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story. If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have something over time. Why do you need shards for solo content?

01-02-2009, 06:53 PM	#11
Rijacki Tester Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 7,842	Giland@Guk wrote: Aquiring shards via an alternate method should not be "easy" or "fast". So why do you present an idea that's both? simpwrx02 wrote: Grumble69 wrote: You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story. If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have something over time. Why do you need shards for solo content? I presume it would be to allow a jump to group content without being too far 'behind'. One a day for a solo mission is still a bit much unless that mission really were more difficult and took up more time/effort than just kill 10 of or 20 of. If the minimum amount of time a solo mission would take is 2-3 hours and limited to a maximum of taking 1 every 24 hours and gave no coin with the shard, then I think it begins to approach reasonable as an alternate path and wouldn't be likely to be done by those who also group (there is no way, and should be no way, to limit someone from doing solo content who also does group content.. other than the time it takes to do both). Note: I have been working on code for website and haven't played much at all since shortly before TSO launched. I have less than the number of shards needed for the lowest cost bit of armor -and- I've missed most of Frostfell. __________________

01-02-2009, 06:53 PM	#12
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	simpwrx02 wrote: Kraace@Everfrost wrote: What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4. Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa. There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative. Why do you need shards to do solo content? Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing?

01-02-2009, 05:27 PM	#1
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	Here is my idea to help people get shards when they just don't have time to group. Before responding, read the whole thing. Part 1 Put in a quest NPC that gives out 5 quests. Each quest can only be completed once per day. Basically, make this quest giver like the faction quests. "go kill x number of mobs" in some far off area, then come back. Each quest grants 30 gold. That is an income of 1.5 plat per day not counting drops. Part 2 Near the shard merchants in TSO, put another quest giver. This guy gives 1 shard for the small donation of 5 plat. Making this a quest allows the shard to only be aquired once per day. At 5 plat per shard and 1 per day, it would take approx 100 plat and 30+ days to get a full set of T1 legendary. So even if someone was swimming in plat, they STILL couldn't get a full set of t1 legendary shard armor for over a month. T2 shard armor would take over 3 months and cost over 500 plat. . Factoring in everything, it would take someone well over 1000 plat and 9ish months to gear up this way if they were so inclined. Personally, don't see a problem with that if that is how they want to spend their plat. The lowest cost shard piece would be 20 plat if created by a tradeskiller. T2 would be what, 90 plat per piece not counting the original t1 price? This creates a great money sink, but with the part 1 quest giver, gives others the ability to "make money" to spend it this way also, but at a reduced rate. What this might actually do is help folks "gear up" a bit faster. if they were a shard short or so, they could buy the shard to get the piece. The real goal is to get drops from the zones themselves, not live forever in shard armor. At the point someone is working on getting shard armor, they are past tradeskill created items and probably had already purchased handcrafted/mastercrafted to get to 80 anyway. I am interested in hearing others take on this idea.

01-02-2009, 05:37 PM	#3
Sprin Server: Nagafen Guild: L U S H Rank: LUSH (Supreme Drinker!) General Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 2,364	Very interesting idea... though maybe i missed it, what is the part 1 have to do with part 2? you get a shard at the end of the quests in part 1? or just that you get 1.5 plat to purchase the 5 plat shards? Unless its required to do these 5 quests to "unlock" the NPC that you can then purchase the shard through..... using the money you just got, or using some sort of reward you obtained through finishing all 5 quets... which you could then trade in for a shard... which may be another idea... so that time is required and not just plat... but at least you would be able to get shard gear through solo means, and it may take you 1-2 hours to kill these mobs... then you may solve a bit of the problems with people having just being able to get shard gear for doing nothing... yes it would take a while to get a piece of gear, but by people doing instances AND just being able to buy a shard, they could get the money by doing the instance, then just turn around and go get yet another shard... I think if were gonna make this a solo option, you'd have to make it take time so that the groups cant just take advantage of that too... solo or group, its gonna take a while to do... and say for those instances that are hard and Pick up groups cant get through, they can say, ok screw it, i want a shard still, lets go quest to unlock the shard NPC and buy one... or something like that... But i would definately agree that there should be more solo content in the expansion... questing is one thing, but it doesnt get you shards for gear... if you are a casual player and cant stand around for 2 hours looking for an instance group, just to finally get one and take anotehr 2 hours finishing or not finishing the zone, depending on the level of players you got during your search... This would give you a way to get shards with the same amount of time that a full group would take to get it done... but you dont have the oportunity for AA or drops from the instances, which would be the "punishment" for soloing it...

