You are fine to argue with the technical definition vs the actual real applicable definition, its not material to the conversation. So you do think 100 heroics are garbage? In case you mispoke, have you played a level 100 heroic non pet class without help? They cant really engage with the content without finding a group and its very rare to find a group of lvl 100s on a live server. Level skips are absolutely meant for veterans and new players alike, in EQ, WoW, FF14, etc. We have accepted that some people do not want to level 1-X. I'm glad you mentioned another huge issue - the tutorial vs heroic. Level 1-85 teaches you basically nothing about your class, so jumping into a heroic vs tutorial is nothing alike. Heroics are SUPER identifiable lol. The stupid green armor, the shield or weapon graphics, the items names. All these specific arguments are not important. If anyone believes the current NPE is acceptable, then that's fine, you can be wrong. There are multiple ways to 'fix' it. Some big, some small. We know from history that big changes are not viable as a suggestion. If you think the current system is broken, if you are going to shoot down others' ideas about solutions/bandaids, provide something of your own.
The definition is the same for both. If they have played EQ before, then they are by any definition not new players. You refusing to accept this fact is on you. You're the one who brought it up in the first place so it is material. No, I don't think that they are. They do exactly what they are intended to do and work perfectly. What you want, a level 115 HC would be detrimental to the playerbase and the game. If people want to skip levels they are welcome to do that as a new player, but in doing so they forfeit any right to complain about not understanding things in the game and for being flagged as crappy player with other players avoiding grouping with them to the point of not getting groups when lfg. A player who knows the basics of the game can level from 85 or 100 to 115, and become a competent player for that class, but not as competent and no where near as knowledgeable of a player as one who leveled the class up from level 1. If you think that level 1-85 teaches you nothing about your class then you obviously don't know much about your class. You learn tons of things about every class in leveling them from 1-85, and more from 85-100, and still more by leveling them from 100-115. The Tutorial is the basics of the game, not the class. You can do the tutorial a few times with a different class each time and pick up everything that you are going to learn from it for all classes. The same cannot be said for leveling up. You learn infinitely more than the basics of a class leveling up. You learn a lot more about how to play the game in general as well by actually leveling up. You can get by in the game without doing all the levels, but there it takes time and 20-35 levels around about right for leveling up. There's lots of stupid green armors in the game. Also, you're under the mistaken impression that they aren't going to have gone to the bazaar and bought better armor with the 25k plat that they are given. All that is required What you are asking for has nothing to do with the NPE, it is requesting the ability to skip everything other than the current game and go into that game with zero knowledge of how the game works or how to play the class that is chosen. That is 100% a disaster waiting to happen. To avoid that they instead put the new HC 20 levels behind the current content. This allows the player time to start and learn the game and the class at least a little bit, so that they aren't completely worthless at it when in the current content and doing end game content. The solution is something along the lines of the shrouds, but without the random monster skins. Add 16 shrouds, which are the 16 normal classes as they appear in the game at the various levels with maxed stats a full set of defiant gear. Provide an alternate currency related to this system that higher level players earn for grouping with lower level players that lets them purchase ornaments, bags, clickies, or other items that are beneficial to the higher level players without being a must have. Maybe even have these shrouds go up to 85 or 100 even, so that they can get the new players to the point where other players are far more common, as well as their characters being high enough to group with the mains at their normal levels.
The HA only got harder because they kept moving the base line scaling to the next expansions tuning, which made it pretty bad for TLPs, but they like half fixed that now (where it hard caps at the max level for that expansion), but then gave up on the system altogether instead of continue it 2 players + 2 mercs was the intention set by Augur who was the main Content Dev of the HA system for its introduction in CotF (he even posted it straight up in that expansions Beta), Dzarn was the only Dev who went around that tuning goal initially in CotF, with the harder sets of HA's he made Since Augur left for Blizzard after that or around TDS, they stopped having that set goal for HA, sure, but there's nothing stopping them from continuing it if they wanted to
The reason they stopped updating the HA mob template was player feedback - I really doubt they'll update them beyond their original intent after that giant stink bomb during RoS.
