Solo Artist Challenge 2 - Rebooted - brainstorming thread

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by branamil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There should be a point system for solo feats. 3 points for a kill, Subtract 1 point for strong clickies, subtract 1 point for help pulling or help clearing the trash in the way.

How about seeing what players can do without clickies. That would be more impressive imo.

Puppet strings shouldn't even be allowed in any of these contests, they totally destroy any novelty of accomplishing a hard solo kill when they are used.

These contests should involve no one helping with anything, nor any clickies, period.

[Diogene]

Well, not to be off topic, but I'd really like to see the challenge opened to lower lvls.
What about a special list for characters below 50 ? Lets say challenge can be started as early as 30. Below is a list (max lvl means you cant attempt target if you're above that lvl.)
- Runnyeye : the goblin king lvl 25 war (max lvl 30)
- Permafrost : high priest zaharn lvl 30 cleric (max lvl 35)
- Najena : the widowmistress lvl 35 (max lvl 40)
- Cazic thule : avatar of fear lvl 38 sk (max lvl 40)
- Paw : the ishva mal lvl 40 necro (max lvl 45)
- Kaesora : Xalgoz lvl 42 necro (max lvl 47)
- Dalnir : the kly lvl 40 wizard / Overseers of Kly if not up (max lvl 45)
- Lower guk : a frenzied ghoul lvl 42 war (max lvl 49)
- Lower guk : The ghoul arch magus lvl 45 wizard (max lvl 49)

Well, I'm sure there are more to add to the list

[Shoneys]

Originally Posted by Phatez [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

+6 dragons, A4 in PoM, Mini in hate, brood mother, frenzied, dogs in velks, the named in SG, BB in PoM, chardok royals, ragefire, how far in sky can you duo? Some ideas

BB in pom charms on a timer and has 1million hp. Can't be solod.
BB puppet would be challenging though.

[branamil]

Solo challenge v1 was 90% puppet string abuse. Kind of ironic you can't get puppet strings solo, it's hard to see why they should be allowed in a solo challenge.

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by branamil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Solo challenge v1 was 90% puppet string abuse. Kind of ironic you can't get puppet strings solo, it's hard to see why they should be allowed in a solo challenge.

Exactly. I don't see why nerds are impressed with this "solo challenge" when it revolves around using a OP'd clicky in the first place. What's so great about it?

Who knows who is actually the greatest soloist, when not everyone has access to 500k worth of clickies. Stupid event that's not one bit indicative of true skill.

Just shows who carries around the best and most overpowered clickies in the game.

Either make it so the contest has extremely limited use of clickies, or it's a total borefest that only involves the richest players on the most OP'd classes.

Seeing that's the nature of the players here though, maybe make 2 BOTB solo challenges, one that allows clickies, and one that does not. I dunno. I just think it's a redundant challenge when you allow people to use clickies.

[Izmael]

Re: strings

I've been away in the countryside for the weekend, but all the while I was thinking about the SAC2 and the rules. The more I think about it, the more I bump into the puppet strings.

This item is peculiar in the way that it lets any class become an enchanter. Combined with their own class' abilities such as healing or tanking, the result is obviously hugely imbalanced. My first thought was to simply ban the use of strings. You could argue that a Reaper lets any class become a cleric. True but, IMO that's not NEARLY as imbalancing as being able to insta charm stuff 10 times in a row.

Face it, many classes won't be able to solo for shit without strings. A cleric without strings won't do very much anywhere. Is it fair? Probably not.

However, EQ isn't fair. Life isn't fair to start with. So maybe we can accept that and the fact that some classes are better soloers than other classes.

I tend to think that strings should be simply banned, along with a few other items that are too imbalancing and/or hard to attain for the average player - such as Red/White Dragon Tooth, Trakanon Tooth, maybe some Sky or PoM clickies, things like that.

Of course, that will mean that a cleric (druid, warrior, mage... etc) will have a much, much harder time gaining ranks in SAC2 for most dungeon-type zones. But is this really a problem? It will simply mean that achieving Velketor rank 3 on a druid is just as brag worthy as achieving Velketor rank 6 on an enchanter (just an example) and will get just as many oohs and ahhs.

As for other clickies, I tend to this there should be a compiled list of forbidden clickies, some of them only forbidden up to a certain level. For example, Ivandyr's Hoop would only be allowed for players level 40 and higher, or something like that. With level-capped zones, clickies such as Wort or DS potions should also be reviewed and banned in zones where they would be too imbalacing.



Re: zone level caps

I'm very keen about this. For example, Kaesora SAC2 would be only open to characters level 40 (or something) and below. Achieving top tier in a zone should be ROUGHLY comparable to achieving top tier in other zones - and level cap is the only way I can see to add sub-60 zones to the mix. Matter of fact, these zones should be so much fun - it's harder to solo, at least on an enc, when you're 40ish than when you're 60ish for many reasons. I think forbidding deleveled and highly geared characters is also a good reason. Who knows, maybe Blackburrow will be part of SAC2 and open to character up to level, say 15. A deleveled warrior with NToV gear will plow through that content and that's probably wrong.

On a side note, think how much fun a zone like Runnyeye would be in a SAC, with a level cap of around 37. Or Paw with a level cap of 40. Or Cazic Thule...



Re: Tecmos comments

I think you bring up some valid points. However, I firmly believe that the ruleset should be

1) simple - kill all of these mobs solo to achive that rank
2) strict - every single mob of that rank must be killed

This way, when you say "I'm SAC2 rank 4 in Seb", everyone immediately knows what you have done and what mobs you've killed (or at least can look it up quickly).



