Spawn Timers in Everquest

How Long Should it Take to Get that Mob?

Spawn Timers: Necessary Evil?

 

Screenshot

 

User Shuraz recently updated the Zlandicar entry to let us know that the spawn timer for this NPC appears to be 3 days, 14 hours and change. Contrast this to most modern MMO where the spawn timers on most world-named is rarely more than 10 minutes, dungeon named are usally about 60% show up in an instance (as most games instance dungeons now) and dungeon final bosses tend to be 100% with 1 to 6 hour lockouts on repeating the instance.

What do you think of Everquest's longstanding timesink design with spawn timers? Even group-level dungeons from classic era such as Lower Guk have this in effect (ever camped any of the epic 1.0 named there?).

Should this approach be changed in new EQ content? Should it be changed retroactively? Note that somewhere around Omens of War era they changed something on the NPC side that let's them do the "rare's spawn more often" weekends (and this impacts some older zones haphazardly... I think Velk's is one of them).

I'll keep my personal views out of it, but let's hear from users. Spawn timers: your thoughts?

Comments

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Tedious != fun
# Sep 16 2016 at 4:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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61 posts
Sure I walked uphill both ways barefoot to get my epic and flagging in PoP era. This doesn't mean I am entitled to inflict that sort of misery on new or returning players trying to get up to speed. The goal is to get more people to play on paying accounts not see how many additional people we can alienate and disenchant with playing the game.
Shorter random respawn timers wont hurt things UNLESS the mob in question drops a still sought after tradeable item that can be farmed by plat farmers.
In that case yes a long random timer is still needed just to slow them down and keep the economy from being flooded worse than it is already. If the mob also drops items needed for flagging or epics then maybe an alternate source or some way to obtain these drops elsewhere needs to be devised. Perhaps the tradeable items can be removed from the loot table and moved to some other long spawn mob.
Timer's fine.. Make em instanced as well
# Sep 14 2016 at 6:01 PM Rating: Excellent
28 posts
Spawn timers are fine.... But wouldn't mind them making zone for spawns like they did for Mistemoore and the Epic Request issues it had during anniversary/hardcore heritage times.
Spawns
# Sep 14 2016 at 8:29 AM Rating: Excellent
15 posts
I say leave it alone. I have been playing recently on the Quarm event server and the devs did a good job of recreating a nostalgic era that my wife and I thoroughly enjoy. There is no enhanced target window, no out of combat regen, no corpse summoners in guild lobby and the list goes on. We have completed several epics for our characters and while the timers have affected us, it just made completing it that much more satisfying. Just look at Phinny where the experience rate is reduced and it hasn't stopped people playing there. It is what it is - I say enjoy it.
Spawns
# Sep 14 2016 at 5:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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thargis wrote:
I say leave it alone. I have been playing recently on the Quarm event server and the devs did a good job of recreating a nostalgic era that my wife and I thoroughly enjoy. There is no enhanced target window, no out of combat regen, no corpse summoners in guild lobby and the list goes on. We have completed several epics for our characters and while the timers have affected us, it just made completing it that much more satisfying. Just look at Phinny where the experience rate is reduced and it hasn't stopped people playing there. It is what it is - I say enjoy it.


I agree. The longer spawn time is more challenging and the challenge is what makes the game interesting. I'd hate to see Trakanon spawn in minutes, or even hours, mostly because the loot he gives should not be that easy to get. In other MMOs, high level mobs do spawn ridiculously frequently, but the loot they give up is not comparable.
Spawn Timers
# Sep 13 2016 at 9:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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211 posts
Quote:
Myself, I am old school EQ, and am already fully flagged.
But I understand the frustration of others ... and I feel their pain.

I was partially flagged, having been helped along Planar Progression by the now defunct Povar raid club Ring of Steel (many thanks to the folks that ran RoS and afforded me and many others the chance to get so much done - Delo still remembers and honors your effort!). I still had to go back and execute several kills and repair numerous hails to complete the quest. I do not regret that time. I saw some event's I had never seen before, and I got to go back through some of the most interesting lore in the game.

I don't know about anyone else, but for me that was the highlight of my summer EQ experience.

Quote:
I think timers should be random and set to 2-6 hours. The 3 day plus timers on some epic mobs is just annoying these days. A lot of these mobs are still perma camped so trying to Epic a lower level char can be a lesson in frustration even more so than in the old days.

Regrettably, I would vote no. I've done epics on several alts, and while the 2.0's are trivial and fast, the 1.0's are and should remain epic. I wold not change a thing.
Spawn timer wiki
# Sep 13 2016 at 6:21 PM Rating: Excellent
Speaking of spawn timers, we have a wiki that probably needs to be updated on that subject.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Respawn_Timers
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Spawns
# Sep 13 2016 at 3:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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41 posts
Leave the spawns as is. It's Everquest. While I was doing the monk epic I waited days for spawns/drops. And I didn't take the shortcut, either. If you're going to do a quest, DO it. The longer and more complicated it is, the bigger and better feeling of accomplishment.

