a change to underworld

Any level headed person knows speed clearing content that's supposed to provide a challenge is a bad thing. Your supposed to moderately clear a HM dungeon or an elite area by the developers standards which in this case is 45 minutes to an hour for dungeons and an hour and a half for elite areas with 7 heroes.

The fact you can ignore 90% of the mobs in game with Shadow Form is a huge flaw and it is ANets fault for not caring about balance. If speed clears and other major game flaws never existed the game would not be as stagnant as it is today with people doing normal timed runs. This all stems from the fact the developers created a broken game mechanic by creating skills that ignore spells 100% of the time.

By no means is this any of the players fault, people will use the fastest and most efficient way to do tasks and its only imperfect human nature to seek these ways out regardless of future consequences to anyone other than themselves. Especially on the internet

At this point it is a fact that Shadow Form and Speed Clears will not change. ANet chose a path for the game, some of it was intended and some not but its nearing its end with GW2 on the horizon and right now they wont just suddenly fix major things that should have been fixed from the beginning.

Someone said on another thread that Anet baked the cake, players just sat down and ate. Well its very hard to suddenly fix the recipe while its already baked and on their plates. Lets hope they get the recipe right this time around.

I haven't bothered to follow this thread closely but the bolded part is a pretty poor reason not to touch SF. Believe it or not, PvE was balanced (relatively) at one point and it is this mentality that allows the current PvE to be a loljumpinheadfirstandwatchthemobmelt fest. Just because SF is a staple in a subset of the PvE community does not mean it's free from targeted balancing.

I find it slightly odd that you feel "you're style of play" shouldn't be touched but see no issue when it impacts "trading/economy" and affects others' gameplay ("skeles and dhuum where [sic] placed in UW as a result of SCing"). Seems slightly selfish, no?

This analogy isn't apt at all.

So bad players die while farming Vaettirs -> Obsidian Flesh doesn't really make you invulnerable. Really? Who cares? Who cares what bad players do anyway? What if I tell you I die with pre-nerf SF, does that make pre-nerf SF balanced? Good players ARE able to make themselves invulnerable using Shadow Form. THAT is what matters.

You don't see any reason not to nerf SF even though 1 player with SF will beat 1 player + 7H without SF? And be twice as fast while doing it? In fact I'm pretty confident that 1 player with SF will beat 8 players with cons without SF in some areas. Balance.

If what you have written - and I directly quote here: "I don't think of SCing as a vital community service, but this game economy and the game overall would have imo died long long ago without it" - were true, then we should expect to see non-SC people begging that there be no nerf to Shadow Form, because without Shadow Form the game economy and the game dies. But no non-SC player is begging that there be no nerf to SF. Why?

You live in an illusionary world where SC'ing is good for the community, even though the community expressly says otherwise. It's the same kind of reasoning that validates raping women because "they secretly enjoy it anyway, no matter what they are saying". Ridiculous.

The fact that you can run through mobs as though they don't exist with SF and related skills is a huge flaw.

Just because some people fail at it, doesn't mean it isn't over powered. Those people that have "failed" are probably beginners and you don't judged a skill's effectiveness based on how successful beginners are. I repeat, it requires practice but it doesn't change the fact that it will make you invincible.

Considering that it's pre Feb 2010 state has been basically split into two skills (shroud) and it's primary drawback being removed while still being able to be maintained is a good enough reason that it needs a change.

An other issue like someone said though would be how to buy stuff... Today , we can say that the only way to get money fast is by doing those farms repetitively ( not to say that other farms aren't worth , but they usually give ridiculous amounts of gold compared to DoA or UW)....

But now that many items reached incredible prices , how would people buy them?? I noticed in kamadan almost noone is selling/buying anything... Why?? Because all sellers are usually sc'ers , and all supposed buyers are non-scers who got no money....( Of course i'm not referring to low cost items...)...

