I like collections. They are really pretty easy.

I know I lost 6 of them. But that was in the first week of LDON going live. Did not take long to fiure out what was happening.

If group took a collection of 21 -23 items no matter where or what Failure. Collect 24 or more items always won with time to spare.

Just finished a 25 collection in Miraguls last night. After the first 10 minutes we had 2 LD's and the tank died. 3 of us continued on with no healer and no tank for another 45 minutes or so before 2 of the 3 missing players caught up to us. Keaving out group 1 short.

It was close 2 minutes left but we completed the adventure.

Some serious flaw in the engine when a 23 collection is doomed to failure and 25 can be so easily done.

Want collections to work for you???
Go with the biggest number of items and never accept a mission with a collection of less than 24

I have found that EC collection adventures always fail, and I have done a lot of collections in many dungeons. One thing that may be a contributing factor is that some of the whirlwhind mobs are untargettable as corpses, even using /target. when you are one short, you need to be able to loot every mob.

I failed a collection mission by one item with a solid group of 65's in MM theme. We then tried a slaughter mission in the same theme with the same people and finished it in 45 min. They are definately out of whack. My only two failures have been collection missions so far out of about 25 total missions.

The reason I hate collection missions is simple...it is a roll of the drop dice whether or not you win. It has very little to do with how good your group is or how efficient you are. Slaughters are the easiest because it's just a matter of raw dps, with a decent puller you will win. Assassinates (sp?) and Rescues are almost as easy, as long as you have a map, since they are totally dependant on the speed and skill of your group.
But collections....they rely on luck. A good group gives you an edge on the dice, but it's only an edge.

Let's say the average dungeon has 100 mobs, which is probably pretty close to the actual. And lets say you pick a collect 24 mission. Supposedly there will be around 24 + 12 drops out there somewhere.

Ever take a logic class? How many mobs must you kill to be certain of getting 24 drops? In this example the answer is 88. Far more than any slaughter mission, and if your group is not killing at least a mob per minute you are taking a chance you will lose.

Those numbers are only a rough guess, since I HAVE been in groups where we average over a mob per minute and STILL lost collections, meaning after about 90 kills we're still short 1 drop. And on those missions it doesn't surprise me in the least when after finally getting our consolation prize, we clear the last few remaining mobs and every single one has a drop on them. Bad luck? You bet. So why bother? I don't anymore, and neither does anyone I group with.

Edit
Rather than just ranting I thought I'd throw in a suggestion to make collections worth going on again. remove the low drop collections...making the range say 25 to 30 # of drops needed. And then make it a flat half the mobs spawn with a drop. On average it should be equal to a slaughter mission with 50 to 60 mobs needing killing. And at worst in a 100 mob dungeon with 30 drops needed you'd need to kill 80 mobs to be certain of winning, quite doable with a good group.

Edited, Sun Oct 12 02:52:58 2003

I have done around 15 collection missions, tho none for a week. *Always* won with up to 27 items and well below timers. Last night, mistmoore : 17 out of 22 blood candles out of approximately 50 monsters in 90 minutes. Cesspools of Putrescence ( I think, it sure stunk )

Morue-Zeb

Was in a group in miraguls(sp?) and had a collection mission of 22, the first 20 seemed to of gone by quickly, maybe thirty minutes in total ( working with a group ranging from 58 to 65 ) the last two however took up the rest of the time. We didn't collect our last needed item until maybe 10minutes before failure. Have had similar issues in MM, with a collection adv. of 26, 24 of which we obtained before failure, the first twenty coming quickly while the last four where within the last twelve minutes or so...

The only Failures i Hvae are Collections. And every group i get, most ppl refuse to play a collection.

I have completed 30 adventures, each a collection except three. I have passed the 27 collections and failed the other three (one assassinate and two rescues). I have passed collects from 19 to 30 pieces, so I really think that you not being able to collect all is do to not going fast enough or just plain bad luck...

i have had success on a 20 collect with 50 minutes remaining to complete mission and a 21 with 10 minutes i have noticed that the ones where you have to collect less seem to go slow but if you are lucky you can complete them faster. these adventures were in Mistmoore to collect Vampire fangs(50 minutes) and ... claws

My level 48 SK was in a collection adventure a couple nights ago which failed, even though we seemed to be a strong capable group and moved along quickly. We were in Mistmoore Catacombs. I don't remember the name of the dungeon or what we were to collect, but I do remember we were to get 29 of them. We were able to find only 25 of them during the time limit. We decided to stay and try for the lesser reward. However, we were unable to find 29 before the dungeon depopped, despite the fact we had killed all or nearly all the mobs at that time.

I read somewhere that the number of items in zone was equal to 1.5 times the number to collect. So it would make sense that the low numbers fail more often. If you need to collect 20, that means that the zone only has 30. But if you need to collection 36, th en the zone has 54...lot better chance of having one drop.

-Pupp

lvl 50-57s,

30 seems to be the magic number, when there are 30 of an item to collect it is easy. Numbers of 20-24 are EXTREMELY difficult. Even at 29 it's quite a bit more difficult than at collecting 30.

Last collection I lost we had to collect 29 of an item and were a bit ahead of time, once we only needed 3 more they because much more rare to find. We complete the mission a few minutes after we got the "You have failed" notice. On collections of 30 or more we usually finish 10-25 minutes ahead of time.

Same here. Only ones i have failed are the low amount collections. Also it seems as we get close to having it with about 3 left to collect and 20 minutes on the timer, nothing will drop. Seen this in every zone.