What a mess, stop trying to please everyone DBG.

This is actually the opposite of what I wanted to see at launch. I think the idea of guilds rushing to mobs is great and is what set this game apart from everyone else but when you launch a server in a rush without making the required changes to making raiding actually challenging then what is the point? This was apparent when raid targets were down 3 days after launch with a small group that wasn't even close to cap yet.

I did not expect a classic server. To whomever said that above, but a server with some sense of balance is expected when you pay 15 dollars. Monks rolling around with 20/26 fist, "Pets" being able to auto afk kill things with zero risk of death lowers the enjoyment for everyone. Just look at how many rogues and rangers there are compared to monks to justify my statement. Not having the memory is not an excuse for allowing them to release in their current state. I'm sorry that this would of been "hard" and not something most programmers do not "want" to do but it's called being an employee. This was DBG first crack at showing us how this company was going to separated itself from the many mistakes that SOE has made and IMO besides the fact that DBG released the server (which I am still happy for), this was a swing and a miss.

I will say they did learn something because the EQ2 progression server seems to be in much better shape. But it still has it flaws, but by default having instances in the game made it run smoother. (besides the fact it completely destroyed the player base in their existing servers..should of had a plan in place to merge them like a week after TLP launch).

I dunno, I guess I expected more. EQ players are some of the most intelligent players in MMO's due to the fact the crowd is older and well established themselves in real life. Instead of using these great resources to create a well thought out plan, it was rushed. Don't get me wrong there is still PLENTY of time to fix it but it seems of fixing the real problems they are just trying to make everyone happy which isn't possible. This game allows things to be patched for a reasons. Here is a few things I would patch"

Nerf pets/monks/damage output on all classes in general. People would log on an in sense it would kinda be a new game. Raid leaders would have to come up with new plans and the box crews would have to pick a real balanced crew to level up *which they are all planning to do anyways with new expansions released*.

Disable third party programs and ENFORCE IT. Auto boxing programs are being used to much and the no auto-boxing programs while not as bad as the auto boxing program still makes boxing simple. People can still box but having a few buttons that allows all the boxes to act as a single character just makes the game to easy (thou boxing well is actually hard even with the boxing programs). I have raided in a guild that has 5 players make up 20+ people in a raid. This is required when you only have the option for 20 people who log into the server willing to raid anymore but its not something needed on the new servers. Of those players that did box 4-6 characters at raids for us, ONLY one of them was able (and willing) to play them like they all mattered. *Shout out to Karael...dude took boxing seriously* Everyone else played a couple characters well but most of them were all set to being heal spam bot/bardsong/rez bot.

Auto Abosrb Krono upon trade. Put a cap on how many Krono each character can have on them at any given time. Put a cap on how many Krono you can buy in a 30 day period. Allow this cap only removed by DBG staff after contacted by customer service for only a few select reasons (family members accounts ect).

This is where I would start, what would you do?

Nice wall o' text. I'll read it later tonight when I'm trying to fall asleep.

No worries, since everything must be the size of a twitter post or have a hashtag to be read i'll sum it up for you.

"Me game rushed, need fix bad,*grunt noise* #pleasebalance"

There, now you can get to sleep faster for that beauty rest to post more selfies. #mustbuynewiphoneday1

Thank you! I never would have been able to figure all of that out without your kind and generous help. Too bad the short version is just a boring and repetitive as the long version. But, I suspect you have a very satisfying sense of vindication now.

Nope was just using this as a perfect example of what DBG tries to do with it's players. I write a long and "boring" post that many people have enjoyed but you stated you thought it was boring and repetitive. So I tried to give you the cliff notes version (in a sarcastic way because your original post was adding NOTHING to this thread) and you weren't happy with it either. So I can't please everyone, and neither can DBG.

So Please DBG stop trying or this is what happens ^

I just can't get past this one thing I kept thinking of over last night. This game has one of the worst Pay to win models on these two servers and this specific end of the game is a subscription game. I've never seen a pay to win inside of a subscription model. How are we all letting this get past us? This is wrong. We are paying for ALL ACCESS. Why do we have to sit there and have 6 mages sitting on the frenzy and we have to settle for the shin bedroom camp? Why do we have to have rotations for raid mobs that spawn daily when on live you can access this content on demand? Something is seriously wrong here someone needs to educate DBG on customer service and marketing. What is this 15 dollars i'm giving them every month for exactly? Its like the buy in to the worst Pay to win model ever.

Well, I guess you put me in my place, didn't you. I am properly chastised and impressed by your verbal brilliance. You know, I never did say that I disagreed with you. You have simply stated what so many others have previously stated, and done it so many words, with such fury and invective. Since you and your admirers apparently have all the answers and all the foresight, maybe you could make your own game company and show everybody how it should be done?

TLDR

Exactly.

The only people that think this was a good post are the same people that won't accept anything DBG does as progress. Meaning your thoughts and ideas are useless.