TLP isn't insignificant, but it isn't keeping EQ alive. In 2020 when EG7 acquired Daybreak, they actually made subscription numbers available. About 66K subbed members out of about 80K monthly active users as of September 2020. Sure, these numbers were inflated by the pandemic, and this was pre-ban waves, but a realistic starting point. There's really no reason to believe that the majority or even a significant portion of these subs are playing TLP. From EG7's financials, Daybreak had revenues around 80 million in 2022, with EBITDA around 22 million (granted, a lot from non-EQ titles, however if the trend remains from 2020 it would still be 2nd in bookings after DCUO). The real question is why does Daybreak run EQ like it's going out of business, not which segment Daybreak makes the most money from. Im not a financials guy, maybe I'm reading it wrong. Here it is straight from EG7: https://www.enadglobal7.com/wp-cont...entation-Dec-2020-Acquires-Daybreak-Games.pdf https://storage.mfn.se/302df054-58fa-4596-9b92-8e6a66789482/year-end-and-q4-report-2022.pdf
There was only 1 set of HAs which met that criteria when CotF was current. That was the Gribble missions. The rest were not realistically doable by 2 players and 2 mercs. 3/1 maybe, 4/0+, or variations of 5 and 6 player/merc group combinations, but not 2/2 or fewer; at least not without being raid geared. The HA got harder because the next expansion was a level increase one giving them higher level spells and abilities. At that point they had also nerfed the XP on all of the CotF HAs. The HAs were less viable for XP and the missions were harder simply because the mobs increased in power from level increases, but the content still gave the same lower level rewards which were not worth the time investment.
Not completely true - The mob templates were updated after the launch of RoS. According to dev post in that banished thread, The updated mobs were not supposed spawn unless someone in the group was a specific level (106, but don't quote me on it), but it appeared from several parses, that, mobs below the level limit were using the upgraded spells and higher def abilities. The HAs were significantly harder (according to many) than originally intended for the original level range. The fixed agreed upon was not to have HAs mob template updated, but I believe they were going to update other HAs Def/Of abilities (TBM). Even if you ignore those spells/abilities complaints (they were disputed), all three HAs took 45 mins total for all three below 105, and about 90 mins for 106 (numbers are not perfect). I think that's where a lot people got mad.
I seem to recall getting mercilessly slaughtered in these at 75/80 with defiant/HoT T1 gear. But it's been awhile since I tried.
The RoS issues were completely and wholly separate from the issues that I am speaking of that came to pass during TDS, the expansion that immediately followed CotF. Your last part seems to be speaking of Gribble, which was not the only HAs in CotF; all group missions in CotF were HAs. The reason that I mentioned Gribble was because Riou said that HAs originally were intended for 2 players and 2 mercs to be able to do, and that was the only set of HAs where that was the case. All other HAs in that expansion were not at all doable with just 2 players with their mercs unless you were overgeared for the content.
Which was so odd because I could never do Gribbles in Dead Hills for quite some levels. But the Marla's in Tainted Karana were pieces of cake. And we are far from overgeared
Again, not all of this is correct. DP did update the HAs with TDS templates shortly after the release of TDS. That was after they nerfed the mob exp per kill in the HAs, because people were not completing them, but instead flipping them. However, in this case, no one cared because there wasn't a drastic increase in difficulty between the new templates and the old. But with RoS, there was a huge increase of difficulty and time required to complete the HAs. The community agreed to a nerf in exp in exchange for no template updates. Also, they did update the dps/mitigation of other non related HAs/Missions (TBM is the example the dev used in the thread). The bottom line is people want and need small group content to progress their character. That is why you will never see the end of these threads.
Weird, I could practically molo Gribbles and was in group gear from that and the previous 3 expansions at the time, only the bosses were really any issue. Duo + 1 or 2 mercs was easily doable. What class were you? Now I wasn't doing them all in under an hour, but adding more people just significantly sped things up.
My idea to solve the issue is to incentize leadership. If there were good benefits to taking the reigns and forming your own groups people will be less likely to take the passive approach to grouping. Didn't there used to be a leadership bonus feature? What happened to that? From what I remember it wasn't anything special, but it could be.
They did have a leadership bonus feature. It was quite some time ago, and I think only lasted couple of years. I don't know if it actually made PUGs more common, but if you were in a regular group, some of the bonuses were nice. They ended up, as I recall, giving the bonuses to everyone and getting rid of the system. It may not have accomplished what they wanted, or the person in charge of it left. It was fun to play with at the time, but we always ended up in discussing who should be leader and who had the most points. /shrug. I don't think they'll bring it back if they didn't like.
