Can we get a Hot *UN-Fix* on the Forced Progression?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Astefin, Dec 15, 2022.

  1. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Another thread, same people complaining about the same thing. Funny, you're all still playing after how many years of complaining about it?
  2. Svann2 The Magnificent

    If you know one person that has done the quests he can get it for you.
  3. Lyyr Lorekeeper


    Secrets of Faydwer, Seeds of Destruction, Underfoot, House of Thule, and Veil of Alaris all locked character progression behind various types of content progression. Veil of Alaris went as far as locking AA behind language skill that only improved through progression, yet people still managed to get it done. I guess you weren't around for that era but it was far more restrictive than what we have seen in recent years.
    Celephane likes this.
  4. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    VoA had access to basically everything out of the gate. It had access to all zones from the start. You got the bulk of the language "progression" from doing quests/missions in Argath or Valley. There was a bonus 5 language points prior to launch. You didn't need to complete each zone sequentially. for access to new things, you just needed a high enough language skill. You weren't stuck doing something like full Pillars quests/missions to go get City of Bronze quests/missions.

    SoF had one keying quest that overlapped another. These were for access to MMM and Crystallos. It didn't prevent you from doing quests in any zones except those. It didn't stop you from gaining Shadow Hills factions, or Brownie faction, Steam shop/SHIP/whatever else. It was simply a keying process for those specific zones.

    SoD, UF, HoT were all progression locked SoD was the only one where it really made sense (repairing the damaged time lines).

    RoF could be done in any order. The progression was linked to each theme.

    CoTF was similar, you had access to basically everything in T1a/T2 at your own pace. The T1b stuff required T1a, and the mission from the void was indeed locked behind the main progression lines.

    TDS is really locked down, way more than it ought to be. With 3 accessible base zones, but you have to complete specific quests to get quests in other zones, then unlocking everything past those first zones in order.
  5. Zarkdon Augur

    Did OP not play when you had to do obnoxious long quests to get keys to go to end game zones?
  6. Tappin Augur

    1 or two 2 locked zones when you had a least a dozen + zones to choose from doesn't matter. I don't think you would have less complaints (at least not as many) if the expansion had more content content overall.
  7. Treiln Augur

    Can't stand being wrong can you? You asked for people to mention other times when tasks/quests were a major part of an expansion, and when done, you have to add more stipulations.

    CoV didn't have near exp rewards tied to "progression" as ToV and what not. Is that modern enough?
    Celephane and Allayna like this.
  8. Maedhros High King

    OOOF this is about the most pathetic rants in recent EQ history.
    Tunare save me, I have to play the game!
    Sancus likes this.
  9. Vumad Cape Wearer

    Expansions should have 1 end game zone that requires progression to enter -> Veshan's Peak, Bloodfalls, ETC. Piggy rules should always be in place, probably 2:1 for groups. Expansions should never have multiple limited access zones with linear progression as it makes it hard to group -> TBL expansion flagging. It's okay to require progression to request missions but it shouldn't be required to participate, and 1 or 2 shouldn't require progression, perhaps the harder ones.

    I myself prefer quests and find grinding very tedious so I am happy with how things are. However, I support grouping and progression walls are not good. Someone who misses the initial launch progression push could get real stuck as people stop wanting to repeat progression and instead congregate in locked zones.

    Progression should have benefits but should not work in a way that prevents someone from joining in a group.
  10. Velisaris_MS Augur

    Back when expansions had 20+ zones (ex: Ruins of Kunark), locking an "end" zone (maybe even a couple of zones) behind something...keys, progression, whatever...made sense. There was more than enough content for everyone to play the way they wanted to.

    But when expansions have a grand total of 7 zones (NoS), locking ANYTHING behind something...zones OR missions...is just idiotic.
    Kegwell, Marton and Wyre Wintermute like this.
  11. KushallaFV Playing EverQuest

    Playerbase is too small for locked zones. I always got stuck backflagging people and never a chance to go play in the end zones. It sucks. Save the locked events for raids.
    Wyre Wintermute likes this.
  12. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    Using OG EQ or the trio xpacs is kinda silly also. OG had no locked zones.

    Kunark had one raid keyed zone, with really not much of anything a group could accomplish inside. It also had 2 locked zones with fairly quick/simple keying quests. Old Seb was infinitely more popular than HS due to how quickly and easily access could be obtained.

    Scars of Velious only had Sleeper's as a locked zone and it wasn't for groups. You could maybe kill a few entrance mobs in hopes of the shammy spell dropping. NToV is level locked at 45.

    In Luclin, there was only one locked zone: VT. There was no reason to do anything in VT outside of raiding. No reason to bother with Ssra keying just for grouping, but Comm's were easy enough to manage, and Seru arx key was only needed for raiding.

    PoP came out and only T1 zones were unlocked. T1b+ were raid locked and it was such a poor choice that they had to create alternate key quests so people could access zones..

    LDoN had no locks, nor did LoY.

    GoD was so awful that they reduced the entry requirements from Smith Rondo raid or all 3 sewers trials + vxed + Tipt, to just Tipt. They also added Madera err whatever her name is to allow easier access to Qvic and attached zones. Sure Qvic and beyond had flag requirements. They also added alternate flagging for those, but overall GoD was/is regarded very poorly and one of EQ's biggest expansion failures.

