I Surrender

This thread even have a point anymore?

Not really, but arguing over meaningless crap is mildly amusing.

A: Hero's Forge TS items, Slot 5 augs, (if you picked a better camp) one of the myriad of new 7/8 slot +hStat augs, Hunter Achievement, dropped collection pieces, etc.

B: Part of getting the best stat mount in game, one of the best augs in game, removing debuffs from COD / Sul, etc.

C: How much benefit is the 10k in vendor trash? It's peanuts. There are much better ways to make money. Again, unfortunately, doing mind-numbingly trivial and boring content is the quickest way.

All of your examples are solely focused on XP gain or plat rewards though. It wasn't a level increase xpac and the new AA added were meager at best... If your sole motivation is XP and plat, then yeah... Gribbles will always win. That's your choice though. If you can't see the end rewards for doing anything other than Gribbles I don't know what to say.

......meh.

I think I'm just frustrated and need a change in scenery. But I stand by my statement that risk vs reward is fk'd.

Was always like that, i remember when everyone wanted to go to BoT in PoP and i was so bored of the (overcamped) zone and glad that i found some who like me preferred to run around in PoStorms, PoTorment etc which was a nice challenge (and much better scenery).

Similar in every game actually, there are always efficient (but usually boring) spots.
Everyone has to decide what s/he is looking for, fun or char maxing.

I wish they would at least stop nerfing xp. I'd go back to Valley, Grounds, SS or Dream Feerott! They need to realize that messing with old zone xp does not make people buy the new content. I can spend an evening killing in Dream Feerott and get 2 AA. Very unhappy. Instead of doing Gribbles, I just don't play.

They have a real problem making the newer and harder content give good rewards.The hardest parts of group progression give awful exp. Sure they're needed for some achievement rewards, but why can't they actually be worthwhile exp, too?

The same thing was true with TDS. I did all the group progression up to Arx, and the exp from that was horrible. Boring quests and missions are easier to deal with if they end with a decent reward. But, no, they all seem to end with "Here's 2 AA!".

I still tell people in the level range to do RoF progression and in particular, Shard's Landing. The quests there are neat, and the reward for finishing the zone is really good.

XP rewards for completing achievements/part/merc arcs were brilliant. Seriously. I'm not sure why they stopped that trend. It was a one time deal as well so it's not like you could sploit running the tasks either.

They throw out weeks of bonus XP and leave Gribbles in tact yet everything we get now is "garbage" reward XP; ie. if you're trying to catch up there is NO reason to do new content.

If you are trying to catch up then it's incumbent on you to run faster than those you are trying to catch up to.

Yesterday - with 4 day bonus exp in place, using LoTD for a half hour and 1 exp potion (obtainable by saving up free SC) for another half-hour. More than 1 AA per kill doing missions in TBM. I think I got over 200AA in a couple of hours.

I maxed out my AA exp and have nearly maxed out the 100 saved AA (and I'm slow, really slow.)

So those who are "trying to catch up" - from this point on until the end of the expansion I'm dead stopped. (Enough time to real off 3 or 4 expansions worth of AA's). You've got months to catch up where I'm sitting and you COULD be running. Are you? Do you even lift?

You do? Then why might I ask didn't you catch up last expansion when many player experienced the same thing - maxing out in a couple of months providing y'all with months of catch up time. Or the expansion before that when exactly the same happened? One would think you aren't catching up because you are not walking much less running much less sprinting.

Oh don't even start with the "raid geared" stuff. I knew a 2 player non-raider box team that nearly always beat expansions within 3 months of release - fully geared fully AA'd. It's not just raiders. There are non-raiders who do (a lot) more and do it (a lot) more efficiently than those who have made it a career to fall behind despite every opportunity to catch up.

Nerf the old content that gave good rewards, prevent the new content from giving good rewards. Maybe they ARE trying to send a message.

babblebot's post is a great example of an attitude that sends games into death spirals.

Instant gratification to make highly casual players who would happily flit from one beaten title to the next - showing no product loyalty is what sends MMoRPG's into death spirals. You can not make things easy enough for such players.

(As a dev once observed - players always prefer the greatest benefit from the least effort content. My observation - and if you permit it they will kill Moss Snakes in East Commonlands forever. You can't permit it.)

Create a group with every toon having the full attention of a player and every toon played well. No deadwood. No boxed Bard playing mana regen. No Wizard exhausting their mana on the first 10 mobs and then sitting back.

Real progress. Why would anyone do Gribbles even given the currency vendor at level 105? You do realize there's better gear and y'all are not acquiring it.

Dailies and other casual player acceleration. Excuse me, but 1/2 hour a day burning LoTD is NOT catching up. It's falling behind - each and every day.

