TBL : the most stupid and absurd extension

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Merlein, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Merlein New Member

    The DB designers have succeeded in making the most absurd and stupid extension I have ever seen in Everquest:
    1 This extension is overtuned.
    I will not insist on this point, which is widely discussed on other posts.
    Just an aspect: with this overtuning, group geared people cannot kill any named mob even in the 1st zone. So they cannot loot any group gear from this extension, and, although they have bought TBL, they will be blocked in this first zone, always wearing the gear they got in the previous extensions, waiting for someone to shout: “wonderful things rotting somewhere”.
    Yes, this is absurd, but they could do worse, and they did.

    2 The first zone is designed to kill low geared people and make them regret to have bought TBL
    The first zone is a non levitation one. You can fall at every spot, and if you fall you take 200kHP damage. Casting runes on you is useless, it will not work (why? I don’t know). So, if you have less than 200k HP (low geared or with some damages), you will die immediately. More, your mercenary healer will die too (that’s new), and your corpse will go in some nowhere place where nobody can resurrect you. The only solution is a rez lobby (or an exp. Recovery if you don’t fall too often).
    Does this design (which is not linked to the overtuning but goes in the same direction) bring anything to the gameplay? Obviously no, absolutely nothing. It is just a way to say to low geared people (and not only group geared): “you have bought this extension, but you were wrong, it is not for you”.
    Very stupid isn't it? But they did worse

    3 The “progression” system is absurd
    Usually, by progression, you mean that you begin at a low level, then you progressively become stronger (loots, AA, …) , and go towards higher levels.
    But it is not the case there.
    To finish Stratos progression (first zone, Tier 1), you must do tasks in Empyr and in Aalishai (Tier 2), and only reaching these zones (I don’t speak about fighting the mobs there) is not representative of a Tier 1 progression.
    It is absurd, it is stupid. Could they do more absurd and more stupid? Yes!

    4 The requirements to leave the 1st zone are stupid
    To be able to leave Stratos, you must have a lock-out on a trial of Storms (3 days), unless you have already done all the 5 trials. Doing all the trials is an impossible mission if you don’t belong to a very strong group. So you must be high raid geared (or nobody will accept you in group), AND belong to a useful class for a group. In the other cases, you will have to redo the same “easy” trials every 3 days, or stay in the 1st zone. Blocking the weak players may be understood for the last zones. Here it is just to leave the 1st zone.
    You think they reach the top of stupidity? No, they could do worse, and they did again!

    5 To take a group mission in Empyr (or further), you must cross an instanced zone
    Unless you have done the 5 trials (see above), you must cross Storms to reach Empyr. For that, you must take a group mission, as it is an instanced zone, then drop this mission to take the new one you need in Empyr. But if you die in Empyr, you cannot come back without crossing again Storms, and, of course leaving your mission in Empyr. So, rez lobby again…

    That’s really a whole level of absurdity. Is it possible to do worse? I would think it is not, but I have not been far enough in the game to be sure, and maybe people who will be stupid enough to buy the next extension in 2019 will say “Yes, they did!”
    Yimin, Graves and Nifty Slacker like this.
  2. Pirlo Augur

    Ibtl

    I will say this though.
    They only have like 2 people and a janitor working on the game these days and they are all overworked. We can't expect glorious expansions anymore .
    We should be happy they are doing anything new at all.
    But it's frustrating and I see your point op
  3. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Entire OP is worthless due to saying "extension" instead of "expansion".
  4. Slippry Augur

    The janitor got fired, the devs have to take turns doing his job, too.
    Gyurika Godofwar, Feznik and Pirlo like this.
  5. lagkills Slain by Fippy while guards stood and watched.

    If you're having trouble in group gear with named mobs in the first zone the problem lies between your keyboard and chair, not the game.
  6. WorriedinNorrath Elder

    I agree with the op. Maybe the devs will consider opening up the rest of the expansion to the 99% someday.
  7. Ecchicon Elder

    I’m honestly surprised that people have the audacity to post stuff like this after seeing that a guy is boxing all these encounters with an all group geared team.
  8. WorriedinNorrath Elder


    What guy that is boxing these encounters with an all group team?
  9. snailish Augur

    Expac is still very young. Current tuning and premise may in fact be an asset to The Burning Lands having appeal down the road (i.e., 2 months from now, future progression getting to it, etc.)