Shaiz.
Monk
Povar
Spawn timers
# Sep 13 2016 at 11:59 AM Rating: Excellent
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I think you have to differentiate between live servers and progression when it comes to these spawn timers. On Progressions especially, I think the spawn timers are and have been part of the game and create part of the competitiveness required to keep the server population high. On live servers though, especially on old content they should revisit those timers and consider reducing certain ones. One of the reasons people play on a progression is to enjoy it from a nostalgic point of view. Live servers have had that content available for over a decade in many cases.
spawn timers
# Sep 13 2016 at 11:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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The spawn timers suck right now. In the case of epic's they at least made alternate npc's that can be spoken too for some of the bottlenecks which was a step in the right direction. I think if they are going to keep the current system which does suck, they should at least guarantee the quest related drops. In fact they should have 6 drops just to be sure that if its a group that is going after the mob for the quest related items that they won't have to camp the same npc 6 times. I also think it should be retroactive. If the quest item is a random drop then it should be a common drop.

Some people still camp mobs like the Cragbeast Queen in Natimbi which was from the Gates of Discord expansion. I don't know if there is a limit to how much loot an npc could have. She has at least 4 quest items on her. To do that x6 might be a bit much but in the very least she should drop every single quest item so who ever is after her won't have to continue camping her for a specific item. It would leave room for other people to try to camp her instead of the same guy killing her 5 times in a row and letting everything rot because he or she is only after 1 item and the npc isn't dropping it.

In other cases some people are after certain npcs for other items like https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=13156 or https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=8881 . So i don't really know how they should handle stuff like that. Its not quest related. I guess making the npc spawn much more often might help but then again so would an increase in its drop rate. I would leave that up to other people.

Edited, Sep 13th 2016 1:37pm by Rickymaru
my thoughts
# Sep 13 2016 at 8:46 AM Rating: Good
I wish they revisit how the have the re-spawn timers and create a new system

Current - set longest time
Each new expansion past that would lower the times
Till Lowest spawn time in the new rules.



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Repop Timers
# Sep 13 2016 at 7:52 AM Rating: Excellent
10 posts
Maintenance Day!

Honestly, *for the most part*, I am OK with the older respawn timers as they are.

That said, for mobs that are constantly being sought out for quests, I do believe the timers should be reduced. Epic mobs are one good example.

Of particular note:
The Artisan's Prize ...
This is quite a bit of a sore point with a lot of folks and I agree with them.
It requires everyone working on it to be flagged to be able to enter the elemental planes in PoP. At first glance it may not seem like much, but us older players who have gone through this process ... we know how awful this is.
It is a LONG list of Planes of Power progression mobs that are *NOT* instanced, and are on these extremely long respawn timers.
Making a quest *long* and tedious to do is *one* thing, but making it such that it is impossible to progress if other folks are always getting there ahead of you is something else entirely *DISCOURAGING*.
Not everyone can be sitting in front of the PC logged in for three days at a time watching ... waiting ... for a repop .. only to do it again 15 more times.
Most of us have jobs and families and are able to log in a few hours here and there, but by then, the respawn timers appear to be set again ... and so the waiting continues endlessly.

Yes, I know what I am about to say is in hindsight, and it sounds like complaining and whining .... but they should have either:
A. chosen mobs and drops and recipes from much faster respawns,
B. chosen mobs and drops and recipes from instanced zones,
C. provided the OPTION of instancing the Planes of Power expansion flagging mobs.

Myself, I am old school EQ, and am already fully flagged.
But I understand the frustration of others ... and I feel their pain.

I do wish the devs would either have a look at this, if not to help fix the insanity of the Artisan's Prize as an example ... but certainly to not use the same bad idea in future endeavours!

I apologize if this seems to single out The Artisan's Prize.
I am merely trying to argue the point using it as an example sore point.

Trilo of Tunare (orginally from Lanys!)
Ba-a-a-a-a!
Spawn timers
# Sep 13 2016 at 6:38 AM Rating: Excellent
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I think timers should be random and set to 2-6 hours. The 3 day plus timers on some epic mobs is just annoying these days. A lot of these mobs are still perma camped so trying to Epic a lower level char can be a lesson in frustration even more so than in the old days. At least back then, it required a raid or group so you had someone to chat with. Now the hard part is trying to stay awake in an empty zone at most times.

It's funny if you keep checking who is in the zone, as you can see the same set of chars logging in to check the spawns.

Edited, Sep 13th 2016 8:39am by KC13
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