Reviewing Torment of Velious expansion

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fian, May 19, 2020.

  1. Marton Augur

    I did all prog, hunter, collects very early on.

    To this day, I'm sorry I bought the expansion for my alt accounts, and if the next expansion will be like TBL, I'm not buying it at all.
  2. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    The problem with TBL is that, in many instances, you needed an enchanter.

    I literally had to level an enchanter from 85 to 110. So that is the only major knock for me. But now I run a 115 enchanter so that's a plus. lol.
  3. Benito EQ player since 2001.



    What parts did you not like?
  4. Marton Augur

    I did like Mearatas raid, that was fun, I'll give you that :D.
    Benito likes this.
  5. Benito EQ player since 2001.



    How could you not like Tyrant of Fire? It was hella funny.
    minimind likes this.
  6. Fian Augur

    I did TBL progression in a month so it isn't like TBL gave you a year's worth of content either. There were certain things like the evolving items and challenger that took me longer. Regardless, it has been a long time since I have seen an expansion where I had new things to do all the way till the new expansion came out. There just isn't the staff. That is why they have things like artisan aug, old expansions, and evolving items to keep people more busy.

    TOV doesn't have as much content as TBL, but then it is a level expansion. Level expansions require a lot more work than a non-level expansion, so you probably get fewer zones/missions with a level expansion.

    It didn't help that TOV was having exp bonuses and increased spawn rate of names the first month that it came out. Normally, those bonuses are reserved for later in the year to help the stragglers catch up. The result was that the "fast crew" gets done even faster and gets bored.
  7. Nadisia Augur

    We came back on EQ1 after a long break during RoS expansion and rerolled on a new server.
    When TBL came out, it was hard, really hard, probably too hard for our characters.
    I won't say I hated it, but for us, it was too much.

    But now, with 5 more levels, way better gear, and a ton more AAs, it's really enjoyable.

    So this is maybe another good point of ToV : a way to appreciate a previous expansion because even with 5 more levels, it's not completely trivial (way easier yes, but trivial, no).
    Benito likes this.
  8. Chaoslayer Journeyman

    ToV is awesome and this is why I think so!

    This game has all types of players from people with just a few hours a week to people that want to raid every night. I quit raiding on live years ago after having kids and losing the ability to keep the attendance of a good little raider but I still enjoy being a casual player in my free time. With that being said and after spending 18 months or so raiding on Phinny I decided I wanted to play with a few friends on live with the launch of TBL. I knew I would have some catch up to do but no big deal as everything comes in time in this game. I did a million HA's to re-max my AA and snatched a bunch of T1 rots from Stratos. Every time we tried to progress in TBL I got smacked up so hard that it was not even fun. It did not take long for me to say sorry guys this is trash I am going to raid on Mangler because that will at least be fun. I think group content is something that a group geared player can progress in. I am all for 1 or 2 zones set aside for raiders but not everything should require me to be raid geared or to call in a ringer to get access. Now ToV pulled me off the TLP and back onto live fast. I don't mind that they copied old popular zones to have more time to work on quest and what not. At least I can participate in this expansion. Maybe it is to easy for people in raid gear but is that not the point of being raid geared. This way you are able to hang in the raids a side of the game group players don't see but you can't expect to have the group content tailored to you also. If you think group content should be catered to people that raid lets label expansions for raiders so us group players won't drop any money on it.
  9. Magneress Augur

    you may not like this but it will potentially grow the player base as casual gamers will come back each expansion cycle which is basically what blizz has rollin, it's how mmos work

    i agree its bad overall design from a 'cool' maybe even 'fun' (sort of) perspective, but i am also a filthy casual who periodically subs and flits from mmo to mmo to catch the waves kinda player, there's a lot i haven't done in eq, being caught up with the latest expansion seems good. Even if it hurts for the people who progressed through it. I think, what is worse is when the devs oscillate and people kind of burn out and we don't get a consistent, steady, progression model. I hope you really did enjoy your time playing those grueling raids, I remember the grueling raiding I did back in the day, although I was still more casual, i got through GoD-OoW content and it was the best times and I would do it all again even though it probably consumed a year of my adult life afterwork and I was essentially work>eq>work>eq. That was when I was in the military. I'm trying to be sympathetic, but also help with perspective.

    As much as people really hated BFA which sorta made everything before it 'easy' and was easy in itself, and the prior expansion was really good for wow, it enabled me to come back, start fresh, and get heroic AoTC which is a pretty 'moderately good reasonably cool' achievment to be had on Queen Ashzara - BFA content. It was enjoyable. Next expac I will probably only do the easy content and not do anything heroic, that will probably make the next expac harder because I am sure the devs will respond to how the players are playing the game, the metrics are definately kept. Same goes for EQ.

    Ride the wave. Enjoy the game. This only happens once in this life time. I'm not trying to be super critical of your sentiment, just responding to that general sentiment that I feel like would be the biggest criticism of this expansion.

    --- aside and in general ---
    I agree questing should be a viable progression form, but also people should be able to sandbox in dungeons and exp or just afk grind out in the open world to get to 115. my 2c as an MMO observer lurker
  10. Yendar Augur

    I did not play in the first month. In fact I purchased ToV late April when I started staying home for the Coronavirus. I don’t know what was going on the first months of the expansion but it doesn’t matter because since the end of April I’ve gotten all namers and exp I needed for my main and my 3 alts..

    TBL had tons of missions. TBL had evolving chase gear that you had to farm the mission for.. THEN do the achievements for.. THEN farm the augs for.

