aye nearly every returnee ive run across has been astounded at how easy it is to get xp and how easy it is to get gear (defiant) while they make their way to the 80+ range wehre 99% of the grouping occurs. If anything more oldschool players stop playing bc it's become TOO easy to catch up, they miss the EQ wehre they did have to trudge uphill in the snow every day. That said, ive seen only a handful quit as opposed to stick with it, both new and returning. The returning players that ive seen quit have 9 times out of 10 been traditionally fly by night fickle players that play for a couple months then disappear again. Like i said before though, maybe bertox is different but we have a pretty healthy mid-level playebase, plenty of guilds for htem to choose from and random people not guilded with them offering help and guidance on things. hell, i grabbed a guy his firstday in game who was asking about..somethign gates or storage or seomthing (on silver, non-caster) and i took him to housing to show him around, spent 20-30 minutes helping him build a house and showed him our guild hall. the next day his wife and kids all had accounts up and running and have played every day since then. Housing brought a good protion of that family in, but theyve hung around and played the game as well and are enjoying their time in it even though they ARE taking it very slow. No one has to take it slow, but no one's forced to speed to the finish either. It seems to me mainly that ppl that dont stick around after returning or starting their first time, do so because it's just not the right kinda game for them, just like eq's not the right kind of game for teh average wow player and wow's not theright kind of game for a large portion of eq players. same as farmville and star wars dont tend to have the same types of players. EQ has a niche and though it'd be nice to expand that niche some to bringi n more players (and we know therea re a lot more of the "rigth" players out there simply from previous playerbases) we shouldnt ask to push it to the extent that it changes the game taht exists into a different kind of game altogether. You'll gain more instant gratification mmo-adhd types, but you're going to alienate the players that have kept the game alive for so long in the process. some is good too much is bad. the huge aa xp boost alreayd in place SHOULD be enough, but if it's not then maybe somethign along the lines of lvl 70 (sicne cna group with largest level range in teh game, 47-100) and all general aa's UP TO taht level. I do agree that adding a few solo/moloable tasks in for lvls 20-60ish , maybe 1 every 10 levels taht will award 5 levels and at 51+ maybe 50-100 aas. itll be "easy-mode" but they'll still ahve to do osmething other htan log in, and will gain some experience playing their toon even if the rate is more accelerated in this manner.
Subscriber numbers held by competing products, guilds collapsing when they fail to advance in overtuned content (and developers ultimately agreeing that the content was overtuned), posts in multiple game forums seeing EQ as too punitive, etc. all show that hardmode EQ is an inferior to what it could be product. You have noticed the chill breeze wafting through the nearly empty rooms, the extremely high rate of turnover in progression raid guilds, etc.? In some guilds the list of former members is 10x the length of the current membership. Those 1,000 peeps that quit per high level guild were't happy enough with EQ to continue playing it. A lot of them are playing a much friendlier game. Only a tiny sprinkling of those departed 1,000's ever log back in and give it another go. It's the lack of being able to reconnect socially that drives most returnees out in my experience. It's not exp, AA, gear or even far too unpleasant for most people overtuned EQ (they remember how bad it often is). They know what EQ is like. What they don't fully appreciate is that they don't know anybody in the old neighborhood any more.
Everyone's personal experience varies. Most of the people I know who came back to EQ, or were new players I met that all later quit, did so for a variety of reasons. More the death of a thousand paper-cuts than one thing only. However, I've certainly seen a lot of people cite the grind as a big negative. I've seen very few mention it as a positive.
"The grind" isn't particularly pleasant for players that don't quit either Ronak (I rather like the accomplishments scheme). When a returnee reaches a level where they can play regularly with others they are still going to need to grind. IF you hate to grind then you aren't going to like EQ, returnee or not. Frankly getting a level or AA Ding every time you turn around as a result of OP gear or AA acceleration masks the grind better for a returnee than (for example) killing 8 mobs to advance the current level of your Stone Tear by 1% when even advancing it a whole evolving level sometimes does exactly nothing. If 25 "WOOTS!" a day due to rapid advancement doesn't get you all juiced up as a returnee the 0 woots a week at the endgame surely wont. I say this as a player who occasionally has created alts to level and gear up just so I could enjoy supercharged advancement compared to the glacial advancement my endgame main often experiences. If you hate the rapid advancement journey you're going to absolutely hate the last stop on it.
I think that's a bit of an over-exaggeration. Once you hit the raiding game it does take a long time to advance within it, but at least there is variety. People don't mind having to work hard to progress. That's why we love EQ. They just get tired of pointless XP grinding. As I said earlier, I'd rather see the 'proving grounds' of EQ move back towards extensive gated progression schemes as they were in the PoP/GoD era than simply grinding AAs. The former is working hard to progress while the latter isn't really work at all, it's just passing time.