I'm not saying UW is hard since it's not , but how boring areas are...People already have hard getting 10 ectos so how shall they get 100 or 1000 ....It's quite hard to explain since i already know some will flame me , but if those areas were a bit more fun and not about doing exactly the same thing over and over , maybe things would change ....

Assuming , at this point of the game , that they changed builds to harder ones , the economy situation would get worse...
Just saying that SF is garbage and should have been nerfed yes , but i think it will affect economy a lot though....

Well, and every single player I've seen bashing on SF as a skill that ruined this entire game ISN'T a SC player, I don't see your point?

That's like saying: "Every person I've seen defending the nazi's was a nazi." Maybe not the best example, but it was the first thing that popped in my head.

You make a big mistake. This is what I think is fair or logical. I never said it was up to me to decide what it has to be or not.

This is a forum and people can share their ideas and opinions here. Preferably with some reasoning behind it. But even when you have reasons for something, it doesn't mean that others have to agree. My ideas follow a certain logic and you do not have to share this logic. At the same time, your over-the-top reaction was completely unnecessary.

You really attacked me without cause. It's just what I think it should be; it's my opinion, not the law, I just try to make clear why I feel a certain way. Still not saying you have to agree with it. I never said that. And anyways, GW won't change just because I feel a certain way.

So, again, try not to respond to what you think I am saying. I wasn't saying that I have the right to tell Anet what to do. I do, however, reserve the right to have my own ideas and opinions and your instant attack on my ideas was way out of line as far as I am concerned. It was unnecessary and out of proportion.

So what if I find it logical that the location where you get something that's hard to get, should be in the hard area? Just my logic. Some will agree, some won't. You're not gonna die just because I have an opinion here you know.

If you are defending the Nazi's, that makes you a Nazi in my book.

I cast Godwin's Law Level 5

I couldn't make it through the entire thread before it collapsed in on itself. I'll just leave my two copper shillings here:

-"Elite" shouldn't mean enduring a long series of consecutive quests that, due to time constraints and patience threshold, deters players like me more than the technical demands of figuring out how to bring enemy red bars down while keeping yours up.

-Those who feel that facilitating UW by any means would "ruin" it really should stop and think about the state of PvE and the true value of showing off an UW statue. Simply allowing quests to save to the log doesn't hurt it one bit. There's no way to tell who toughed it out with heroes vs. a share in a SC, anyway.

While it's sad that many players (myself included) won't beat UW and miss out on the many quests and lore (you know, things that make a game interesting, instead of pink blobs of money enemies poop out), I understand there will always be resistance to change in anything. When you really think about it though, we're arguing over pixels here; very, very old pixels, I might add. There comes a time to let things go a bit.

Hey, kind of like how they've been balancing the rest of PvE, yeah?

See, that's why I didn't want to post the example I did, because I knew someone was gonna make a reference to Godwin.. But it was the best I could come up with..

It can't work because it's too easy to abuse the system. Saved progress on Clear the Chamber + Ice Wastes/Chaos Planes (for teleportation) = the easiest ecto farming you've ever seen. This would be fine if completing quests didn't actually change things down there...but it does.

This could be avoided simply by making Clear the Chamber and Restoring Genth's Monuments reset each time you enter, while other quests do not. For that matter, the entire UW quest line could be revised into a better format by using "overquests" like Duncan/DoA/Wik like so:

Quest 1: Liberating the Underworld
Given by Lost Soul
Repeatable
Progress resets each time you enter the Underworld
Tasks:

• Kill these Squid (formerly Clear the Chamber)
• Talk to the Reaper of the Labyrinth
• Free all 7 Reapers. X Reapers Remaining. (formerly Restoring Grenth's Monuments)
• Complete "Assist the Reapers."
• Talk to King Frozenwind.
• Beat Dhuum.

Quest 2: Assist the Reapers
Given by Reaper of the Labyrinth
Repeatable
Progress is saved. Resets when abandoned or completed.
Tasks:

• Complete "Unwanted Guests."
• Complete "Escort of Souls."
• Complete "Wrathful Spirits."
• Complete "The Demon Assassin."
• Complete "The Terrorweb Queen."
• Complete "Imprisoned Spirits"
• Complete "Servants of Grenth."
• Complete "The Four Horsemen."

