This is exactly where we need to go if we want all this to really be fair.

In the mean time stop taking away people's hard earned items...


Z

Any updates or thoughts on this? Also wasn’t sure if there was ever going to be another champ quest soon?

I like the idea of being able to get a Champion weapon end game. Maybe we need to build it, chest in tower, prison, ML. Or maybe another super NPC like shiva for it.

In my opinion, if people want champion weapons for late game, established characters, we should have another tier of weapons below champion weapons for those people to acquire. Whether it be from a random drop, building it like the gorn robes, or from professions - but it shouldn't be the same as the champion weapons, it shouldn't look the same, and it shouldn't negate those who have earned their champion weapons.

But most of this should be built into professions as a whole, in my opinion.

AGREED!!!

But then what about those Champ weapons that were already given for some end game characters?
They were "earned" by winning Champ Quest.
Should they be removed or should that opportunity return?
(Before you talk about the injustice of removing items let me remind you they took a bunch of items from players just a few weeks ago...)

Maybe having the possibility of "winning" a late game Champ item AGAIN would also be nice.
(Been over a year since a Champ Quest. I figure all the complaining from those that lost made LW not want to do it again.)

So we could have end game professions and also late game Champ weapon possibilities.
Both earned correctly.


Z

In speedrunning, you dont get to keep your "crown" if someone beats you, you loose your title. You also have to post your speed run publicly so it can be inspected.

I would make the following changes:

• Only one copy of each item (unique)
  
• Each item has a specific route or task for the speed run with character requirement (tower, prison, certain labs)
  
• If your record is ever broken, you lose your item to the new record holder.
  
• Speed run would be performed with a new character with no equipment.
  
• A speed run portal would exist, which would bring you to a preperation area.
  
• In preperation area you would be given X exp bumping your rank to be at a specific level (you can then spend this xp however you want), you would also get X gold to buy equipment before you enter a 2nd portal to the specific speedrun area.
  
• Ending speedrun would return character back to 0 exp, no equipment.
  
• Champ weapon would not be character bound, but could only be given to characters with same IP (similar to transfer?)
  
• Speed run areas should be completable in 30 min, and player would need to screen record their run, and post it on forum before they get their item.
  

Speedrunning is the same issue. I think I would agree that if Champ Weapons are part of Champ Quest, and you are taking away uniques as lifetime, then use professions or RNG drops to make similar options. If you aren’t taking away Champ weapons or making them available in game at some point because of the argument they were earned, then Uniques should have that same logic as I earned it by finding it. I think Professions are probably the easiest solution to work with but still just like having the discussion.

If you limit the players to have a maximum login/logouts of let us say 10 times, that would make it a bice powerplay/speedrun. That would limit all players to log in/out a minimum amount of times, and also makes it possible for those who don't know how to camp the ish chests etc
early on with just less then an hour of game play.

Hey guys,

For those talking about changing how and who gets Champ weapons I think you have not looked at the history of the Champion Quest.
They are NOT now and have NEVER been meant as only a 30 minute speed run!

There have been 14 Champion Quests testing many different ranges of game play and skills. The idea behind that is to give different players with different skill sets an opportunity to show what they do best. And to give more people a chance at a Champ weapon.

Some of them could be finished in under 2 hours with help. Some needed to be soloed and could take weeks depending on your gaming style. Only a few turned out to depend on camping chests to get the most speed, and I don't think that will ever be the format again.
...and of course, they ALL had to be timed to see who was the winner.

I personally would like to see one go on for a year and see who can go from Private to Warlord with no help and 0 deaths fastest, but the moderator would be making a HUGE sacrifice to watch such a thing...


MY POINT IS...
They are all different and each Champ weapon earned was for a unique skill set. It would not make any sense to take any old Champ weapons away and give them to the new "Champ" because he didn't win in those skills. Each one going forward (if we ever have them again) will also be unique skills tested and therefore not be justified taking away older rewards to give to the new victor.

(1 caveat, The very few EXTRA weapons given to characters that never won a Champ Quest could clearly be taken away if we are not going to give that oppertunity to other players ever again.)

As for the uniques that were taken away...

We must fold them into professions ASAP. I made sure my unique was used for HUNDREDS of hours per month on many different characters.
Since it was taken from me it is not being used. Even though I'm sure somebody thought they were doing the right thing taking that item from me has NOT improved the game.


