Dev Request: Citadel Key Spawn Time Review

[Whinemaker]

We've been stuck here at the Grand Mage's for about 1 hour and 40 minutes now, just waiting for the bloody red key to spawn. Two of us have already logged out because, well, it has taken a lot longer than expected, it's getting late and it's bed time for some people.

Look, can you devs at least realise not everyone is hardcore enough to play UO 8-20 hours a day? Making the keys hard to obtain is one thing, but forcing us to wait 10 minutes in between attempts with this kind of drop rate is a bit too much.

When you're done with all the SA stuff, could you review the spawn timer and/or the drop rate for the Citadel keys please? I'm sorry if I'm asking too much, but from a casual player's point of view, I'd rather see my limited play time spent in a more productive way, instead of getting my char stuck in a dungeon and myself (RL) stuck on MSN and Facebook trying to kill time until the next spawn.

P.S. The red key has finally spawned, and our first key says "14677" seconds left. That's how long it's taken us.

 

[Vertigo]

Wow bad RNG. I usually have all my keys within 20 min or so. I rarely go three times without a key dropping.

 

[Farsight]

I have similar problems with the Citadel, Bedlam and Dread Horn on occasion.

The usual rate for a Citadel key drop is one in every three bosses. Every once in a while I can kill dozens of bosses and not see a single key. Fortunately, this usually happens with the yellow key. It's really annoying to not be able to get the red key quickly.

I usually earn 40-50k gold by the time I get all five Bedlam thesis notes (approx. 20 bosses, or one in four have a note). Every once in a while, I hunt there for hours and don't see a single thesis note.

I usually do Dread Horn in a group, so key collection is typically faster, but every once in a while, the keys (most notably on the spiders) don't drop.

I've heard theories about why, but I'm curious to know the real reason that keys don't drop sometimes.

Here are some of the more popular ideas:
- Bad RNG - this is most likely true in my mind, but I have some odd ideas about the RNG.
- There's a shard max on how many keys can exist at one time. I've heard this one a few times when multiple groups are looking for keys and neither can come up with a full set. When this happens, the two groups usually get together and either split the keys they do have or do everything together (some of my best Travesty runs comes from teamwork with new teams).

Perhaps we should ask for a FOF about how the key drops work. The only thing I'm sure about is luck (on the suit) does not play a role.

 

[Snakeman]

Same here, Bedlam use to be a real pain to get for my crew also. But I'd say in the last 6 mos (+ -) I'd say we can get a fell set in 30 mins now. Before, heck I've seen 2 keys run out of time when we were at #4 key many times.

 

[guum]

Yeah, I find Bedlam keys take a lot longer than Citadel ones, on average. But every once in a while, I'll be keying up for travesty and I'll get stuck at one of the bosses (frequently the Grand Mage, unfortunately), and it'll take a dozen or so attempts, and there's no question that that's annoying when the respawn timer is 10 minutes. I don't see why the timer couldn't be cut to 2 or 3 minutes...it's not like having it be 10 minutes makes it harder. I kill the mob, check for the key; if it's there, I move on, if not, I hide and go afk for 8 minutes. Fun fun.

 

[GarthGrey]

Yeah Devs, the Peerless are hard enough to Solo as it is, could you please make the keys spawn quicker?

 

[guum]

Yeah Devs, the Peerless are hard enough to Solo as it is, could you please make the keys spawn quicker?

The citadel key mob respawn timer has nothing to do with soloing. It takes just as long with 10 people farming the keys as it does with 1, because you have to sit around and wait for the mobs to respawn for 10 minutes once you've killed them. Have you actually done the keying, or are you just trolling?

 

[MalagAste]

I've found when doing peerless that at each one it's always one particular key that day that has to be difficult.

Typically for me it's Irks brain, the Red Key, that nasty spleen, and all the thesis notes....

Getting the thesis notes is by far the worst of all of them. And yes many times I've had notes time out before getting enough to make a run. It's been this way since the start.

Now that doing Peerless isn't something where there are 5 or 6 groups dying to go at all times .... couldn't the drop rate be looked at?

Yes your right it stinks to spend all night trying to make one run because it's not dropping. Most groups don't want to spend that much time at it.

It's ok to spend a couple hours maybe getting keys and doing a run but much more than that is a bit much.

For all it's worth what you get from bedlam usually isn't worth the time it takes to get the keys and most times I can't get anyone to go with because they are all overly frustrated with the key gathering.

