so after the shock TBL.. what is playerbase thoughts?

Definitely going to be a lot of, "Can anyone help me get through x trial/progression?" this summer. Folks looking to do it will have to organize with other similar players to get successful instead of just log on and lfg.

Would love to see an option to buy the evolving gear for say, 10k ifrit coins.

Agree with this. I generally prefer progression path that goes zone by zone. Having the partisan task in Stratos locked behind smoke/empyr tasks, for example, seems a little wonky.

Additionally, Stratos isn’t a particularly great zone to run through with the tiny islands and bridges and ease of falling, etc. The expansion seems better when you’re past that, except you have to keep going back for stuff. =/

I miss the days of Shard’s Landing.

I seriously think they owe us a couple more large unlocked zones as part of this expansion. I recently went back and started Hero's Journey and the scale and depth of the Serpent Spine expansion really opens your eyes to how little content they released with TBL. Yeah, yeah all you apologists, I get it, the game doesn't support that sort of Dev workload, but they can't keep being so cheap and money hungry. I really think they need to experiment with new methods of content delivery that don't involve massively disappointing yearly releases of questionable worth.

It isn't the doom and gloom that some of us would make it out to be, but the early zone replay-ability really is low. Half of the content I have done I would rather not repeat. Too much requires thought out plans at the early stages such that I am hesitant to bring anyone along for fun that is under skilled, in fear that every time I do it I would need to teach someone the intricacies of every event when I expect most players to suck.

I do that enough already in raids. Which are again a bit over the top for entry level stuff in my opinion.

My main guild has no significant issues with them, just the usual idiot mistakes which they easily recover from, but I don't see any of the other guilds on my server farming the Trial of Smoke raid, assuming they ever even beat it.

My server may be an anomaly but we are a month into the expansion roughly and none of the other guilds have won anything in T1 yet (outside the top 10 guild). I don't forsee them getting wins for at least another month and then another 2 months after that with weekly raids before they can attempt the next tier of raids.

I see this as being a killer for mid tier and lower end raiding guilds. Too much exclusive content too early in progression. We needed another gimme set of raids like the revamped temple of veeshan.

It's more fun the higher up your friend skill set lies. Like I have had some fun with it. But I have had a good number of awful experiences with it too.

I see many people haven't gone through the 7 stages of grief yet to realize where we are at with this game. Many people need to go through these steps in order to truly understand that something they love no longer is what it used to be. You can kick and scream all you want but the reality is, it isn't going to improve to what it used to be. The sooner you come to that realization, the happier you will be.

All we can do is report issues, give suggestions and wait for them to be fixed.

Yeah, I kind of thought the same thing.

Was it supposed to have been completed 2 weeks after release? I think not.

Can't kill fast enough to get rid of any before more come. S'ok, I skipped a few trials and am banging my head against Strange Magic atm.

I know I have been kinda critical of this expansion in other places but overall I actually really like it. It is a beautiful expansion, I can tell a lot of work went into the mobs modeling and the zones. In particular I think Esianti and Stratos are just lovely. I disagree with the comment earlier about the lore not making a lot of sense, I think it actually does. The elements are always in conflict with one another, it is intrinsic to their very natures, thus it makes total sense to me that their individual embodiment would also be in conflict with one another.

My theory is that one of the devs was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender when they came up with the idea for this lore. I have actually already taken to calling the Aalishai faction "The Fire Nation." Think about it, everyone was happy and then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked:

And who do they go after first? The Air Nomads. Okay. Maybe not, but it makes sense to me.

I really like the smoke trials. I like helping people get through them. I don't like how they work within progression. I think the changes made to Lava were near perfect.

I think drop rates for chase items and 18/19 augs are a bit too low. Not a lot too low just a little. While drop rates could be adjusted, in the case of the chase loot this could be alleviated by making them drop in more than one mission. Also, it really sucks doing fight fire and getting nothing most of the time. I am thinking that since there is no chest maybe the coin amount could be made higher or maybe a chest with some TS items in it. The end of that mission where you get nothing is so depressing.

I kinda like the non-linear progression in this expansion, I think it is a nice change and fits well within the lore. Although, with smoke trials the way they are I understand why this kind of progression could be annoying.

I do not like at all how, due to the drop rates, raiders will not have the ability to get all best in slot for their toons. I am sorry, but it is crazy to think that we will have this expansion on farm for like nine months before the next one comes out and still people will be missing gear. This is by far the most annoying thing about the expansion for me. I don't really care about Magelo rankings but, what motivates me as a player, is trying to get the very best things for my toon (Chase loot aside) and knowing that after a year of raiding my toon will still not be in her best in slot gear is seriously demotivating. The only redeeming part about this decision is that the TS items and the regular raid loot items have the same focus effects.