    Wax on, Wax off. Prepare yourself for this challenge.*




    *-gear and AA caught up in previous content?
    -working with a group/guild that is also ready for new content?
    -not raiding or doing previous content higher tiers?... can you get a leg up doing some new AA, tradeskill gear, other upgrades in bazaar etc.?
    -or... you aspire to be bleeding edge and make the commitments that entails?
  10. Took2summmit Elder

    Tucoh has boxed this entire expansion. He just showed a YouTube video of him 6 boxing the ash trial which is hardest mission in expansion. Important to note his 6 toons are ALL group geared. I've also now tanked 75% (havent had a chance at the other 25% yet, have beaten everything I've tried) of this expansion in my group geared 17k AA Paladin. Anyone that is saying this expansion is overtuned...not really sure what to say :/. As for the points on zone locks...ya, that mechanic is annoying.
    Belexes likes this.
  11. Liin Edud (Tunare) Augur

    I have to disagree with the statement that its impossible for group geared people. The family guild I'm in that includes a maximum of 15 different players (not counting boxes or alts) has been farming Empyr named for a week or so now. If we have more than 8 pieces of raid gear among all of us I'd be impressed. We are mostly T2 ROS geared with maybe 2 dozen EOK chase pieces thrown in. For perspective we have 7 people (about half our force) that managed to get into VP before TBL came out.

    This expansion is hard for group geared people but its not in any way impossible.

    The only suggestion I can offer without knowing more is we've noticed is that healer mercs have a hard time keeping up. I will concede that just about everything hits like a truck and you throw in the AEs the merc is going to compensate by not healing someone. Either the tank is going to drop or your DPS will all be dead from the AEs. Most all problems were solved with extra HOT and Group healing.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    I agree that the expansion can be frustrating to players for a variety of reasons. If I can play devil's advocate however:
    This expansion doesn't have an overtuning problem as much as a flat difficulty curve problem. A good expansion in modern EQ starts easy and ends up very challenging (RoS accomplished this mostly OK, Overthere was still too hard, but VP was a great way to finish the expansion).

    It'd be better if the Trials were much easier, or rather, if they were in place in the middle of the expansion, and if Stratos was an easier zone in general.

    The rest of the expansion is pretty well-tuned. If anything Mearatas needs a few bumps up in difficulty. The map I saw ahead of playing made it looked like a real ball buster. Instead it's a cakewalk so far.
    As someone who boxes a team that doesn't always have a mage, Stratos is quite a challenge to get through with follow. It has some severe lag/teleporting issues which cause follow to run my characters off the islands frequently.

    However, I haven't found a ground floor corpse that isn't recoverable by jumping my warrior in after it and spamming a /corpsedrag hotkey which drags him up to the zone in. This is an absurd solution, but tbh it's kind of fun.
    I agree that they bounce you around a bit too much for my liking, but the mobs in T1/T2 zones have pretty similar difficulty. Said differently, if you can't kill most of the named in Stratos, you're not ready for TBL and should prepare in RoS (or get help).

    From a gameplay perspective I agree that locking the players to the first zone (and not letting them into Palace of Winds and Realms of Ash) is a poor choice, but at least it's consistent with the lore where the jann have complex and capricious rules you have to follow.

    Another mitigating factor is that the Trial of Three and Eternal Cyclone are quite easy and a lot of people need to do them. So to anyone who can pull a group together it is only a minor impediment. To those who have difficulty grouping, unable to box and unable to play more than a couple hours each day, it's a pretty big hurdle to cross every few play sessions.


    I agree it's a little awkward to have to get the mission over and over. If it makes you feel better once you beat all the trials you can go to the static instance, and once you progress enough in the expansion you get a clicky that can port you to Stratos, Mearatas and Palace of Embers, bypassing having to go through plane of smoke ever.
    Nniki and Pirlo like this.
  13. svann Augur

    Merry Christmas to you too!
  14. Vdidar Augur

    This expansion isn’t designed for casual players. They will tune it way way down soon though.
    Chikkin likes this.
  15. Tappin Augur

    Most people are missing the point... You cannot design an expansion for maxed AA/Group geared toons and not expect people to moan. Not everyone 110 is maxed AA/Group geared, so naturally people are going to struggle. You cannot keep telling people to go back to old content they been stuck in for the last few years and max out your toon, just after they bought the new expansion.

