New Quest Type: "Search&Rescue"

Alexeno - Sanctuary

This idea was inspired by THIS idea... thanks for putting ideas in my head! b:laugh


Okay, so basic idea is (sorta) simple, but like all my ideas, implementation would be a pain in the rear-side.

Basically, this is the same thing as the Bounty Hunter quest, but involves a few (rather major) tweaks to the way the instanced dungeons handle mob spawns and AI routing.

You start out by talking to an NPC, who gives you the information relating to the specific Search&Rescue operation. You then go to the specified instance dungeon and walk into the portal.

Now here's where conflicts emerge in the present game coding.

When you enter the instance dungeon (ID in future reference), you must talk to the "Pillar" NPC to start the quest. You then proceed through the ID clearing mobs until you find the "Rescue Target". However, these mobs will respawn after a set time! I'd say 5 minutes would be reasonable timer.

After reaching the "Rescue Target", you talk to them, and he/she/it will enter a "follow mode" to your character. You must then escort the "Rescue Target" to the entrance, where you talk with the "Pillar" NPC again, completing the quest.

To keep things interesting, the "Rescue Target" will spawn in a different section of the ID each time (always in one of the "rooms", not in hallways). Also, the "Boss" mobs will be removed (the other mobs retain their "elite" status).

I was originally thinking this would be a daily quest with an EXP/spirit reward comparable to CS, however I have a different idea! This should be a quest that can be obtained whenever you want, as many times as you want. However, to remove the ability to abuse it, the reward would be a (very) meager amount of Reputation (say, 1 rep for fb19 rescues, 2 for fb29, etc) and a rather sizable amount of Spirit (since you are doing a good deed).

Having Spirit as the only reward making this worthwhile, means that a lot of players will ignore this quest most of the time. However, the flip side is that this will allow everyone to have a source of Spirit gains that would counter-balance the ENORMOUS deficiency of spirit that plagues everyone in the midlevels.

One last thing. This quest should be available as soon as you turn level 20. It should follow the "FB" levels in terms of which rescues you can obtain at any given time. Following is a chart showing what I mean:

Player Level 20-30, can obtain fb19 rescue quest.
Player Level 30-40, can obtain fb19 and fb29 rescue quests.
Player Level 40-50, can obtain fb19, fb29, and fb39 rescue quests.
Player Level 50-60, can obtain fb29 and fb39 rescue quests.
Player Level 60-70, can obtain fb39, fb51, fb59, and TT rescue quests.
Player Level 70-80, can obtain fb51, fb59, and TT rescue quests.
Player Level 80-90, can obtain fb59, TT, and fb70 rescue quests.
Player Level 90-100, can obtain fb70 and Lunar Glade rescue quests.
Player Level 100-104, can obtain Lunar Glade, fb89, and Heaven/Hell rescue quests.
Player Level 105, can obtain TT, Lunar Glade, Heaven/Hell, and (Frostcovered Grove?)

(is fb89 the same as Heaven/Hell?)

vagrant0

Alexeno - Sanctuary wrote: »

This idea was inspired by
Having Spirit as the only reward making this worthwhile, means that a lot of players will ignore this quest most of the time. However, the flip side is that this will allow everyone to have a source of Spirit gains that would counter-balance the ENORMOUS deficiency of spirit that plagues everyone in the midlevels.

Key word there being midlevels. By the time you get to level 90, you usually have enough to have learned every skill to 10, and can sink a large portion into a genie. It's one of those "you've had enough time to get familiar with the basic game, now learn to play your class, what skills you need to use when, and not just spam skills" kinda things.

The lack of spirit at mid levels 30-60 is really there to force you to make certain decisions on what sort of character you're going to be using. Even if you have spirit, most classes, barbs, venos (yes, venos, don't argue), clerics, would likely have a very hard time affording skills.

Everything else is a bit... FBs already have more than enough usage with the Bounty Hunter quests, and there are already enough quests in TT and Frostcovered that involve talking to NPCs inside. The way is already cleared to get to the NPC, and if wine is used, usually wouldn't be much of a challenge. So it ends up being just another "talk to NPC inside a dungeon" kinda thing, even if the NPC has to follow you out.

Alexeno - Sanctuary

vagrant0 wrote: »

level 90

this would also provide a nice break from the perpetual grinding, and for those of the highlevels, it gives rep and also even more spirit (which means more genies to sell)

vagrant0 wrote: »

(yes, venos, don't argue)

i know, i'm one of the few who agree that venos are expensive b:chuckle

vagrant0 wrote: »

and if wine is used

wine would be useless, because the mobs respawn b:victory

Kagaro - Dreamweaver

Vagrant is right, the ENORMOUS deficiency of spirit around lvl 25, 30, ect, is put there so that you learn to think ahead strategically. If you die a lot after you learn them, you know you ****ed something up. Don't take that away, spamming skills is no way to fight.