Quests 3-10: Escort, Wrathful, etc.
Given by appropriate Reaper
Repeatable
Progress resets each time you enter the Underworld (but completion is stored in "Assist the Reapers").
Tasks: Same as current.

Initial spawns and quests spawns are all exactly as they are now. (Except that King Frozenwind needs an alternative spawn method if SoG is already complete -- Probably an alternative dialogue for the Reaper of the Wastes to summon him.)

There. No super ecto farming. The only difference from the status quo is that you can opt not to do Escort, Wrathful, etc. if it's already complete.

There are two problematic issues here though:

1. What do you do about people who are not at the same level of progress in quest completion? Do you let them go on to Dhuum if only one team member has actually completed all quests? Do you have King Frozenwind say "Person X has not helped all the Reapers. Piss off and come back when Person X has done the quests"? Both are problematic. The first option makes Dhuum farmable. (Remember Duncan runners?) The second option creates the kind of group forming problems that keep DoA and Slavers pretty much dead for PUGs. I guess the second option is the lesser of two evils, but I hold out hope for a more elegant solution.

(One random thought here: The first option (letting you go on to Dhuum on the basis of another team member's quest completion) is *exactly* what SC teams are doing right now. The guy completing quest X never does quest Y, but he gets to go straight to Dhuum because someone else on his team did it. If the goal is to create greater parity between people who abuse SF and people who don't, then maybe allowing people to skip quests isn't so unfair.)

(Second random thought: Forcing you to free every Reaper goes a long way towards making Dhuum less farmable for normal teams. It will speed up SC teams, but they're already so fast that it's not a huge loss. Besides, the reason UW is so messed up in the first place is the wrongheaded idea that mucking with the content is a good way to solve the SC problem. The real solution is to just kill SF and be done with it. If you really must muck with content, then the best option within that domain is to load the chamber with so many SF hosers that SC teams never make it out of the room.)

2. UW is *supposed* to be an endurance and robustness test. None of the quests, not even Four Horsemen, is that hard if you can design your team for the sole purpose of just getting there and beating it. A very large part of the challenge comes from the fact that building to beat certain quests means leaving yourself ill-equipped for other quests. Making progress saveable in any way detracts from that difficulty. That ultimately boils down to questions of "how hard do we want UW to be?" and "how much difficulty are we willing to trade off in exchange for better accessibility?"

I would personally love it if they were able to implement the Slaver's/DOA style of elite area completion in the UW, but there's no question that it would make it easier.

Elite areas are supposed to be hard. Sometimes one part of what makes it hard is how much time it takes to do. Clearly, for balanced teams, that is part of how UW (and to a lesser extent FOW, Urgoz and the Deep) were meant to work.

Still, they did change the Survivor title and this would be a pretty similar type of change, so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities.

Edited to add...excellent post Chthon.

I see your point, but I still think the entirety needs to be brought down to a more manageable level. I can't imagine it's impossible to fairly distribute the drop rate.

I've SC'd before. Doesn't make me blind to it's imbalance though.

I've always believed that'd it'd be nice if we needed balanced teams for all of PvE, and only the most skilled teams could do elite areas, and required a balanced team - or at least, a team that took a lot of skill. There's few things in the game that take a lot of skill - some of the SC's are very difficult - but I've always believed that the game would be better supported by a structure that prevents a sense of invulnerability.

I would see it as comparing to PvP - the best guilds truly use a lot of skill, and aren't invulnerable - they're just better than the rest. I'd have liked to have seen the high-end PvE as similar to that - no invulnerability, but you need coordination, skill, good builds, and balance to actually be able to win out. Nothing that completes elite areas in <30 minutes (areas shouldn't be soloable, a full team should be needed in every area). Also, if SF was nerfed, ele's would come out as the lead with obs flesh, or dervishs with VoS, etc. The way protection works, protection stacked with spell immunity leads to complete immunity. There shouldn't be permanent spell immunity in the game, imo.