Yeah, we didn't "discuss" it. Everyone was so hard core back then that even that little bonus amount was hard fought to get. Like "oh don't invite soandso cause he always wants leadershipt". And now that seems so petty.
The problem with incentivizing being the leader, means that everyone insists on being the leader. The Leadership AAs did NOT incentivize anyone to be leader, it incentivized a group to always be lead by the same person because only that person had all of the AAs. Additionally, many of these people who had all the Leadership AAs would insist on being the leader and would refuse to let anyone else because they could not handle not having the benefits. Leadership AAs had no real positive impact on PUGs, and if anything it hurt them, because if the person who was the group leader was trying to earn leadership they would not want to give up leader. After the Leadership mentoring was put in, that was less of an issue as long as the person with the leadership AAs already promised to and did mentor the person trying to max theirs out. It was actually more towards the reverse, the people with the Leadership AAs would always be the leader to the point that no one else in the group would be given the chance to gain any. The whole Leadership AA Mentor thing was added after a few years because of the fact that only those that were maxed Leader AA could be leader if the group wanted to function at peak performance.
Incorrect. First, they moved the mob xp per kill to the task completion well before TDS was even announced, though it was because people were not completing the task and most people didn't care because most people weren't flipping them. Second, the XP for CotF HAs was nerfed before TDS came out, because of the level cap increase that was coming with TDS. The XP nerf that happened in the update immediately before TDS released was significant but aimed more at the highest levels, only those in Beta at 101+ and those at like 99/100 on live could see it. There was a huge increase in difficulty in the CotF HAs as soon as TDS came out, based simply on the level cap increase. The Mobs being higher levels made the more difficult and gave them access to spells at higher levels. The RoS issue had nothing to do with the level cap increase. The RoS issue had to do with the fact that RoS introduced new abilities and spells which were supposed to be specifically for RoS mobs, but mobs that were already at RoS levels were gaining these abilities. In other words, TBM and EoK HAs which had mobs which were the same level as some RoS mobs could use the spell and abilities that were supposed to be limited to RoS and later expansions. The solution to the problem included limiting factors but also included changing the dps/mitigation of older content because they could not limit some aspects of the RoS changes to mobs. The bottom line is that people can always form a group, but they have to actually make the effort to either build on themselves or build a network of friends and acquaintances to group with. That can be through their friend's list, a guild, or trying to do PUGs.
It had pretty important features like HoTT, Inspect Buffs and timer, seeing the exact spell being casted, and delegating main assist. Those are pretty big UX enchancements.
Do you not read? "That was after they nerfed the mob exp per kill in the HAs..." I was correct . And I again I was correct: "But with RoS, there was a huge increase of difficulty and time required to complete the HAs...." And sure people can always form a full group if one exist, but that's the problem, It doesn't. There is plenty of people online, but almost none of them want to form a group. If you even get a response from a tell, it's always something like 'Just logged for Overseers...'
Sigh, what you are talking about is completely and utterly separate from what I am talking about. You are talking about them moving the bulk of the XP from the actual Kill to the completion of the task (you only see a nerf of XP if you were flipping the tasks). I am talking about them actually nerfing the amount of XP you get from completing the task after they had moved the XP you get from the kills to the task. The reduction in XP was also significant. So no, you were incorrect, as I stated previously, you were talking about a reallocation of XP, that was done to address an exploit. The changes from RoS were annoying and made all mobs of those level ranges that much stronger, not just HA mobs. The HA mobs were the ones that people called out most because that was content which people saw the most, as old HAs tend to be the content which people still do immediately after a level increase expansion comes out the most. The content was only made less doable by people trying solo or molo the content, groups of 2 or more players could still do the content, though I will say it might have taken a bit longer. You can always make a full group, and the people necessary for a full group do always exist. People simply choose not to form the group themselves and expect others to do it. Well, when you are cold telling people asking to group, I would expect to get responses designed to blow you off without being offensive. I regularly see about 5-10, sometimes more, saying that they are lfg, but rarely do I see anyone gather those people into a group and then ask for the specific class that they need to round out the group; and it isn't them using a merc because they all keep asking for a group. You rarely ever see a group asking for more.
