Suggestion= Mix it up a bit over there! Maybe it would be beneficial to include some zones that are not maximum level with new expansions. Ya know, some grind spots that returning players could enjoy as well! Maybe get some new weapon procs back in the game? Possibly some more fun clickies? --- DoT procs, stat procs, debuff procs, fun procs? And it would be amazing to allow all races to be all classes at this point! Lets make EQ interesting again! OK BYE! <3
There are currently 29 expansions + original game worth of content for lower levels to enjoy. As there is a very limited number of zones in each new expansion it would not be good to reduce it even further for a small portion of the player base. As for the all races be all classes not all of the old models support all armor graphics types which means those models would no longer be supportable if they did it.
Very good idea. Instanced level scaling zones are the key for that and it won't be that much extra work. It would give up to 33% more players a reason to buy a new expansion when assuming that 33% of all active PCs (without mules) are below level 116. In 2020 about 20% accounts were FTP which alone is a potential of +25% (100/80). Cautiously estimated, expansion sales could go up by about +10% and it would also have positive side effects like making the leveling process easier and more interesting by offering more zone opportunities. The replay factor would also be increased. After PC level 85 there are not many zone choices to pick from.
We have seen how badly this has worked in the past and there is no indication that it will work any better now.
All of the "heroic" missions that scaled from level 75 to "current". The biggest of these were the "dead hills" which ended up being the defacto, lets run this over and over and over and over again. People would recycle instances because the XP from killing was by fair too good. So the retuned the missions so you get the majority of the XP from the completing the quest. Eventually they nerfed the XP from the missions completely to force people to move on to newer expansions. Then there were the TBM heroic missions and raids which ended up completely out of whack due to the NPC scaling between TBM to TDS (both 105). The AC mitigation and made the raids much harder. Then there was running the raids at level 110 or 115 for level 105 loot. Eventually they put a cap on the level and tried multiple times to revert the power creep ( and failed ) such that even now the AC on the PoFear dracolich makes him much harder to kill in era.
While all races being all classes is probably not entirely feasible without some awkward & immersion breaking issues a bunch more combinations being opened up would be nice, so long as they aren't just locked to the new expansion as all of the others have been. Also DoT procs & Debuff Procs are something that should never, ever be done, they are the absolute worst idea ever considering the issues around buffslots - for group weaponry this might be okay but absolute no for raid items. For Raid weaponry they will never be strong enough in damage or function to be remotely worth using & all they do is occupy slots far more useful debuffs or DoT's could occupy.
Why would DPG spend devs resources of some laggard zones/instances when it takes barely 2 weekedns to slow-poke PL new toon from 85 to 120 ?
Already pointed out how instanced level scaling zones don't work in the long run. They require constant retuning to keep them scaled correctly so they ARE that much extra work. I highly doubt there are a significant number of people who would move from FTP because an expansion has level scaling content. That's a huge leap of faith and as others have pointed out there is a ton of content for FTP players. IMHO, There are too many people abusing the FTP mechanics adding extra load/lag on the server. I think FTP accounts should be limited to level 20-40. High enough to get a feel for the game but low enough that you can't really farm anything useful.
Teleport Bind wizard lvl 69 Teleport Bind druid lvl 74 Shroud of Stealth Rog lvls 63,105 Shauri's Sonorous Clouding bard dual inviso lvl 110 Call of Heroes Mag lvl 97
They have done this in several expansions and the scaling has always had issues and that is also not accounting for loot. The only time that I can recall scaling missions working is back in LDoN when the expansion was designed for a wide level range.
Instanced zones are not the problem in CotF and you already mentioned what the problem there is: Way to high experience rewards and that those can be even doubled with the LotD AA. I assume that this was and still is intended by the devs to pull the players faster to the level cap where the big money is being made by expansion sales and AllAccess. On the other side many players do want to level up fast and are addicted to high experience rewards. The experience from CotF HAs does just fade out as it is attuned to level 75-100 so it not really got nerfed. Regarding TBM, that is also bad attuning but in another way. It does also happen in non-instanced zones and is not a problem that does only occur in instanced level scaling content.
All race/ All class would require removing the last few racial innates from a couple of classes to maintain any semblance of balance.
They do not need constant retuning, it is just that some content never got attuned correctly even after several attempts. The large power gap between a bad geared FTP toon and a raid geared AllAccess toon is also a big issue that does make good attunement impossible in every content without further balance mechanics. It is not only about FTP but that might be the biggest target group depending on how powerfull the mobs are being made. There is not much appropriate content like even con and named mobs that are doable by solo players including boxers generally, which could be balanced with such zones. Solo players are the majority and not multiplayer groups and raids. The many attempts do force players into multiplayer groups have not worked well. Such players do often just switch to an easier game. Something that is intended by game design cannot be abused. The FTP players are there that the AllAccess players can feel powerfull and without them many more servers would be low populated. Every toon does add liveliness into the virtual world. About all game companies do offer similar FTP mechanisms for their games because of their positive effects onto the business.
LDoN was an expansion designed for a larger level range and using a system that is no longer used which makes it unlikely we will get anything like it again.
Not everyone on Live comes back from 10 year break and is boxing nor a 120 nor in a guild nor looking for handouts to PL themselves Kunark has zones that mixed it up. Velious has zones that mix it up. Luclin has zones that mix it up. Those are the best expansions, the past 10 expansions no one really has them in their top 3 expansions. Yes I seen the expansion mixing it up in the past. Your wrong they were successful.
Kunark was the second expansion in the game and it also released a new race which required some newbie zones in order for them to level up. They also released a lot more zones in Kunark and other early expansions instead of the 7-8 that they are releasing in current content. Regardless you still have 29 expansions worth of lower level content to explore and there isn't a need to add even more lower level content that doesn't get used much.
