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

If filthy dolphins are allowed to use those ports, we better be able to!

Stupid phone posts haha that's what I get .

As the co-leader of a raiding guild that is also home to lots of returning and casual players, I quite like the group dynamic of this expansion. It's not true that the expansion is 'boxing-proof' (not that I really care at all), but it seems to be beyond most boxers on my server (FV). The content seems to have gotten people to be pretty proactive about grouping up regularly and getting daily stuff done. So I think that's cool. Only approaching one month into this content, but I doubt grabbing some guildies and running PoS trials will lose much fun in the coming months.

As others have said, the mob xp is pretty bad. When I'm looking to burn a lesson, I still go to HS/ST. Sometimes Mearatas if it's not too crowded (as it frequently is on FV), but for now at least the crowd able to get into the zone is a bit limited. So not having a 'grindcore zone' is a bit of a letdown.

Named mobs hit quite hard and have some pretty gnarly DDs/DoTs. I like that. I think it's cool. Even the mission mobs (two of the missions at least) aren't cupcakes. So I like that too. I'm not really sure how non-optimally geared tanks are doing though. If the forums are at all representative, not too well.

This is only my second 'new' expansion since I started with EQ (2016), but visually, at least, I find it quite refreshing to be out of Kunark. The new models look great and nearly all the new zones have a great presentation. I quite like the Arabic/Islamic motif with all the Djinn architecture. It's not just endless Sarnak-based stuff.

As someone else said, it definitely doesn't come across at all as a lazy copy/paste of PoPs. Thematically it's similar, so you get points with the nostalgia crowd I guess, but it's not just Plane of X 2.0. So I like that too.

I'll be quite pleased when the challenger achievements are un-broken though.

I think I get what they were going for with the diminished muhbis/TS route (which worked for me because I have all 350 TS!), but I do find the diminished muhbis drop rate to be just a little bit too rare. Not TOO horrible, but I could do with them being up'd a bit (My progression group got just 4 from the chests from our first time doing all trials and all missions.... I think that's a bit much).

My biggest complaint, however, is Stratos. I hate this zone. I find the layout to be totally obnoxious and seems to be made to be artificially crowded. I can't tell you how many times the vendors were trained on the first few days. I get the idea of forcing peeps to do progression (I run a guild... I get it), but why does this zone *have* to be the punishment?

On the whole, I like it quite a bit. We'll see how well it holds up over time.

Checking back in to say I got the Jann mask on my paladin over the weekend 1 month-ish after release? I tanked all the missions myself and I’d say 90% of the people I grouped with were group geared. I entered the expansion wearing visible EOK T1 (thanks to the bottleneck of how EOK/ROS gear was designed) and Conflag non-visible. I had 16k AA’s. I’ve done ALL the missions in this expansion with 1 or 2 healer mercs as only healers except for ash (used a real cleric for ash). This was done playing 3-4 nights a week for 3-4 hours a night played. Fast forward to now and I have 1 T1 TBL item and the rest are about 50/50 TBL T2/TS and I have about 18.3k AAs. My paladin is currently right around 220k HP/6300AC unbuffed WITH cliff stone. Going into the expansion when I first started tanking the smoke trials and whatnot, I had around 180k HP/5000AC

Overall, I enjoyed the expansion very much. This post wasn’t meant as a brag post or anything. In fact, I’ve seen a dude 3 box and necro pet tank with 3 healer mercs the 3 contract of war red con nameds which I was a little salty about because those mobs absolutely shred my paladin (although I have tanked contract of war with just 1 healer merc and no real healer, but damage was crazy spiky) and to see a necro pet tanking them better hurt my feelings, lol. From my view now completing all the missions, trial of ash is definitely the hardest through the entire expansion including all T1/T2 missions. There are a couple T2 missions that I find excessively easy, but will not mention them here in fear of seeing them nerfed . I would say if you aren’t going in with at least a real tank, some of the stuff will probably be pretty hard. Although I say that, and I’ve seen some pets do pretty incredible things, like mentioned above.

My last gripe, which I will mention again for the however many times, is the xp in TBL absolutely blows. Now that I am pretty much all geared/missions done from TBL I will probably go spend the next 11 months grinding AAs in HS/ST which is a bit of a bummer. Would love the devs to adjust/tweak the xp rate on traditional xp camps in TBL.

Alot of good in this expansion. 7 maybe even 8 out of 10.

First i would like to address. Trials of smoke.

The trials are not as hard as they appear. Each trial seems to be different difficulty then the others. Boxers struggle with them. But group of 6 people should have a good chance at making it threw them. These trials appear hard due to lack of difficulty in previous expansions group tasks. Excluding Skyfire (RoS) and Atribi (EoK). When doing these trials go in and pay attention to whats going in in the trial. Wipe and rebuff. Stop. And talk to each other about emotes. Dots. Resists etc and come up with a strat. Then go again and make progress. They made these with mechanics of raids but groupable. Dont rush. Think it out and you will succeed. Also i cant say this enough Geos Geos Geos! Use them.

Next to adress: progression.

