Dividing Velious content among the Dwarf / Dragon / Giant factions

[Zuranthium]

So a big concept with Velious was how players were supposed to pick one of 3 factions to support. What if you had to actually hard choose a faction for each character, and different Velious items are locked behind each faction (only characters in that faction can loot/trade the items, and specific high priority NPC's when engaged in fight will banish nearby people who aren't in the intended faction). This could naturally cause guilds to form along faction lines and would limit the power creep of each character in the Velious expansion, as nobody would be able to get all of the best gear possible.

I've separated the content among the 3 factions, both thematically and trying to make it relatively balanced (probably a couple things can be tweaked, let's discuss):

DWARF faction - Has access to the least amount of S-tier items, but the widest range of content. Focused on the earthiest parts of Velious and fighting the giants.

*Lodizal
*Ring War
*Velketor's Labyrinth
*Kael
*Holgresh beads
*Siren's Grotto
*Western Wastes giants
*West Temple of Veeshan

DRAGON faction - Attuned to the strangest, most mystical parts of Velious. Fights against evil dragons.

*Sleeper's Tomb
*Plane of Growth
*Plane of Mischief
*Kelorek`Dar (decided he's evil and was banished to Cobalt Scar in my head cannon)
*Dragon Necropolis
*East Temple of Veeshan

GIANT faction - Seeks to destroy the strongholds of the dragons and dwarves. Balanced around being the faction that can fight in North ToV, where the highest amount of the best items in the game are, so therefore the least amount of areas are available.

*Wuoshi
*Thurgadin
*Skyshrine (drops for Kael armor quests moved from West ToV to here)
*Western Wastes dragons
*North Temple of Veeshan

Which faction would you choose for each class? How many alts would you make to have a Level 60 class of each faction? :D

[CrazyPro]

Kelorek'Dar is on CoV faction so that breaks apart your headcanon.
The only giants in west wastes are triggered from the scout quest.
I would argue that plane of mischief, velks, siren's grotto, and lodizal would be faction neutral. Siren's Grotto is kind of everyone's problem, same with lodizal, and Velketor was banished from Kael and everyone hates him so I'd argue he's free game for everyone.

There are quests from the giants that involve invading dragon necropolis and one that involves fighting forces from plane of growth so those should both be accessible to giant faction.

Kael should be accessible to dragon faction because, firstly, they literally give quests for you to go kill giants there, and secondly, the giants are literally their #1 enemy.

Sleeper's Tomb should be giant faction because the dragons do NOT want you in there at all. They literally made the place to keep a world ending threat subdued, why would those same dragons send you in there to wake him? Jaled Dar's Shade is the only one who wants you to go there and he is aligned with the Ring of Scale which opposes the Claws of Veeshan.

Give west ToV to giant faction, the sole concern of the Coldain are the giants, whereas the dragons are more of a far-off, looming threat which is currently the least of their concerns.

[CrazyPro]

I went ahead and made a list of the best possible gear you could get on a warrior for all 3 factions using items solely from OP's list despite the parts I disagree with

Thurgadin: https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Hypothetical_thurgadin_faction_warrio r

Skyshrine:
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Hypothetical_skyshrine_faction_warrio r

Kael:
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Green:Hypothetical_kael_faction_warrior

So it looks like thurg faction is the worst, least ac, least HP, and the least resists.

Skyshrine faction has the second best ac and HP, around the same resists as kael, but since OP put sleeper's tomb on the list for skyshrine faction for some reason they can get dual SoDs assuming warders are at play

Kael faction has the highest HP and AC, and the best stat-wise weapons

[Zuranthium]

The point was to make all relevant high-end items restricted to one specific faction, for uniqueness and reducing power creep. Nobody actually needs anything beyond Kunark gear. So I'm most concerned about what people feel would be a good balance with that restriction.

The only giants in west wastes are triggered from the scout quest.

Correct, only the Dwarf faction would be able to do that popular quest.

