Treasure Maps

[Charley27]

Hello =)
When I used to do treasure maps before the change was put in to make the high end magic items more rare, I admit... It was too easy to do a few maps and end up with at least 1 really good item. (Back then +25 Vanq Hallys were 50k not 250k). Anyways I've been doing A LOT of Thuning lately (As you may have noticed from my posts on the forums, and asking to buy maps in IRQ). I've done easily 100+ Tmaps over the last week (Mostly lvl 3+). I do it for the enjoyment of the hunt, and the modest amount of gold that I make... Because finding good magic items (mainly weapons) seems impossible. Armor is alright, Fortification I see kind of often, and the occasional Invuln. It just seems the loot is too disappointing - although I never spent any time treasure hunting back in the day.
I've started looking, but can't find any online proof of the type of loot to expect from treasure chests. I have heard people say that it was more common to find nicer items back then, but words aren't enough. So if any of you other avid Thunters have the time, please try to do a bit of research to see if we can find documented proof of what treasure was like during the T2A era so we can try to make Thunting a little more fun & of course, era accurate.

Thanks,
-Charley

[Derrick]

From Stratics:
Nov 16 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/199911160631 ... easure.htm
Mar 12 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/200003121042 ... easure.htm

The table at the bottom gives a estimation of chest contents.

[Roser]

From Derricks links...

"Remove Trap" (to safely remove the trap you found). The spell "Telekenisis" may suffice for 1st-level chests. Strong characters may try to just open the chest and take the damage.

Open the container by double-clicking on it. If you did not remove the trap then it is advisable to use the "Telekinesis" spell from a safe distance to avoid the damage. Alternatively, strong characters may try to just take the damage, but chances are the effects of the trap will kill you.

The skill necessary to open the chests and detect the traps therein is scaled to their difficulty -- magic will only get you so far, and only grandmaster rogues will be able to open the most difficult treasure chests. Only level one and two chests can be opened with magic, the caster has to have a minimum Magery skill of 50.

Currently Telekenisis works on all treasure chest levels. This line imply s that it should only work on level 1 chests, and either the Remove Trap skill or a sacrifice of life is to be made when opening the chest.

A shovel or pickaxe (to dig for the treasure)

Currently pickaxes do not work to dig up treasure.

[Kaivan]

From Derricks links...

"Remove Trap" (to safely remove the trap you found). The spell "Telekenisis" may suffice for 1st-level chests. Strong characters may try to just open the chest and take the damage.

Actually this is not the case. Telekinisis works on any level treasure chest. A quick search of the newsgroup posts makes this clear.

Open the container by double-clicking on it. If you did not remove the trap then it is advisable to use the "Telekinesis" spell from a safe distance to avoid the damage. Alternatively, strong characters may try to just take the damage, but chances are the effects of the trap will kill you.

The skill necessary to open the chests and detect the traps therein is scaled to their difficulty -- magic will only get you so far, and only grandmaster rogues will be able to open the most difficult treasure chests. Only level one and two chests can be opened with magic, the caster has to have a minimum Magery skill of 50.

Currently Telekenisis works on all treasure chest levels. This line imply s that it should only work on level 1 chests, and either the Remove Trap skill or a sacrifice of life is to be made when opening the chest.

Actually, the first sentence talks about the task of removing the trap and cites the use of remove trap or telekinisis for the job (without citing any limitations). The second sentence talks directly about the use of magic to unlock the chest itself, which is limited to level 2 chests in the best of cases, and requires a minimum effective magery skill to be useful (newsgroup searches can confirm this).

A shovel or pickaxe (to dig for the treasure)

Currently pickaxes do not work to dig up treasure.

It looks like a small bug requires that you have a shovel in your backpack in order to dig for treasure. It is possible to use a pickaxe, but only if you have the shovel as well.

[Derrick]

Currently pickaxes do not work to dig up treasure.

It looks like a small bug requires that you have a shovel in your backpack in order to dig for treasure. It is possible to use a pickaxe, but only if you have the shovel as well.

