Suggestion Allow all Wilderness Areas to Scale

How much time do you spend in the Great Desert?

It is a great place to farm your glyphs and gold, your gold lines and the occasional platinum, as well as Keys of Prowess. Functionally it is a great map with a ton of replay value. I realize some will come and say "Only n00bs farm the desert" etc but I think its fair to say that most of us spend a good deal of time here on a regular basis.

To that end I would l propose allowing ALL wilderness areas to scale, and adding a re-spawning boss with the same difficulty scale as the desert. The development effort here would be minimal for a pretty substantial payoff in terms of player enjoyment.

Since we spend so much time grinding over and over and over again, wouldn't it be nice if we could choose the map we are doing it in? The older wilderness maps already exist and some of them are absolutely beautiful. I'd love a reason to go back and play them some more.

 

the desert is not a wilderness, it's a dungeon

 

They could add to every wilderness map some scaling dungeon higher modes, working like the great desert... I have an idea of a difficulty revamp that it would work well with, I'll post it somewhen.

 

That response seems to be one of semantics. When farming that garbage for the Solstice event (IDK carrots or snow essence, I don't remember) it says you can find it in all wilderness areas, and it happens to show up in the desert if I recall correctly.

In any case, do you see the point I am trying to make? If all the wilderness areas could scale, have select-able difficulty, and a re-spawning boss, it would mix things up again. There are times when one needs to run around and around and around the desert, or farm keys of prowess. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to do that on more than just one map?

 

You're essentially asking that all scaling maps have continuously respawning mobs and sentinels, so you can wander around in circles killing mobs while waiting for the sentinel to respawn. (In one sense, they already do respawn endlessly: Kill the sentinel, open the chest, click on the rune stone to immediately re-enter.) But how many maps have that kind of pseudo-circular layout, which accommodate both the flow of slaughter, and the space to maneuver around the sentinel without getting jammed in a corridor?

Rootrock Cavern (too small); Stonekeep (though there are too many hedges and cul-de-sacs which make dancing around the sentinel awkward); Tegan's Sanctuary; Spiky Valley? Where else, without having to re-design the entire dungeon?

 

+1 for me I have wanted this before and asked for it

 

He doesn't mean any of those.

He wants desert-like mechanics with modes on wilderness maps, like Nahuatlan, Torstrond, Heart of Atlantis, Thunder Crest.

That's because the Great Desert was designed as a wilderness map, but they decided to make it a dungeon eventually, perhaps because people were complaining about other players stealing kills in open maps... or for some other reason.

 

But, again, he needs a sentinel to farm keys; and I assume he doesn't want to jockey for a place in line with a dozen other toons trying to kill the sentinel at the same time; so the wilderness would have to have a mirrored version that had dungeon-like properties. Without messing up the mechanics of the Normal-mode wilderness itself so that it could still be used by new players for quests.

Why, when there are a couple dozen scaling dungeons already available to farm for keys (and other things)?

Suggest that the devs create new content, including another purposely designed Great Desert-like dungeon with infinitely respawning mobs & sentinel, instead. That way newcomers still have a clean experience, and he gets his variety.

Don't mess up the leveling game, or you'll have no new players to replace the nearly depleted ranks of the old players.

 

He wants desert-like mechanics with modes on wilderness maps, like Nahuatlan, Torstrond, Heart of Atlantis, Thunder Crest"

^^^^ This

I am not saying the "normal" mod needs to change. Leave it to do quests and to behave just as it does now. It won't mess with levelling or anything. You make it sound like I am asking for some huge undertaking when that is simply not the case. I like those old maps and loved the fact that I could stay in them for a longer time than a non wilderness map. I don't really care if they are circular or not, but even if they were chaned, the coding for this is not extensive. Look at what they did with the new moon and FBI maps. Do you think this was some grand undertaking, or really just an hour worth of coding by a developer. The underlying architecture is already in place, and the only thing required would be a few new sentinels.

To your point about suggesting the devs create new content including a new purposely designed Great Desert-like dungeon, yes, that would be better. But I am merely making a small suggestion; a feature request. Generating new content should be part of the long term roadmap anyways and I am talking something they could whip up quickly. If you think that what I am asking for is somehow complicated, then surely you must realize there's NEVER going to be any real new content right?