Indeed, nerf older content designed for lower level players - there's no honor to be found killing Moss Snakes at level 105 and there should be no reward. And then insure that there's a range of difficulty in new content with "youngins" having a shallow end of the pool and advanced players more advanced content.

Older content is what you do when you are younger, not lazier. It should never be a consolation prize handed out to players who can not mange the next overtuned expansion. Having beaten previous content there was 0 justification for Flippy to be overtuned. It only took devs 6 months to admit it, encouraged not to by some members of a more advanced guild who wanted players to be as far behind in the progression as possible. BUT, the devs did admit it.

IMO the game is not intended to be a loot pinata with players maxing out while expending no effort. Nor so hardcore that only 10 guilds beat the first event at the 4 month mark and the rest told to be content with farming the previous expansion which they've already farmed to death.

Don't agree with this one. I have very limited play time, and do pretty much this (Lesson right before completing an HA, then get the Teek's for Grounds and Valley done with the Lesson running). I make use of the HA daily quests from ETWK, so I get a boost to the HA XP, and I get to check out different HAs each day. Been doing this since the expansion launched, and I'm >flying< through the XP. At this rate, I'll be max level with max AAs in a couple months. So even with this minimal amount of play time, I am catching up.

Tat

Glad to hear it.

BUT, IMO you aren't entitled to catch up by virtue of DBG providing you with rocket powered exp skates while my feet are shacked together for 50% or more of each expansion because there's an AA wall.

That's how they do us, then that's the way it is. It doesn't take equal effort to catch up.

It's always something. Crushbone belts, tumpy Tonics, powerlevelling, monster missions, task adds, corpse banking, mass-pulling, level xx tasks from Teek, fellowship experience, task banking, today it's DH HA. If EQ is still around in 2018 maybe it'll be something different. Whatever it is, people will find a way to sell it.

There's an obvious trend here. Avoid the old fashioned grind for experience, because it sucks.

What if it didn't?

Newsflash: EQ is already in a death spiral. Two options:

1. Leave things the way they are with faster turnover than Walmart.
2. Do something to improve new player retention.

And right now, that's TLP. Personally, I'd much rather see new players quitting after making it to 102-105 instead of throwing in the towel at 50, 60, 87, etc.

Personally I'd rather that they learned to play EQ by level 105 and accepted playing it outside of a nursery environment.

No, it doesn't take equal effort. And you should be glad for it. Two reasons:

1 - More people to play with, as we catch up. I've played on and off over the years, and as the AA's piled up, just gotten further and further behind. Now, with auto-grant, and quests that don't get the XP nerfed once the first wave gets through (like HoT did), those of us far behind have a way to actually catch up.

2 - You have the time to do "interesting" things. There are many things I'd like to do in EQ right now (2nd shawl, various progressions, epic ornamentation, etc) that I'm holding off on right now, because I want to get to max level. With limited play time, I'm not going to spend half an hour getting a group when there's so much XPing to do. Once I'm caught up, I won't mind spending more time LFG/networking/helping folks/doing interesting things.

As far as I can see, SoE/DBG letting the casuals/intermittent players catch up is good for the game.

Tat

Oh, and Matthew 20:1-16

What do you propose as a path to achieving this?

1. Do not provide an available at every level fast path. Acceleration should be greatest at lower levels and taper off as you approach max level minus 5. There comes a time when there has come a time. With agressive players being exp stalled for 2/3rds of expansions there's catch up time with out providing catch up content at the higher levels.

2. But, consistently provide an easier introductory zone in each new expansion including single player no combat exploration tasks, collections, and quadruped mobs that die rather easily. Let every whine that "It's Toooo Hard!" be honestly greeted with "No it is not."

3. Insure that there are instanced mission mobs requiring you to be part of a mission before a lockout to loot no drop items that are significantly better than were available in the previous expansion.

4. Make good use of previous content gear obsolescence.

In short, provide catch up BUT punish for lingering longer than absolutely necessary and reward heavily those taking on newer content. If someone wants to play EQ by sitting in PoK and chatting, that's their privilege. But casual effort should be rewarded with casual rewards and those should not be very good.

5. Allow "failure". IMO outcomes should be skewed toward success without making the game too exclusive:
25% get an 'A' - finish all content and farm it exhaustively.
50% get a 'B' - finish more than half of all content and very satisfied that their effor was worth it.
25% get a 'D' - Having fun but not rewarded very well because in a game where casual effort should reap casual rewards casual effort was made.

Galatians 6:7

Not sure what is meant by "Catch Up". Play EQ, plenty of things to do and have fun, almost endless amount of things. Play EQ, have fun, all the stuff from level 0 to 105 is worth experiencing. No need to rush to "Catch up".

What most consider as optimum is normally only nominally better than the other choices.

Play EQ, Have fun!