Previous Thread
Expand All
Collapse All
Ignore Author
Reply
Earlier today I finished a bounty to get to saturated and my next assignment was heirloom search. "Yay!", I thought, "I'll go find the heirloom real quick so I can then turn that in as soon as I drop to fried. Delicious, delicious xp." Alas.
It took me 116 searches to find the heirloom.
To answer the questions I was getting on lnet:
1. It was a search task, not a kill task.
2. I was getting the heirloom search messaging so I was in the right area.
3. My hands were empty and I was kneeling.
4. I was moving rooms after each search. (The first 75-80 searches I alternated between 2 rooms. For the rest I added 2 more rooms to my repertoire. And I eventually found the blasted thing in the original 2 room area.)
5. I'm level 6 with 15 ranks of perception. (If my low level is the issue, then perhaps the task shouldn't be assigned until a singler in perception is competent at this kind of search.)
That's 19 plus minutes of search time. That's only search time and doesn't include the time to kneel, sheathe, stand, unsheathe, move rooms, attack any critters in the room, peer to check adjacent rooms, etc. I'm thinking this is maybe a wee bit excessive. Could we get a "Oh my god, this guy is having terrible luck"-modifier at a certain point so there's some sort of cap on how many searches it can take?
The search area was a little wonky, too. The task was to find it near zombie roltons in the southern snowfields by Icemule. It's the area with the cemetery and mausoleum where vysan, apparitions, phantoms, skeletons, and zombie roltons spawn. If you number the rooms going from the trail towards the mausoleum, I was able to search rooms 1, 2, 5, & 6, but not any of the others. I don't think that contributed to the lengthy search, but it seemed weird to have gaps in the area.
With only 4 rooms there's probably quite a few more back to back as well as your initial 80. My upper limit is about 20 except when I've done the back searches (I did go up to 100 once checking out how small an area was needed).
Spawn area topology is often more complex than you'd expect and this is far from the only critter whose area has gaps in it. You find one, you remember where it is, you don't search there again and you stay out of that room when you are hunting that critter. Getting that knowledge from heirloom searches is a nice bonus towards making your other hunting of that critter more efficient.
There is an accelerating chance of finding heirlooms.
I'm not sure if killing the critters actually contributes to the acceleration, but it certainly helps me feel better if I stop and splat a few of the critters when the heirloom is slow appearing.
Spawn area topology is often more complex than you'd expect and this is far from the only critter whose area has gaps in it. You find one, you remember where it is, you don't search there again and you stay out of that room when you are hunting that critter. Getting that knowledge from heirloom searches is a nice bonus towards making your other hunting of that critter more efficient.
There is an accelerating chance of finding heirlooms.
I'm not sure if killing the critters actually contributes to the acceleration, but it certainly helps me feel better if I stop and splat a few of the critters when the heirloom is slow appearing.
<With only 4 rooms there's probably quite a few more back to back as well as your initial 80. My upper limit is about 20 except when I've done the back searches (I did go up to 100 once checking out how small an area was needed).
So 2 of my first 80 were valid (ouch). And then when I upped to a 4-room area, 2 out of 3 searches were valid which means it took me 26 to get the heirloom.
<Spawn area topology is often more complex than you'd expect and this is far from the only critter whose area has gaps in it. You find one, you remember where it is, you don't search there again and you stay out of that room when <you are hunting that critter. Getting that knowledge from heirloom searches is a nice bonus towards making your other hunting of that critter more efficient.
Let's say there's a 2-room hunting area. Room 1 spawns kobolds and room 2 spawns kobolds and hobs. I'm camping room 1. I'll see kobolds spawn in my room and I'll get the ones that spawned in room 2 which wander in. But are you saying that I'd never see a hob if I spend all my time in room 1? I need to test this out.
<There is an accelerating chance of finding heirlooms.
<I'm not sure if killing the critters actually contributes to the acceleration, but it certainly helps me feel better if I stop and splat a few of the critters when the heirloom is slow appearing.
I know that the search was more fun once I started splatting phantoms and the like during my second search phase.
So 2 of my first 80 were valid (ouch). And then when I upped to a 4-room area, 2 out of 3 searches were valid which means it took me 26 to get the heirloom.