 

Right. And hopeless at all.

 

I hope I'm not coming across as combative, I just have less faith in the devs than you do … literally every release has at least one hotfix, some of which are minor, some of which are crippling in certain ways (apparently the PVP season progress is broken again); I'd just hate for this to go sideways and blow up Normal activity … if a wilderness goes out of commission for a few days or weeks, how many new users will run into that nebula error and give up on the game?

I'm not against your idea in principle, but I do have trepidations about the outcome.

And, no, I'm not naïve … all signs have been pointing to the demise of the game for some time, with "new" features apparently designed to squeeze a few last dollars out of the shrinking player base. I don't actually expect new content.

 

I am surprised this isn't getting more attention. BP has obviously given up on any new content. Wouldn't it be nice to play the other wilderness maps when you need to do some mindless farming? I got sick of the desert a long time ago and just want some variety. So many good, old maps are worthless to enter because they are too low level. It wouldn't be hard and would give us something to do while we wait out the next nerf.

I realize most folks here would be content with 1 PvP map and just the PW but for Dracaty's sake, I like doing different stuff, and I mostly play PvE. I can't be the only one that gets tired of the desert.

 

I'm still working my way up in levels in the Scaling Dungeons (fairly comfortable in Fatal now; haven't tried INF1, yet). For me, the recipes just aren't shaking out of those reward chests, so I have a year's worth of farming there (I won't use a lot of the buffs, but I hate not having a complete set of options).

Question for you: What's the point of being an end-gamer now? I mean, getting there is still the goal of weaker toons, but once you do, what's next? BP is making events more and more difficult to complete … not by making them challenging, but by decreasing drops and increasing layers of prerequisites so we farm to farm to farm, and time constraints are the limiting factor, not toon strength or player skill. PVP is obviously a joke. No new content / level cap … which many would gripe about, but at least would give them incentive to farm equipment again. So, what are you farming for at this point?

 

So, I don't care for the term "end-game" that much because it is inaccurate. I reached lvl 55 in a few months of casual play on my main toon, and wasn't sure what to do. Obviously getting a PW or Cube set to suit your class is one of the first things, as long as you have friends or a guild that will carry you. When that isn't happening, you are collecting loot, looking for high gold or the increasingly rare platinum lines, and melting the vast majority of what you find for glyphs. The most reliable way to become stronger in early end game is to upgrade equipment level, and collect wisdom. Wilderness areas are perfect for this because the mobs respawn, and you just kill and kill until your inventory is full, and then return to town to start the inspection and melting.

The problem is, when you are lvl 55, the only wilderness area to do this is the Great Desert (Some will argue it isn't a wilderness area because it has a sentinel but I disagree) because you want the items that drop to be at your lavel to maximize their melt value. Also it is the only wilderness area that scales, and as you get stronger, you want to do higher mods in hopes of finding better enchantments on the loot. Supposedly, higher mods increase the chances of better enchantments, and the gear is obviously more powerful.

This is where you will spend much of your time, over and over and over, grinding away when you aren't in PW or scaling overworld for a specific purpose. It frustrates me that BP thinks this is great fun for all of us and that we should be happy killing the same snakes and beetle over and over until we want to blow our brains out in boredom. I don't mind a little grind, but some variety would make the game so much more playable. But making the game enjoyable is not on their roadmap. Who knows, maybe they will create a wilderness attire for $80.00 that lets the wilderness areas scale for 30 days or something.......


.

 

Sorry, I didn't ask my question clearly.

I didn't mean to suggest hitting level 55 is end-game status. Clearly it's not; I've been a weak lvl55 dwarf for a year.

I'm referring to the people who can run Infernal4, have their Q7 or whatever set at T8 … what's next for them?