Tials of smoke should have been T2 atleast. Pretty difficult tasks to unlock a t2 zone to unlock a t2 zone to unlock a t1 zone to unlock a t2 zone to get to the grand finally of chamber of tears that litterally by the time you get to it your litterally crying in a small room with 4 golems who want to beat you like a preschool child surounded by 5th graders. Yes what i said is confusing. But makes more sense then actually doing the progression.

Finally raids.

Amazing work. Some really fun stuff. My only real complaint with anything invilving the raids is the broken task on release day that basicly haulted progression for any guild that dosnt think like an exploiter. To get past that mission before first patch on the expansion was not possible doing it the proper way. So other guilds that dont exploit or think that way were stone walled. And now are behind. This for sure will cause drama. But truth is. Last year all the guilds that made ut past the broken mission were all guilds involved in the mass suspension from the cactus exploits. Good job guys. Glad to see exploit suspensions and yet still think about a way to exploit the mission rather then contacting devs asap and having it fixed. Exploit first ask devs later is dirty way of playing but hey. You feel accomplished dont you? Put the epenis away and maybe just maybe you will actually accomplish greatness. Its is a video game. Not real life. Really disgusted by the amount of praise the top guilds get when really if you didnt have explot on the brain you would still be working on T1 flags. My only glimmer of hope on this is maybe the devs will revamp the first t3 raid or overtune it for a week to let the legit guilds catch up and that would really show who is the top guilds are when everyone actually has a chance without using a exploit bypass....

Blah this makes me so angry. Trying not to offend but i cant find anyway to say it nicely.

Yes my spelling sucks. Born with looks not writting skills.

Bottom line solid expac. Hope the next expac is more planar type stuff. Would love to see a new plane of time type event.

I mean is DPS really an exploit? If so I guess me. I was in the group that beat contract of war first and i can promise you there was no exploit. And last year the mission wasn’t broken people got suspended for flipping the task to farm key pieces for VP which had nothing to do with raids anyway so not sure why that would matter to what your complaining about right now but I’ll give you that it was indeed an exploit.

So much salt.

/TLDR

"My guild is either bad or had bad dps so couldn't beat a mission, so now I'm whining about it, as if we ever had a real chance in the first place"

We all know what guild is winning this expansion and it isn't yours and wasn't going to be yours.

That was broken for sure... After cactis there was a gm that said something like. Completeing and recieving credit for a mission when the mission is not working properly is an exploit if not reported. Or something like that. It def was broken. I myself beat it with a group that day and heavy heavy dps was only possible solution for that mission. But to call it full out exploit nah. The guilds like RoI MS CT SR ROV Triton etc are all basically in the same spot they been in for past few years on progression. If the mission wasnt broken all of them guilds would burned through it and would give or take be in the same spots they currently are.

I understand the frustration but if you asked around for help with that mission someone would have probably told you how to do it

Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2018 3:09 PM
To: Prathun
Subject: Contract of War - Broken

Hi Prathun,

I posted that it is borked on the forums, but the progression cannot be completed due to the mobs depopping in Contract of War. Any attention to this is greatly appreciated.

Allayna - Machin Shin Guild Leader

Reply:

December 11, 2018 at 6:29 PM
We have an internal ticket for this issue and will address it as soon as we can. Thanks for letting us know!

Facts. They're fun!

Putting up the 10million or so DPS over six seconds to beat the bugged contract of war is impressive, but I'm surprised a raiding guild that finished RoS can't do it with the minimal effort of putting together a group of berserker/rogue/sks. Maybe I'm missing something on how it was beaten?

A high dps group was all that was needed. Like i said if dps is an exploit i guess just ban me for good and do me a favor lol. I’m not saying the mission wasn’t broken as obviously it was since you only had a server tick to kill the mobs before they despawned but we definitely did not exploit anything.

TBL is like DHHA missions..but harder. Just grind em until you master. You will herp derp some for awhile and finally get it right. Others will click. Whether this "DHHA" type expansion will keep people busy for another year is the real question.

well my only concern when TBL launched ( as a boxer ), was , if I would be able to win only one trial ( and yes I can trial of three ), , was not easy at first because boss ignore pets if in melee range, but it is not too bad now, I pull either at door or at the opposite side 1st , while my chanter use his runes .

downside is we need to kill a trial every 2,5 days to go to the second zone * empyr * , we are forced to ,,, ( yeah , some will say do the tasks to get the port clicky ) who require a lot of tasks ( almost all of them it seem ), most casual or boxer might not even be able to get and will be stuck at killing one trial ( if they can ) or always have to beg for help doing them , just to be ale to zone into the second zone into an expansion..

but for me I like TBL expansion.

So I’ve been away from the game for 6months. I boxed ros all the way to VP. People seem to be complaining about this expansion but is the progression really more of a bottleneck then cactus and skyfire was last expansion for the general population?

goodness no, they're just engaging in the ForumQuest ancillary fun times

Its not so much the progression but every zone being locked, RoS only had 1 locked zone so you had lots to explore even if you couldn't do progression. This time round if you cannot do a PoSmoke trial you are stuck in Stratos.

Personally I have a dislike of not being able to complete all quests in a zone before moving on. But all is completed now, so I guess if you play it their way you get there in the end!