No level increase is nice. Now, as long as they learned their lessons from UF and can properly tune the difficulty, this will be good. No level increase allows more players to catch up, and it allows old players to enjoy their gear more before replacing it. I like both level and no-level increase expansions, and they both come with their pros and cons. We'll have to see what the beta is like in a couple of weeks. (way too soon for my liking)
I don't like this... Clerics are balanced around their epics/divine arb... and if you take away our epic it would handicap our class. I personally like the necro epic.. the 3k hps/mana increase from another weapon is not worth the loss of 8-10% chance to crit... unless they give us that 8-10% chance as a AA or add it to future wepons I hope they just don't cap or remove the focus effect on it how it is atm.
My guess would be ... 1) The new expansion in September 1st tier will be an overlap of HoF T4, so people can raid both expansions still. (people will complain) 2) In November, they will release more content, but the gear here will be noticeable upgrades to T1 (people will complain) 3) In 2014, more content and AAs will be released in the new T3 (people will complain) Rinse and repeat. A LDoN style expansion...wow....LDoN was tremendously popular....can lightning strike twice?
Just left the EQ Expansion QA panel #1. Heres my take on your topics: 1) T1 of CotA will be very close to T4 of RoF... Not a big power increase by design. Items are still being worked on and will be up until late beta of this so your mileage my vary. 2) More likely January for part 2.. then June/July for part 3. With EQ 15th Anniversary stuff coming in March '14. 3) likely new stuff trickling in all year, And yes.. people will complain as they always do. This isn't new. As to LDoN, A second take at something can often be much much better, so lets wait and see.
No Level increase ... Thank goodness ROF won't be obsoleted in September. LDON's again ... Will Mercs be allowed in?
They've been saying that it will be fixed soon since The Serpent's Spine. Every Fan Fair Every Beta Every time someone manages to get an answer from a Dev on the forums regarding it. The answer is always, "Soon."
I like that they will be introducing merc customization, but it's not enough for me to buy the expansion. The WoW-like gear tread mill and poorly staggered content they seem to favor now is a real put off for me personally. Seems I wont being buying any expansions for EQ in the near future after buying them all up to VoA.
How do you further your toon without a level increase? Most of our AAs are upgrades of old ones so they work at the new level that is far more work than just 1 - 5 days. So far I have heard nothing about the number of zones, quests, missions or raids, I'm not impressed with what I have heard about so far, but we will see that may change.
That's just the thing, not everything has to be about furthering the toon, in the statistical margin especially. Why do you need to further it anyway if the content doesn't require such? If it's doable by a level 100 with current gear and AAs do you need more? To make it easier? to make it one-shottable? Are there not plenty of things to do in the new content to cure the boredom that apparently comes with not having to sit at the same camp to grind out 5 more levels and 1k more AAs for a day and then have nothing more to do? Is there not, to top it off, innumerable other quests and achievements from past content most people have likely not completed yet? Has EQ not survived numerous expansions without a level increase in the past? Not to be blunt, but people put FAR FAR too much emphasis on stats and numbers in EQ these days. As far as i'm concerned, there is only ONE reason I can think of that a new level cap not appearing would be any real negative impact, and that is what Pie said earlier. About caster nerfing with no new spells/pets, or minor additions/upgrades. And even then.....we've worked around that in the past. and there's even better ways than what we've done in the past to negate such an effect, Sony just hasn't undertaken them yet. Maybe CoF will surprise us. I would much rather have them spend the time, and my money, making massive content and quest arcs the size of what they did during classic, or Kunark, or Velious, or Luclin, and NOT put in a level cap....than have them put in a new level cap, spend all those resources on 10 million new AAs and spells to appease the grind, and once again have to suffer through THREE freaking zones worth of content and the same old tasks consisting of: Kill 25 Alaran Alien Munchers - Location: Xorbb's Destruction of Alien Fear Eaters and Mayong and Discord The Zone Return to Blargan Fibblegibber the Gnome - Location: Xorbb's Destruction of Alien Fear Eaters and Mayong and Discord The Zone The Hub
As long as there is a decent reward at the end of it. Most quests/missions these days have only had the reward of more exp and AA. What is the point if you aren't furthering your toon, you just do it once to say you've done it and never go back. It will be interesting to see if they can pull any new spell lines out of the hat without a level increase to give us something to improve the toons. But wizzys are one trick ponies, so unless they can find a way to give us something to improve on our ethereals we will be out of luck. Who knows they may surprise us. I don't fancy stagnation for a year, though my merc will be invincible plowing through greys for slayers.