<Spawn area topology is often more complex than you'd expect and this is far from the only critter whose area has gaps in it. You find one, you remember where it is, you don't search there again and you stay out of that room when <you are hunting that critter. Getting that knowledge from heirloom searches is a nice bonus towards making your other hunting of that critter more efficient.
Let's say there's a 2-room hunting area. Room 1 spawns kobolds and room 2 spawns kobolds and hobs. I'm camping room 1. I'll see kobolds spawn in my room and I'll get the ones that spawned in room 2 which wander in. But are you saying that I'd never see a hob if I spend all my time in room 1? I need to test this out.
<There is an accelerating chance of finding heirlooms.
<I'm not sure if killing the critters actually contributes to the acceleration, but it certainly helps me feel better if I stop and splat a few of the critters when the heirloom is slow appearing.
I know that the search was more fun once I started splatting phantoms and the like during my second search phase.
>Let's say there's a 2-room hunting area. Room 1 spawns kobolds and room 2 spawns kobolds and hobs. I'm camping room 1. I'll see kobolds spawn in my room and I'll get the ones that spawned in room 2 which wander in. But are you saying that I'd never see a hob if I spend all my time in room 1? I need to test this out.
Hobs will never spawn for you. However, if someone else is in room 2 or anywhere else in the hob spawning area, hobs will spawn for them, and may well be free to wander into room 1.
This is behind a lot of the complaints that appear here from time to time about impossibly slow critter spawn rates. People are not in room 2 on the spawn pulse and not only do they get no new spawning, existing ones despawn.
Modified KP to read as follows (to see the whole paragraph, go to http://www.krakiipedia.org/wiki/Adventurer%27s_Guild#Heirloom_.28search.29)
>The item is not in a specific room before you start searching, so any room you start to search in will do. However, staying in a single room is ineffective. Futhermore, any rooms searched back-to-back do not count, thus a minimum of 3 total rooms are required for a loop (although it is possible to find an heirloom on the first attempt in a new room).
Hopefully this information is correct and complete now. (It used to not say anything, then I learned continually searching in one room didn't work, and we hear now that continually searching two rooms also won't work, unless you get lucky on either of the first two attempts.)
Personally, I'd think changing the system might help save a lot of time, frustration, and confusion for players. If a given search cannot find the heirloom, reduce the RT to a couple seconds and give a different message. What can we possibly gain from the present system where people think they are searching when they aren't? I appreciate that knowing things about the game makes it easier, but I used to turn in all such bounties since I didn't know about some of these searching rules, and I'd never succeeded in finding it. Of course, as soon as I found out more about how the system works, I've been successful and complete most of these bounties.
And most of the discussion about spawning sounds about right to me. This information is very useful for many hunting grounds, and the Citadel comes immediately to mind. And in principle these searching bounties are a very useful research tool in that regard...
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
>The item is not in a specific room before you start searching, so any room you start to search in will do. However, staying in a single room is ineffective. Futhermore, any rooms searched back-to-back do not count, thus a minimum of 3 total rooms are required for a loop (although it is possible to find an heirloom on the first attempt in a new room).
Hopefully this information is correct and complete now. (It used to not say anything, then I learned continually searching in one room didn't work, and we hear now that continually searching two rooms also won't work, unless you get lucky on either of the first two attempts.)
Personally, I'd think changing the system might help save a lot of time, frustration, and confusion for players. If a given search cannot find the heirloom, reduce the RT to a couple seconds and give a different message. What can we possibly gain from the present system where people think they are searching when they aren't? I appreciate that knowing things about the game makes it easier, but I used to turn in all such bounties since I didn't know about some of these searching rules, and I'd never succeeded in finding it. Of course, as soon as I found out more about how the system works, I've been successful and complete most of these bounties.
And most of the discussion about spawning sounds about right to me. This information is very useful for many hunting grounds, and the Citadel comes immediately to mind. And in principle these searching bounties are a very useful research tool in that regard...
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
LOOT bounties are among the hardest of all bounties, and often take me 40-60 kills. Tedious but oh well.
SEARCH are among the easiest of all bounties. For them, I put up haste and wizard shield and just start in the first room and keep going. I never fail to find the heirloom before my wizard shield falls.
At least that's my experience.
