Curse

dawnrain · Aug 10, 2006, 01:44 PM // 13:44

I thought the Elite missions were great. They were a challenging experience for my PuGs. Unfortunately, none of the PuGs finished them. Not because we party wiped, but because they took too long. I estimate the majority of PuGs would’ve needed close to 3 hours to play through them plus an additional half-hour for team formation/build discussion/do-over.

My suggestion to reduce the time block requirements is to split the Elite mission into 3 parts. Part 1 is the first half of the mission (e.g. up to the aspect of the scorpion area for the deep). Part 2 is the second half of the mission up to the boss area. And part 3 is the boss area.

When the team leader hits the start mission button he can choose to go to Part 1 or Part 2 (see below). If he selects Part 1, then the party is transported to Part 1. At the end of Part 1 there is a 90% chance, that an npc will be present. Each party member speaks to this npc to be awarded a Kanaxi token. The token can not be dropped/traded/moved to storage. And you can only have one token at a time. The other 10% of the time the npc is not present but a passage to part 3 is available.

If the team leader selects Part 2, then all the team members are checked for Kanaxi tokens. If anyone does not have a token, a message is shown in team chat indicating which team members are missing tokens and the party is not transported. If everyone has a token, the tokens are removed. Then the team is transported. There is a 25% chance, the team is transported to part 1 and a 75% chance the team is transported to part 2. At the end of either part is a passage to part 3.

Comments welcome, particularly possible abuse/exploit/grief situations.

lyra_song · Aug 10, 2006, 01:49 PM // 13:49

the elite missions are easy enough as is .-.

no need to make them easier

Painbringer · Aug 10, 2006, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Time is a killer for me as well. I usually have only an hour or two at a time to play. So I won’t even try to join a group when I know I will not be able to finish it. So I do a lot of farming / soloing.

dawnrain · Aug 10, 2006, 03:17 PM // 15:17

@lyra_song: Please explain how the suggestion makes the Elite missions significantly easier? A group would still have to anticipate going through all the elements of the mission. An individual would still have to eventually play through all the elements of the mission.

@Painbringer: Yep, that's why I posted the suggestion. I think my suggestion keeps all of the game play elements (including the difficulty) of the Elite missions, but provides a natural break point at about two hours (for a typical PuG group).