01-02-2009, 05:58 PM	#4
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	The idea behind part 1 was to allow someone to make some money in the game. Wasn't tied specifically to the shard merchant, but that idea is valid as well. I know people are selling shards, been doing it for awhile now. I believe that would fall under consignment issues if they wish to stop it. I would say that each expansion pretty much requires you to have progressed through the previous expansion. Running TSO instances with lvl 72 mastercrafted gear would seem pretty tough to me. They are more geared for people who have ran ROK instances and received the legendary gear. Same goes for raiding to about the same extent. However, the zones in TSO are pretty large, and take a decent amount of time to complete. Some people find it difficult to run the instances very frequently. I personally find it difficult to finish a TSO zone on a weeknight. With about 2 hours to play from login to logout, it feels like I am hurried to get a group, rush to the zone, burn through it and log out. I am playing less now during this expansion than at any time since I started playing. I want to, I just don't have the time during the week to ccmplete an instance. It would love it if they made some smaller zones, even if they only had one named. Pawbuster and widow mistress type zones would be great for those who don't have a lot of time to play, but getting a shard from such a short zone would invalidate the larger zones. No one would want to do large zones if you could do a 30 minute to 1 hour zone. I know some folks can burn a zone in 45 minutes, but pickup groups seem to take a minimum of 2 hours from invite to disband. It is my belief that the long zones are stopping a lot of folks from being able to get shard armor and actually putting them behind the gear curve. When the next expansion comes out, will they be undergeared to keep progressing forward?

01-02-2009, 06:17 PM	#5
Thunndar316 Loremaster Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,681	5 plat for a shard? I can get 14 in a day just grouping. __________________ Sleight of Hand is USELESS

01-02-2009, 06:25 PM	#6
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	My idea was more for an alternate way for some folks to get shards Thunndar. Aquiring shards via an alternate method should not be "easy" or "fast". My idea handled both of those by limiting how many a player could get per day and imposing a monetary requirement so they would need to farm mobs to get it. Players who can and are getting 14 a day would not use such an alternate method, or if they did, they would already have every possible shard item by this time anyway, so it wouldn't help them now.

01-02-2009, 06:33 PM	#7
Soefje Loremaster Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 302	What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4. Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa. There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative.

01-02-2009, 06:37 PM	#9
Grumble69 Loremaster Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,257	You can simplify it way further. Just allow one daily quest that you can solo for a shard. That's it. No plat requirement. Nothing terribly complicated or insane. End of story. If you happened to do the quest every day for a month, you'd end up with 30 shards. That's two days work compared to the active grouping player. 15x slower. The nice thing is that even the casual solo player would have something over time.

01-02-2009, 06:56 PM	#13
Noaani Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6,077	Giland@Guk wrote: Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no. __________________ The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what will sell. Confucius

01-02-2009, 06:58 PM	#14
Rijacki Tester Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 7,842	Giland@Guk wrote: simpwrx02 wrote: Kraace@Everfrost wrote: What I would like to see is a few solo dungeons. But instead of giving 2 shards for the mission, give 1 for the NPC in Moors, and 1 from the NPC by the entrance. Then the DD on the solo mission gives 3 shards, or even 2 (if you remove the chest, which would be fine), and the group missions would give 4. Also, have the NPC in the Moor only offer 1. If you do the group, the solo is not availble that day, or vice versa. There are many nights when I just don't feel like finding a group, but I don't want to craft or grind writs. This would be a great alternative. Why do you need shards to do solo content? Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Solo's progression is to grouping. __________________

01-02-2009, 07:01 PM	#15
liveja General Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends Posts: 4,793	Giland@Guk wrote: Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Get a group, & you'll feel that sense of progression. __________________