Alexeno - Sanctuary

EDIT: veering off-topic and response is redundant b:chuckle

vagrant0

Alexeno - Sanctuary wrote: »

wine would be useless, because the mobs respawn b:victory

Then nobody would bother doing these. Many of the later FBs can be total hell on their own without wine (can take hours to reach the first boss). Having things respawn every 5 minutes (or even 10) would only make them even more so, and be a complete waste of time and repair bill. There's a reason why you never see anyone run FB 59, 69, 79, 89, and later without wines (unless doing 20*3 (hell unto itself)), even when those wines end up costing 300k each.

Kagaro - Dreamweaver

Its an overall great idea, just that one point of extra spirit and no exp could ruin the balance between spirit and exp that teaches us to plan our battle strategies ahead of time. Fix that one point and the idea is flawless.

Alexeno - Sanctuary

vagrant0 wrote: »

Then nobody would bother doing these. Many of the later FBs can be total hell on their own without wine (can take hours to reach the first boss). Having things respawn every 5 minutes (or even 10) would only make them even more so, and be a complete waste of time and repair bill. There's a reason why you never see anyone run FB 59, 69, 79, 89, and later without wines (unless doing 20*3 (hell unto itself)), even when those wines end up costing 300k each.

being able to remove all the mobs takes away the entire point of the quest... it's -SUPPOSED- to be hard b:laugh

Kagaro - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Its an overall great idea, just that one point of extra spirit and no exp could ruin the balance between spirit and exp that teaches us to plan our battle strategies ahead of time. Fix that one point and the idea is flawless.

.... plan what? each class has it's purpose, and if you need "to plan your battle strategy" like you say, then i feel sorry for whatever group of peers you quest/fb/tt with b:shocked

its rather simple how to use your skills, just that it's essentially impossible to stay up-to-date on the ones you need (and are expected of you by basically everyone you party with)

vagrant0

Alexeno - Sanctuary wrote: »

being able to remove all the mobs takes away the entire point of the quest... it's -SUPPOSED- to be hard b:laugh

Hard, yes. But not needlessly. Try clearing the way to any of the bosses in FB59 without wine or a level 80+ party. Half the time you'll end up with spawns who run up onto the hills and keep hitting you from inaccessible locations, or who run back to others. If you aren't high enough level to know what I'm talking about here, you clearly have no idea what it is you are suggesting. There's a point where things become too hard to be worthwhile due to the time and costs of doing it. Extra spirit and rep probably wouldn't be worth the extra time, repair bill, and charm drain it takes to get. And it it were, it would likely be abused by enlisting a level 105 barb to run though grabbing aggro while the party tries to move behind, safely.
[/QUOTE]

Alexeno - Sanctuary wrote: »

.... plan what? each class has it's purpose, and if you need "to plan your battle strategy" like you say, then i feel sorry for whatever group of peers you quest/fb/tt with b:shocked

its rather simple how to use your skills, just that it's essentially impossible to stay up-to-date on the ones you need (and are expected of you by basically everyone you party with)

Not sure what level you are, but you're really kinda wrong here, and missing the whole point that was mentioned earlier. Just because a veno can hide behind a pet and spell spam doesn't mean every other class can. Barbs, BMs, Archers in particular need to be aware of what skills they use when, and which ones they raise. Several skills, like BM's alter marrow, are things which should not be raised past a certain point unless the BM wants to suck. Other skills tend to be more useful in certain situations than others, for instance archer skills, any of them, can mean a party wipe if used at the wrong times due to the archer grabbing aggro. A barb who does not spend most of their chi and mp on a taunt skill in a party, even when higher damage ones are also leveled, can almost always mean death of a party when said barb loses aggro. A cleric who spends most of their time healing in parties has very little need of attack skills. Even a veno, a few skills, are more useful at level 1 due to their low cost, and their effect than they are when leveled, and can end up being a poor use of mp and chi compared to other skills, even when counting the effects of that skill. Furthermore, for a fox veno, it is generally a good idea to have their skill which damages, restores mana, but drains health, leveled to a point where those losses of health can be offset by their health stealing skill, but not to where the health steal skill uses up more mp than what is gained by that initial restore. Although there will always be some difference between the two, getting both of them at closer values can mean a bit of difference. Essentially, even if leveling everything to max available level was an option due to having enough spirit and coin, there are many cases where it is usually not a good idea, or is not worthwhile. Depending on build, every class has skills they need to raise, and has skills which don't help them much if they did. The point of having a lack of spirit at certain points is to force people to evaluate which skills they need, and which they don't, and make choices.

