The CDL Problem - Adena Problem - My thoughts

[Hexya]

Hi everybody, I'm Hexploder, Necromancer from TI, I just wanna give my personal opinion on a current problem and maybe give some ideas to make those problems more tolerable.

The CDL problem and the Adena Problem is closelly related, the 40+ soloing problem is a known issue that everybody knows about so, my perspective as a Necromancer that have played L2 since C4, since Gatekeepers cost Adena from lvl 1 and you farm to take the ferry out of Talking Island or swim till you get to Gludin territory and SOE or die in the water to spawn in Gludin, I played this game when making the lvl 35, 37, 39 quest cost us hours and hours sometimes days going from point A to point B, walking, doing soe in specific locations or even going through mountains that you may not be supposed to climb, yet the game back then wasnt as bad as today is.

The CDL problem is the following, CDL (Curse Death Link) impact mainly Necromancers and in a minor way also Spellhowlers, but Spellhowlers have Hurricane, Over-hit, so they are OK. Necromancers get Vampiric Claw at lvl 40 wich is a skill that you would think of using for EXP farming, its highly MP demanding so its not a choice, you cant inmediatly start going for AOE because you just have what you had before to AOE you have to wait till 46 to have a good AOE, that only works on a dead corpse, so its also not a very easy thing to use but its great I love it, so CDL is a skill that let Necromancers to solo at lvl 50. So we have to go solo with a lvl 35 Wizard Skill till 46 and then AOE till 50 to finally get a solo leveling skill, because we all know... nobody is going to level up with Death Spike its a huge NONO for us, Death Spike is a PVP only skill we all know that.

So Necromancers have 2 choices, 1 go Sea of Spores and murder Trees until we get our spellbook or go to Cruma and solo AOE till we get the Adena to buy our spellbook, because Cruma will be the last place where we can solo AOE.

Now, I'm ok with the Necromancer being such a hard class to play, I get it, I choose it because of that, I'm ok with leveling till 46 with Blaze, I'm ok with leveling till 50 with Blaze and/or Corpse Burst, with what I'm not ok is with the fact that:

1.- All monsters in Sea of Spores have a very low Adena drop, ok NA Classic is not the same than other Classic and the l2 wiki is not right with their Adena per mob information, ok.

2.- Trees are lvl 43 so farming CDL at lvl 48-49 is not exactly the best idea, even going there at lvl 46 and farm lots of Trees at once with Corpse Burst is still not a very good idea.

3.- Trees are made from wood, so they should be Fire Vulnerable, the same than the same trees from Execution Grounds, they are basically the same mob, but us Necromancers using a Fire skill from lvl 35 have to waste most of the time 2 blessed shots 1 without it and sometimes miss, and hey I'm a lvl 41 Necromancer with Cleric 35+ and S.Oracle 35+ boxes, with Goat Head +3, Karmian and +4 wit +4 int, I'm not in a bad position damage wise and still have to hit him with 2-1 or 3 blessed shots wich makes this more frustrating due to the Adena spend on each of them.

4.- Trees are not the only mob, Trees are not very abundant, you cannot farm and farm and farm those mobs over and over until you get a drop, you kill 1, 2 or 3 and then walk and walk to find more, because of monster density and because of a lot of people killing everything there to get spellbooks.

So all this creates a whole problem, you have a lot of Necromancers and Spellhowlers from 40 to 46-49 trying to get their books and a lot of others trying to get other books but also killing trees because they know that particular book drop is worth a top luxury weapon, price of that book is around 6 to 6.5kk, it was 4 to 4.5kk a week ago but new the demand is greater and the drop being 0.05 to 0.01 aledgedly there is just not enough so as demand rises and ofert goes down prices go up, but how could a Necromancer leveling from 40 to 46 in SoS not getting any adena in return can manage to pay that price for their only skill that makes them able to solo farm beyond 50+?, a lot of people goes to SoS to only farm that book just for profit, profit from the people that spend a lot of time in Cruma and/or get good drops there or in other places or from people that just buy Adena, so... this is not only hurting only one class in the game but also the game itself, the server itself, the economy of the server by making adena sellers an option for buying that game changer skill.

So, the problem is that we have a game changer skill for a single class that have a very low rate of drop in just only one single monster in a place that is totally innefective to farm with a low density of that mob, so how we fix this?... well this are my ideas, any of them will improve the situation, a mix or all of them could make the situation to easy but fun at least... fun.

1.- Just increase monster density. Those Rotting Trees are not aggresive nor cooperative, so putting a lot of them there will not make the zone unplayable, you already did this for Spider Nest and a lot of people, sadly including bots and adena sellers, where able to take advantage of that with the spider nest quest so this doesnt seem to be a game breaking change, now that the server is averaging lvl 40-50 and killing those mobs in peak hours is quite difficult.

2.- Increase the drop of the whole zone, more adena, more spellbook drops, its going to be efficient to play there, prices of the book will go down as the book will drop more often making the offer bigger, the demand lower and finally making that less people choose to farm there to the only point of getting a single drop to take advantage of Necromancers.