However, the game structure is way, way too far along to ever think about changing it. SC's are part of the game, and we get to live with them and enjoy them as best as we can. As far as changing the UW, a completion based system for quests would make it more accessible time-wise, I wouldn't object to that change. It does make it significantly easier, though. Which I don't necessarily like but I guess I can understand.

Tell me why my analogy isn't apt.


@Jeydra, You barely addressed what I actually said.

I'm finished with this thread because opinions won't change when facts and examples both people agree are fair can't be brought to the table. I'll read it as it progresses but I won't say anything unless something of actual worth to the subject is said.

Well, no offense dude, but you're the one that went grossely off topic... The subject isn't SF or SCs, it's whether or not we can divide UW in sections.. An idea we shot down a couple pages ago, since then it's been about SCs and SF instead...

Not to be annoying but the OP did not mention anything about dividing UW in sections. That was just one idea that was mentioned and discussed. The OP asked for ways to make UW doable for a "normal" team rather than just the sin teams if you will.

So, respectfully, this thread is not about whether or not we can divide UW in sections.

Personally I do think that the SC/SF issue relates to the subject because it's the way people succeed at it currently, just like it was Ursanway some years ago.

I would like to suggest that if you take SF out of the picture, how would you do UW and what would it take to do UW if you don't bring sins? That, I think is at the core of the matter. Are there reasonable ways to do UW without sins?

I find this more interesting to explore because a single way to do an entire area is just too limited. With all the skills and classes the game has, there has to be more than just one team build that is a reasonable way of doing it so that everybody can participate and not spend the whole night in one area.

To me it also seems that the difference between Tway or whatever it's called and not using it, is simply too big. So nerfing that build and reevaluating UW could be a logical suggestion for dealing with this inequality. To give one example, I still think it's strange that a sin is a better tank than a warrior or a necro is a better healer than a rit.
That's a different discussion, but it does relate to the strange way GW is built up when it comes to classes and skills and does have an effect on discussions like this. I also realise that redoing the whole class system is too much to ask, so I don't expect Anet to do this.

I suppose I think that part of the reason why some people aren't happy with this UW situation lies in the fact that there are class preferences people have and they cannot play their favourite class or build because it's not what you're "supposed" to do.

I imagine that if UW is tough, it's one thing, but just like when DoA started and teams were only one tank, 2 monks, 1 necro BiP and nukers, people were upset at not being able to play their other classes there because it was not doable. If they happened to have a ranger and mesmer as their fave classes or wanted to play a necro that wasn't a BiP, then forget it.

This is the sort of limitation that I think causes these discussions. And things like SF, because they are so effective actually promote people using specific gimmick builds to be repeated and repeated. I find that a shame, I find it boring, but I know also that not everybody feels that way. Some people just go with what works and don't have specific connections with their characters or classes. But it doesn't mean that this is off topic. For me overpowered builds are at the core of these sort of problems. And that's just my opinion

You do realize that all exp teams take R/A's and E/Me's, right? Because you know, they're better than ssins? Just less failproof.

I don't know all exp teams, so I cannot comment on what all of them do. I also doubt you know all of them but let's ignore the generalisation for the sake of the discussion. So enlighten us, are those teams able to let people of all classes participate in these teams or do these two classes simply replace the sin's role and the rest is the same?

I find your indication interesting here, but ToA chat is all about t this and t that, so it's hard to make out the differences. I've recently returned to the game and so it's all a bit chinese to me. In fact, it's hard to get into it because no one would allow me in a team because I am not "experienced" because I didn't magically know what tway was.

So far though it looks like what always happens. Someone finds out a gimmick build and that's it till it gets nerfed. I am just looking for ideas, where at least in NM you can do UW in a reasonable time using a variety of classes. R/A and E/Me sounds interesting but without knowing what skills they are running I can't really comment on them.