    TBL had smoke trials that many people were unable to complete.. and challenger achievements on the missions (some were actually challenging) and I’d bet that MORE people have finished ToV challenger than TBL challenger even TODAY by a WIDE margin. Meaning that most
    People STILL have things that they can do in TBL.

    I bet more people have ToV challenger done than not just TBL.. RoS too.. or EoK.. or TBM..CoTF had some really tough challengers when it went live too. Only ToV is a cakewalk.
  11. Fohpo Augur

    While ToV challenger is definitely easier, I don't mind the fact that it wasn't nearly as extensive as TBL, TBM, etc. - I just wish they had a handful of harder achievements to give a little more feeling of progress.
  12. Whulfgar Augur

    That's the beuty of tov lvl increase..

    Higher gear.. higher lvls.. higher spells.. higher melee tomes..


    For those who are so casual they refuse to ask more experienced players for help through TBL when it was current.. they can now via new tov stuff rock threw TBL stuff..
  13. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    IMO in a purely group geared setup, ToV provides a reasonable challenge without being unbeatable (or only beatable with luck). my only real criticism for it is the lack of group missions. If there's 1 thing they could have taken from TBL, it was that IMO.


    ToV is not challenging in any way for raid geared characters... that much is 100% true, but it was clear from the start that the group content was designed and tuned around group geared players... so that shouldn't have come as any surprise. but if you want to up the difficulty factor, just farm the velk mission base pop without any Cowd Control.... it'll get your heart pumping.

    I like that they went back to larger zones with camps that can support multiple groups doing things at the same time. i mean, GD easily has enough locations to support 4-5 groups actively pulling and killing things, and that's GREAT (in theory) for the social aspect of the game. similar for EW.

    TOFS has horrible pathing, Floors 4 and 6 especially. is there any way in the zone design to make it so AOE effects can't go through walls/floors/ceiling? no telling how many times I've trained myself on 6.

    for all those complaining about XP and not wanting to repeat progression on alts, well fellowship vitality REALLY helps make the grind more bearable (with vitality + lesson i was getting ~0.8%/kill in GD).

    anyways, that's my opinion at this point in the expansion. also, raids are horribly easy except for TOFS1.... and they keep making things easier.
  14. Yendar Augur

    Sure.. ToV has allowed them to go do the old stuff they couldn’t do.. which is fine... but they can also do the new stuff in ToV (which is actually easier than the hard stuff in TBL still even with the new gear and AA’s)

    My issue is with ToV being so easy. People are finished with ToV that can’t even finish prior expansions still with the new levels, gear, and AA’s.
  15. dizzadar Lorekeeper

    does everything have to be super hard to be enjoyable with some people?
  16. Tuco Augur

    One thing Blizzard does well is the creation of scaling difficulty levels to appeal to the broad range of casual vs hardcore demographic. Even a basic "hard mode" option is something people ask for basically every expansion.

    Within this thread there's a false dichotomy being presented around whether an expansion is designed as a "difficult" vs "catch up" expansion. The truth is that EQ devs don't make a serious attempt at balance so there is a random level of difficulty for each expansion and minimal difficulty scaling in an expansion.

    By the time the release date rolls around, the developers are just happy they can finally get through all the quests and encounters with god-mode characters, any concerns about whether a given zone isn't quite balanced right is way beyond that. Hell, during ToV beta it took players WEEKS to convince the developers that something was hugely wrong with mob melee in ToV zones. Before then the players were warning devs the game was much harder than TBL by showing parses of basic mobs destroying raid tanks (not talking about the purse bug), and very soon (a couple weeks?? I don't remember) before release they realized the bug, fixed it and the entire expansion turned into a joke for any coherently played level 115 group or raid force.


    So yeah, we'll see what the dice roll is on difficulty this fall during beta. If it turns up to be too difficult I'll have a lot of fun trying to up my game to beat it and a huge portion of the playerbase will hate the expansion. If it turns up to be too easy I'll put in a few subs for a month then move onto another game. If they take player advice and integrating an increasing scale of difficulty through the expansion, a lot of people will be very happy with it.
    Magneress likes this.
  17. Tuco Augur

    Yes.

    [IMG]
  18. Yendar Augur

    I don’t get ANY SENSE of accomplishment doing easy content.

    Everything doesn’t have to be super hard.
    Some things have to be somewhat difficult in order to get a sense of accomplishing something that you weren’t able too.

    Would it be fun for you if everything was easy.. couldn’t hit for more than 10 and you could kill everything with 1 swing by turning on auto attack? Does that sound like a game you’d like to play a lot of hours?

    People don’t want it “super” hard or “super” easy. The game has to be tuned for END game players that have their new gear/AA because if it’s not.. they have NOTHING to do. The players that aren’t at the end game have PLENTY of old content that they can catch up on and if they do that stuff they will be ready for the end game. Right now the game is tuned for players without all their AA’s/New gear so when you get all that stuff it becomes rather trivial.
    Magneress likes this.
  19. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    You do play other games to keep your edge up even when you are playing EQ don't you?

    Has any expansion challenged you for more then a couple of months max?
    Magneress likes this.
  20. Benito EQ player since 2001.


    In fairness, I don't think its random or a dice roll. I believe they are limited by resources and time. While I agree there's a false dichotomy, I believe they want to create a expansion of uniform difficulty vs. a disjointed expansion.

    I felt like TBL was at the right difficulty but there were "choke points." There would have been less criticism if Esianti was open from the get-go and one or two of the missions (Tyrant of Fire, Contract of War) were available for all players.
    Tuco likes this.