01-02-2009, 07:21 PM	#16
Amise Loremaster Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 473	Noaani wrote: Giland@Guk wrote: Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no. What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable. Because that happens all the time. See the thing is, without cross-over there is no progression. What do you think, that people suddenly, randomly, have the gear they need to raid? In the raid guild I was in when the game launched, we did the hardest heroic content to get the gear we needed to start the beginning raids. That's how it works. I fail to see why it can't be applicable to solo/heroic as well. I think one shard a day might be too much for a solo path, but I don't see why there shouldn't be any solo means for getting them. I do prefer to group, but I'm not afraid to share my toys.

01-02-2009, 07:25 PM	#17
Noaani Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6,077	Amise wrote: What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable. No it doesn't, at least not in the manner the OPs suggestion would have solo progression crossing in to heroic. I may be wrong about this of course, but I fail to see any heroic progression path, be it a mob to kill or a quest to complete, that gives me an item that I would otherwise get from raiding. __________________ The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what will sell. Confucius

01-02-2009, 07:27 PM	#18
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	fabled items drop from heroic content all the time.

01-02-2009, 07:30 PM	#19
simpwrx02 Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 919	Amise wrote: Noaani wrote: Giland@Guk wrote: Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no. What about heroic progression crossing over to raid progression, is that acceptable. Because that happens all the time. See the thing is, without cross-over there is no progression. What do you think, that people suddenly, randomly, have the gear they need to raid? In the raid guild I was in when the game launched, we did the hardest heroic content to get the gear we needed to start the beginning raids. That's how it works. I fail to see why it can't be applicable to solo/heroic as well. I think one shard a day might be too much for a solo path, but I don't see why there shouldn't be any solo means for getting them. I do prefer to group, but I'm not afraid to share my toys. Personally I could careless about the shard items tbh it is more of the principle of what it will snowball into if this thinking is allowed. The next idea will be how about if I do x herioc zone 30 times I get a TSO pattern of my chossing, I mean it isnt like a raid that gets multi patterns per raid and it would take a long time to get it I mean 30 days for 1 piece...

01-02-2009, 07:34 PM	#20
simpwrx02 Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 919	Giland@Guk wrote: fabled items drop from heroic content all the time. And they are not the same as raid dropped fabled items, personally I wish they stayed legendary tagged. Lets compare the mage robe from maidens 4% crit and 100 spell damage woot awesome with a fabled tag now compare it to teh Robe of Dark power 9% crit 125 spell damage and a displacement proc... both fable tagged, even thought the Jarseth Robe of Royalty shoudl have been tagged legendary imho, it is just that people love to see a shiney tag and think that instantly makes an item better than it is. I can't remember how many mages I saw wearing the fabled neck reward with 25 to each stat and a heal clicky, it was such awesome dps to add... oh wait it was complete crap unless you needed to use the heal clicky.

01-02-2009, 07:49 PM	#21
nomatterwhat Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 148	There really is no repeatable solo progression. Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said. Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast. There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though.

01-02-2009, 07:52 PM	#22
Giland Tester Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 323	There are different levels of each "quality" tag. Some of these different levels overlap with each other. Isn't T1 shard armor considered the lowest end of the legendary in TSO? Why not allow someone to gear up by only aquiring 1 shard per day (IMO, a significantly slow rate)? 30 days of time to get the full T1 set is pretty slow, not counting the 150 plat it would have cost them if my idea was implemented in its current form. the idea here as an alternative method. Not a replacement. No one is going to buy T1 shard armor and start raiding with it tomorrow. MINIMUM of 30 days AND 150 plat is a pretty big expense if you ask me, course I could just be poor. It would take 5 months to get tier 2. No idea how much the jewelry costs, but that would be what, 9 more pieces? If this went in tomorrow, no one would have a full set of t2 armor, jewelry, cape, and belt when the next expansion came out. It wouldn't be possible unless they did it with two chars, one giving shards to the other, then it would still be close and would cost somewhere around 1300 plat. To me, T1 and T2 shard armor is there to help someone get geared for the harder TSO zones. It shouldn't be replacing the drops that are coming from those zones. The harder zones should be dropping gear that eclipses shard gear.