Give west ToV to giant faction, the sole concern of the Coldain are the giants, whereas the dragons are more of a far-off, looming threat which is currently the least of their concerns.

With 3 wings in ToV it felt natural to me that each faction gets a wing. :)

[CrazyPro]

Correct, only the Dwarf faction would be able to do that popular quest.

It's a skyshrine faction quest and has nothing to do with the coldain.

[Zuranthium]

It's a skyshrine faction quest and has nothing to do with the coldain.

It's killing giants, which is the Dwarf theme! Where quests originate can be changed anyway, but it would already be perfectly fine to remain located in Skyshrine, since the Dwarf faction isn't hunting there. For the purpose of this thread I mostly just stuck with what already exists, but ideally I'd make a lot more changes to the zones to fully build this idea (or for any better version of the game in general). Skyshrine and Plane of Growth, for example, are massive places with content that just sits there unused, since it's mostly not worth doing.

[Ghost_of_Fippy]

...would limit the power creep of each character in the Velious expansion, as nobody would be able to get all of the best gear possible.


How about we just launch a new server and Make Blackburrow Great Again.

MBGA!

[Pootle]

The Tradeskilling Shawl Quest would be Coldain faction only too.

[Zuranthium]

The Tradeskilling Shawl Quest would be Coldain faction only too.

Correct, that's a large reason why I gave that faction Siren's Grotto.

[Danth]

I assume you make west Temple Veeshan armor quests doable from Thurgadin since otherwise that wing is rendered almost pointless aside from a few mediocre named. This has the side effect of giving the Thurgadin faction two armor tiers available, a group/small raid tier and a larger raid tier. Skyshrine also has two since it has Plane of Growth plus TOV-East. Kael only has one set but that's more than made up for by it having North TOV gear.

Zone connections or port locations probably need to be changed. Nobody'll mind having an extra zone or two added. Take Mischief out of TOV while you're at it; that always was a pointless spot to put it.

You specifically list Holgresh Beads as a Thurgadin item...does this imply a quested means of obtaining that item?

Without critiquing specific choices, I'll say that the main weakness of this system, overall, is that it severely restricts what is already a rather small expansion. I'd almost rather take all of Velious/Luclin/Planes of Power and divide those up using a similar mentality. PoP for the high-enders, Velious for the middle tier, Luclin for the lower-end folks, sounds like the best breakdown in terms of physical geography. Re-itemize as needed....I'm just talking landmasses here, not items.

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Skyshrine's lower levels see moderate usage--that part of the zone is by no means abandoned. The upper levels probably go un-used for months at a time though aside from people running up for quest turn-ins or running to Yelinak. Plane of Growth is un-used by its intended audience (lower-end folks looking for a tier-equivalent alternative to Thurgadin armor) mostly because of POG's. Remove those things and the zone sees way more use. They kill that zone pretty much singlehandedly--terrible design choice.

[Zuranthium]

I assume you make west Temple Veeshan armor quests doable from Thurgadin since otherwise that wing is rendered almost pointless aside from a few mediocre named.

I moved those quest drops to Skyshrine, to make that zone more useful and so the Giant faction a place to get their quest armor drops. They wouldn't have quest armor line available to them otherwise.

Dwarf faction already gets armor quests from hunting in Kael. So yes, ToV west would just become a place to kill a few named Dragons. That should be okay because the Dwarf faction has the most areas available to them. Another option is making the Thurdagin quest pieces drop in both Kael and ToV west, if we care about retaining the usefulness of the ToV west trash mobs.

You specifically list Holgresh Beads as a Thurgadin item...does this imply a quested means of obtaining that item?

Nah, it would perma drop, need to keep the Holgresh valley relevant! On that topic, I don't believe items with unique effects should ever only be available for one limited time only. They should either always be obtainable or should be nerfed for everyone.