 

What's next?
1) Getting 2 gold lines, 3 gold lines, and then 4 high gold lines, then finally some or all platinum lines.
2) Getting 2-3 gold base lines on your equipment
2) Getting all your gear to T8/60 level.
3) Getting all yer gems to Sacred, then to Green/Blue Royals (this means much Fatal/Inf3 Scaling World farming, not Great Desert, @Aslandroth)
4) Getting all your runes maxed out (lots of drakens and clovers needed here).
5) Being able to finish events.
6) Becoming a Grand Master and helping the next generation, because your immune to the DSO nerfs.

I just started reaching 3 (got my very first royal on Premium Day).
I'm deep into 1/2/4.
I was, before v220, at 5 and approaching 6 (could carry others in Inf3 PW), but got nerfed bad there. I haven't yet finished an event since v220, so I miss out on all the top goodies. I can carry some in Scaling World, but can no longer carry anyone above PW Fatal.
I can still help the new 55s, just not near as well as I was helped when I was a new 55.

So the lesson is... it takes almost a year to get to 55 and then more than two years later I'm still working on becoming a Grand Master. I might get there in 2 or 3 more years... if DSO doesn't chop my wooden legs out....

.... See??? They already chopped my legs out so I had to get wooden ones.... ;p

*** A flock of DSO DoDo Birds lands and starts chanting "Doom on you, doom on you, doom on you" ***

As for the Snowmen, their drops should scale with the map level. That's all I'm saying on that subject.

 

Older wilderness maps are designed to have players of different level ranges on them playing.
The Great Desert is a dungeon.

 

Exactly. Which is why the snowmen on Great Desert (only dungeon with snowmen) should drop snow essence something like:

Normal:	2​	5​	10 ​	20 ​	50 ​	100 ​
Painful:	3​	7​	14 ​	25 ​	60 ​	125 ​
Excruciating:	4​	9 ​	18 ​	30 ​	70 ​	150 ​
Fatal:	5​	10 ​	22 ​	40 ​	80 ​	175 ​
Infernal 1:	10 ​	25 ​	50 ​	100 ​	250 ​	500​
Infernal 2:	20​	50​	100​	200​	500​	1000​
Infernal 3:	30​	75​	150​	300​	750​	1500​
Infernal 4:	50​	125​	250​	500​	1250​	2500 ​

 

@trakilaki Dude I get that, and I understand the logic behind what you are saying, but, the Great Desert is also designed for players of various skill levels. I honestly don't understand how anyone can oppose this, and quote to me lines that I would hear from a BP shill or dev (Which I know you are neither).

The point is, we KNOW BP isn't interested in developing new content, at least not while any of us are still young. What would be so hard about scaling those maps? Make them into "Dungeons" if the label makes you happier. My point is that, because of the amount of time spent there (And yes, I know, there are other maps to farm based on your particular goal. I don't need them spelled out with the individual purpose for farming them spelled out. I don't need to be called out for missing one or two things that end game players can do that aren't part of desert farming) Is it really such a burden or major rewrite to the core of the game to ask to be able to farm them in a higher mod? Am I the only one that gets bored of farming the same few maps over and over for the same resources?

Letting those maps would in NO WAY affect the players that are doing them in normal mode for their leveling and questing etc, but it would give me a break from the same, lame desert snake killing routine. I do not see any downside to this super minor code revision.

What if they gave us an opportunity in these maps (when they scale) to kill a sentinel that drops something other than date tree sap. We all know Bramble Stalk drops are criminally low.

Ultimately, my intent wasn't to start a debate over what constitutes a wilderness map vs a dngeon and I apologize for any mistake I have made in the divine linguistics of the BP overlords; All I wanted was to get a little replay value out of those wilderness maps that were ALL better looking and more enjoyable than the stupid, monotone desert. I sincerely apologize to all the folks wh are content to play whack-a-mole 17 hours a day. Enjoy yourselves, and if you want a real good time, go buy some event attire. Next up is event attire that lets you farm the great desert without even sitting at your PC! ...............Wait, that already exists.

 

I never said I am against it ... I just point out they are not dungeons.
They have to have wilderness status on normal ... but what would we get if they would be dungeons (above normal difficulty)? Nothing much ... really.
Just more dungeons to avoid going to
If it was up to me ... I would make even tutorial maps scaled
and the old Grimmagstone where we could get old bugged low level items but now with tiers XD