I began RoR in October, 2014, T1, level 10 was the cap. At cap, I camped my main at one of the three lairs Until April,IIRC. Made it a point to be at each spawn as it happened simply to help Dest get gear, knowing from W.A.R., that if I was there strictly for MY loot, I was purchasing sad panda insurance. I was able to invest 6-12 hours 7 days a week at that time, and gladly did so, not once getting the Mara helm, nor any chaos weap I could use (legally: I did get one of the two chaos 1h with 2h stats... which I decided to keep but not use... it was normalized at the first big wipe). I did get to generously, begrudgingly pass the single time I saw the Mara helm drop. I passed also on The Crusher of The Lady. And kept showing up at each and every one of the spawns simply to make sure realmmates had good gear. Then all the gear went BoE. My patience and investment in others paid 10-fold and I was gifted every bit of gear that the geared players, most of whom I helped get their gear, passed on to me as a kind of 'thank you'. After BoE, I was in gear after about two weeks.Sulorie wrote:BOE will be a huge mistake.
People will camp the boss 24/7, not because they want an alt appearance for their toon but because they want to sell the items for a lot gold.
BOE is a horrible bandaid fix, which doesn't solve any real issues with the loot/drop system.
All this just to calm down some alt appearance hunters? Don't get me wrong, I claim to have had the best looking toons on live ^^ but this is the wrong direction.
One week later, there were campers-become-ninja-looters at every lair, every spawn. The 'pay it forward' and 'give a hand up' attitude quickly devolved into broken guilds, broken friendships and constant complaints about those and the exorbitant prices for lair gear. There was an astronomical number of even the rarest,i.e., Mara and Blackguard helm at prices only gold-dupers (who didn't exist yet, at least not in great numbers) could afford. The natural progression was a proliferating pop of gold-dupers, then gear dupers, then the mailbox/bag swap exploit dupe..... Was a god damned pathetic sight. Those of us who as a personal rule, don't participate in exploits, other than reporting them, were faced with daily ass-kickings, al a tea bagging and insults, or invest a rather inordinate amount of time finding specific groups of NPCs to farm for most of the time we would usually be patrolling the lake and hitting SCs.
The outcry became Return of Farming, no one's RvRing, no SCs popped....
Then the devs did the unspeakable (and best damn thing to happen in forever) and wiped the slate. Those of us who paid attention to the details of the wipe donned our much valued blue gear even though we now outleveled/outgeared those items because cap had increased, emptied and rechecked to insure emptiness of our mailboxes and were greeted post wipe with that blue gear, I just don't remember if it was in our bags or banks, BUT no longer bound, still with the BoE stat. I gave away a lot of the gear I'd acquired, read "been using" at the time because the level cap was raised and it was, with the new patch and changed drop rates giving incentive to go kill someone. I sent the the Crusher of The Lady (now with the correct slot icon AND appearance of 'spiked skull' to my baby Mara, along with a ton of other gear that had become unbound to him and other toons I someday will have time to level. Because I'm a vanity mode nerd (for the love of T'zeench, how do I get trophies???!!) I kept the Mara helm and proudly use it's appearance on every piece of gear that allows appearance change. I feel I earned it. Kept the Chosen BQ helm as well and will use it for appearance when I can. Again, my time investment in others solely for the 'pay it forward' effect is justification enough. I also kept the Lady's Magus stave. Other than the four other pieces only two of which I actually won the roll on while playing the correct toon, I only have three pieces after all that time investment.
Not one of those appearances saves me, my group, war band, realmmates nor my ego when I get stomped by one or a group of players who flat outplays me, whether I may be dropping BiS gear during battle or not. I sincerely wish that I'd not bought into the vanity mode insofar as it cost me investing time getting better at what RoR is here for: RvR; choosing not to hang with friends, instead solo farming NPCs I began to believe were 'mine' sometime chewing others out for 'stealing MY kills'. Pathetic. Not in the spirit of RvR, nor in realmmates.
Those who repeat the fact that unless you do NOTHING but camp lairs from level 9 on and with BoP hope against hope that everyone has auto-loot off, and that if there's loot master, they do it right... even with BoE gear, hope in the goodness of others.... are giving you good advice. Forget it, move on, level up and create memories of battles that will live much longer than one in which you camped a t1 lair boss for months for an item that improves nothing except in the eye of the wearer.
My opinion? **** that shitty T1 lair gear. You're here for RvR. Help everyone who asks every time with NO EXPECTATION of reward or payment. Those folks who stick around will remember, and talk about, how you selflessly helped them get a piece of gear, not wanting even to get paid to help. When T4 becomes reality ( <3 to the Devs) your time investment and good attitude WILL BE REMEMBERED and REWARDED.
Campaign instead for greater drops of whatever's necessary for trophies. One can create quite a unique look with the options (that were) allowed (in W.A.R.) that will trump any T1 memory of camping lairs hours on end.