3.- Make the spellbook drop somewhere else TOO, with a mob lvl 50, its a lvl 50 spellbook, make it drop from a lvl 50 mob, have in mind that for example, if you want to get top C grade drops or keys that you can wear at lvl 40 you have to kill lvl 54+ mobs, mobs that you will be killing when you are lvl 52+ and able to wear grade B so, easy to understand that maybe this spellbook should be droped by a higher level mob with a higher drop rate so Necromancers at least have to farm this later on or at least have more options, but now we are just chained to those 2 options I said before.

4.- Do something new. We you kill an enemy in SoS a 2 or 3 Wyrms can appear, they only give "good" exp but no drops whatsoever, not even Adena, so now I just ignore them because killing them will only make me to waste more and more adena farming in that place and not getting what I NEED, so maybe make those mobs have the chance to drop with a better drop rate any spellbook that can drop in SoS, lets say 0.5 to 1% drop rate for mobs that sometimes appear when you kill other mobs, looks like reasonable rate and on top of that you feel that is worth it to kill them and to kill other mobs not only Rotting Trees.

5.- Do something new 2.0. Increasing monster density would be great but its not more fun is just a fast fix, make that Trees spawn in a pack of 2 to 4 like Nos in Alligator and make them cooperative, so this way, 1 we will have more mobs to kill, but is going to be more challenging and if we want at lvl 46 we can AOE the group or something wich is nice in my opinion, we could go in a party and farm a lot of them its more fun. On top of that is not a very "Bot" friendly mechanic is actually an Anti-bot mechanic, I mean I can kill groups of 4-8 Nos in Alligators with my necro without AOE skills and they hit harder and  it definitelly take 3 blessed shots to kill them so I have to get creative with Vampiric Claw, Blaze, Corpse Drain, etc to farm them.

You could go for 5 and 2 without breaking the game making it more fun to play, for sure easier in a way harder in another, you may do something I definitelly hope so, any of those ideas by themselves can highly improve the situations, maybe they are not even enough by themselves but just doing 2 that is the one that everybody is asking for is going to make the game more enjoyable, and if you do something like 4 or 5 or a mix well, hands down for me.

But anyways if you dont do any of this, its ok I hope you keep fixing the game in other ways.

Best Regards.

[AliceOnFire]

My friend, you are not the only class with a hard to drop and very needed book. The trees are agressive which shows you havent even been there enough time i guess? Or maybe never walked near one, just popped from far, a bit unlikely tho, cmon .

A lot of classes are struggling, for example what is a warcryer and prophet without their haste and death whisper ? Those books/amulets are just as expensive if not more than CDL and they need TWO expensive as fck books. Have those nukers dropped aura flash or they'll remember that when they are 6x ?

I don't like the book farming any more or less than you, but is something we are all going through (unless you are rich and just buy adena or bought soulshot from NCshop the entire way which means you make more adena ingame too). And not just in SoS, but outlaw forest, ivory tower etc....

You are also playing probably the most overpowered class in the game (maybe a little less now without +12 wit dyes, but still OP as bleep), one hard drop book wont make anyone feel sorry for you here tbh. Also, blaze is very fine until 46 (actually very fine to farm SoS until whatever lvl u want) and corpse burst is a really strong aoe that you get early on (unlike other mages getting their aura flash very late).

And about the density of the trees, i dunno man, i think trees might be the most common and easy to find mob in entire SoS. They are really everywhere.

 

I wouldnt mind a free death whisper haste either, but hey, most of us are having a hard time here so it is what it is..

[Hexya]

@AliceOnFire I use CDL mostly because is what I use and what I know the most, that doesnt mean that my ideas doesnt work for other books, I totally agree that maybe those books also need a tweak to be in a better place.

Now I'm not only talking about a single book, I'm talking about a bigger problem that affect all of us but giving a more specific insight on the problem in hand, you could say "Hey 40+ farming areas the Adena is bad" but actually there are places where the adena is really ok, I can go to cruma and solo aoe from lvl 40+ and the adena will be good, you could say "Ok, its intended, you go to Dion, to Cruma, you farm exp and adena, then go to Oren, to SoS and farm the book, when you run out of adena repeat the process" but with the current state of the game you could come back to SoS over and over again and never find the book, the book have supposedly the same drop chance than a top shop D weapon, Demon Fang have the same drop chance in hardins with the Fettered Soul, and clearly you could be there a lot of time and not get the drop, but at least in Hardins you go and get something back, some adena, exp, etc. In SoS the exp is not good, the drop is bad, the adena is bad, the density is bad.

And I'm not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me I dont care I just keep playing, but cmon dont come here and tell me that Haste or Death Whisper is as needed as CDL is for a Necromancer... cmon, I have a box prophet I will not need to put Haste or Death Whisper in my prophet, because I'm a Mage, so a Prophet can totally do well with a Mage party without any kind of book, you could need it for solo melee farming, you could need it for an archer party or something else but that doesnt leave you without any other chance, and a prophet is a support class is meant to be played in a group, a Necromancer lvl 50+ without CDL and without Party cannot level up, So I dont think is fair to say that Haste or Death Whisper or both are as needed as CDL, because it is not the case at all, CDL is our ONLY way of killing mobs without an AOE Party.