In the past I advocated an accomplishments driven Training Grounds experience that graduates players to max level - 10 and something like 25% of the AA's at that level. But doing something like that would cost money, new progression servers and acceleration accomplishes pretty much the same thing, and there's really not much point. The only real advantage is that now there might be a clump of level 90 players where there isn't. SOE opted for rapid advancement. I can tell you it is WOWSERS very rapid compared to the grind all arrived players experience every day. When I tried it I was changing where I hunted weekly - talk about variety!! Talk about progress - ding! ding! ding! ding! I could check my 85 Pally and 75 Ranger alt, but I assure you their something like 90 and 15 days played is nothing like my main's 1000+ day played. If one hates the accelerated grind, you'll not like the arrived at current max level grind. It's a grind is not sufficient reason to entirely forgive some players from doing it when in current content players do it every day. Enjoy the much more frequently punctuated by Dings and Woots accelerated grind while it lasts.
Anything that brings more people to the raid game sooner is okay in my book. It's the real meat and potatoes of EQ that I think a lot more people would realize if it didn't take so much solo time to get there. I've got toons with more days logged on them then I'd like to admit, but that was then and this is now. And now I'd rather share more time with others in current content.
Twelve thousand assignable AA. Thirteen thousand by later this year, most likely. I don't see why all the gnashing of teeth over auto granting three or four thousand passive AA. Sure, you could make it be a questing thing where you get those passive AA as you explore, or do this quest, or that quest, but the reality is that would take a lot more work to implement, and resources are in short supply.
Most people molo rather than solo. I can't speak for paladins, but in order to kill solo efficiently and quickly for a SK you are looking at a pretty good investment in AAs to begin with. Far more than a few hundred.
Other than the overtuned content, most of the problems are created by the players themselves and not so much the game. Throwing in a few thousand AA for free will only get people to that realization faster.
At the end of the day - we play games to have fun. Fun is different for everyone. I can only testify from the perspective of an old raider who came back to his characters with zero AA at level 60. I can tell you first hand that doing the AA grind every 5 levels is taking its toll on me. Everyone in the game (and SOE) benefits from getting us to level 90+ with competitive AA. For new players - we are getting access to all content and access to the larger guilds. For old players - more people at your level should not be seen as a negative - but sometimes haters will hate I guess For SOE - I have no reason to shell out money for the game until I am hitting limits (level, aa, merc, content, etc). Because I am spending weeks leveling (I do not have anyone to powerlevel me), I am spending my Everquest honeymoon grinding the same set of mobs in the same zone for days on end because I do not want to outlevel my aa. I am spending the hours at which I am most engaged - and most willing to spend money - reminding myself of the absolute drudgery that was the original grind to 50 and then to 60 in Kunark. Not good. You guys who are seriously arguing that "EQ = grind! leave it alone!" have lost objectivity and perspective in the wider world of MMO's. I would advise you to try to level a new character to 90 with 1000+ aa without powerleveling, hand me downs, gifts of platinum, etc. It is not as magical as you think it is.
There's plenty of people like that. But how would you hear from them if they quit, it's not like you can talk to them. I don't play EQ anymore but I still use it to chatter. I had the choice to join Final Fantasy XIV ARR beta and I'm playing that now. Simple reasons why I chose to play FF XIV ARR as my main game over EQ: *I have 1 account, I don't have 3 anymore, no need to multibox, cheaper too *I am on par with everyone else *I have no AA and XP mountain to climb before I can play with others *it's fun The XP and AA mountain, especially at the high-end is just too much for most people. There's no fun in trying to catch up for the sake of catching up. Why waste that sort of time when you could be having fun right from the start by hopping onto any game out right now. The current XP and AA mountain really serves no one.
I was gone for 3 years and recently returned. I went from 85/1300 to 90/2200 in about 5 weeks (no powerleveling). The AA mountain does not seem that bad from my perspective. Yes I know I'm in the accelerated aa range and think that the current boost to 4k aa is sufficient for peeps to get to the "needed aa's". I see aa's as something to grow into and learn the various aa lines rather than having 50 abilities dropped in my lap and I have no clue what anything is good for. I played EQ2 during my absence. Too much was given away or dumbed down in EQ2. EQ is meant for those who want a challenge. If I sign up 1 day before the 42 km marathon, should the event organizers let me only run 10 km because I obviously did not have as much time to prepare for an endurance event?
I hope sooner than later! I've been back since December and grinding 700 AA's on one char and several hundred more on others is starting to take a toll. It's NOT fun playing catchup after a 6 year layoff. Quitting for a second time will be permanent because I KNOW coming back at a later date will be simply more of the same catchup game. No Thanks!
While most raid guilds afaik require on the order of 5000AA's (and make some exceptions), I've seen both returnees and new apps with around 3000 do well enough to get tagged. It's pretty easy to get another 1 or 2000AA especially in RoF. Someone with a bunch of the core AA's joins, they group often, and in short order they have 5K AA's and are able to perform in a raid setting. It doesn't take anything like 5000 AA's to be viable in group content. 90/2200 is pretty good btw - grats.