 

[Whinemaker]

The Bedlam key is not as bad anymore, the lifespan of the thesis notes has gone up from 2 hours to 6 hours, and with a small group working together it usually doesn't take too long.

Yeah Devs, the Peerless are hard enough to Solo as it is, could you please make the keys spawn quicker?

The citadel key mob respawn timer has nothing to do with soloing. It takes just as long with 10 people farming the keys as it does with 1, because you have to sit around and wait for the mobs to respawn for 10 minutes once you've killed them. Have you actually done the keying, or are you just trolling?

Yup, exactly like what guum says here. With the other bosses it's just about how fast you can farm the monsters for keys, with the citadel ones the interval is fixed at 10 minutes, whether they spawn or not. I know we probably had some ultra bad luck last night, but it's not fun to have to wait forever just to get to do what you logged in to do (and two people actually said screw it, they were going to bed half way through the red key).

Some people might not think it's a big deal, it's just a few hours to them, they're always playing anyway.
Not me, though (can't really speak on behalf of my friends but I think they probably feel the same). Just my 2 cents.

 

[Whinemaker]

Sorry for giving this a bump...

After a week of testing I'm almost convinced that if you work multiple rooms at the same time the keys will take forever to spawn, but instead if you put everyone into the same room and work it one at a time the whole process just speeds up dramatically.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[Harlequin]

For the Citadel, wife and I always split up to farm different keys. Whoever gets the first key goes after the next. We've had a couple of times where one of us gets 2 or 3 copies of 2 types of keys before we get the last key.

Had this happen to the mage, thief and executioner before too...

But most of the times it runs more smoothly. So I think it's the RNG. Speeding up the respawn time would be much appreciated...

 

[Uriah Heep]

I'm a casual type. Play a little here, a little there, I wish they would take the timers off all the keys. Let us get a few tonight, a few tomorrow, go the next night to do the boss.
Call me weird, but I don't get why the keys have timers...

 

[guum]

I'm a casual type. Play a little here, a little there, I wish they would take the timers off all the keys. Let us get a few tonight, a few tomorrow, go the next night to do the boss.
Call me weird, but I don't get why the keys have timers...

I totally agree and think this would be a great and sensible change, but I think you can expect about a dozen posts to be incoming decrying the carebearification, etc., of peerless and how this would be the last straw, ruining the game forever and possibly causing the sun to go nova.

 

[Whinemaker]

Bad RNG you say, eh? Let's hope that's the case... but the long wait time (I spend more time afk while key-ing than fighting) is still annoying as hell.

I'm a casual type. Play a little here, a little there, I wish they would take the timers off all the keys. Let us get a few tonight, a few tomorrow, go the next night to do the boss.
Call me weird, but I don't get why the keys have timers...

I wouldn't mind the timers gone, but I'm not certain if it's 100% a good idea. I could already see people saving up all the keys for one long marathon run during the weekends (some one on my shard told me the other day that he/she? spends 4-6 hours doing bosses everyday, excluding key-ing... and he/she? seemed proud of it... so I wouldn't be surprised if people chained like 10 bosses in a row if the timers came off), or monopolising the key business, making the casual players even harder to get in.

For other bosses, as long as you have a decent group (around 3-6 people) it usually doesn't take that long to get a key, and we can usually have the whole thing (key-ing to boss) done within 1 hour and 30 min. Citadel though, you're subjected to the slow spawn timer and the streaky RNG...

Actually while I'm at it, one more request... could you consider swiping all the spawn clean when re-starting the room? I've had instances when the previous groups (some of the so called bigger and more honourable guilds on my shard) left ninja's and co. running around after they're done with the boss, for the next visitors to deal with. Call it a challenge for one thing, but I definitely see the grieving potential in it.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Actually while I'm at it, one more request... could you consider swiping all the spawn clean when re-starting the room? I've had instances when the previous groups (some of the so called bigger and more honourable guilds on my shard) left ninja's and co. running around after they're done with the boss, for the next visitors to deal with. Call it a challenge for one thing, but I definitely see the grieving potential in it.

Frankly the whole Citadel is like this. Especially when you go running down the corridor from the main entrance. Either a percentage of people grieve or don't know what they're doing.

I think it is just something that has to be dealt with. It has been pretty much dealt with for years now. Not going to change now.