Can someone explain this to me? I'm confuzzled.

[Lesrider]

I've been trying to join PUGs to finish up ao3 quests. Out of all the games I've joined, only one cleared the middle. I don't understand this, as all the games I've joined had some players under lvl 53, some full parties of 50-51. You get experience for killing those guys off AND it makes it easier when you pop back into the middle to change portals. I don't understand why people are skipping them. Can someone explain?

[Acyer]

Its like the extra 20-30 seconds is too much time for them i guess;)

[Riccits]

when ur lagging its better clear em. if not, when u return, for example as bear, immediatly use beckon and run and stomp and run to next portal.
i think when u do VL its only bcz of drops and no XP... and the guy in the middle need some time to kill..

[drewcapu]

no biggie.

bear: buff and beckon
mage: buff and ice
bird: buff and thorn and repulse

I only bother clearing mid if it's known to be a full run. Even then, u can still skip mid as long as it's announced after each boss kill where to go next.

[Lesrider]

Who does Ao3 for drops anymore? Aren't most of them worthless? I'm just doing it for the quests and whatever xp comes with it. I can maybe understand people skipping the middle if they're over the xp limit, but otherwise it makes no sense to me -- it takes only a few seconds for a full team to clear those three guys.

[Redbridge]

I agree, a clear mid is nice but provided the overall plan is clear then no real great shakes.

This is the problem with PUG games though, there generally isn't a plan, so I prefer it clear then.

Physiologic's farming VL Guide (here (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?16049-In-Depth-Guide-to-Farming-Alien-Oasis-3-%28AO3%29-Victory-Lap)) recommends leaving it clear, but as Lesrider says, who's farming for that now? I suspect the main reason for PUGs in VL is AO3 quests? Wouldn't that mean XP is still counting?

[RedRyder]

Who does Ao3 for drops anymore? Aren't most of them worthless? I'm just doing it for the quests and whatever xp comes with it. I can maybe understand people skipping the middle if they're over the xp limit, but otherwise it makes no sense to me -- it takes only a few seconds for a full team to clear those three guys.

im gonna log in soon to take a break from drawing lol. so after my smoke ill help ya out!

[Riccits]

Who does Ao3 for drops anymore? Aren't most of them worthless? I'm just doing it for the quests and whatever xp comes with it. I can maybe understand people skipping the middle if they're over the xp limit, but otherwise it makes no sense to me -- it takes only a few seconds for a full team to clear those three guys.

some ppl may never played VL, so they try out..? when they want XP they should farm CtK.
and they who wanna do quests for sure dont clear middle..

[StompArtist]

Clearing the middle is fast I think people avoid it because bad players can get the whole party whipped in no time.

[Fyrce]

I finally got to play some last night and my bear was clearing VL mid. I had that sniper/lorekeeper/etc quest. Bear was soloing initially because other groups didn't want to kill those guys, which wasn't helping my quest. I decided I was faster on my own :) I was just about done w/ my quest, had just killed Mynas when other people dropped in.

My bear ended up leading a very nice PUG group. We broke up when our fingers hurt and some had to go sleep. LOL.

Did Keeper, OL & Gurg. Finished all my Gurg quests -- diamond, etc. Had some below 53s, so some got xp as well. Hopefully everyone else got all their Gurg stuff done as well. At least one finished all their shards.

That was a very good night. Think I have some cyber and CA quests for bear and that's it for Ao quests for my 50s. Yay.

For me, I was clearing mid because that's 3 for my quest. For group, it was tons safer, especially when sometimes someone accidentally went through a portal.

[noneo]

Clearing the middle ads a lot more time (with comparison to the total time in Victory lap). It’s all about efficiency in my opinion, I would rather spend 1 minute less clearing the middle each time, and in turn get more VL runs per hour. Which increases your Pink/Hour rate

I rush past the middle every time I play VL and I never die, and I’m a pure INT mage. Just run the outskirts of the room, man shield, and get your spam pot finger ready.

[Lesrider]

Clearing the middle ads a lot more time (with comparison to the total time in Victory lap). It’s all about efficiency in my opinion, I would rather spend 1 minute less clearing the middle each time, and in turn get more VL runs per hour. Which increases your Pink/Hour rate

I rush past the middle every time I play VL and I never die, and I’m a pure INT mage. Just run the outskirts of the room, man shield, and get your spam pot finger ready.

Lol see that seems so pointless to me. I should have to run around, wasting pots and time? Clearing the middle does not take a whole extra minute unless you're soloing it. If everyone sticks around to clear it, it's super fast. And then no one has to run in circles spamming pots to stay alive each time they enter a portal.

And yep Fyrce, I was doing that quest too.

[noneo]

Lol see that seems so pointless to me. I should have to run around, wasting pots and time? Clearing the middle does not take a whole extra minute unless you're soloing it. If everyone sticks around to clear it, it's super fast. And then no one has to run in circles spamming pots to stay alive each time they enter a portal.

And yep Fyrce, I was doing that quest too.

I rarely even use a pot. My mana shied and 30 M/S gets me through no problem.

I was more talking about for birds/bears

And running the outskirts adds what, a few seconds? A lot less time than clearing the middle.

Honestly though, it all depends on what you want to get out of VL. If you want the most time efficient run, then don’t clear the middle. If you don’t mind taking extra time to clear the middle, then go with that.

Personally, I see no point to clear the middle. VL is all about killing bosses for drops, and taking extra time to kill mini-bosses just adds unnecessary time.

[Lesrider]

I guess I'll just never understand it. I loved rushing VL back in the day, but now if you still get xp from it, I don't get the point. Especially in PUGs that don't communicate much.

Oh well, almost done with the ao quests (even though I can't find a few of them), so then I'll just worry about it later when I get to it with my bird.

[noneo]

See, I never ran VL for xp. I only ran that map for quests and Pinks. So we have different mindsets about this map.

Agree to dissagree? :)