Truly hard for newcomers...

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Arborer, Feb 20, 2020.

  1. Vumad Cape Wearer

    Go play ARK if you want corpse runs. I hear you can spend a weak taming a single dino. The 5 people on the server my friend plays on love it.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    Is this not the point of EQ vs [The Rest of the MMOs]?
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  3. Vumad Cape Wearer


    EQ was not designed to work the way it does not. When I started EQ during PoP era with EQ evolutions the zones were packed. I made platinum by selling enchanted jewelry and selling it in auction in zone for a while. I played plenty in Qeynos hills and Blackburrow with abundant groups to join.

    The game is hard for new comers now because the player base is not there anymore. You are lucky to find another player in the tutorial. You might find a person or 2 in the zones as you leave the tutorial.

    So, EQ should be hard, but what is making it hard is not what makes it EQ. To the contrary it is exactly the opposite of what EQ is suppose to be.
  4. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Thanks for detailing your thoughts. I tend to agree. From a new player perspective, grouping is more difficult than the game itself.
  5. Buri Augur

    I actually did try that game over the weekend, with the free trial. No thanks, couldn't even get a foothold cause everyone had spammed foundations all over the starting areas, making it impossible to build so much as a fire. Constant failure with the deck stacked against you is no fun at all. I'll stick with Conan Exiles.
    Vumad likes this.
  6. Xenich Elder

    I played from Alpha till around GoD. I played a good portion on Test server. Max population when I started was around 300-400 and it slowly got up to as much as 800 before I transferred my character to a production server.

    I preferred it with low population. Keep in mind, during release, the game was different, much harder, much more unforgiving. By the time PoP came out, the game had been made far easier.Also, on Test, there was no real player trade. No EC tunnel, no Bazaar, no gear to buy.

    Today, the game is beyond easy. The exp is silly fast, with all the overpowered newbie gear, the game is a joke until you get up into the later game. You can solo without thought with pretty much any class without any real need to have a strategy. You just push buttons and things die.You don't need a group until much later. With overpowered defiant gear, tons of easy mode features, Mercs, etc...Hard has no place within the description of EQ.

    The OPs friend isn't a gamer, most of the issues weren't issues with the game being confusing, rather it was due to them not having any clue about gaming in general. Most people who played EQ when it was released were people who had some form of experience with tech and games, so you didn't have people completely oblivious about what to do. EQ came from a generation of gaming where you played a game, it was up to you to explore, figure out the world as that was the point. Today, games are designed to basically play themselves and the player just smashes button while they go on the ride.

    While EQ was group dependent at release, a lot of people spent time exploring and figuring out the game by themselves (be exploring and talking with NPCs, trying to find approaches to solo or defeat the content (ie emergent game play), etc... So while I do agree that the early zones are barren and lacking any means to group with people, the reality is you don't need a group, EQ is a solo game up until the later levels.
    Valdest likes this.
  7. Yemeth New Member

    If you have never come in contact with EQ prior, of course it is hard, its way way harder than most other mmorpgs, this game is "old-hard" even though some of the little tougher aspects has been removed such as mentioned above the "corpse-run", medding with the spellbook open in unfriendly territory, weight of money etc and so on.

    Still it is harder than most as it is so time consuming, I can safely say that as a returning player, having been away from this game +15 years, playing other games, but then again, this is the EQ charm, even though I found myself wanting sometimes to hurl the computer out of the window, because clearance number 151 in Torgiran mines and the 12 minute repop, didnt pop Taskmaster Waggad Brokenskull :( (which is only for the epic 1.5 prequest)

    I am currently playing a ranger that I managed to push to 84 (never been so high ever) I see that defiant gear is mentioned as a bit of easy peasy road, I can only agree but let us not forget though that once you hit 60ish, most new zones in that level range has mobs that hit way harder than anything else that can be found on the old continents and it only gets worse the higher up you go, it is also a matter of finding groups, on TLP servers this is easy, on regular ones though, nope.

    At 82, all defiant armor bits where replaced with Paragon Armor and me and a pal is trying to do TBM HA's for the remnants and armor that is a serious upgrade, we are however getting shredded in most of the HA's, +35k hp matters little when minibosses quads for 6-7k, in the beginning (5 or so months back) 4 brave souls returned, all wanting to try characters they had never played b4, now we are 2 left, Ranger and SK - not the best combo tbh, but we have fun and at the end of the day, that is what EQ is all about.
  8. Quatr Augur

    I would suggest a few things. First, the Paragon armor is good for the level, but you may want to check the Bazaar for Tier 1 HOT armor. They are required-80/recommended-85 and may have higher AC, which is key when tanking. Second, your tank will need all the AC augments that he can get. At that leve, I would make sure that every slot had at least a 25 AC augment and some had 30 AC augments. The hunt for AC augments will take you to many older zones where mobs are much weaker and you will be able to level up while gearing up. By the time you have a decent set of augments, you should be around 86 and ready to take on the HOT expansion (86-90). Also, getting to level 85 and unlocking the HOT mission for J5 mercenaries (if you haven't done the harder level 75 quest) would help a lot.

    An alternative method of gearing up is doing COTF missions. You can farm them for points which can them be used to purchase augments and gear. Some of the easier missions, like the three popular Dead Hills missions, are quick and easy. Back in the day I was able to molo them from the mid-80s through the early 90s.

