Call to Arms Event--Orcs

aslan3775

First--Devs---please update your pop-up menus and remove the mention of the Gateway. After 20+ pages on the forum of complaining/begging/cajoling Cryptic to keep the gateway, It's insulting that a simple tool tip still lists going to the special dungeon in the SCA. This isn't too much to ask.

Second, and the actual reason for writing the post: Is there some way to modify this Call to Arms event so that the skirmish flows a bit better the next time it gets recycled? I actually ran the last two CTA events on multiple toons, and somewhat enjoyed them, even after the thirty or fortieth time because there was room to move and they flowed from one 'wave' to the next. For the Fire Giant--you kill the first Golem and all the footpads, then open the gate. You wipe out the fire Archons (and spend time targeting people's companions because they bring in their own Fire Archons to fight the Archons in the CTA--still laughing at my stupidity on that one!)--then you teleport to the FireGiant and wipe out him and his Archon Lackeys (and any companions that look too similar--ooops). It flows.

Even the Frost Giant CTA --while it doesn't have the same flow, you have room--you can move from Fire ring to Fire ring. (It might be better if it was designed so that you lit one ring, kept it going during the first wave, then moved to the next ring, but hey, why not fight on three fronts at once )

This current event has you cooped up on one small section and you don't really need to move at all. Just keep dropping your area attacks in what appears to be the Tower District Barracks. It's like shooting ducks in a barrel. Kind of mind numbing to an extreme. And if you are a ranged DPS, you really have no room or reason to move, but hey--at least all the bad guys come to you and you can just wait it out. Dodge a few red circles and go collect your treasure which just appeared in a location that you ran past when you began the skirmish. REALLY doesn't make sense.

It might be fun to have the characters actually run the through a maze of their walls and barricades, avoiding traps and orcs behind the hanging pelts or tapestries. It would tend to focus the battle more on a group of 5 adventurers running together rather than, well, what we have with this event.

Suggestions?

spike

These cta's dissapoint me. Homgenized difficulty putting 3k toons with .5k in the same run. They are smaller and dumbed-down compared to their lvl equivalent. Just tiny thoughtless zerg fests that take 2 minutes to complete. In my lowest alt i run around just trying to connect a hit before the hi il toons melt everything. In my main i feel like a bully, i stand in one spot tap one key and kill 'em all before my party can contribute. Just not a satisfying experience on any toon.

silverkelt

This is actual not a half bad CTA to farm, unless the upped rewards, only ctas that can be run in less then 4 mins is worth your time.

Since this one drops random blue vicious enchants.. I will estimate about a 400 to 500k in return if I run them for 30 mins a day for 4 days.

This is will net me about 3-4 k a min per game time.

This one is actual more valuable then Battle for the Bridge, which is probably the next best one to run.

There are some really bad AD return CTAs, I skip those entirely.

If your talking about a epic version of a CTA, sure, if rewards are available, 70 only 2.5k!! bring it on .

Its a easy way for new players to make say 100-200k in 4 days time, you can of course skip them, I skip many of them.

pitshade

It used to be that the orcs would rush out in waves but everyone camps the spawn points to speed things up. That’s why it's cramped in there, it isn't the intended field of battle.

beckylunatic

silverkelt said:

Since this one drops random blue vicious enchants.. I will estimate about a 400 to 500k in return if I run them for 30 mins a day for 4 days.

This is will net me about 3-4 k a min per game time.

Note that this is ONLY because the double gem event is running, which means that any event enchants are possible drops.

silverkelt

ya that too.. sorry, wasnt trying to mislead.

So if I run this with ten toons x 2 times and I get a good blue enchant x 2 x 4 days , ect. You can make some ok return of farming investment, for the 3-4 mins per your in each one.

If it was say triple this, it wouldn't be worth it, as you can run CNs in ten -15 mins, so if the CTA was ten mins long vs CN.. you might as well run CN, with a guaranteed salvage, x 6k per run x 2. Plus a chance at a ok R8 x 2.

The best thing would be to run skirms daily and supplement doing CN during double weekends. then go back and farm etos during the non event schedule.

aslan3775

silverkelt said:

If your talking about an epic version of a CTA, sure, if rewards are available, 70 only 2.5k!! bring it on .

Its an easy way for new players to make say 100-200k in 4 days time, you can of course skip them, I skip many of them.

I love the idea of an epic version of the CTA (complete with appropriate awards--stop dropping those rank 1, 2, and 3 enchants and provide rank 5 on the ground, with a good chance for a 6 or even a 7 in the chest) !!!