Z

Years ago before the unique changes, I (and few clan mates) had stocked almost 70% of the game's uniques including fire and ice armors, etc. It was a stupid feature. I remember getting shadow helm and most fire pieces because I was the first to log on after server re-opening. Because I woke up at some ridiculous hour and played all day, I grabbed everything first. Was it a good way of doing things? No, it was totally stupid. It had no relation to being easy or hard. It was just an unfair advantage that old time players had. To be fair, most players had no idea how to get some of these uniques or the best places to farm for them.

I have always said that uniques should just be random drops from mobs and that's it. Everyone can get one and stfu about it. Uniques has been one of the longest running debated issue in the 25+ years this game has existed.


Simply put, just add all the uniques to something. To prevent abuse, make them have some insane cool down on activation so that we don't get some "pvp whining" or "pve abuse" down the line. After getting to this point in terms of updates and game evolution, can we just enjoy the game. No one ever liked uniques being hoarded by one person for years and no one every thought it was a fair system.

As for champion weapons, I agree that it is annoying that non champ characters can have a somewhat noticeable stat boost for doing a speed run. Simple solution? Make an RB category and everyone can RB into the quest. Once you are RB 2 well you can RB (no bonus or anything) into the champ quest. Problem solved. Still gotta win but if you suck and fail, get to warlord and attempt next time. Simple. Don't know the code aspect of it but hey champ weapon problem solved.

Can we just be adults and treat this game as adults? I played astonia and aranock for longer than anything else, through high school to grad school to med school and still love it. I love it because it is simple and fun, why are we trying to complicate things so much?

Anyway fun times! I miss having time to be on and just temple sit all day

However,
Under the "better distribution" rules as they had been set up and we all were playing by for many years...

If you were not the guy to just get on first and have an easy pull to get it you may have worked very hard to earn, or buy, and then keep an item.

For example, if you wanted the Shadow Helm back because you were it's original owner on MoA and you set out to track it's ownership. Then you camp the respawn for hundreds of hours when you know it should be back. After you do finally get it you time the respawns and get up all hours of the day and night, possibly missing important things IRL, to make sure you are there at the exact respawn time. (which Yes it does have an insane long cool down)

If you did all that and more to get and keep it you can honestly say it did not come easy and you earned it.

Then one day the rules are changed and it is taken from you.

Worse than that it doesn't get put back in game for any form of meaningful use. Just at the whim of an Imp if you are lucky enough to be his buddy and in his time zone, and then only for a short term basis.

At least when some players earn and keep such items they are in constant use and not sitting on some clan floor or staffer's corner.


Z

Slight correction, you had to wait 3 years for their alt that has 5 minutes of playtime a year to expire, there was no camping the respawn as they didn't expire and people could hold them permanently, and even after the change to make them expire after ~6months there was no getting them as the origional owner could grab them within 3 seconds of it expiring.

I'm not sure what you mean by buddy as I've never given out a unique to a friend nor seen any other imp do so unless ur refering to 8+ years ago before I was staff in which case idk and thatd weird to claim that from something so long ago so I imagine thats not what you mean, and only the math cap has been a unique based on being given out
And outside of the unique spawning being somewhat broken(however they're still in the game, they just spawn weirdly), all but 1(math cap, which is held for events) of the uniques spawn naturally in the game, so idk what you mean by them not being put back in the game. Unless you mean the thistle items which nobody had when aging was added anyways and were for a 1 time event.

Having seen the logs for how it was a few years ago before they had timers, no they were not in active use, a vast majority of the uniques(including the armors and thistle items) were on inactive alts that logged 1-10 minutes every few months(some of which were kept like that for years)
Currently though under the new system for getting them far more uniques are in active use.

Also not sure what you're on about uniques being taken from you? unless you mean them expiring for hoarding them, in which case... yea, its not going to stay under a system where u can hold a unique for several years with 0 effort.

The concept of hard work and earning in video games is laughable at best in my opinion. Life is a pretty sh*t grind for most already, it is unrealistic to expect and even wish for the same level of work = result (which we all know is biased and BS in almost all situations).

Games should be fun and fun for me at least is getting away from the RL grind as much as a possible but to each his own, I guess. That being said, I don't think the way we view acquisition rules in this game are adequate, fun or fair to an extent.

