The Void Pool

[Gospel]

I've been trying to earn the points for a Hephaestus for quite a while now. Although I am on Atlantic, I am soloing the void pool battles 99% of the time, getting to wave 12-18, and getting crap for points (like 25-30 each time). It seems the only thing the Void Pool is void of is player interest. My question is, why?

I personally enjoy the waves and defense style of the event as well as the idea of gettings points toward your goal each battle. Is the concept too foreign to the UO players to be enjoyable? It doesn't seem much different from the Doom/Tokuno system except its rewards are not random and the points are visible. I can't figure out why no one is doing it.

Do players feel it takes too much time to earn the points? Is it not as fun because the individual monsters don't drop loot? Do people find it quicker to earn artifacts in the upper levels?

Someone please help me out here, I really enjoy this event but soloing it is not getting me very far. If this thing is somehow "broken" in the eyes of players, lets work on some ideas to get it fixed!

 

[Eärendil]

Problem is, that players can get non-ephemeral arties from the lower levels of the dungeon quite easily. Thus the pool doesn´t attrackt all skilled PvM-fighters: players that are able to stand the mobs on level 3 and solo this place can get (a) the non-ephemeral arties as well as (b) great loot (e.g. SSI-jewelry) that sells nicely.

Devs could think about deleting the "ephemeral"-tag and raise the no. of points needed - so that more players would be attrackted to farming... There are many other ideas, but there has been said very much about this problem.

I love the void pool, too. But everything correlates with the no. of players. Best thing to organize void pool battles is to motivate other players via general chat. We made the experience that there are alot of occasional gamers, returners and unexperienced players that would love to join a group. And you will get some PvM-cracks to assist you, too.

 

[John II SRC]

It's the same on Europa. Whenever I am on and want to do the Void I am mostly on my own. And it can't be because I am normally playing off peak-hours, since there are very few people on the best list left, so obviously not many are doing it. Shouting out on the general chat channel does often get a few people to gather around, but still nothing compared to the beginning, when everything was still new and shiny. A shame really, since I think it's the most fun of all the dungeons revamps yet.

 

[Eärendil]

Yea, true that. Shame, it´s really fun!

 

[Petra Fyde]

I keep meaning to go do it, but there's so much else to do! I get distracted and don't get there.

 

[Frarc]

I planning at least one void pool event each month on Drachenfels.

 

[Eärendil]

Think I spent about 20 h in the Void Pool and about 200-300 h in Covetous Level 3. I really love Covetous - the stuff, you can get there is AWESOME. Despise IMHO is not that nice. But that´s just my personal opinion.

If they had changed the mobs in the VP (e.g. Loot and non-ephemeral Arties), I would probably have spent more time there. But when Level 3 turned out to be a very productive gold-source, I left the VP.

So, a slight change in VP, and attraction might rise again

 

[Obsidian]

Agree. I spend my time with level 3. If they remove the Ephemeral tag on the arties earned by points then I would do the void pool. Plus, the Prismatic Lenses are not available in Ephemeral form (which I'm told is not a bug, but I think this should be fixed).

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The "real" rewards seem to be those crafting/resource gathering items you get from Vela.

But I guess those don't have as much appeal for people as I would have guessed.

-Galen's player

 

[DankNuggets]

I'm glad I read this I wasn't sure what Ephemeral meant, just looked it up on UO guide and have decided to stop doing Void Pool. Bad mod to put into the game. I wasn't super impressed by the shield to begin with, but 10 parry seems like something I could def abuse. If I have to work hard for an item, it better last, that's all I'm saying.

 

[DankNuggets]

The "real" rewards seem to be those crafting/resource gathering items you get from Vela.

But I guess those don't have as much appeal for people as I would have guessed.

-Galen's player

I love the idea of more crafting rewards but the duration on the items seems odd. Also I found it.. curious they would consider making an item to smelt ingots without mining needed. Who is smithing without mining? I haven't done crafting since imbue came out, too technical and not fun to me, I enjoyed just making armor.. not making a chart to see how many mods i can fit. Point is people are not able to smelt their armor?

 

[Picus at the office]

I enjoy level 3 much more also and it seems that Napa is empty when I am there anyways. I really wish that Wrong had better drops as farming for some godly wooden item would be great but for the fairly limited time I've been down there I have not seen a single item worth keeping or breaking on enhance.

 

[Gospel]

Wait a second. Are you telling me the shield bought with points is the Ephemeral one? This can't possibly be the case...can it?

 

[Tangled Metal]

Since I have been gone for a while I have a question about Covetous. Do the new Artifacts drop in your pack or are they on the corpses? What mobs have the new artifacts? Okay, that was two questions. A lot has changed since I have been gone. Trying to catch up.

 

[hen]

The Void Pool is dead already. Will the devs have the courage to rethink things or will it just become another unused part of the game?

 

[Doubleplay]

Wait a second. Are you telling me the shield bought with points is the Ephemeral one? This can't possibly be the case...can it?

Yes, the points earned in the void pool are used among other things to buy ephemeral items. In level three, you can get drops of non-ephemeral items. The drops are semi-rare, but happen often enough that you can expect to get one in a few hours of farming. IMHO the drop rate is exactly right. You have to work hard to get one, but not so low that you can go months between drops as in Doom. BTW the drops in level three are to your backpack. There is no indication as to when they drop and can easily be overlooked. Those who farm the loot for unraveling may be unraveling these drops inadvertently if they are not careful.

 

[Goodmann]

Ephemeral- worst mod they put int he game. The concept of void pool was nice but the rewards stink so whats the point?

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Perhaps they should make the artifacts from the Void Pool non-ephemeral (that way one would have many options for getting the artifacts from there) and remove the timers from the crafting-related rewards?

-Galen's player

 

[Eärendil]

Thats exactly what I supposed...