Maybe if they took a poll of All Access players who did NOT buy the expansion, they would have learned a lot more. I'd be happy to take that poll.
I was part of the poll. Positives: - Briny is clickable Negatives: - Small zones - Difficult to navigate zones (Degmar, the Lost Castle, Caverns of Endless Song) - Mobs have too much HP (making for long boring fights) - Brothers Island is so small it can be camped by a single player (boxing) - Removing flagging requirements to access Brothers Island less than 2 months after expansion release, after most of the hardcore players had to earn flagging privileges to get to Brothers Island was a no no, made me stop doing progression altogether as maybe further flagging removal is coming. - Spells and Group Gear are not a big stat increase versus CotF gear and spells - TDS is an extension of Tower of Rot and Argin-Hiz, which were also bad zones and tedious to navigate zones (ToR) Sostenes
How would you be able to take a poll regarding the content of an expansion you did not purchase lol C'mon now
not to pick a fight. but of the accounts that have my email address and have TDS on the account, you picked the one account that i rarely play. instead of the 3 accounts i log in and play5 hours a night mon-fri 8+hours a day sat/sun. so my question is. what does most engaged customers mean? the ones who will most likely not respond? the ones who have not played much so dont have a real good feel for how the entire expansion is?
Thanks for pointing out this existed. I thought it was just more spam trying to sell me collector's editions.
You "C'mon". "We see you subscribe, but didn't buy the xpac. Why not? What were your reasons?" Just because you didn't buy it doesn't mean you don't know details about it. Not exactly rocket science.
I did not buy TDS for one reason only, the exp nerf from older content. If that is removed, I will buy it. Would be nice if they would question those who did not purchase it and why. Can even filter down to the people that should have bought it but didn't. (like people with active subs, and level 100 chars who have purchased expansions previously) I have bought all expansions besides TDS, and have played EQ since 1998 (Beta 3). I pay for 3 accounts on 2 year subs all of which renewed recently. I give this game to the end of those subs to have the negative experience removed otherwise its time for retirement. I have done all aspects of this game, grouping, raiding etc. I do not care about the HA changes or the merc changes, I just do not feel it was right to reduce the experience from existing content just because I level past 100. I enjoy playing my favorite high level character with my lower level alts in older content to pretty much powerlevel them, but mostly this is done to fully explore and experience the content from the expansions at a slow pace. I do every quest, from every zone (or try to). Like I have said in previous posts, this experience is reminding me of the GoD expansion. By the time SoE reacted the damage was done and the players were gone. Back then the devs put their heads in the sand and everyone trolled the people complaining on the boards. This game lost a huge amount of players, and server merges occurred. Granted the expansions afterwards were some of the best, but I fear this expansion and its changes may have reduced the population even futher. Please accept feedback from the players who usually purchase your expansions, but have not done so and try to find out why, maybe you will get some feedback that could help sales. I want a active healthy gaming population for years to come.
I liked COTF, I just didn't like the staggered release. Had it come out all at once it would have been a strong 8 out of 10 for me. Problems I have experienced in TDS are too many though, where to start: - Hailing 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 x to progress a step in a mission, give me a break. - Spell drop rates, dear Lord. Some days are good, where I get 1-2 of them. Some weeks are bad. I play upwards of 6 hours a day in group content (almost all TDS since early launch too), killing almost non-stop from the moment I log in and have gone over a week without a spell drop. - Vis gear drops rates in T3 are just painful. Again, I have been killing in TDS, 6 ish hours a day, trying to gear two alts. It took me a solid month to finish their non vis gear and I am still working on vis gear nearly 2 months later. I would have been better off just farming HAs, but I can't stand them. - Small zones. with the exception of Combine Dredge and Thulisaur Island, every zone is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo tiny and are packed. Arx being the worst with 6 min respawns. - Named. Some are very hard to spawn, while others are about right. I thought we used to shoot for 1 hour to be their average if you killed all their PHs, even 2-3 hours would be ok. I have gone several days at, again, 6 hours a pop without seeing a named in several different zones, sometimes killing all of the PHs for 3-4 different named at a time. Another problem, though