Issue: With the overhaul of the Dungeon 2 sets in SOD they are now the defacto pre-bis for every class and spec. These sets are perfectly itemized to the point they rival AQ40 gear in stat power. Because of this, every person is going to be doing the Dungeon 2 Set quests, which so far haven’t been too bad, but Bloodkelp AKA Alcaz Island is the epitome of bottleneck. Extremely tough mobs requiring at minimum 2-person groups with 5 minute respawn timers and no more than 10 up at a time have lead to people waiting in the same spot for hours camping one spawn point. This is a massive issue because you need 20 bloodkelp to complete the quest and the mobs only have a 10% drop chance AND the quest item isn’t shareable, meaning people are spending 10-12 hours camping one spot with a group of 5. There are baskets of bloodkelp so I’ve been told, but I have yet to see one; probably because they’re being instantly farmed out.
Solution: At the minimum, make Bloodkelp shareable in a party, or preferably a raid (like with Ekos). This would be A LOT more engaging and get your faction working together vs. working against each other. It would also lead to some exciting world PvP, as players are too distraught to even bother with farming the island if it’s one-side dominated. Doubling the drop rate/spawn time would also be nice. If the island is faction dominated it won’t be for very long and the opposing faction would eventually get a chance to swoop in.
You aren’t supposed to farm the mobs for bloodkelp.
You are supposed to clear the mobs so that you can loot the basket with guaranteed bloodkelp. It respawns quickly, but only one is up at a time, shared among all spawn points.
Learn the spawn points, run back and forth between them, you will get the quest done fairly easily as long as the island is cleared of all mobs.
I don’t know how long ago you did this quest but there has been a substantial uptick in population at Alcaz. I thought for certain Duke of Cinders would hold people at bay for a while but if there are baskets (like I said) they are already farmed out and gone. They have static spawn points. I checked and waited at a few points for several minutes with other players also camping the same spot.
Every inch of the Island is spawn camped at the moment and I don’t see it getting better, I see it getting worse, because this is just the front load of the playerbase trailing behind the no-life era mindfreaks. Once the general population starts progressing over the next couple days this area is going to be hitting 4-5 layers.
These quests should have been revamped and modernized. If they had not changed the D2 gear then the quests being left alone would be totally fine, but D2 is an 8-piece pre-bis guarantee for majority specs in SOD after the gear updates and has tremendous value. The entire playerbase is going to do these quests whereas before only a handful of players did, specifically rogues.
The baskets spawn very quickly. But only one is up at a time. If you are not seeing them, that means one is up in a location that no one is looting. You need to go out of your way to find it and loot it so that it continues spawning.
It is EASIER to do this quest when all mobs are dead, than it is to have the island all to yourself.
I seriously doubt the baskets are on a hyperspawn. If they were, people would be coming in and leaving in droves and this wouldn’t be the massive cluster it currently is. Regardless it doesn’t make sense for the mobs to be on such long timers when they should be spawning based on death frequency, which is how I know the area was overlooked completely. I checked all the waypoints for 30 minutes on a loop and didn’t see a single basket.
I literally looted two back to back yesterday to finish my quest. Looted one, another immediately spawned right next to me.
It’s a fast respawn. But ONLY ONE can be up at a time. So you need to check every spawn point. That means going past Weavile’s minions (which are impossible to solo, but fairly easy to get around when the island is totally camped) to ensure it actually gets looted.
You do realize that blizz right now is also changing and adding specs for Tier 2, and after tier 2 comes out, they will be changing AQ40 and adding specs once again. Going off of what is right now AQ 40 gear and Tier 2 is irrelevant. I stopped after getting 6/8 because I don’t want to waste too much time for something that will likely be replaced in a week. These sets were added back in 2006 and were designed to catch up new players and alts.
Also asking for the changes to these mobs and items, they won’t be able to really do unless they go deep into coding. Increasing hyperspawns of mobs and items are one thing, but to go into the code and make the changes of an old game takes a lot more time and can lead to accidental bugs and what not. If you bring up BRE and Incursions and how they are taggable and share loot drops, well thats adding new code to the game vs changing the original.
Phase 3 last 3 months, testing needed to be done, but the time required to change tier sets to add specs does take time.
Its literally their job to change the game, what a silly excuse. They can absolutely increase the spawn rate and make the drop rate either 100% or shared.
It’s not irrelevant. D2 is optimized the same as T3 in era. This makes the gear extremely valuable. In 6 months when BWL is out new players/alts won’t immediately jump into BWL. They’ll need to acquire pre-bis, which will be this set. The quests need to have their gold costs reduced and the quest items made shareable. The Duke of Cinders quest should probably also be adjusted to be a bit easier to do in a smal lgroup.
This is irrelevant because it’s not 2006.
This entire post is wrong. These changes are extremely easy to make.
Actually a Dev already said going back into the original coding and making changes is a lot harder than you think it is.
And yes I know it’s not 2006, but if you realize when MC/BWL was out vs this set, then you know you don’t need this set to actually down bosses in MC. They aren’t changing any mechanics for this raid, but reducing damage output and health. Also they will ADD one boss that will be different, but until we know what is needed, all of original MC will be defeated. Just look at the world bosses and how easy it is.
And lastly, this isnt Era either. We don’t know what will happen to the Tier sets in the future for each phase and itemization. I would love a change in this quest, but its not going to happen unless they actually give out gear like they’ve done for Timber, Thorium, and Argent Dawn with some type of currency.
I’m standing here in Southwind Village with 30 ectoplasmic distillers on the ground, more people than the BRD entrance at launch and not a ghost in sight. Someone was asleep at wheel with the .5 quests in SoD.