But yeah this whole thing was just a thought experiment in modifying the game without changing the mechanics/locations very much, and trying to divide the Velious items approximately equally between 3 factions. If having free reign to change the game, I'd want to go wayyyyyy further.

[Ennewi]

Skyshrine's lower levels see moderate usage--that part of the zone is by no means abandoned. The upper levels probably go un-used for months at a time though aside from people running up for quest turn-ins or running to Yelinak. Plane of Growth is un-used by its intended audience (lower-end folks looking for a tier-equivalent alternative to Thurgadin armor) mostly because of POG's. Remove those things and the zone sees way more use. They kill that zone pretty much singlehandedly--terrible design choice.

Agreed. PoH and PoF are better overall in design, especially PoH when 2.0 got patched in and minis spawned more frequently. Farm drops, gain xp, and have a chance at raid loot.

If the Velious expansion hadn't leaned so heavily into raid content, Skyshrine and Growth would have been more group-friendly. Thurgadin might have served as a starting city, with the Coldain being the new available race. That would have made at least a large portion of GD more of a newbie zone, compared to what it is, where half of the layout goes unused and its river leads to...nowhere? Anticlimactic. Giants could have remained high level, similar to classic, posted at their forts with the occasional roamer. Wurms could have remained in the tunnel system, again with roamers. And so on. Kunark has this of course and it works well to keep zones populated with players of varying levels.

Wakening Lands could have provided a similar, lower/higher level experience. With the placement of a similar click-in zone, similar to PoG's, there could have been a second starting city for high/wood elves and yet another starting city for half elves. As is, there really isn't much of an elven presence in Wakening Lands, even with Tunare right nearby, granted on another plane but still. It was a missed opportunity. Could have had wandering elf and giant NPCs attacking each other, similar to mobs of opposing factions in TT and FV.

The expansion's differences are obvious when looking at the bestiary. There are no snow griffenes or griffawns, no ry'gorr pawns, manticore cubs, mastodon calves, etc. WW has dragons nesting all over, and yet no dragonlings. ToV has hatchlings/chickens but they are more of a raid nuisance than anything and not a camp for xp groups. Everything is Antonica on steroids.

By contrast, zones like Oasis feel more alive due to their layout and level range, creating more potential for unlikely interactions and vicarious immersion. Within Oasis, the main point of interest is spectre island, visible from the inn and gypsy camp where lower level players frequent. High level solo/duos can be seen from along the perimeter, so even if there's no room in lower level groups on the beach or at orc highway, a player can solo in between both and spectate during med/bw downtime.

Kunark has this too, but it's much more spread out, often beyond the max view distance. Not exactly copying Oasis, the actual lake of Ill Omen has bloodgills at its center but submerged, like the deepwater goblins, and instead of spectres, the point of interest is the monk epic fight that is supposed to take place on one of the platforms, but even so it's scarcely visible from the shore. That said, the zone's overall design allows for multiple groups and xp approaches, being so large that it accommodated GM events way back when that involved Faydedar. So really, the original idea was improved upon but tech limitations prevented it from being experienced as intended.

Not one example of this comes to mind immediately when thinking about Velious, other than the Ring War which despawns all of the targets a lower level player would otherwise be killing while witnessing the event unfold. Of course, raid-level players do sock Lodizal, but that waiting period isn't anything to spectate and very few would-be onlookers of lower level have reason to hang around there.

[Zuranthium]

I think Velious not having low level content is fine, it's supposed to be an inhospitable extreme biome where only the strongest creatures live. The bigger problem is the game forces high level players to mostly stay there the whole time, when it should have been a place you expedition to sometimes.

That would have made at least a large portion of GD more of a newbie zone, compared to what it is, where half of the layout goes unused and its river leads to...nowhere? Anticlimactic.

The river connecting to Wakening Land would spatially make sense but it needs to be limited somehow (can only enter it during a couple hours of the day perhaps), because otherwise there would be no "great divide" and no necessity of needing to go through Kael to get into the western part of Velious.