this one is more rare. Named like Warleader Jaelyce (not sure if I spelled that right), 1 rounding me. I thought it was a fluke the first time, but I had to kill her a bunch of times to get BPs and she managed to do it nearly every time. She would 4-5 hit me almost non-stop and when her AE would go off at the same exact time, /smash, dead. I tried turning attack off as well when she had the reflect buff up and it didn't matter if I had a real cleric, 2 healer mercs and my shaman spamming, I would go from 100% health to zero instantly, while disced /boggle. She is just one example, but there are a couple others that are capable of this as well. Insta-death isn't challenging! - Mezzing mobs. Sks got 3 ranks of an AA that is supposed to help with mezz and it does next to nothing. Whether I am in Arx, Combine or Degmar, if I pull an enchanter type mob I need a back up tank as I get mezzed every time, EVERYTIME!, most the time on pull. Thankfully I box a magician. Then there is the brother island progression task for those sirens that spawn at night time. I had to get real inventive to pull one without being mezzed or training myself (as in Snare-FD, HA-FD, grab with earth pet and go, then get mezzed while tanking). I'm still helping folks on this one, its just annoying. - Value? I don't feel as if this expansion was worth $40 (x 3 in my case) and I feel as if someone at SOE is laughing about it. It just feels small and pretty much a hassle to do anything. I play EQ because I enjoy it, it's challenging when done right. The problem with TDS is, it isn't as much challenging as it is annoying.
reposting this here because there's two threads going on at the same time. Can the moderators please close the other one because this one is bigger by at least an extra page? lol, it may sound good to say that, but it's a seriously flawed argument. Businesses that don't try to find out why they've lost a client do not stay in business very long. They will shrug and say "oh well" right up to the day the very last customer walks out the door, and then they're out of business. If SoE does not care about finding out why they've lost sales, they are guaranteeing themselves declining sales figures, and they will reap what they've sown. Please do not disregard my other statement either. As an ALL ACCESS subscriber, I actually pay more money into SoE's coffers than those that ONLY buy expansions, yet stay Free to Play. If every customer is represented by a dollar sign, then my $ is bigger even though I didn't buy the latest expansion. That seems to be what's being missed here. I'm an annual subscriber, and I've bought every expansion in past years. Essentially, they've been double-dipping into my wallet, and that should make the $$ that represents my business that much bigger. Now, suddenly, I didn't buy an expansion after years and years of buying them faithfully. BUT, I'm keeping my all access membership current. A good business person will recognize the need to find out why they've lost my expansion purchase business. A bad business person will shrug and say "oh well," and then they will blame the customer. They will say the customer has disenfranchised themselves, when really it's the company that has driven the customer away. It is incumbent on the company to find a way to win back the customer, or they will end up shuttering the doors and sunsetting titles. It sounds like this survey was worded specifically so that only TDS purchasers could really answer the questions. I'm not saying that this is a bad idea at all. Ultimately, what I would suggest, then, is that they need to do a second survey geared towards finding out why their All Access subscribers refused to buy the expansion at all. Juxtaposing the two surveys will paint the truest picture of what the developers should strive for in the next expansion.
The survey they sent was very specific about rating the expansion. Only those that actually have it can really give answers with any value. Those that do not have the expansion would just be amplifying the noise of forum complaints. I gather from Roshen's response to this thread that this is the internal team doing a post mortem type exercise as they begin planning the next expansion. They want to find out from the people playing the expansion what they like and don't like so they can do better. They want to know which zones people like. Why they don't like other ones. Which raids are better/worse, etc. Answers to those questions can only be answered by those playing the expansion. This is all about finding out what to keep doing from a design standpoint and what to not do again. Perhaps even to which people to distribute work. I do think there is value in asking those that did not buy different questions to find out why. But that is an entirely different survey. And it's probably one of more importance to the marketing team and management.
Yes. If you didn't get the survey (because you were opted out of emails, purchased xpac recently, or received it from some other promotion) just PM me and I'll get you on the list for The Darkened Sea survey.