Thanks. Found the problem, will be fixed in next patch.

[TheMessy]

Hello =)
When I used to do treasure maps before the change was put in to make the high end magic items more rare, I admit... It was too easy to do a few maps and end up with at least 1 really good item. (Back then +25 Vanq Hallys were 50k not 250k). Anyways I've been doing A LOT of Thuning lately (As you may have noticed from my posts on the forums, and asking to buy maps in IRQ). I've done easily 100+ Tmaps over the last week (Mostly lvl 3+). I do it for the enjoyment of the hunt, and the modest amount of gold that I make... Because finding good magic items (mainly weapons) seems impossible. Armor is alright, Fortification I see kind of often, and the occasional Invuln. It just seems the loot is too disappointing - although I never spent any time treasure hunting back in the day.
I've started looking, but can't find any online proof of the type of loot to expect from treasure chests. I have heard people say that it was more common to find nicer items back then, but words aren't enough. So if any of you other avid Thunters have the time, please try to do a bit of research to see if we can find documented proof of what treasure was like during the T2A era so we can try to make Thunting a little more fun & of course, era accurate.

Thanks,
-Charley

The last level 5 map I did the only decent items were a durable bow of power and a broadsword of power. Then I get an invul piece out of the next L1 map I do, not really any incentive to do the higher level maps except for the gold. (and it is a lot more fun with the tougher mobs)

[Charley27]

From Stratics:
Nov 16 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/199911160631 ... easure.htm
Mar 12 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/200003121042 ... easure.htm

The table at the bottom gives a estimation of chest contents.

Those figures seem dead on - it's just the very low frequency of higher end gear... I couldn't tell ya how many Tmaps I've done - but my gem collection had over 500 of each and my spell scroll chest weighed over 5k stones before I sold them - and out of all that I've found VERY few weapons worth placing on my vendor or using in PVP... In the vary rare chance a vanq weapon is found, it has no tactics bonus (and vice versa)... If a good weapon IS found, it's usually a pickaxe of shepard's crook lol =/

Armor seems to be pretty well balanced, I've accumulated a lot of fortification pieces and a few invlun... Charged weapons also seem balanced well, as does charged jewelry.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are very many avid Thunters, so my voice is pretty weak =/

[tanmits]

I've been picking locks and hunting maps for a while here and tend to agree. But I've thought it through... there are already a ton of good magic weapons floating around on the cheap. No halberds, sure, but you don't need a +20 power hally to win every fight. With a smaller community, it seems like we have more good magics than we actually do because they change hands so often and in such visible ways (auctions).

Also, it seems like the weapons come shittier because we're looking for two positive mods: tactics and damage. For armor, we really only need the AR bonus, so good armor only seems to be dropping more often.

In LP chests I still have yet to get a good halberd (of any tactics/damage mod) in thousands and thousands of them. All the level 3+ maps I do are severely disappointing. I had an epic run of 3 level 5's that dropped literally no serviceable weapon or armor--got a spell reflect hat and an invis bracelet. On the other hand, I've heard of people doing 3 level 1s in a row at the same location and getting 3 powers and vanq.

It's a crap shoot.

[Charley27]

Tan it's not a crap shoot it's worse... I've easily done 300+ maps in the last 2 weeks or so - all lvls...
I average 1 vanq weap every 28 maps, and I've seen ONE +25 vanq wep in all of those maps... it was a cutlass...
Just dosen't seem fair *cries*

[Tiwstacain]

fantastic statistics Charley, I now know that in the 130 lvl 1 maps that i have i shall get a decent wep




TC

[Ragancy]

I think it's fine the way it is.

High-end magic weaps should be extremely, extremely rare.

[Layt]

IMO, random is random. I did 5 tmaps this week (1 lvl 5, the rest 1-4) and I got 2-3 vanqs. I think it's as simple as 'more magic items means more chance to find good, and even MORE chance to find crap'