I really like how factioning was done in this expansion. It is nice that when/if you ruin your faction with one it is fairly easy to fix it and that fixing one faction doesn't require you to wreck a different one.

I am still rather confused about why resists were applied in the way they were. As a druid I get to see fire, cold, and magic resists and sometimes seeing who is resisting particular things is just really strange. For example, why would an efferti (fire) have really high resist to cold? Further, as a druid, I am very /sadfaced that almost nothing in this entire expansion takes skin to sumac. What a great debuff to make almost non-existent now.

These are all my thoughts for right now.

The comparison to airbender is pretty good, I hadn't thought of that.

And the real depression for fight fire sets in when you don't need the coins for augs anymore =\

The trash spells drive me nuts. I thought mobs in Overthere were bad in ROS, but TBL is worse. Nothing like getting dotted at range and showing up at the group at 30% hp for a midrange pull.

Structurally, I feel like EQ, or at least Absor, has a complexity addiction. I think DBG is basically pulling a classic Nintendo trick of using difficulty to cover up shortness. Rather than making everything complicated, I'd like to see some more straight-forward things that hopefully would take less effort to make. Raidwise, the NTOV remake some years ago was fantastic, I'd really like to see something like it for Ssra, VT, Sleeper's Tomb, something along those lines. For group content, I'd like better xp in the zones and less nasty abilities on the mobs. Tank mercs that don't get one rounded by even cons would be a nice starter, as would less AEs. I liked Howling Stones and Sathir's Tomb as grind zones, and they still seem better than what I can get in TBL. Just because I *can* kill stuff in TBL doesn't mean I want to. There's a reason why Skyfire has never been a popular xp zone. Also, some safety in Stratos railings so autofollowers doesn't drop everyone to their laggy deaths

I sometimes think to myself, a lot of games have awesome modding communities. I wonder what the players could do with EQ if we had tools to try to design zones ourselves.

Shocked???!!! Sounds like an ESD problem.

As someone who only came back to EQ a few weeks before TBL, at level 100 and having not played since ROF, I will admit my frame of reference is not the best. That said, it's nice to see actual new content rather than old content being rehashed. I like HS as much as the next player but it seemed a little silly dinging 109 in the same zone I dinged 59 in many years ago.

What really threw me with the jump from ROS to TBL was the spell damage. As a Wizard, HPs were never really a concern for group content. When TBL launched I was in full conflagrant visibles with a wide mix of non-visibles. Buffed I was around 140K HP. I did three smoke trials that first night and died probably 6-7 times to spell damage.

I then hit the bazaar hard and got myself up to about 170K HP buffed. Those 30K HP were enormous, and made the difference between dying constantly and surviving most fights.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that someone should be able to thrive in a new expansion without appropriate gear. But it does seem like the equipment jump necessary to go from ROS T2 to TBL T1 is too steep. It's particuarly ironic too, because already a few weeks in I'm seeing tons of gear - even T2 - rotting. So if you are undergeared for TBL, you have to improve your gear through older content but will then likely replace much of that stopgap gear pretty quickly.

Now that I'm no longer dying constantly, I am enjoying a good deal of the content. But admittedly I'm on a busy server in a large guild with a lot of raiders, so the grouping opportunities are better than they would be elsewhere. If I were still on The Rathe, where the average guild seems to have 12 people, I'm sure I would not have progressed anywhere near as far as I have.

Overall my biggest complaint about TBL is the inconsistency. The Smoke Trials are too difficult for being a roadblock at the very start of the expansion, and at least one (Ashes) if not two (Wending Ways) are just plain tedious. The static Mearatas zone is way too easy. By time you have access to Esianti you probably won't want to fight there. Etc.

Some difficulty tweaks in both directions would go a long way to improving the overall experience.

While I agree with much of the sentiment that a well played character of any class can get through progression just fine in this thread, I think an important point is being missed. We need our filthy casuals (tm). There's more of them then we 5-10% of the player base that are varying levels of overachievers that happen to also raid. Without those casuals, much revenue is lost for Daybreak and the risk to our hobby is very high when people don't purchase content. Having the gate be immediately upon zoning into the first zone is a bit of an over sight, let's be honest.