Going back to the original point of the topic, champion weapons require time, knowledge, luck and in certain cases a good degree of cheesing or exploitation. There are way certain players have managed to attain really crazy results within the limits of the rules which few players know or are willing to attempt. Eventually, people will get a chance but the concept of going through the whole process and failing is meh to me. I was lucky to get my champions and I don't really need more than that but if someone enjoys their character and did not partake in the process, why not give them a way to do it? quite a few good alternatives are discussed here already.

@Lazy, I am pretty sure that a few things happened in terms of opaque distribution of certain items were before your time. An example with fire pieces comes to mind when a certain imp warped to chest locations prior to me reaching them to make a point.

Rule changes also caused a lot of tension at that point like when the near complete set was taken away from me when the limit of uniques was enforced except to find that later on, a single player was allowed to keep the set and count it as 1 piece within the 2 per IP rule. There were some murky decisions being made during the progression of the unique rules which were shady in my opinion. That being said, it doesn't matter in the end and we would've gotten to where we are regardless.

The shadow helm was the funniest one considering that someone played around with the spawn of azrael and another time someone removed the shadow helm from azrael before he was killed. The old iteration of the skeleton would not spawn as long as helm was held so it was fun to get 2-3 spawns with an empty grave lol. Lots of stories about these things.

In the end it doesn't change anything, the itemization in this game has made most uniques obsolete and useless outside of GFX. And even prior with the exception of math and shadow, there was almost no point.

@Lazy I think a lot of people are getting to the point where they have reached significant barriers to progression either vertical or horizontal and are now stuck striving for something new or rare or collectible. You remain probably the most min maxed player out there across your numerous characters but this is exactly where the RL factors kick in. Most players will never reach your gametime nor your involvement in the game which is why these suggestions come up every few months/years. I just say this considering your role in implementation of features.

I still think that uniques should just be rares and end this unending debate lol. Make them available through some grind. Game has already been tweaked way beyond original intentions. Most activiteis have been restricted in several ways from no stun flags to rank ranges, etc. What people appear to want now is alternative systems of acquisition of certain items which I feel is in tune with the direction of the dev of aranock anyway. A lot of new activities have seen the light, a lot of new OP items as well. Why not add a way to obtain the lesser min-max range of items?

Or just allow for RB related progression? Whatever the evolution of this suggestion, I think having more diverse item acquisition is a positive.

I guess thats what he was talking about I was just confused as thats more or less meaningless to bring up now as pretty much nobody on the team is the same as back then, other than maybe lava.


I think you're vastly overestimating how geared my characters are, my templar(main character) has like 2 or 3 +12 harden & warcry pieces of gear and not much else that cant be obtained in like 10 hours or less of play at high ranks other than kwai rings & champ wep, theres not really much of a wall of progression unless people straight up ignore getting gear or refuse to do any SS at all



As for the origional topic with champ weps, I'm not against the idea of adding more weapons for doing quests/wlrb, maybe a bit weaker than champs as otherwise I feel unfair to have people who have champ quest done just have all their effort made more or less pointless since anything obtainable ingame would be easier than champq.
But there are no sprites for alot of weapons and idk how to do sprite work at all, I don't think it would look good for every new weapon to be a copy paste of existing stuff.

i think if they made a weapon that could be created similar to how gemstone rings are created that might be good. instead of gems they could be metal fragments but operate in the same way.

Stats the fragments could give would be restricted. this would make sure its used as a primary weapon and not a buff stick.

• weapon skill (axe/sword etc)
  
• weapon value
  
• armour value
  
• resistance
  
• immunity
  
• Str/Agil/Brav etc
  
• dual weild
  
• surround hit I & II
  
• etc... except for spells

How it would work:
Certain stats would max out at a certain levels. So for example both Weapon Value, Armour Value and Weapon Skill could max out at fragment level 3. This means you essentially can only get one of them to level 3 but not all of them. Then resistance and immunity could max out at lvl 13 fragments, meaning you could get +13 resistance on your weapon, or +3 AV +10 Resistance.

Then you could allow for some of the other skills to get to lvl 23 or something. so you could get +3WV, +10 immunity, +10 dual wield, or if you really wanted to you could get +23 braveness with no other stats on your weapon.

Alternatively to having fragments, you could have different weapon parts, blade, pummel, guard and have different stats that can be found in each of those. This allows you to restrict stats available and max level on each part. the issue is that staffs, axes, wands, do not have the same parts as swords, but if you could think of something else that would work, that method could be used instead of having staggered levels for different attributes.