Sending this poll out to all gold subs with or without TDS would be good and perhaps as a broader question. What is wrong with EQ in general? 1- Task system - Emulating wows task system, but not as smooth or quick. Kill this pickup this hail this this this this this etc get old fast unless they are a cakewalk. How about being EQ not a poor wow clone. Expansive content with dungeons where you camp stuff that is harder and better than in open zones. Look at EQ from classic through velious. The sense of exploration and being in an open world was there. Modern EQ's themed zones with the same copy paste tasks and spreadsheet loot tables are not fun. I cant remember the last time I even took not of what an Item I was looting is called. Its just another faceless upgrade with no character. 2- Class balance - The reason I have not bought the new expansion is mainly that my old main was a berserker. Since Veils of alaris you guys have systematically destroyed the fun in playing this class. I am not a boxer. When I'm on my own with my merc I get flattened by yard trash. When I'm in a group I get outparsed by casters unless I happen to have a bard beast and shaman. Pretty much if a class makes so many sacrifices it should be so damned good at its job that classes that do not have to make any of those sacrifices should not be anywhere near as good at that job as the class that does sacrifice. I am currently leveling a SK without PL's doing heroics. I see no reason to buy TDS until I have all the aa and gear I want for lv 100. 3- Telling people how to play - I myself would not grind the same heroic adventure over and over and over. If someone enjoys grinding let them grind. One of the most attractive things about EQ was always that you play your way. You can be creative or uncreative as you please so long as the end results are what you are looking for. Trying to push the idea you want people to play new content in order to stall the leveling process and try and to hide the utter inadequate amount of content you have just released is not fooling anyone. 4- Catering to the entire spectrum- There should be some kinda play option to have plane of war level group content on every expansion. There should also be raid options or tiers that are extremely hard to beat. Perhaps harder versions for the hardcore players with better loot or additional augs or type 3's. Even Wow has heroic options on raiding and its the most casual/slacker friendly game around. However if you are a hardcore player there is plenty of options for you in wow. Raiding in Wow is tougher than EQ has been in a long time period. My suggestion in your next expansion if you are allocated the Dev resourses is to make a landscape that is open and free with quests that are not just easily marked and revolving around one small area. (could have some of those for exp but more cryptic quests for loot and armor). Have Dungeons with named that require a concentrated group effort and trash that requires group cohesion. Have some outdoor zones with more simple named and trash so smaller groups and moloers (Pure melee included) can achieve something with their time if they are not grouping or only have a small amount of play time that day. Simply put if the resources are not allocated to EQ, you will continue to lose players. This game does not have to fail, but it requires attention. You have a long time loyal playerbase, whose loyalty is being challenged by your neglect of our game. If EQnext is a flop, guess what you are stuck with us again. As far as I know EQ1 is still your greatest earner so show the player base some respect and give us a real expansion and sort out the massive imbalances. Right now this game from my perspective is a mess. I am currently letting my eq1 sub run out for the time being, as my friends have gone back to wow for WoD. Guess what?! Wow is ten years old and is up to 10 million subs. The reason for this is the blizzard realised wow has alot of potential for logevity and scrapped their next project in favor of breathing life back into the game. As always with wow we have a very well polished product with cut scenes to break up the task system and take the players on a real engaging story. For the group game there are varying levels of difficulty for dungeons, with challenge modes for people who really want to test their metal and same with raiding. With limited Dev resources the fact of the matter is that EQ will continue to decline in subs as even the most loyal player can see when they are being taken for a ride at their own expense. If you want EQ to shine. Take the lessons you have learned over the years and apply them to an EQ not wow clone formula. EQ was the open world exploration codependency game in which your interaction and cooperation with others determined your success. We have learned that sometimes players need to do things on their own due to time constraints or whatever, so provide some easy content to go along with the upper end hard content. It would be nice for some upper end content in both the group and raid game to remain unbeaten for a while not because its a time sink, but because people need to work and work on getting it right. That is my observations as a player who has played since Kunark only missing out on Deathknell and part of underfoot (Due to RL commitments) and VoA T3- Current due to losing a lot of faith in the product. My SK is now 95 and if I can convince my friends to come back from Wow I would like to progress for the first time as a grouper not a raider from VoA to present content including PoWar.
Is this a way of sorts saying that everyone else does not matter what they think? IHMO if you wanted feed back on the game shouldn't you ask everyone? or at least the ones that PAY to play the game?
This is a survey about the zones in this expansion (among some other expansion related things). Anyone who didn't purchase the expansion really can't answer many of the questions and therefore please don't bias the data by asking to receive the survey if you don't have the expansion.