01-02-2009, 07:58 PM	#23
Noaani Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6,077	nomatterwhat wrote: There really is no repeatable solo progression. Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said. Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast. There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though. Who cares if someone parses every trash fight? Maybe they are trying out a new spec or a new casting order or something, what affect does it really have on you? Why would something as small as that have any affect on your enjoyment of the instance? I seriously can not see how someone posting a parse of every fight would matter at all to anyone else in the group unless that particular person lets it get to them (in which case its your own [Removed for Content] fault for being so easily [Removed for Content] off). Raiding can be boring at times, but the vast majority of people do it for the social aspects of it. If your not into hanging around with other people then yeah, I can see how you would think raiders are braindead. What I don't get is... why do soloers think that the answer to a lack of solo progression is in the ability to obtain heroic rewards solo? would not the addition of solo content with its own rewards be more appropriate? (FYI, that is exactly what the game is getting in GU#52) __________________ The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what will sell. Confucius

01-02-2009, 08:03 PM	#24
nomatterwhat Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 148	Noaani wrote: nomatterwhat wrote: There really is no repeatable solo progression. Some people think raiding is mind-numbingly boring. I mean, gosh, I rather go on an airplane flight than raid, and flying is soul destroyingly boring. Yeah it was fun the first few times, but I honestly think people who raid 2-3 times a week have brain damage. There I said it, it had to be said. Grouping can be fun... but it can get boring too. How many pick up groups have I been on where somebody insists on parsing the fight for every trash mob? lots. Tell you what, to a person like me, it gets old fast. There really should be some kind of repeatable solo progression just like the heoric shard system. I'm not saying I deserve to wear legendary equipment... but there should be SOMETHING I can continually spend shards on and work towards. Call them unsociable shards, I don't care... give me something though. Who cares if someone parses every trash fight? Maybe they are trying out a new spec or a new casting order or something, what affect does it really have on you? Why would something as small as that have any affect on your enjoyment of the instance? I seriously can not see how someone posting a parse of every fight would matter at all to anyone else in the group unless that particular person lets it get to them (in which case its your own [Removed for Content] fault for being so easily [Removed for Content] off). Raiding can be boring at times, but the vast majority of people do it for the social aspects of it. If your not into hanging around with other people then yeah, I can see how you would think raiders are braindead. What I don't get is... why do soloers think that the answer to a lack of solo progression is in the ability to obtain heroic rewards solo? would not the addition of solo content with its own rewards be more appropriate? (FYI, that is exactly what the game is getting in GU#52) sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items. As far as the parsing goes... it's just hard to keep track of the conversation when you got to scroll that much. And yeah, it is irritating to me. You right it shouldn't be, but people who parse trash mobs every single fight irritate me.

01-02-2009, 08:18 PM	#25
Noaani Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6,077	nomatterwhat wrote: sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items. So, what you are suggesting is a merchant to be added to the game that sells solo gear for a new currency that is to be added to the game. A merchant which will have nothing in common with the void shard merchants save the fact that they share a mechanic that has been used in a half dozen or so places... __________________ The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what will sell. Confucius

01-02-2009, 08:30 PM	#26
nomatterwhat Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 148	Noaani wrote: nomatterwhat wrote: sorry.. I meant to imply that these solo shards can have access to a totally different set of items, i.e. non legendary items. So, what you are suggesting is a merchant to be added to the game that sells solo gear for a new currency that is to be added to the game. A merchant which will have nothing in common with the void shard merchants save the fact that they share a mechanic that has been used in a half dozen or so places... Well I'm a little confused at what your point is. Too much work? too plain? whatever the point is, you can tell me. just to try and pre-empt what you might be thinking, if you think it's too much work... you don't actually think TSO was worth $40 do you? cause I don't. this new proposal (don't have to be mine, can be the op's) would go some ways into making it worth its cash. that said, maybe you are over complicating my point. What I am suggesting is a repeatable solo progression system at lvl 80. That's it. I pointed out the heoric shard system works pretty well, they can model it after that if they want. don't have to, but it's relatively straight forward... go on a mission, spend a couple of hours doing something, come back for a reward... rinse and repeat. This solo system can have a lot of stuff even group players would want, like more house items etc... along with actual MC quality gear of course.

