Laurion's Song: Only 2 Missions and 8 Raids

You can see some of that from which partisan/merc quests give items that scale based on the number of players with the quest getting kill credit vs those that don't.

The bosses at EG7 need to realize that they money they're assigning Daybreak is not sufficient to keep the game going. I'm not going to buy this expansion, but I don't blame the developers for it at all. It's the shoestring budget they're given to work with that is an enormous problem. Hire more people at fair wages, Ji Ham, you and all your upper management friends.

I'm curious why this is, since if I recall correctly, you don't raid. I understand why people who raid would be bored by essentially doing the same event over and over again.

The raiders vs. groupers attitude is that raiders don't care about group content. Most of us do. We enjoy the group content, we enjoy the named (which have also dwindled over the years...). We all play the same game, some just do a little extra content - the raids.

I might be wrong, but I think the point was "Absor carrying the game" is the problem, not Absor himself.

I doubt Absor created the problem, or wants it to continue. And I'm sure he works hard to murder us in new and creative ways every year.

You know that, I know that, but the wording of some posts did seem to indicate not everyone did.

The conversation I alluded to was a paraprhrasing of a Dev post.

I can't find the post as it is buried a couple of years back or more and google nor the forum search function could find it, but it basically amounted to a response to a player lamenting the lack of variety in raid design & the dev team member stating they were aware of the issue & looking to address it by way of having a broader range of people creating raid content rather than the 1-2 people they had been relying on to design it for a few years by that point.

Evidently that aim stuttered & sputtered out after a short time, this is going back around the time PiP & a few others got taken on or just prior to that, shortly after Ngreth took over as Lead designer from Prathun.

Players get bored really quickly of repeating the same 4 missions for months and months. If you get 15 type 5 augments at 500 each, that is 7500 currency. Divide it by 45, that is over 165 missions. Which means over 40 mission runs. It gets old after 15 runs, real old after 25 runs, and you bash your head in on the last dozen mission runs. Now you get bored still, but it is only 2 missions- one can convince themselves to overcome the boredom.

I have learned over the years, there is never enough content. So 8 raids instead of 9 means (hopefully) I can get an extra half hour per week for myself. I won't complain about the tedious nature of 4 missions because once you do one, there is only one more left- might as well do it. Maybe this gives some more time to alts, personas, other things. I personally am done with expansions in the summer on main, maybe now I am done in spring. More family time, less time in game, etc.

I don't think it is the worst thing in the world. I can do 4 missions in half an hour in NOS. If 2 missions take 25 minutes, am I going to complain about not having 5 minutes of content? If I know there is not going to be enough content, then I want my time. And maybe this expansion I will.

Huge inflation, same price...amazing deal!!

This is the key. Players are getting bored? Yes. Is there less new content? Yes. Are those people getting bored likely the long-time veterans of EverQuest, probably in retirement, putting in more hours today than ever? Likely yes.

Which is why I don't think two less missions and one less raid is necessarily a terrible thing. Players won't have to put in as much time to those things and can use that time for other things- alts, personas, etc.

I guess my thing is, if they came out with an expansion that had 11 zones, 6 missions and 10 raids.... it would not be enough. If there was 14 zones, 9 missions and 13 raids... some would still say it is not enough. There is never enough content for those who feel that way. Conversely, when you start to introduce 9 missions and 13 raids, for those not in the top 1% (who FWIW are never satisfied) you now start to overwhelm players. Now they think this is too much content, they don't have the time to do 9 missions and 13 raids per week. They start to get frustrated because too much is going on, and then the game throws in evolving items and personas (both of which are time sinks)? Now the game starts to lose those players.

Maybe I am different. Would I love more content and zones and missions and raids? Sure. But do I personally want to spend another six hours each week for those extra missions and zones and raids? Personally, not really. I think there is enough content for me to work with for the time I have (key word being "my time"). Others may have a different perspective, which is fine. Which leads me all the way back to...

You cannot make everyone happy. There are too many varied playstyles, people, time commitments that play this game. We are in their world- if we don't like it, leave. Otherwise, make the most and best out of it.

How many people left the company this year? I know they don't have as many people on the team as they did last year.

Honestly, I can't be too mad given what they're charging these days. Barely 30 bucks after the gold discount. If it were as simple as charging more to make more content I'd encourage them to do so, but obviously there are a lot of factors there. I do think it'd be worth exploring the possibility of increasing prices to hire more devs, though. There's a lot of dedicated EQ players that I don't think would scoff too much at another 20 bucks for an expansion if it meant more content. Of course, I hesitate to suggest that because corporations like to read that as "wait they'll just pay more?!" and then we get the same content for twice the price.

Overall LS is +2 over NoS for the main team

Which devs worked with Absor on raids this year?

And how would any of us know this information?

Well, I am specifically asking Beimeith who wants to assert his expertise on the topic.

Understand. Like you I am curious about it.

The newer devs and maybe? Ngreth.

If you're asking me specifically who did exactly which part of each raid I don't have the answers to that, and I probably wouldn't say even if I did know.

I do know that the new devs are learning and that raids are really hard to make and take a lot of time.

Your earlier post was trying to make it out like Absor is the only one who knows how to make raids (he's not) and that he's intentionally trying to keep the secret knowledge to himself, which is dumb and simply not true at all.

That's not even close to what he said.