    OoW only had the final raid zone locked.

    DoN really didn't have a whole lot "locked." There were a few missions tied to the DoN AA progression and then the DoN progression raids. Sure, quite a few missions were "locked" behind faction, but you didn't have to complete specific mission chains to gain faction.

    DoDH had everything except Dreadspire and instances unlocked. Instances unlocked within their own group. While you needed them all to gain Dreadspire access and spells (really only a specific mission from each arc), you didn't have to run through Corathus just to get to do Undershore, then Stoneroot, then The Hive, etc...

    PoR had 3 main arcs, and I think a total of 5 arcs. They were only needed for raiding and getting the 2-3 spells from PoR. The spells could come from just doing the final portion of the 3 main arcs.


    TSS had everything unlocked, with minor key quest for inner Vergalid. You only needed to complete progression quest arcs for raiding and they were not all linear, you could complete several at a time.

    TBS? Everything was open with a very short quest arc for Soltaris raid access.

    That's 11 of EQ's expansions + Original unlocked, 2 with locks later with alt access added.

    SoF had MMM and Crystallos locked as an expansion-wide quest + raid flagging. Two zones. One (two really) large quest + story line.

    SoD was locked up tight. It's the only expansion I could justify being as such, since the whole expansion was about restoring the timeline.

    UF was fairly locked down and had a number of annoying quests for keying.

    HoT was locked into 3 sections and really no good reason there.

    VoA was completely unlocked and you just had to complete enough quests/missions/tasks to gain enough language skill to request the higher missions/quests. I think the tops there was 90 needed for full access to everything, but you could bounce around quite freely.

    RoF was only a matter of unlocking the portals by running around. You didn't have to complete EW progression to start Chapterhouse or Plane of Shadow.

    CoTF Easier to attune. Only T1b and the void were locked behind progression really. The progression through it was linear if trying to complete the arcs, but you could go most anywhere and also take part in HA's without much issue (HA's had their own, small progression arc/story line). I'd give this one to the locked zone pile, but not as bad as others.

    TDS is locked out of everything except 3 zones, unless you complete all partisan and missions.

    That's 4-5 locked vs 3-4 unlocked of the next 8, putting a tally of 5-7 locked vs 14-16 + Orginal "unlocked."

    29 expansions, with 21 showcased in this post, 14-16 being unlocked + Original has it at a 13-16 or 15-14 split with Original in the unlocked pile. The "majority" of EQ is not locked out like it has been since DPG assumed control. Even with the tally even split, the amount of content from earlier expansions simply dwarfs what is being provided in recent years.

    I really don't get how people want to gaslight or paint the picture of EQ being "this way" for so long. PoP and GoD made the devs go back and put in alt access quests. GoD is not very well liked. VoA's language thing was never tried again. SoD was "unlocked" even on TLP's to garner access to everything except Korfax right out of the gate.

    The reason is pretty clear, there's a lack of content overall, so forcing people into a linear path sets a baseline for time invested. It is a poor way to cover up underfunding/understaffing and just a bad game design.
    Aenvar likes this.
  13. Zarkdon Augur

    Your kidding right? What dozens of end game zones did you have in Kunark to chose from besides seb?
  14. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    That would be most of the expansions at this point in the game as we have been needing to do missions to progress long before ToV and in the past there was more locked zones behind that progression.
  15. Qimble Augur

    For all the people complaining about waiting an in game day, if you read the text you can skip that step by doing a little more dialogue + riding the teleporters back and forth.

    The real problem with them adding a progression lock to the mission is that the third partisan is absolutely godawful. Both the design and implementation. My hope is that whoever designed that quest is a new dev who for some reason was trusted to work unsupervised and that some lessons are learned. I haven't been so annoyed at anything in EQ since GoD.
  16. Koutarou_E'ci Elder

    The end zones in NoS are accessible without backflagging though. There are numerous ways past the door to get to DS (CotH, druid/wizard ports, campfires, etc.) and you only need 1 person in the group to get into DL. And the missions only require one person to request. Its much more friendly than traditional 85/15.
    Ozon, Gialana, Zunnoab and 1 other person like this.
  17. Duder Augur

    The actual problem is when they don't give us content and objectives to achieve. Be grateful, this expansion is the best thing we've had in years.
  18. Tappin Augur

    If I actually wrong I would admit being so. But I wasn't. The primarily way to progress your character in EQ didn't evolve flipping task and missions in the majority of lifespan of this game. Right now your sitting at 7/29 about 25% of expansions where mission/task flips primarily. 4/7 or about 57% of those is current expansions.
  19. Treiln Augur

    I don’t think you understand what “progression” means. In order to progress your character to its fullest, it’s been since about 2005 sir. Progress is not just simply leveling and getting experience.

    Therefor you’re looking at about 24/29 of the expansions.

    Okay, now add another stipulation so we can correct that one too
    Zunnoab, Celephane, Lyyr and 2 others like this.
  20. Duder Augur

    There is NOTHING forced. You CAN still grind, exactly like you used to, for exp reward more on par with 1999 than ever. You have made the issues up in your own mind. This has been the most content we have had since TBL. Take a step back and really evaluate your complaints, you are complaining about exactly what you are asking for. Quests, progression, have always been a part of EQ, your perception is the only thing that has changed.
    Celephane likes this.