-E
Heirlooms spawn on looting the critter. You have to meet the conditions for finding it when you loot to get a chance to find it, but I am not aware of any situations where this is likely to be common. (One hunting area where it would be common bends the rule on LOCATION for all bounties to avoid this happening)
On average you need quite a lot less kills for an heirloom than a cull, but occasionally the die will run against you.
On average you need quite a lot less kills for an heirloom than a cull, but occasionally the die will run against you.
>>On average you need quite a lot less kills for an heirloom than a cull, but occasionally the die will run against you.<<
This is the opposite of my experiences with the Adventurer's Guild, going back to the first day it opened and continuing to the last kill-heirloom task I got this week. Sometimes I get lucky and find it on the 1st or 2nd kill, but most often it is 20+ kills, and often quite more. It is definitely, among all the tasks, the one that requires the most kills, in my experience, by far.
-E
I've done a lot of heirlooms with a partner, and its almost always dropped before the helper's cull is complete. On average I reckon its 10-15 kills for the drop. Sometimes that goes over 20, but at nothing like the frequency that cull tasks require over 20. I have seen it take 30, but thats a 1 in 500 tasks event, not a regular happening.
Possibly its a kill rate factor. I suspect there's a real time component to a lot of AG chances so if you are killing three times as fast it may well be taking you twice as many kills as it takes me.
Possibly its a kill rate factor. I suspect there's a real time component to a lot of AG chances so if you are killing three times as fast it may well be taking you twice as many kills as it takes me.
>SEARCH are among the easiest of all bounties. For them, I put up haste and wizard shield and just start in the first room and keep going. I never fail to find the heirloom before my wizard shield falls.
Wizards are so OP!!!11 Sure they suck just as bad as sorcerers for foraging, but they have Haste. I do use Haste off of scrolls sometimes for this, but not usually.
My own strategy is Wall of Force and drop a pile of area webs all over. That goes the same for foraging bounties, except in that case I also use Foraging and sometimes Minor Sanctuary, depending on the situation.
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
Wizards are so OP!!!11 Sure they suck just as bad as sorcerers for foraging, but they have Haste. I do use Haste off of scrolls sometimes for this, but not usually.
My own strategy is Wall of Force and drop a pile of area webs all over. That goes the same for foraging bounties, except in that case I also use Foraging and sometimes Minor Sanctuary, depending on the situation.
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
Though, as long as we are discussing the two heirloom tasks, I have to express a bit of personal distaste for the LOOTing heirloom tasks on undead which decay on what would be their next action round. Firephantoms, darkwoode, tree spirits, bog wraiths, banshee, etc. I definitely understand that not all bounties are meant to be easy for all characters/professions/training paths, or to be done solo, etc.
Still, these in particular just rub me the wrong way. For a pure (or semi gone pure) that turns off channel incant, the looting is generally feasible, so long as one doesn't use, say, Implosion for the kill (I'm looking at you, banshees, who get +100 TD and +100 DS as if they were at all similar). These are one of the only tasks my paladin, without fail, always turns down. Sure I can manage to loot bog wraiths maybe 20% of the time, but that really pushes the amount of time to complete it up a lot.
Am I the only one who often wonders, why oh why don't they make it a SEARCHing heirloom bounty for these types of pesky undead?
I mean, I suppose there are also anti-magic creatures, and a pure might get assigned a looting task on them as well, which if you don't swing a weapon is equally hopeless. So it's not without balance.
It is, however, a sadistic design. "You task is to loot a creature that by its nature is extremely difficult to loot." Maybe increase the probability to get an heirloom looting these types?
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
Still, these in particular just rub me the wrong way. For a pure (or semi gone pure) that turns off channel incant, the looting is generally feasible, so long as one doesn't use, say, Implosion for the kill (I'm looking at you, banshees, who get +100 TD and +100 DS as if they were at all similar). These are one of the only tasks my paladin, without fail, always turns down. Sure I can manage to loot bog wraiths maybe 20% of the time, but that really pushes the amount of time to complete it up a lot.
Am I the only one who often wonders, why oh why don't they make it a SEARCHing heirloom bounty for these types of pesky undead?
I mean, I suppose there are also anti-magic creatures, and a pure might get assigned a looting task on them as well, which if you don't swing a weapon is equally hopeless. So it's not without balance.
It is, however, a sadistic design. "You task is to loot a creature that by its nature is extremely difficult to loot." Maybe increase the probability to get an heirloom looting these types?
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
