Buff lowbie/new pc quest drops a bit!

[Cruzel]

Seeing as my situation on EFU is being perpetually stuck at a low level due to deaths (Not a complaint, I don't mind it one bit. Just stating an unfortunate fact) I have noticed that in all my lowbie quest spam, actually getting supplies that are useful pretty much does NOT happen in these quests. You scrounge up gold maybe 20-50 pieces at a time from some quests, and a bit more from others that can go up to 100 or so.

But, the majority of these quests drop some starter gear (minor armors, boots and belts, etc.) but as far as potions and such go most of these quests seem to only give out a few packs of herbs, and if you're LUCKY you'll get a few dissipating potions of bulls or something. Maybe there's some lowbie quests I don't know about that people run to get stocked up, but my experience across several PC's is that you're basically better off ignoring the lowbies entirely and hunting rothe, smacking fish in the canal, and so on to gather gold.

In order to thrive on the mid to high end quests (or to do much of anything in pvp) you need supplies and the low level/early content in EFU:R just does not allow for that compared to my experience in previous chapters (EFU1/EFU:A) where I had no problems gathering basic supplies to establish and progress my PCs.

[Pigadig]

The solo quests that max out at 4-5 generally give a fair amount of gold, but many are also highly contingent on having high search for getting the most out of them (this also holds true for some of the more common group quests at that level as well). Regardless you should still be getting a fair amount of gold out of doing them, rather than just 20-50 gp at a time. The major problem with them is that a lot of the most rewarding are take limited, so if you're constantly knocked down to low levels you can't continue to keep running them.

All of the above isn't necessarily true for anyone who cannot walk through Dunwarren, and those that are Sanctuary based have 3 low level quests that nobody else can access that are generally fairly rewarding.

In my own personal experience it is farily easy after a reset or two for a Sanctuary based PC to be level 5, have over a thousand gp, a large supply of CLW trinkets, a moderate supply of CMW trinkets and a decent variety of useful potions. All from the lowbie solo quests. Lower based PCs will generally have fewer gp, but a lot more useful potions, primarily invisibility.
 

[VanillaPudding]

The main issue here is the lack of variety that drop. It is nearly always the same on X quest.

The second issue is that the amount of potions that drop compared to what I'll call 'trash' just for the sake of this argument (items that just end up clogging the floor 95% of the time)

The last issue is that NPC pricing is far too out of balance. I would suggest here that a glance is taken at the normal player pricing, and the npcs increase that by 20-25% (compared to the current 150-250%) A haste from npc would cost like 220 gold for example, while players sling it for 180. A bulls strength would sit at something like 110 gold, players at 80. There are already difficult to access NPCs with better pricing than I suggest here, so having some that are less difficult to access with an increase in price isn't really going to skew anything.

[ShutSulfer]

Here is the question I'd like to ask. Should those resources be readily available? Those are resources that makes you stronger, they are luxury goods. Healing trinkets you pretty much need to even play the game, potions however, are not something you should be chugging all the time are they? They should be rare. The NPC thing isn't that just to promote a nearly pure player market when it come to potions? If you could get those things off npcs for a 25% higher cost you'd buy potions from npcs, sure EFU would become more "fair" and "balanced". But in truth to me efu has never been about balance or fairness, it's been about variables and reacting to them. Of course a highly unbalanced game wouldn't ever be fun either. I however feel that modernizing the game in that way wouldn't be a good thing. Also removing reliance on players and moving it to npcs will create for less interactions / Reliance needed. Of course I have no real say in this though.

[zDark Shadowz]

If potions werent expensive, players wouldnt be able to undercut them.  A number of the low level quests are biased toward healing items, and there are item collectable quests where you can hand in items for potions, if you are a low level.

 Some potions like strength and bless/aid are luxury aid items, important ones such as blur, barkskin, haste and shielding become necessities, or forming a party with those that can cast barkskin/haste/shield of faith,  in the higher levels. Due to this Id say its made this way to heavily promote player interactions to cut down on costs so you can still profit from ventures in the higher areas

[zDark Shadowz]

My best character so far is one that has died repeatedly and got stuck doing low level quests for a long time, and in terms of risk vs reward I think the low level quests are buffed a fair bit toward rewards already compared to higher quests. Id love to be doing lvl 7+ quests that dropped cure moderate/serious wounds wands often, and as for variety, the more distant you head out for quests the more quest-tailored and themed items you can find.

For potions, its really only shielding, barkskin and blur that are necessities since the equipment doesnt actually improve significantly between low and low-mid quests. There are vendors around for these items, but it.would (and should) always be good to cut down your costs by visiting your local brewers, or hiring clerics or mages that normally cant venture alone (unless specialized to do so) to accompany you in your travels.

Its skewed a lot more toward interacting with players after lvl 5, and even though I would love to explore stupidly dangerous places while protected and empowered by every potion under the dark, I cant afford that ;) and it is more challenging (and fun when no one is dying) to go to these same places while managing a partys' upkeep costs and rewards.

[Rookie]

The issue has been, and will always be, one core group: Mages.

Mages are the bane of questing.  Mages prance and dance hoping for the chance to group together behind real working class men (and women).  Gold, supplies, and equipment are really easy to get when the typical questing group is anything outside of 1 fighter and 4 disgusting mages.

Death to all mages, I say.  And elves.  But that's a whole 'nother story.

[zDark Shadowz]

One thing I always try to suggest to mages is to go buy a crossbow :) but thats just me coming from a zombie survival server. Its contributing without being put in the line of fire :) and saves on casting damage spells when you can pop a bolt in something.

Crossbows for everyone!