I never liked the SAC1 kills that got help with pull and such. Either you can go in a zone, solo a mob, loot its dead body and walk out like a boss, either you can't. There's no in between for me.

This will probably mean that enchanters will achieve the highest ranks overall. Again, there's nothing wrong with it. Everyone knows enchanters can lull their way past mobs and waltz around many zones easily. Nobody is impressed by that. A cleric achieving rank 2 in HS will be praised by everyone, while an enchanter achieving rank 5 in the same zone will be ignored because it's relatively easy.


Solo only

I like the idea. Solo only, period. Of course some stuff will be mostly undoable, such as Ixiblat and what not. Is it that much of a an issue though? Some stuff is undoable even duoing or trioing and that never was considered an issue.




Anyway, thank you everyone for the comments. Keep them coming. I will start working ASAP on a ruleset and maybe a quick and dirty web site just to put the ruleset on.

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by Coeur [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Try to die nearish a door where drumas or i can drag you from [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lol. Hey now, I usually did my own CRs! There were quite a few times my backup charisma gear and clickies in the bank helped me recover from the ol quad-harmtouch-of-doom attack.

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Achievement: Go Outside

Some of us have enough virtual and RL skills to be able to accomplish something in RL and something in P99 in a single 24-hour period [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How about seeing what players can do without clickies. That would be more impressive imo.

Puppet strings shouldn't even be allowed in any of these contests, they totally destroy any novelty of accomplishing a hard solo kill when they are used.

These contests should involve no one helping with anything, nor any clickies, period.

This shit is about what's fun for the people who are actually doing it. Some of the people like to do it with minimal/no clickies. Some don't. If you don't think Svenn soloing the sebilite protector was bad ass just because he used strings in the process, then you're dumb. If you don't think Loraen soloing spore king was great just because he didn't one shot it while naked, then you're dumb. Etc.

Originally Posted by Diogene [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well, not to be off topic, but I'd really like to see the challenge opened to lower lvls.
What about a special list for characters below 50 ? Lets say challenge can be started as early as 30. Below is a list (max lvl means you cant attempt target if you're above that lvl.)
- Runnyeye : the goblin king lvl 25 war (max lvl 30)
- Permafrost : high priest zaharn lvl 30 cleric (max lvl 35)
- Najena : the widowmistress lvl 35 (max lvl 40)
- Cazic thule : avatar of fear lvl 38 sk (max lvl 40)
- Paw : the ishva mal lvl 40 necro (max lvl 45)
- Kaesora : Xalgoz lvl 42 necro (max lvl 47)
- Dalnir : the kly lvl 40 wizard / Overseers of Kly if not up (max lvl 45)
- Lower guk : a frenzied ghoul lvl 42 war (max lvl 49)
- Lower guk : The ghoul arch magus lvl 45 wizard (max lvl 49)

Well, I'm sure there are more to add to the list

This is fun, yeah. I wanted to sponsor a low-level SAC back when I was still playing Tecmos, but then I got caught up in something else with my plat instead [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Originally Posted by branamil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Solo challenge v1 was 90% puppet string abuse. Kind of ironic you can't get puppet strings solo, it's hard to see why they should be allowed in a solo challenge.

Lies. Just more BS that people who got butthurt when Loraen didn't change the challenge to fit exactly what every random person who whined about clickies wanted.

Necros and chanters RARELY used strings. Eventually they had to qualify their kill as using strong clickies if they did. And shamans only needed strings to kill shit that was crazy impossible to kill otherwise; they regularly were in the back of HS east or crypt or whatever killing stuff with a wolf pet. A lot of the people who did the original SAC didn't even own strings (like me).

And, again, anyone with more even half a brain understands that when some cleric posts that he solod DS using 6 string charges and a pre-nerf clicky BP, it's a fun thing for him and a novelty to read about but nobody was claiming more than that.

[Tecmos Deception]

I understand not putting kills that need clickies or outside buffs on the same level as kills that don't. That's obvious.

But why the opposition to letting a SK post in the thread and get credit for something just because he needed haste and regen to do it? Why the opposition to letting someone get credit for some crazy kill just because they used a strong clicky?

Just put in another few letters of code for it. It's not like the original SAC was overwhelmed with competitors, right? You'll probably see even fewer this time around. Why not set the pure solo kill as the ideal but permit people to fall short of that as long as they make note of it?

[Handull]

I agree with Tecmos, unsurprisingly. I'm not sure why there's so much hate for strong clickies. Add a star or mark next to the kill and it sorts itself. In the old system I wanted to do it without clickies if possible, hands down. My all time favorite kill was soloing a golem in Fear, including breaking in myself, without using strings on a druid (VP robe and manastone used otherwise I'd never have the mana regen and didn't use C2 for the most part). There were fun puppet string kills too, but that one stands out for me.

Your system also seems way too complicated with different ranks for different zones, but do what you want. I liked in the first thread that you could pick and choose mobs to kill, some were much easier than others for different classes. The low level stuff is cute, but not something I personally care about. As with duo/trio, maybe make it a separate thread. It also sucks we can't edit posts anymore (seriously, wtf).

Start making lists of mobs imo. Some have been said, a few more would be: PoM Sniffles/Stomples, PoM Stallions, Need something in Kael maybe named gladiators and Kaleas or whatever the named before Vindi is called.

People are also free to of course post their own pesonal achievements as well. There are some druid kills I can think of that, without strings, are very impressive, but would be trivial for an enchanter or necro.

[Tecmos Deception]

Hey Handull!

When making a new list of mobs, how about things like city leaders? They usually aren't anything special, but they often are in pretty fun locations and with a bunch of stuff nearby that will assist. Faction loss is a turn off for some people though, unfortunately.