    And this brings me to my larger point. There is a difference between "hard", "time-consuming" and "complex". Everquest as it exists in 2020 is not nearly as hard as it was in 1999-2005. However, it's much more complex. There are dozens of mechanics that new and returning characters are not familiar with. There are thousands of zones, missions, quests, augments, shrouds, seasonal and annual events, spells, mercenary tiers, regular AAs, heroic AAs, clickies, collectibles, evolving items, multi-binding settings, consumables, power sources, and so on and so forth. A new player doesn't even know what he doesn't know. An older player takes most of it for granted. That's where the main dividing line lines.
    Shanarias likes this.
  9. Arborer Lorekeeper

    Quatr hit the nail on the head in the last few lines. My friend really gets into things and she reads a lot of the online guides. But she will ask me questions about some of the many concepts mentioned in the previous post and I tend to answer "You don't really need to worry about that.. yet", which makes the game sound very very complex, which it is, or makes me sound flippant, which I can be. But it's a bit like learning a new language.. you don't worry about advanced conjugation of verbs while you're still struggling with basic vocab.

    Heck, some of this stuff I am very rusty with myself. For example, I haven't used a shroud in years and, frankly, who needs to anymore? Try to explain how power sources work to a true noob. It's not really worth the effort at low levels. EQ is replete with stuff like that. A noob needs to take the approach that full knowledge will come "eventually" and not to worry about advanced concepts at the beginning. Enjoy the journey, cuz its a very long one, but lots of fun along the way.
  10. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    This post pretty much sums it up.

    If you're frustrated because you cannot learn everything about EQ in a month, EQ is not the game for you.

    But....if you enjoy peeling back layer after layer of complexity, some of which take many months to master, EQ may be for you.
  11. Quatr Augur

    Most of them are not needed at this point, but Bloodmetal Inlaid Gnollish Totem, which unlocks a line of pretty powerful AC AAs, requires maxing out the Gnoll shroud. I guess it was their attempt to keep shrouds at least somewhat relevant.
  12. Dre. Altoholic

    Hardest thing about EQ is all the names in friend list and guild manager that I haven't seen in over a decade.

    Hardest things for newcomers:
    Default UI post-tabs.
    Surviving "basic training" without nope-ing right out.
    Not having a 'cycle nearest npc' hotkey.
    You try to slash a gloom spiderling but miss! x157
    Not knowing about Skinspikes VI.
    "Consent? What?"
    Still wanting to play after dinging 76.
  13. FJRQZ Journeyman

    Depends on server and time you play. I play on bristlebane. I'm us Eastern time and log in randomly from 1pm-12am even in the tutorial zone still there is usually any where between 8-16 players in the zone at a time.
    Dre. likes this.
  14. Veteran_BetaTester PIZZA!

    If you search /baz for 'ornate' you can find gear to your level.
    The gear is uber for low level players, lots of stats.
    The problem is, the drops don't give you enough plat to continuously buy spells each time you level. Each time you level, your changing gear every 5-10 levels and buying spells. It keeps you a tad broke.
    Near the big bank ( you can ask someone in /ooc for 100 plat ) is the tinkerer supplier. He sells boxes for a plat. 10 slot box. Fill the bank slots with them and your inventory with them. This allows you to carry more so you don't leave loot around. You want to sell ~ or keep ~ as much you can. Buy a merc. use Find. Buy apprentice V if you can.. V being the best 1 being the worst. When you can get to 85 and pay to play, you can do a quest to change the mercs to Journeyman V.
    If you have an old account returning, do /claim you might see goodies.. and also near soulbinder in PoK, search the loyalty NPC you might have 'crowns' stored to buy a bag o plat.
  15. Veteran_BetaTester PIZZA!

    Tabless chat windows here :
    https://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=6770

    How to install :
    https://www.eqinterface.com/forums/faq.php?faq=install#faq_howto_install
    And if you want classic_spell_icons do /loadskin in the game.. chose 'classic_spell_icons' and make sure Copy Layout is pushed in.. then hit Load Skin.

    You can revert by chosing 'default' when you /loadskin, make sure Copy Layout is pushed in.. then hit Load Skin

    You can make a new folder in your uifiles folder next to default. Name it one word no spaces. Copy the 'contents' of the classic_spell_icons (the files inside that folder) . Then, the tabless chat windows file, copy the content into that new folder you just put the classic_spell_icons into.

    So you have a new folder next to Default named 'mystuff'. In mystuff, you have classic_spell_icons files and the tabless chat files.
    when you /loadskin in the game chose 'mystuff' and you get the tabless chat windows and classic icons.

    Now go to ALT +O , Gen tab. uncheck Use Tell Windows.
    Right click Main Chat .. New Chat Window. Right click that Chat 3 or whatever it is called window. Filters - Tell. Right click the 'Chat 3 ' again... rename window to Tells. Move window and resize it to your placing. Now you have a specific tell window. Do this with any window you want . Guild, General chat, Raid, Group, whatever you want.. When right clicking to do filter.. also right click and chose channel.
  16. Dre. Altoholic

    I'm not a newcomer. Thanks for making my point though.
    Tucoh likes this.
  17. Veteran_BetaTester PIZZA!

    The UI point.
  18. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    EQ is hard for newcomers, if the newcomers try to play EQ like it was played in the first 8 years of its existence. If they play it making use of the new content and the benefits that have been added, then it will be much easier than it was before, just lonelier unless you have a friend or partner leveling with you regularly.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Heroes Journey under your achievements is a good set of quests to start with that will also reward gear as you complete them, well worth taking the time to work through those as a new player.
  20. EXORCIST New Member

    The complexity and difficulty of this game is what makes it great, it makes for a high risk vs reward, and punishment for being dumb. This game has so much nostalgia because of the stories it brings to mind for everyone who played back in the day. Now it's far too easy and low risk to make it really draw people to the challenge. You can just go back to guild lobby pay a small fee and go on like nothing happened. Sure is sounds great that it's easier but it doesn't make for great stories and memories anymore.