Alexeno - Sanctuary

pay little heed to the avatar's class and level, i've played every class, and been into the spirit deadzone on all of them... also, it would seem to me you are taking this into the cashshopper's point of view, which causes more problems than it's worth...

i understand your point of view, however, there are plenty of people i know who are/would be more than willing to help others with these runs, also, the higher FBs can't be so impossible as to 'require' wines as you say...

i remember when dreamweaver was launched, how it was 'wine your fb29/39 or no runs' because very few were level 60+ yet... however i also know how easy it is to perform fb29/39 runs without wine and in parties of 30s/40s respectively... because i have done that, many times

simple fact is, people who rely on cashshop items are lazy, and try to advocate making it seem impossible to perform any actions without cashshop items... i for one know that this game is perfectly easy, providing you know how to play your class

level 36 cleric soloes krixxix (no outside help at all)
level 44 cleric takes 4 hits from jewelscalen's aoe and shrugs it off
high 50s barb, high 40s cleric, and level 44 cleric take jewelscalen, easy as pie
level 19 barb solo-tanks fb19 (4x cleric, 4x archer)
level 29 barb solo-tanks fb29 (4x cleric, 4x archer)
level 39 barb solo-tanks fb39 (5x cleric, 4x archer)
mid-30s barb soloes fb19 (tabber and no tabber)

the above is just a taste of what a person who knows their class can do WITHOUT cashshop items... and all those have been performed by me personally b:victory

now lets go ahead and get back on topic... vagrant, you've made your point abundantly clear, so please, just drop it now. you can think whatever you like, however it doesn't change the fact that a great many people would welcome this idea, and a great many would be willing to help out with the runs

vagrant0 wrote: »

Hard, yes. But not needlessly. Try clearing the way to any of the bosses in FB59 without wine or a level 80+ party. Half the time you'll end up with spawns who run up onto the hills and keep hitting you from inaccessible locations, or who run back to others. If you aren't high enough level to know what I'm talking about here, you clearly have no idea what it is you are suggesting. There's a point where things become too hard to be worthwhile due to the time and costs of doing it. Extra spirit and rep probably wouldn't be worth the extra time, repair bill, and charm drain it takes to get. And it it were, it would likely be abused by enlisting a level 105 barb to run though grabbing aggro while the party tries to move behind, safely.

vagrant0 wrote: »

Not sure what level you are, but you're really kinda wrong here, and missing the whole point that was mentioned earlier. Just because a veno can hide behind a pet and spell spam doesn't mean every other class can. Barbs, BMs, Archers in particular need to be aware of what skills they use when, and which ones they raise. Several skills, like BM's alter marrow, are things which should not be raised past a certain point unless the BM wants to suck. Other skills tend to be more useful in certain situations than others, for instance archer skills, any of them, can mean a party wipe if used at the wrong times due to the archer grabbing aggro. A barb who does not spend most of their chi and mp on a taunt skill in a party, even when higher damage ones are also leveled, can almost always mean death of a party when said barb loses aggro. A cleric who spends most of their time healing in parties has very little need of attack skills. Even a veno, a few skills, are more useful at level 1 due to their low cost, and their effect than they are when leveled, and can end up being a poor use of mp and chi compared to other skills, even when counting the effects of that skill. Furthermore, for a fox veno, it is generally a good idea to have their skill which damages, restores mana, but drains health, leveled to a point where those losses of health can be offset by their health stealing skill, but not to where the health steal skill uses up more mp than what is gained by that initial restore. Although there will always be some difference between the two, getting both of them at closer values can mean a bit of difference. Essentially, even if leveling everything to max available level was an option due to having enough spirit and coin, there are many cases where it is usually not a good idea, or is not worthwhile. Depending on build, every class has skills they need to raise, and has skills which don't help them much if they did. The point of having a lack of spirit at certain points is to force people to evaluate which skills they need, and which they don't, and make choices.

Ryo_Hazuki - Lost City

Awesome idea! This wouldn't be too hard at all to implement! There is something similar in Team Fortress Classic where there is a player with a 'Civilian' class that was captured from the other team and the team holding the Civilian hostage has to keep him. The civilian is armed only with an umbrella and has little health, making it nearly impossible for him to escape on his own. It was coded as an extra gametype in only a couple of hours using the Half-Life Engine.

Make that with AI only, and you pretty much have Search and Rescue in a nutshell.

Roojie - Lost City

I'd like it if the mobs were a little less of a pain in the butt to kill. Then I'd do the quest with a friend or two daily because it would be something a little different. But if the mobs are too hard it would just seem like one big extra grind-based hassle where I may ask well have hung out killing level 40's for the entire time.... again. The spawn time should be longer though, around FB 89 range mobs start taking 5 minutes to kill.

A way to get spirit is nice though, I already have to plan out what to do and splitting the cost of spirit between myself and my genie can be diffecut. Spamming skills is not efficient to mana anyway, who cares if people spam skills? If they want to have to sit down every mob or have to buy a charm every 5 minutes then so be it. Some of my blademaster skills are pretty useless anyway. Can't tank like a WB, and can't kill super fast like an Archer. Let alone the low mana to even try to spam skills so being able to have good skills on hand and the spirit to get the stupid things is a great idea in my mind, so I would really like a quest like this to be put in.