Cut The Chatter: Valen Korik Needs a Fix

Today, I’m bringing back “Cut the Chatter” a series that I used to do on my first SWTOR blog (it no longer exists). Occasionally I’d find something interesting, funny, or even poignant in general chat and I’d write about it. Today’s topic is something that’s made my head explode ever since Planetary Heroics became a thing in Knights of the Fallen Empire. I’m talking about the ridiculous spawn time for Valen Korik. It came up in chat while I was doing my planetary quests on Dromund Kaas.

I’ve spoken about it. I’ve tweeted about it.

@swtor can the spawn timer on H2 Possessed Hunter on DK be lowered to less than 1 min? Full grp, took 20 min. to complete b/c of kill steals pic.twitter.com/FkteIVIUrF

— SOTOR Podcast (@sotorpodcast) December 10, 2016

Now I’m writing about it. In fact about the only thing I haven’t done is gotten in touch with someone who can actually do something about it.

For those who don’t know. Valen Korik is the objective of the quest [Heroic +2] Possessed Hunter. He’s found in an open area inside the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas. The problem is it’s a very popular quest and he has a 5-minute spawn timer. The lengthy timer creates an unnecessary bottleneck and leads to bad player collision. Some people are nice and try to group. Others refuse to group and would rather try and out-tag you. Others are even more nefarious and will stealth nearby and then pop-out to steal your kill.

Just because Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place in the deep past of the Star Wars universe doesn’t mean that the quest technology has to be so antiquated as to match.

Since I hate it when people brings problems to the table without solutions, here are four ways that the issue could be addressed.

Make it Instanced

This is a nice solution, but probably not a simple one. If it were just a matter of putting up a green door in front of the hallway that leads to him, I’d say go for it. While it’s probably the ideal solution, it’s also the one that requires the most work.

Decrease the Spawn Timer

This is probably the easiest. Just reduce his spawn time to 30 sec. and I guarantee you’ll remove many of the problems. If nothing else it will ease the bottleneck and take the “fun” out of stealing the kill.

Reduce the Number of Required Quests on Dromund Kaas from 5 to 4

This is another easy solution. Galactic Command requires you complete five daily quests on Dromund Kaas. The problem is there are exactly five quests. If you reduce the requirement to four then people will likely stop doing it. That is except me of course. What can I say? When you zig, I zag.

Remove the Quest From the Game

This is perhaps the most extreme option, but hey we’ve all suffered enough of this guy already. I promise you he won’t be missed.

With any luck, the will of the Force will guide this post into the hands of someone important at BioWare. If it does, I say to that person, pick whatever option works best, but absolutely pick something. The madness must end.