I 100% agree with this

I'm not sure I understand your post, Chris. I really rather enjoy Ladderslasher. My goal, in the end, is to constantly improve the depth of my characters. Increases to my profs, both combat, healing, and skilling, permanently improve that depth. However, profs are not enough. To have a truly good character, you need gear. To get gear, you need drops. Now, I currently have Great/Good/Good enough on most weapons, armors, and charms through at least level 30. The highest drop rate for the 30+ items is in EPs. NMNM provided 45 EPs. How is it "abuse" to attempt to cause 45 EPs to spawn every climb? How is it abuse to try to cause them to spawn 2 or 3 times, if you possibly can? Seems to me it's not abuse, it's doing your best to attempt to improve the depth of your character. Similar to going into cow games to solo baal, yes? Highest ilvl drops in the game, best experience, and solo at least, you don't even have to share.

Edit: BTW, for those who still bot D2... Ever considered insuring your bot can solo all waves + baal, then setting it up so that the bot creates COW-0001 etc. named games, goes in, gets the leg, creates the cow level, does NOT party, then wanders off and goes and does the standard baal run? Might take it an extra minute, but your experience gain is comparable to 5 runs w everyone sharing your exp, and there are no competing pickits.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Mar 18 2011 11:34pm

Holy crap Dom..we agree on this 100%. Whats wrong with farming a quest and trying to upgrade gear??? This game has evolved and changed so many times..spun us around as slashers and a community more than getting spun in a maze game. A lot of us have spent hours slashing and skilling..just as we did playing D2. Skills have no value just as some peoples' gear now which is a shame!
Only one person that i know of actually makes fg off skilling. When the old style of muting was taken out half the population left the game...same as no maze...then Arena. Most other games have thousands of people botting just to make a few fg or game gold so they can better their gear. No one bots here...they all slash like mofos if they want even a 1% chance of finding an item to sell. NMNM was that chance for some..people are damn thirsty for something in this game to hang onto and MAYBE snag an item and make a few fg. POOF Every update that has come out over the last 2 years has had an alarming effect on the LS community....now not being able to even spawn the MOST enjoyable quest of the game has sunken peoples spirits even further. The market has crashed as far as sellable items for most people...no one can make enough fg for vault fees or for upgrades..we all basically pay to play now. It's hard to leave a game that one has put so much
into..but it's happening ...i'm stepping over dead bodies weekly..so sad really! I say bring on more quests....bring back NMNM without restrictions and implement something that helps people make some fg!!

Also with you on the drink thing Dom

I can speak for myself but maybe not others, as I was one who use to sit there at 65+ and do No Maze cata's for hours just doing the first 2-3 waves, leave, and remake.
This is where the drops were at the time, so it was in my best interest to just try and farm items, wells, sellables...
Never once did I actually attempt to complete a no maze cata, as I was doing it for the insane drops that were achieved by this method.

Its similar to the way No Maze No More was abused. That is where the good drops are, so people try to spawn it as many times as possible from 55-71.
Once again, I know I am guilty of this as I did it every climb I could. Spawning it 1-4 times per climb in search of the godly drop.

Sure it was part of the game, and the quest had flaws to it that I think most exploited to its fullest potential.

This post was edited by gazeifiee on Mar 19 2011 12:55am

worthy of being quoted

i switched from arena gear to cata gear
then from melee to caster gear
then from str gear to dex gear

its hard to keep up
but its an opportunity to advance myself as a slasher
both in gear
and in understanding of game mechanics

these stars are all LS related
some people dont have the ability as i do

and NMNM was hailed as the savior of those who make do
and grind faithfully for that one chance
to get something
that in one form or another
would help them on their way in the next climb

not even for my sake
but for those new slashers
who want to be like those who helped them,
and inspire the next generation of slashers
to make one more climb
even for the chance to think
"it could've been mine"



bring back NMNM

IMO the best way to prevent the objective from being farmed would be to make it so that at the very second it spawns that every member in the game automatically gets the objective. Furthermore by taking off the small unneeded bonuses that come from completeing the objective and just making it so everyone instantly recieves the objective completion upon the spawning point on nmnm.

Also I am really baked. So some of what I said might not make 100% perfect sense, but most can see where i'm coming from.

I do agree with the point of your posts

There are some people (me included) that grind, pick up "skilling items" to sell to the skillers for ~1fg. This is how I afford my vault. It's not a difficult task for me to keep an eye out for what items people are looking for as their prof ranks advance...but sure, it doesn't provide the type of income to support gear upgrades. I try to upgrade my gear (and finish/add to my item sets - which I am and have been in the process of doing for awhile now)

I occasionally find the "decent" drop every now and then, but it's not all that common, especially when an item drops in a full cata game and is rolled against the timer count between 5 people.

One thing I don't understand is that when Paul introduced NMNM as an objective...how could he not expect the objective to be "abused" per say? Leaving before the obj is completed allows it to be "attempted" again...just like any other objective (but the difference is, is that this quest has/had the POTENTIAL to be more rewarding than the others)
...however the group must be prepared for it since during the higher waves it's no easy task.

I really would LOVE to see this objective back, even if it spawns "less frequent" than we were used to...but as of now it seems non-existent.

and with how many people are quitting/taking breaks, it seems somewhat tougher to sell items nowadays. If it isn't super-godly, nobody really wants it. or if they do, it's cheap prices.

cheap items __________(blank)___________ godly items (there seems to be no market for middle-ground items)

...and I'll even go and say that "mediorce" items are often viewed as crap. (generally speaking)

maybe I am wrong, but this is how I see it. Scan the trading subforum (pointed towards SC since, do not play HC) and see how many "mediocre" gear threads are bumped for like ~15 pages with no offers.


/end-mini-rant

edit:



agreed...so that it can be only attempted ONCE per MQ climb...pass or fail, leave or disconnect...anything that happens. If you are present when NMNM spawns, that IS your chance no matter what the outcome is.

This post was edited by Brainwashed on Mar 19 2011 02:15am

Isn't it the base of communism?

More clarifications:

1) It does spawn
2) Stop running and resetting the map on Sneaky/Seven Shamans, etc
3) Trapdoors reset your progress towards finding NMNM

Resetting the map resets your progress towards all objectives, including NMNM.