01-02-2009, 08:33 PM	#27
Gisallo Server: Lucan DLere Loremaster Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 1,910	Noaani wrote: Giland@Guk wrote: Because if you don't have a sense of progression in the game, then why keep playing? Progression is good, solo progression is questionable, solo progression crossing over to heroic progression = hell no. There are already examples such as the Thugga line, or even items purchaeable or simply a reward once you have grinded enough faction (Wastes Hunter as another example). EVERY character I have gotten to 80 (admittedly just a ranger and a zerker at this point) has been able to solo that but it was far from easy and took forver. I think if you simply had a quest reward of 1-2 shards for completeing a Thugga line style quest series (that had some random steps) that was repeatable say once every 14 days would be a nice balance. Now some people say these things were part of the problem with RoK, but I think with the time it would take you would have the balance. Last night I got 6 shards for 2 hours worth of instancing. I will probably be able to do the same today. 1-2 shards for doing how many hours of quest grinding and then only being able to do it effectively twice a month? Still seems the groupers have a severe advantage BUT the people who prefer solo play don't feel completely alienated. __________________

01-02-2009, 08:39 PM	#28
Noaani Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6,077	Gisallo@Lucan DLere wrote: There are already examples such as the Thugga line, or even items purchaeable or simply a reward once you have grinded enough faction (Wastes Hunter as another example). EVERY character I have gotten to 80 (admittedly just a ranger and a zerker at this point) has been able to solo that but it was far from easy and took forver. I think if you simply had a quest reward of 1-2 shards for completeing a Thugga line style quest series (that had some random steps) that was repeatable say once every 14 days would be a nice balance. Now some people say these things were part of the problem with RoK, but I think with the time it would take you would have the balance. Last night I got 6 shards for 2 hours worth of instancing. I will probably be able to do the same today. 1-2 shards for doing how many hours of quest grinding and then only being able to do it effectively twice a month? Still seems the groupers have a severe advantage BUT the people who prefer solo play don't feel completely alienated. Point 1: Thuuga was a single quest that rewarded a single item for a single slot. That item barly even warrented a legendary tag on most of the items, let alone a fabled tag. What the OP is talking about is not a single item, nor a single slot. On top of that, the only way to get the Thuuga questline rewards was to do the questline. The OP is talking about a second means of access to shards, not the introduction of a new set of gear. Point 2: the answer to a lack of solo progression does not lie in making heroic progression more easily avalible, it lies in making solo content with some progression to it. __________________ The superior man knows what is right. The inferior man knows what will sell. Confucius

01-02-2009, 08:51 PM	#29
Kendricke Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 4,032	simpwrx02 wrote: Giland@Guk wrote: fabled items drop from heroic content all the time. And they are not the same as raid dropped fabled items... Exactly. Shards are rewards for group level content. If you want to create an alternate system of rewards for solo content which can be exchanged for solo rated rewards, I could accept that. If, instead, you're trying to create a system that allows you to bypass heroic content but still gain heroic rewards, I'm most certainly against. __________________ * -Opinions expressed in this post do not represent any current or past employers.

01-03-2009, 12:11 AM	#30
erin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,834	Considering that most raiders cried heavily that the T2 TSO Shard gear wasn't worth their time, can we all agree that T2 Shard gear is primarily for grouping, maybe an entry into Raiding but definitely not raid gear? So being able to aquire T1 shard gear makes you able to group instances, being able to aquire T2 Shard gear makes you able to do all the group instances in TSO, even the harder ones. Yes? So what's the big objection to being able, over a very long time, to aquire gear? It requires 150 shards to get a full set of T2 armor, not accounting for the jewelry, swords, shields, etc. At 1 shard a day, at least 6 months. So in 6 months your dedicated solo player can aquire the gear to do the harder group instances. So what's the big deal about that?