    DBG solution is to make the content easier - this is bad decision. We are going to have the same old scenario with raid geared players killing a half dozen mobs per pull.

    The correct decision would be to add a few zones designed for group geared players that are not maxed out and allow them to progress through those zone instead.
    Yinla likes this.
  16. Syylke_EMarr Augur

    Tucoh covered most of it, but in regards to the falling damage thing... Just look down as you fall. It's an old issue with falling and lag from rendering objects causing you to take max fall damage and it can be bypassed by simply looking at the ground to reduce the number of objects you have to render as you're falling.
    Fanra, Tucoh and NeverPayForLag like this.
  17. NeverPayForLag Augur

    Ibtl
    Then the two earn millions or they are the slaves for the management who suck out the money..:p
    Rough estimation of sold lifetime-ships is enough to say that it is money in the game.
    The number of servers is enough to say that money is in the game.
    The numbers of average players on each server says enough about the game.

    Again? Not really.... :confused:

    Tucoh has Janns bought - all his guys are heavily equipped and armed and also optimized to the bone and he uses 3rd party software (ISB) to get it going.

    That does not make his achievement smaller but if you pretend that people should pay 5-6 accounts in Gold and an account for the 3rd part software to have the right to play this expansion then your are really somewhere far off. So pointing on Tucoh means to point on somebody who does it in a way the most people would normally not afford it!

    Yes it is boxable - like everything they ever will do - but only with much money and exorbitant much time and skills beyond the usual game play (setup they whole system for keyboard/network handling)!!! First do it for yourself in that way then you know what that means. It is an exorbitant timesink. Sometimes like doing an Epic in classic old days...:p

    So stay at least a bit in a real environment...

    And it is good to do so. Thanks for your ideas and the video. It shows clear enough, how it do it. Moreover that I am meanwhile nearly done with Hunter Achievement in Aalishai, Esianti and Stratos - without having all trials - I can say that if you have a bit more equipment - like seen in your video and posts - this expansion is possible to play. But it is surely not much fun for a casual who has not 5-6 accounts in gold and in control via the appropriate computer equipment.

    I am not fond of that expansion either and I didn't stop saying this. I don't say it because this expansion is not nice - it is - many things are done very well. The biggest hurdle is Stratos and the Trials. What are the solutions as long as it is in that state?

    Perhaps this is helping a bit -> TBL Stratos Summary
  18. Tucoh Augur

    I didn't even know you could buy the Jann illusion. I do know when you beat all the missions you get the jann illusion as a reward. I bought the cheapest version of the expansion I could (and it's still way too much, next expansion I'll probably cut down to a three man team).

    It's also untrue that my team is optimized to the bone. My DPS numbers are about 50-75% of what a skilled player achieves and there's so much utility / coordination I'm not getting out of my team because I simply don't have the spare APM to play my characters properly. All my effort really proves is that a decently put together team of group-geared players who play at a mediocre level can beat the content.
    Tatanka likes this.
  19. Ecchicon Elder

    I don't think anyone is insinuating that "people should pay 5-6 accounts in Gold and an account for the 3rd part software to have the right to play this expansion."

    The message is pretty clear: if one player can box this content (a player that is, by the way, demonstratively not "optimized"), then 5-6 real people should be able to handle it because they should be far more capable than one person.
    Pirlo, Took2summmit and Tucoh like this.
  20. NeverPayForLag Augur

    Then my apologize.. it was a wrong assumption. All your toon had the Jann so early. This is unusal to get the progression stuff in that way. That means that you have done in .... how many days.. ??? the whole expansion progression?

    Nevertheless - the outcome of that video shows it WITH the Janns and these help a lot if you look at the stats. Such an easy way is accomplished only after a longer period of gaming, experimenting and perhaps "suffering" a bit - I assume - in beta ;)

    If I say it then translate in having spent extremely much time into configuration and optimization (at least in my case I would describe it so). Your thread is long enough and many items need additional time even if - for your opinion and perfectionist mindset - this is not enough. For a -> Casual <- this will be far beyond the usual. I spent the time in this now too because without it this game makes no sense since RoS.