Yesterday was the first time I visited Eastreach Gap - normally I would not have gone to a zone of that tier, but there was an open invitation to a full group of 12. My bear died, I was healed several times and even resurrected once (thankyou - I have no clue who it was as the whole fight was quite a bit over my normal level of activity. Died a 2nd time, used up around 1000 arrows and used up all my focus... When I got back to Castle Atos I had gone from 300000 XP to 1,5 Million XP which was a first, too... Fun! However I still have lots of questions: As far as I understand the history of the game the gates of those control points were closed once and those control points fought to open them for a limited time before they closed again? Then all those hints and keys (e.g. the faun secret tunnel below Nightgate? pass or the Norgard Knights talking about a guy who would help me get through Santus Spine) then only make sense as the gates were usually closed and one had to go the underground way. What - except XP - is then the reason to fight those control points there nowadays when those gates are open 24/7? Wouldn´t they not be better closed - e.g. at (New Brittanian) night - to show that the undead control them at their strongest time if not fought? It would not really impede travel as it did once, with all the intercontinental Galleons, Lunar Rift travel, Wagon, Ship and Balloon teleporters and personal teleportation to friend/recall/zone... After a while the group of 12 became smaller as people died and left - does this fight have any end at all? The undead seamt to spawn in a rapid, continuous stream so that there would never be a "win", not even for a short while? In universal chat some people who went to another area to farm XP wrote about XP attunement - what does that even mean? Gaining XP faster than spending it on raising skills?
i think the bottom line on CPs is that they are a no longer used mechanic due to changes in the game. there were ways around them which you alluded to with underground passages and such. other than XP there is not much use for them. ERG is nice because you can get skeleton bones, lich skulls, and lich essence from them which are pretty valuable resources. there is no end. just a continuous, never-ending stream with no wins other than chaotic fighting, XP, resources, and hopefully some camaraderie attenuation helps control the rate at which XP is gained. if you are under adventure level 110 (i believe) then you will never hit attenuation. someone will correct me if im not exact but i believe if you gain 15m XP in 1 hour then you will hit attenuation and then the rate at which you gain XP drops significantly. you then have to wait for a cooldown period for attenuation to expire. you can see if you are attenuated as there is a little icon indicator next to your XP pool on the skills window. for me personally i usually dont do CPs. i do like to go there sometimes for the chaotic battle and to fight with folks. i love it when the group is really active. i have done a few recently on one of my alts. my personal philosophy i try to adhere to is doing things in 1 hour blocks to avoid getting burned out on any one thing. 1 hour of dragon slaying, 1 hour of mining, 1 hour lua programming, 1 hour of spider farming, 1 hour of crafting, 1 hour of CP, 1 hour of helping other players, 1 hour of farming, 1 hour of block building, 1 hour of fishing, 1 hour shadow essence farming in spindel, 1 hour of Banamathr, 1 hour kobold essence farming, etc... so many things to do!
Also, I always like to bring up the developer’s reasons as to why they changed these: Control Points Voluntary Entry: Control Points can now be crossed over on the Overworld without forcing players to enter the scene. This is part of an overall effort to reduce the number of scene loads in each play session. The following scenes are affected by this change and can now be entered voluntarily, just like any other adventure scene: https://sotawiki.net/sota/Release_57
I also like to think they changed it because it simply wasn't fun, no matter how great the idea of regional economies seemed.
That might have been a reason back then - but did all the other forms of transport exist at that time already? It´s clearly faster to simply run through a control point then having to sneak through or fight - yet with the Galleons and the 3 forms of personal teleport even closed gates would not be half the obstacle they have been.
Galleons didn't appear until Mistrendur was added, thus having a reason for them. I don't remember the teleport spells being around way back when. I didn't use them back then if they did exist. I ran through the control points picking up the odd bit of silver ore in the ones that had them.
Did the gates actually open if somebody was holding the control point? I don't think they did, but I can't say for sure, as they didn't become popular for grinding xp until after they were permanently opened. Regardless, they didn't have much of a point before they were open, either. I believe they were just wave battles that never ended. Some time after the gates were opened up, the xp and drops got beefed up a lot, that's when they became popular. And Upper Tears was no longer easy.
I don't recall one ever being opened at all when that was still in. And probably because, so one wanted to do them, at the time.
Kinda what I thought. I recalled that being a common wishlist item, but I didn't want to assume they couldn't open just because I never saw it happen.
I remember needing water in Ardoris but could only buy it in Brittany. Carrying as much water where I could barely move. Entering the control point and getting killed over and over while I traversed the closed control point. Finally made it to the end and left the scene. The regional economies would not stop me. I won't overpay for water! (lkinda like we need a global vendor system like UO...) That cheap water from Brittany in Ardoris was tasty!
I would just continue on as a ghost until I got to the ankh on the other side. [edit] That was only Vauban Pass. All other regions were accessible by just knowing the exit side of each pass.
No wonder it did not make sense back then. If the undead blockade a pass and a party goes there to fight them for control then I would not expect an unending battle with the gates never open so that still everyone has to enter the scene to pass, but one that at *some* point tells that you won the day and the gates stay open until nightfall and the undead return again.
One of the spells that were cast on me was displayed as some sort of highly colourful bubbles or cubes. As I was distracted shooting arrows and using the occasional glyph I did not notice if it was a blessing or appeared in the list of buffs. What could that have been?
It was a chaos spell... confusion I bet. If you try to move while that's cast on you, the directions are all messed up. If you weren't moving at all, you wouldn't notice it's effect.
That's Torpid Torment. It's a debuff that causes damage any time you use focus. It also completely removes the Shield of Air buff. That change is one that I'm still rather angry about. [edit] Use the life spell Purify to remove it.
After the 2nd time I joined an ERG party I´m not sure if I pull my weight. This time I stayed a bit longer and died only once and had a Large Grizzly instead of a Grizzly with me - and after I left as it got late (I´m at NBT+7) I had not 1 Million as last time but 3 Million adventure XP in my character sheet... I have read that a party gains a bonus to XP compared to a single player doing the same - but is the Army of Darkness holding ERG worth THAT much XP divided by 12? Or is my character leeching more XP than he deserves?