I agree lol There's honestly a lot more they could do with questing and still get the spells etc we need. Hell remember the days when you did a quest, or even a quest arc, for a spell. sometimes ones that would be very very useful. Even if all they did was put a spell you could otherwise get from other means. Making it more common (I would say 'cheaper' too, for bought spells, but money isn't as much of an issue as it used to be. Not even close haha) through a quest arc that maybe requires more work for the guarantee as opposed to less work for a chance.. Also, AAs from quests. Not just getting AAs to spend from quests, like we already do, but auto granting an arc or rank through a quest line. Or even better... unique un-buyable AAs in the special tab from doing quests (think, DoN prog but....not as annoying. More classic-like as far as quests go, but with DoN-like AA rewards). Which would also have long term usefullness...who these days DOESN'T have doN prog done? haha I fully agree that if the content is as it has been in certain expacs in the recent past, but no new level cap, it will be a disappointment. But if they do the content right.... One thing I loved about Rain of Fear, was they took a noticeable step in the right direction of putting the focus more towards questing in EverQUEST than grinding perpetually. If the content is built right, even without a level cap Call of the Forsaken could be the next big step in that direction. Lots of naysayers in these threads is all i'm saying, especially considering the minor info we have thus far, no Beta, no Test, nothing. Just some base-line info, some screenshots of in-development zones, and a lot of bitter views from the past. While making judgments based on past actions has it's merits, is a good way to avoid disappointment, you gotta keep that spark of hope alive that this time could be different. Honestly after Rain of Fear, I have a lot more hope for how Call of the Forsaken will turn up than I would have had it been announced after...say...VoA. lol
If the LDoN 2.0 aspect of the expansion is truly good at tuning itself to your party's composition (particularly for classes and party size), then I suspect that system will single-handedly convince me to buy the expansion for at least one of my accounts. Probably two. I haven't got a lot of spare fun-money at the moment, but I can scrape together enough to rock some groupable instances. If the system is successful, and if we can somehow get LDoN itself updated to, at least optionally, use the new system, I would love the devs long time. Also, please make the LDoN 2.0 adventure system viable for characters of any level, and make it able to be scaled as EverQuest continues! Don't repeat the design mistakes of LDoN 1.0 by making it hard to expand! (But I think the devs are well aware of that already.)
Call me cynical but I think that's a very big "IF"... Wouldn't be surprised if some classes will get blacklisted because they make a mission to difficult/tedious/annoying... At least for a while until SOE finds the time to balance stuff, at which time other classes get to sit on the bench probably... And I don't think the system would be so flexible that 6 rogues can finish a mission and get the same reward a fully balanced group would.
Yup, I'll call you cynical. (I don't totally blame you of course, but it does sound like a cynical outlook.) Seriously, this is a good chance for the devs to provide content that does interesting things for Enchanters, classes with Bane spells/abilities, etc.... traps and chests for rogues/bards/casters... and even to provide moloable instanced dungeons if they so choose. It's a really big opportunity for them to increase the cohesiveness of the game's world (by breathing new life into skills and spell lines that have gone largely unused or been regarded as "niche at best" for a long time), to provide interesting content for all the game's diverse classes, and to You know what? I think if there's a character who can Disarm in the party, some of the mobs should be equipped with no-trade, no-pet weapons that proc lifetaps, debuffs, or other sorts of problems! It would give Disarm a legitimate use! The team also seems well aware that whatever they do now needs to set up sustainable systems for the future (and fix or replace kludge from old systems that makes sustainable development harder). And Elidroth (for his part) seems pretty set on taking ownership of his work and trying to help make EQ the best game it can be.