You can't assume that everybody knows all this stuff for various reasons. I have played GW a lot in the first 4 years and not as much in the last couple of years and so more or less like a new player all this stuff just seems more of the same problem that we've had many times before. Although I will say that with Ursan at least all classes could participate. Still, it was very boring just the same.

The classes that can partake in UWSC are: ssins, eles, mesmers, rits, necro's and rangers. Maybe monks, but never seen a build for that. So that only rules out dervs, warrs and para's.

If you want to learn UWSC (something I don't advise cause I hate it, but some people enjoy it, so) I'd look for a UWSC who's willing to teach. You'll probably be in a low lvl guild for a couple weeks, but after that you can move on to more exp guilds once you've built enough experience. I don't know the policy of any of the high-end UWSC guilds, so I wouldn't know how their recruitment towards UW works.

pvx is still your friend.

Well, I assume you know this stuff because you make it sound as if you know a lot about it, hence why I comment this way, if you're new to the game -well, sort of, you know what I mean- then don't go parading around telling what should and should not be, if you don't even know the details about it.

Yeah..I don't reccommend this at all. (unless your guildless and have tolerence for specifics) If you want to PUG uwsc..just go to pvx watch all the vids, get the right set up for your area and join pug practice groups. Once you get your area down..you may either buy stones...(i know utter bs system) borrow some or continue on in practice groups till you acquire more.
There is no need to leave your current guild just for sc's.

So basically, 4 classes are not being used.

I agree I do not wish to learn UWSC but it does make you wonder what people are talking about.

PvX is a bad friend in my opinion. It's the lack of inspiration site that is used more as a rule than a help, in my view.

I know alot about the game but not the more recent flavours of the month or period builds. I will never claim to know everything for that matter. What I do see is the same tendencies that I don't care for much repeating themselves. So it that sense I can still see that some things never change.

Bottom line for me is still that SC is a bad thing in general. I see it as something that devaluates those parts of the game that are being speed cleared. It also makes it that certain classes are not wanted. At the same time I do understand why people do it. Because if you don't do it, it really takes way too long to get anywhere.

So either you get on the SC bandwagon or it takes too long. Either way there's a problem and that's what's too bad to me. My monk has the UW statue in her HoM and now monks aren't even really part of it? Well, times change but the principle is still the same. It's just shifted the problem to different classes.

Well, at least it seems that for GW2 they are doing things that may avoid this sort of thing. Taking out a dedicated healer class and getting rid of dual classes might go a long way. We'll see. For GW1, I have my complaints but I don't expect them to invest in the game in a significant way anymore, but we can still hope. ^^

That's your opinion, in my opinion SCs don't devaluate those parts of the game. I don't know if you remember how UW balanced way was back in '05-'06 but for the few balanced ways I joined back in those days, the most we got done, ever was like 3 quests. It was a pain, excruciatingly dull and boring etc. People that go on and on about how tank and spank is so bad and that it has raped this game in every possible hole imaginable should stop and think about it. Those areas -with the sole exception of UW- were designed to be tanked and spanked. DoA, FoW, Urgoz, Deep, all those areas are packed with mobs, what, we were supposed to take them down one by one? Don't be so naive. DoA especially, it's packed with big, strong, squishy mobs that patrol ad infinitum in the same paths. No one is going to tell me that tank and spank was never supposed to happen.

Why is it so bad that we can clear most of those areas in about 15-40 minutes depending on which area? They once were very tough yes, and took 2-3 hours, but players have found ways to speed things up, which is a natural process. If elite areas took 2hours to complete, always, it would result in people going "meh" and abandoning them, looking for more fun stuff to do.

Another thing I'd like to address. All this whining the entire time about "omg, SC's are bad, because I can't play my paragon in there" is such a load of BS. If you wanna SC, get a SC charr, i.e. a ssin, mes, rit, ranger, ele, w/e and play that. Outside of SC's you can play your para or derv all you want. Class hate is an illusion, you have 8 charr slots for a reason.