Let's take a look at that one zone to hunt. It's very small, it doesn't support many groups and even yard trash can throw you off the edge and back to the zone-in or to your death. Would you pay for that if you needed to use that zone to be able to gear up and survive trials? Gear is utterly awesome in this expansion, both group and raid. It's also needed to set the difficulty slider into a more favorable setting for said casuals. I can't think of another side stepping, non-level up expansion where gear is so important and impactful than TBL and I've been here since shortly after launch. The closest I can think of was how Qvic tipped the scales for raid guilds in that era. Being able to outfit all those visibles with such ease to your raiders every few hours was a god send and helped guild's like my prior tag win Tactics Trials and enter Candyland (Anguish).

The long and short of it, the trials have to be nerfed. They are the greatest threat to our hobby outside the scariness that was TBM and what a mess of a launch that was and the simultaneous launch of WoW and EQ2 that crippled this game at the time.

Btw, I have to say that I enjoy this expansion maybe as much as any I've played in at launch (which is most). I certainly don't want to take anything away from all that is good about TBL.

This expansion is small. In my opinion, TBL would be better received by casual players if those few zones were accesible for everyone and only the final zone, Mearatas, required completing some quests.

My feeling is that TBL has killed the game for me, unless something drastically changes and I don't see that happening. I raid, but outside of that I prefer playing by myself with the three accounts I run. The missions are not doable with my crew, and finding people to help flag all three main toons is just too much of a PITA. Which basically means that I can't do much in the expansion at all since just about everything is locked out. My plan is to finish off the older expansions (hunters, stuff like that) then fade away. The Dev's obviously don't want subscriptions from people like me, which is fine, there are other games I can play. It is sad after all these years but everything ends, and for me this is likely it.

Best expansion in a long while..

1. Progression is not hard. Yes some "parts" are tricky I'll admit.. however nothing is so OT'ed that its simply not playable.. Everything in this expansion (after the tune down) is were I'd imagine it should be for the gear / reward's its given.

2. The new Dicho update abilities are omg I love thems ! ! TY ! !

3. Newly designed zones .. no one can say the over played "copied over zones" .. Lets be real Ash is friggen awesome .. so is Aalishai and Maeratas !

4. AA's I personally wished there were more to get to remax, as it is I'm very happy with what was given.

5. Group Named are difficult enough to give me a real challange in some of them and I love that. Most are not hard at all But there is 1 I am thinking of that just whooped me over an over an over again until I caught the trick to beat him hah Loved it !

All in all.. TBL is my personal favorite expansion in a very long time. And I for 1 am enjoying every aspect of this expansion and hope the next is similar to this!

Happy hunting people.

That'd be cool. Maybe unlock on merchant after completing progression and/or challengers. 10k is about where I'm sitting now after doing a few runs of everything.

Otherwise, seeing them drop from more missions to provide some variety would be a good option too. Fight Fire is getting pretty old farming the set for multiple people.

I'll agree with this best expansion for a while. I never enjoyed Kunark the first time round so the last 2 expansions never really appealed to me.

I love that apart from PoFire all the zones are new, it is great to be able to go and die in places I haven't been before. PoFire hasn't lost any of its magic and I'm glad that it has stuck to its old feel.

It could use a few tweaks here and there, but nothing too drastic. I really think Esianti should be opened up to be usable without having to go to two T2 zones and spell resists could do with being lowered a bit more.

Faction is ummm interesting, the wizzys is no longer KoS anywhere! Just need to remember to invis other chars when I play them as they can't run around like she can lol.

AA was disapointing, but I still need a shed load on the beast so that will keep me occupied for a while, while the wizzy may be my main she is near maxed on everything she only really needs to do hunter and achievments now, beast is doing her collects for her!

The beast is having a ball this expansion, someone really let the kitty out of her cage. Learning a lot about what she can (and can't do) and learning a lot of new tricks.

Finished the group portion (carpet and illusion) in little over 2 weeks. Much of it solo/molo as my merc dies more than it should leaving me to finish mobs alone. This expansion has been like candy and not ashamed to admit it. A few tasks require a group like Enter Mearatas and most reds. Most part it took me well over a month to make my way through RoS. Add to the fact that I am on Povar (low population) and had little problem outside of the initial hoarders and ground spawn collectables, found the content (you did read everything through right?) to be quite enjoyable. The lore and tasks make sense but too many partisan tasks were just 'sail and hail' type quests. You go hail a mob and move on to the next.

Trials are trials. Once you stop whining incessantly over the group nature and figure each one out you'll see they are challenging at first but easy to finish, each and every one, once you do understand the mechanics. Again, not intended to be a walk through with your fifth alt. These are trials after all and Monte Hall has been dead and gone for many years now. Give trials another month and people will tell you where to stand in each trial second by second and even casuals should be able to pass. When I see people failing during the first few days and complaining it only means one thing to me. Devs did something really right but we have to figure out how to beat it.