It might skim a lot of the +70 players from the non-epic, causing the non-epic version to last longer for a group of low level toons, but if the number of +70 level characters that farm ToS is any indication, plenty of +70 characters will still run the non-epic version.

tripsofthrymr

aslan3775 said:

I love the idea of an epic version of the CTA (complete with appropriate awards--stop dropping those rank 1, 2, and 3 enchants and provide rank 5 on the ground, with a good chance for a 6 or even a 7 in the chest) !!!

It might skim a lot of the +70 players from the non-epic, causing the non-epic version to last longer for a group of low level toons, but if the number of +70 level characters that farm ToS is any indication, plenty of +70 characters will still run the non-epic version.

+1. More fun for epic players, more fun for beginners.

nevfe

some of us actually play games for entertainment, not because the activity gives the best AD/Zen return on time invested.

And sorry to say from an entertainment viewpoint this (and to be honest, most of the other) CTA is an epic fail.

wylonus

i like CTA events, it just need better things to motivate, just like trying to get mech beholder like Dungeon masters' event.

right now, rewards are kinda like not worth time doing them.

tripsofthrymr

nevfe said:

some of us actually play games for entertainment, not because the activity gives the best AD/Zen return on time invested.

And sorry to say from an entertainment viewpoint this (and to be honest, most of the other) CTA is an epic fail.

The CTA's used to be pretty fun. We still have those same CTAs, unmodified as far as I can tell, after three years of power creep.

jumpingmorks

I liked this CTA and running it during 2xEnchants was nice. I did it about 80 times, at least that's how many dyes I had at the end of the event, mostly I was farming the Orc Shields for my GF army!

nameexpired

tripsofthrymr said:

The CTA's used to be pretty fun. We still have those same CTAs, unmodified as far as I can tell, after three years of power creep.

They removed the 3 treasue chests. Could be botted, I guess.

beckylunatic

nameexpired said:

tripsofthrymr said:

The CTA's used to be pretty fun. We still have those same CTAs, unmodified as far as I can tell, after three years of power creep.

They removed the 3 treasue chests. Could be botted, I guess.

They removed the chests from the CTA, possibly after the very first time they ran the event. They've removed chests from every CTA skirmish, I think. Chests are still present in the regular levelling versions of skirmishes though.

I'm less certain it's about possible botting (not that chests have anything worth botting in them now) and more about making the CTA into a smoother experience and removing a possible source of frustration. The ones that spawn in Pit Fight are almost impossible to open before they disappear because some little spider is still spitting at you. Orc Assault, they despawn when Mog spawns, and groups may or may not have cleared around them in time for everyone to get their chance. Etc.

beckylunatic

Oh, I nearly forgot.

The main modification that was made to CTA events over the years has been changing them from the level-less enemies with the skull icon where their level indicator should be to static level-60 mobs with the players scaled up or down to 60.

I think all of us know by now that a scaled-down player is like unto A GOD, and simply annihilates the lowly mobs before them. Weapon damage and stats are massive, and your boons and other perks from being established are massive. Meanwhile, any lowbie that queues in with you runs the risk of getting swarmed and stomped, or feeling like they're dead weight.

Old-style CTAs were pretty fun on a lowbie character, although the paingiver ranking and stuff was pretty whacked. Your damage seemed to count more than the level-60 players did.

Still, it seems to have been the level cap increase that broke CTAs and other event skirmishes more than anything. The Jubilee and Garrundar were honestly challenging at level 60, depending on the competence of your PUG. Some of them could be nailbiters.

The fastest runtime I saw on Battle for the Bridge CTA was about 30 seconds. It gets to a point where it's literally not possible to traverse the instance faster than that.

aslan3775

My original idea behind posting was to ask for more of a storyline for the CTA--make it flow much better and have a 'point' behind running it, as well as make it fun. Mostly have it flow--don't gate waves behind some strange timer and create only single spawn points that people camp on to wipe the skirmish faster. I realize that is how some people want to run them because AD generation is such a large requirement in the game, but I was hoping to balance that with 'fun'.

But I really like the idea of a more challenging CTA Skirmish.

I think a lot of the comments that have been posted mention the disparity between 'bumping' up a level 6 toon to level 60 and reducing a level 70 to level 60. While this created a one-size-fits-all skirmish, it seems that it really broke it for everyone (except for those looking for quick AD runs). I would really like to see a new set of CTA events that allow for an EPIC version--with epic type rewards in the chest or dropping on the ground. That way, bumping up to level 60 would be ok, you would run the standard. But if you have a high level 70 toon, you can still feel challenged if you want to run the epic version.

Probably just dreaming, since while not really new content, it would require more code.