Monk is for t1. I believe its Mo/E to maintain spellbreaker.

It is because of SF and SCs that this idea was even brought up.

Also, SC/SF is the reason why ANet made UW so hard, creating the very problem this thread is discussing. Rather than solve the problem, ANet chose to make it worse.

Yes that was my opinion. I was very careful in writing it in a way that that was clear.

And you see, this is exactly the thing I don't like. Class hate is not an illusion. Perhaps you just think that because you can't imagine it being a problem for a very simple reason: you don't have that problem. But here's a news flash: not everybody is the same as you are. You may think it's an illusion but when UW and DoA were being done some years ago there was exactly that.

People got 4 character slots initially btw, not 8. And there still are 10 classes anyways. So there were always fewer character slots than classes. I still have classes I don't like to play like the ranger for example.

Now please, just because you are unable to see another point of view doesn't mean it doesn't exist or is an illusion. It was complained about when DoA came out and Anet's response was Ursan.

Now, I feel that you miss a point here. I don't mind people clearing UW faster. In fact I wish it didn't take so much time. It's the difference between a normal team and a sc team that I think is ridiculous. Why would Anet reward people for learning a gimmick and repeating it over and over. This is what I don't get. And even if I say, ok, I don't get that, but so be it...even then I don't see why there has to be such a huge difference between the two types of gameplay. Why?

Also saying that people will speed things up naturally doesn't quite apply here. It's true that there is that progression, but SC is not that natural progression. It's what Anet did to certain skills, in this case SF (and previously Ursan), and things like cons that made it possible. Not natural progression.

Strangely the result is that the hardcore people who put in more time generally, need less time and the casual players who often don't want to or can't spend 4 hours in UW have to spend that time there because they are not into the sc stuff. It seems like a contradiction to me that Anet does this. But again that's my logic, my opinion.

Smiter boon SF and all the problems in GW are solved, including of course inflation.

Well, where would we be without you?

definitely not where you are now.

An Idea YOU shot down? I had no clue you worked for ArenaNet.

The majority of posters actually seem to have no problem with the concept of splitting the quests off in smaller sections.

Personally, I don't care one iota what SC/SF people do. They will do what they do. I care about changes that would benefit a lot of people not currently doing content because of a time issue. It is wasted as a farm area only, and efforts to curb the farming there only seem to effect those who would like to finish the area as a part of playing the game. I do not think casual (by casual I mean time played per session) players should have to participate in the SC community in order to simply finish a part of the game.

Well, I think we established that if we would split up the quests as they are now, we would result in nothing but pure abuse, overfarm and UW being toned down to being easier than VQ'ing Plains of Jarin. You could take optimized builds for every quests separately, which will remove a lot of the challenge UW has now: come up with a build that will make you able to do it all. Tbh, I don't give a rats ass about UWSC, so they can nerf that all they want, I agree that the changes are unfair towards non-SC'ers, but the proposal of splitting it up makes no sense what so ever tbh. It would make it such a cakewalk that it's beyond ridiculous.

You're saying that as if underworld has never been abused and overfarmed, lol. It has already been suggested in this thread that completing the chamber should be required everytime you enter underworld. It won't be the perfect solution but it will help.

There's a balancedway variant that's predominant in my alliance which uses monks and dervs. A warrior bar has been in development for inclusion and I daresay someday someone will get round to making a para build slot in there somewhere. Of course, it's not a pugable method like tway so...

To the QQing about certain classes not being allowed in various speedclears: MAKE THE BUILDS YOURSELF! I'm sure willing guildies/allies will allow you to test the builds with them, or find like-minded people who want to mess around with builds and attempt to change things up. Just because it's on PvX doesn't mean it's the most effective.

