What happened to doing it right the first time?

I take back my comments that SoE should deliver more content. I should have said quality content. Its bad enough that some feel they expansion they paid for hasn't been delivered, but to just push out buggy substandard content is even worse.

Sadly I don't think this is the fault of the developers, but those above that are not providing the resources required to provide reasonable results based on past expectations.

I do want to mention that learned lessons from the past seem to keep getting forgotten. Setting up group content that is a challenge for raiders = mess. Raiders burn through the content and stop, little to no upgrades. Non raiders lose interest against content that they stall on.

Reduction of class powers through nerfs for content that is tuned aggressively makes me really scratch my head. What is the vision for the game, currently it appears to be knee jerk reactions this way and that, with little communication of that is trying to be accomplished?


Ruven

You answered your own question.

content is made, some of which is easy and some of which is hard:
players: WAAAAHHH some of this content is too hard, the devs have totally lost touch with the playerbase, this kind of bad tuning is going to be the death of EQ, the game didn't used to be like this, i'm cancelling all 97 of my accounts!

content is made which is generally pretty easy for everyone:
players: WAAAAHHH this content is too easy, the devs have totally lost touch with the playerbase, this kind of bad tuning is going to be the death of EQ, the game didn't used to be like this, i'm cancelling all 97 of my accounts!

content is made which is generally challenging for most people:
players: WAAAAHHH this content is too hard, the devs have totally lost touch with the playerbase, this kind of bad tuning is going to be the death of EQ, the game didn't used to be like this, i'm cancelling all 97 of my accounts!

content is made, most of which is easy and very little of which is hard:
players: WAAAAHHH some of this content is too hard, the devs have totally lost touch with the playerbase, this kind of bad tuning is going to be the death of EQ, the game didn't used to be like this, i'm cancelling all 97 of my accounts!

you know what i've observed in my 15 years of playing EQ?
it's not the game nor the content that causes the players to cry like babies, it's the babies who cry at everything.

the EQ community is like baby chicks: they scream and scream to get the devs to vomit in their mouths, and then they scream and scream when the devs do so.

It is not so much this it is all too hard or too easy. The first half has been easy the second half is hard. Which would have been fine if it had all been released at the same time, a nice mix for everyone.

The problem that arises now is everyone has finished the easy stuff and those who find the new stuff hard have nothing new they can complete, so they are waiting what another 3 months before the final part is released, hoping it won't be as tough or worse waiting for the next expansion.

We need a nice mix of easy and hard stuff released at the same time, not that you can do a lot with just one zone.

It is not the same people crying about everything. It's the simple issue of not being able to please everyone all the time. No matter what the devs do, some group of players aren't going to like it.

The problem we face right now, is that the amount of content being released has significantly reduced and it is much harder to please everyone. Take an expansion like Secrets of Faydwer, there is something for everyone, including lower levels. Casual lower level groups forming to kill at the Farm in Dragonscale Hills and then progressing to Loping Plains, had the content they desired. Hard core groups, progressing to Crystallos and then hunting Squires, had their content. The massive amount of quest and mission lines kept people busy for a year, and raid progression kept raiders happy.

We do not have that now.

As for the nerfs we have all seen lately, it is an indication that the devs are trying to balance issues they perceive in the game. Issues that are impacting the game right now, or issues that will be more pronounced down the road are being dealt with. As frustrating as they have been, it is a clear indication that the devs still care about the integrity of the game . . . now and future. I would be more concerned if they were not making any of these changes and simply didn't care what impact they were having. That would be a very dire indication of where this game was going.

There was a 4 day beta, it's not surprising.

4 day beta and 0 days in test. The zone-in to ToR from DH was never functional for the week that the content was live on the test server.

Such professional, many QA, wow

Although I suppose the evacuation of the building due to the wildfires probably didn't help any.

The developers were listening to all the people on the boards complaining how this game has become easy mode. People kept saying the game has gone casual and it has ruined the game. The developers listened and released a raid that has yet to be beaten and group content that is challenging.

You will never please everyone. It is trial and error. They are trying to feel out the new wave of people playing this game. Starting of hard and slowly making it easier is the best way to do it. So you will probably see adjustments in future patches.

Hard is hard.

Hard because you have 5 fps isn't a great way to actually make events difficult. I'm going to assume you haven't tried the event yet.

Something with small closed in spaces makes EQ stumble... it's like that tunnel when you zone into Hills of Shade... very laggy, but it clears up as soon as you exit it.

I dunno if it's too much to ask the devs to set difficulty options on raid events (and group instances) with appropriate rewards. I think it would be easy since you don't have to start from scratch. Just set a median and tweak stuff here and there to make it easier/more difficult then decide appropriate loot that matches the difficulty. This would also be a great way to promote grouping. Set hard mode as no mercs allowed and need to be full group, regular mode as 2 to 3 player doable with mercs and easy would be solo/molo. Of course the hard mode would have the best loot and/or better chance at dropping rare loot.

This, Tears, is just well put, and, sadly accurate.

No reason at all to flame the OPs post, he's spot on.
Too hard group content for non-raiders = major fail.

They are already forced to release group content only for max. level players, and so those should at least have a good time and not bang their heads against overtuned missions.
Raiders can get their challenge from the raid they get, which seems to be exactly that a good challenge.

It's spot on to remind them that they should not give in to people who shout for hard group content.
Those with reasonable arguments would like seeing quality content instead again, with a nice atmosphere because that is also what mmo is all about. Places you just like visiting no matter what your goals are. Sadly those that want hard group content are the loudest.

And i am also getting tired of the terms whining and complaining, if a forum is not open for discussion what is it good for?

Problem is the people for all the hard content are the ones who dont work/live in their parents basement/have no life other than EQ and therefore have all the time in the world to camp/raid/gear up their characters, it's not that they are loudest, its that they dont do anything other than sit on eq/forums lol.

They addressed this in SoD when they made hard mode raids. They have said that, yes, bascially, they have to make each raid from scratch. It's not as simple as copy and paste all the mobs and give them +50% hp/attack. It's a delicate balance with too many variables to just copy, requiring almost as much time as the initial zone/event creation.

I agree with the strategy (and that will work for most of EQs population) but the inherent problem goes a little deeper. It's not merely that you will never please everyone - there is a segment that will not be satisfied no matter what you do. Working in restaurants has familiarized me with this archetype...all too well.

So what is the problem with having a large amount of difficult content? Is it that part time players can't finally win EQ? If the content is that challenging, it just means that part time players won't run out of content ... ever.

Millions of lines of code cannot be easily upgraded. Some of the complainers don't seem to realize that.

They are competing with GM for how many Recalls/Patches are required to fix stuff they push out without proper testing prior to release to the public.

I like how this is scheduled downtime -- when there was no announcement.