Now the main issue is that is not fun at all to go to SoS and kill that single mob without getting anything from hours and hours and hours, and cmon I have to WAIT to go there to farm those mobs because at some hours there is so many people that you cant say that the density is ok, you will be killing 1 Tree a minute with some luck, run some statistical equations and tell me how much time I would have to spend in peak hours trying to kill those mobs to get that drop, and we are not even talking about the fact that MAYBE 0.01 to 0.05 is not actually the right drop chance, because it feels that other drops are way less than it should be... Onyx Beast's Eye Earring Gemstone is supposed to drop at a 1.25% to 1.5% and at least it doesnt feel like that at all, so what if the drop is not 0.01 - 0.05 for CDL Spellbook and its 0.005 to 0.01? I mean think about it, in peak hours you can even see people trying to buy the damn spellbook and not finding a single person that sells it, because the drop is way lower than it should be or just because the ration of mobs density/mob respawn makes it just too hard to get.

Now, I get it, it should be hard, and I dont mind hard, I have played games where if you die... you loose ALL your progress, you loose your character, your items, everything, and you have to rebuild, and its fine, because the way to get everything back is fun, but this is not fun, I dont have problems with hard, I have a problem with something that is not fun, but I will keep doing it no matter what, I just think that maybe the drop chance, the adena drop, the mob density or whatever particulary in SoS is one of the main problems in the server right now, I mean they put GK back and the forums went really hard on them and they have to put free GKs back for two weeks and "Keep looking into the problems" well for my, for my personal view, this is one of the main reasons, I know that there are problems in other places, to farm other books, to farm in general in other places, but this is what I know because Necro is what I am and SoS is where I'm farming and this is what I feel from direct experience, if you feel and other places have similar problems wich such big proportions and such big impacts in players then go ahead and make a thread I will support you if I really see the problem, here I see a big problem, I see a problem with a lot of points, not only that I cant get my effing spellbook but more stuff in general, that makes things hard for everybody not only me and not only Necromancers in general.

As for the Tree's being Aggressive... well you are right I forgot I often dont let them to get close to me but they are definitelly not cooperative, meaning they dont hit you if you hit another tree close to them. and for the "Necro is an over-powered class" well... even if they make all the changes that I said getting the spellbook will not be easy anyways and still is going to be game changing to get it for us, Necro is not over-powered, Necro is hard as F to play, to build, to manage, to everything, they give people a super destructive boat but if you are not a good captain you will totally sink.

Best Regards

[burgerking]

the issue is the 1/5 rates. lets be real  
the droprate on cdl is not 0.05 to 0.01 as u said . its 5 times lower ....
oh yeah and if u are vip 4 its only 4 times lower :D:D:D:D

gl mate

[Dhol]

It's hard until 50 as Necro. It's hard to get CDL book. But after that... man. There's a reason why it's hard until a certain point for that class.

[AliceOnFire]

10 minutes ago, Hexya said:

And I'm not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me I dont care I just keep playing, but cmon dont come here and tell me that Haste or Death Whisper is as needed as CDL is for a Necromancer... cmon, I have a box prophet I will not need to put Haste or Death Whisper in my prophet, because I'm a Mage, so a Prophet can totally do well with a Mage party without any kind of book, you could need it for solo melee farming, you could need it for an archer party or something else but that doesnt leave you without any other chance, and a prophet is a support class is meant to be played in a group, a Necromancer lvl 50+ without CDL and without Party cannot level up, So I dont think is fair to say that Haste or Death Whisper or both are as needed as CDL, because it is not the case at all, CDL is our ONLY way of killing mobs without an AOE Party.

Just like a necromancer with CP doesn't really need CDL, it becomes very situational and very late game-ish if he wanna CDL those last few lvls without his cp. Is easy to type a situation where you don't need it, cmon.

The only thing i can agree with you is that the adena drop in SoS sucks, other than that we are all in the same boat (kinda). Yes i hope they increase adena drop rate in SoS, im not really counting on them increasing book drop rate, they are supposed to be rare.

And by the way necro is not very hard to play. Maybe it is very hard to play a perfect necro, but it is very easy to be effective as a necro cuz the mistakes are not very punishing since in a way you are sort of two times tankier than other nukers.

 

[sigfred]

Man I have been in Sos for 19 days until a tree drop me the book. Its matter of discipline and constancy. 

[Garfield]

5 hours ago, sigfred said:

Man I have been in Sos for 19 days until a tree drop me the book. Its matter of discipline and constancy. 

This

the main problem is the instant reward expectation of the modern society, while everything requiring hard work is considered as punishment and leads to protest or crying. People want “hardcore” without the “hardcore” so to say.

[LifeChat]

Necro most overpowered class in the game (50% of the server gonna be necro) LVLing up a necro its not easy ,find a cp to help you and stop crying.

[ZygiA]

Been trying to get Hex for 2 weeks now mate. Keep grinding