If you want to complain about length of areas, try doing a full run of DoA balancedway and see how long that takes you (and I don't mean DwG or Frost as they're not "balanced" by any means), however I do know there are people out there who have devised team builds that can include any profession and clear in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, this takes some skill.

At the end of the day, you shouldn't just be able to walk into an elite area, hit 12345678 and finish. For those of you claiming that SC teams are really challenging, that depends on the role. I can tell you right now that EoE in FoWSC is a walk in the park (not to mention that FoWSC in general is a lot less challenging than other elite areas) compared to the job of say the MT. As for UWSC, EMoing isn't tough. There's nothing stopping you taking the tway (or any of the other methods posted on there) builds off PvX, watching a video or two and trying it out for yourself. As I said, it's all about finding like-minded people. I quite often see groups in ToA askin for people for practice runs. There was a thread on these very forums that was trying to get people together for UWSC practice runs. Your friends list is there for a reason as are these forums. Some team builds won't be posted on PvX due to desire not to have the entire GW community running around with them. Part because of "elitism" in that credit could be stolen for ideas, part because they're not wanted to become meta, part because PvX can be a pile of wank when it comes to vetting builds. But just because you can't find it on PvX doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that you're not free to create it yourself, also just because it's on PvX doesn't mean it's trash. PvX is a good starting place for builds and ideas. My advice if you want to create builds is open up PvX, paw-ned and Guild Wars, then be creative.

More on topic: I completely agree that splitting up UW without causing it to become more farmable than it already is would be nigh on impossible and would simply cause MORE arguments and calls for nerfing this that and the other.

In short: there ARE ways of doing it in less than 3 hours, be it SC or balancedway. If you don't want to put the effort into learning how to do those methods then that's your own problem, same as you could complete the rest of the game with nothing but Frenzy and Mending on your bar if you don't want to put the effort into getting or learning about other skills. As I stated before, I hear no cries about how you can get increased amounts of gems from chests in DoA if you do a full run so why so much QQ about UW? You make more money from DoA anyway. Last time I checked the market wasn't entirely awash with mini Dhuums.

I would love it if UW quest completion was persistent, even if Chamber was required each run. Speed clearing is already so much more efficient (and less expensive) than rezoning in order to use specialized builds for different quests that I don't really believe the area will become much more farmable, just less of a pain to complete the whole thing. It is somewhat telling that you don't hear anyone calling for DoA or Slaver's to be switched to the UW's pita format.

why split uw up to make it easier? There's a thread earlier about someone wanting to make bfla harder again, what would happen if you made uw easier? devalue items, and make clearing it a joke. And despite all the arguements contrarily splitting uw up would make it EASIER.

Despite what you think, it takes a lot of practice and learning to get good times at uwsc (let alone not fail which is what most pug groups in toa you see do). When you think about the amount of ig money/cons etc... used to pioneer these clears and then the amount of time invested it makes a lot of sense.

Anything you want to get good at you need to invest a lot of effort. This is true in all walks of life, you don't just start off good at something complex if you have absolutely no knowledge of it. Think languages, music, etc, etc...

Then some of these people get all elitist and jealous and keep it to themselves (which is fine, i really don't care it takes all kinds of people in this world) and others feel the need to share the wealth/knowledge.

The uwsc you're talking about is what? 3-4 years old?

I mean, come on, it really hasn't changed that much since people were sc'ing with all ele's with a sf with no damage cap ;P

And on these forums are tons of people that want to do uw non-sc style, either respond to their posts or start your own, and as stated so many times nm uw gets you the statue, you get to open the chest and is not near the hardness level of hm.

nuff said

Make the UW quests like the DoA areas. i.e., if you do them all at once you get increasingly good drops from each quest chest. Don't make it anything amazing, but say 1 ecto drop + 1 for each quest already completed for the entire group (average player in an 8 person group would get 4-5 ectos for the entire quest chain). Just make sure to nerf drops for solo farming (can't have them getting 200k+ worth of ectos in one run), and aggressively nerf imba crap like SF and other stuff.