I have been wanting a new progression server for a long time. I played on Vulak. I was in LOGA. EoE was a very hardcore guild, and Damdor would have dropped a nuke IRL to get all kills. LOGA was a solid guild with a lot of really good players. About a month after the server opened, we started showing up for raid targets. My memory is a little fuzzy, I might have been in SOV at the time, which was an ally of LOGA that ended up merging into them. Anyway, I showed up for three raids. One, the GMS gave the target to EoE because they were first in force. I believe EOE won the first contested mob with a DPS race, so this was their solution. The next they did a /ran on, giving EoE 2 rolls because they had more people there. I am not making this up. The third, CT, they literally just gave to us, and I am not sure why. They made EoE leave the zone. Literally half the guild stopped playing around this time. The Sony hacks were part of it, but mostly it was because they didn't understand the rules, as there were no set rules. This round of progression servers addressed that with a "DPS Brah" policy. So score one point for Sony.

While they didn't open a second server from the gate, they did try and double capacity. Score a half point for Sony.

They had multiple instances of noobie zones to handle the initial rush. Score one for Sony.

They opened a second server. Score one for Sony.

When it still wasn't enough, they added AFK log outs and instanced higher end zones. More points for Sony.

Holly comes out and says a Filthy casual should not kill Nagy in era. Damn right they shouldn't. Score 10 for DBGs.

They have a vote for unlocking Kunark(which they said in their initial post that they might do) and left one guild at 6 months, and moved one to 3 months. They allowed free transfers. Great move.

They open multiple instances of SolB so that the xp groups can play, and left Nagy spawning in only the main instance. I am ok with this.

They make the raid mobs more difficult, thus making the top guilds more elite. I understand the decision. I am ok with this. It's in line with the filthy casuals shouldn't get dragon loot.

Then they came out with a forced rotation on Ragefire. I don't get this decision. I would have preferred them opening hate and fear instances, and left the boss mobs in the main instance. I could have lived just fine with the status quo. But a forced rotation, rewarding shitties? I can't get behind this idea in any way shape or form.

I am still playing on the server. I have and will continue to enjoy myself. I saw a guy advertising his new guild, "Rotation Welfare". I am now thinking of shifting my play style from group only to scheduled raiding, because of this decision. But it's really the only decision from DBGs that boggles the mind. While I initially wasn't going to play on it, I am now thinking I might give the no box server a shot. All things considered, DBGs has exceeded my expectations for a progression experience, and I had high expectations to begin with.

If I was a rep for DBG I'd say "we will make instanced raids if you all can go one single day without a public demand".....

....there would never be instanced raids (until it normally came out)

As we speak right now there are multiple locations on the live servers to play instanced classic raid targets. The only servers that do not have this are the TLP servers which happen to be a cesspool and are almost a 1:1 ratio of legit player to RMT. These servers are also subscription only meaning everyone who plays on it has already paid DBG money and are then forced to then pay mitigated costs to the third party overlords on the servers to see any loot above grouping while the live side has any loot they want on demand for free. Tell me again exactly how fair and logical and sound of a business model this is? Party like its 1999? More like "Please come login to our poorly thought out and highly overrun servers full of the lowest lifeforms on earth and pay them money just to see the content we made 16 years ago at a price they will decide while we sit idly by pretending to care by making the content only killable by RMT'ers."

I WANT INSTANCED RAIDING BECAUSE [REASONS]

You can keep using more words but you are wasting the effort

I remember an old but realy well written post about the dangers of trying ti make everyone happy. This is still spot on. If dbg actually dared to have an opinion and go with what they believe in instead of cheapest damageconttoll option, they would start building a fan base who could trust them. Aroound every corner, there is allways waiting another person with something new to whine about.

Your playing on servers that have limited content with higher populations. That is what your paying access for. You also want someone to care about what your doing as well. No one cares what you do on live if its not in the endgame. That is why you update your websites looking for members and posting screens and videos of all the kills. Classic is currently the endgame on these servers. My cloak of flames means more to someone here then live cause someone else cares that I have it. It's not about the content it's about someone else caring what your doing here and trying to show off.

It's been over a week since I posted this thread and it just seems like everything has gotten worse not better. Everything that is being done feels like they are chasing the fire instead of jumping out ahead of it and meeting the problems straight on. On the first page alone of the forums there are 10 closed threads and of all the threads a Dev response to, only one of them is still open. It kinda has the feel of like the Capitol trying to silence everyone in "Mockingjay". With all the exploits going on, rotation drama, and game imbalances, its extremely hard to see a good ending with this.

I've been playing a lot of EQ2 lately because while there are a few issues with their new TLE, they are by far small in comparison. One of the man reasons is because everything is instance there and there is not loot drama. While its not perfect, it feels like something that people are going to be and stay excited about for awhile.

I hope DBG comes in with some sweeping changes and stop this ship from sinking. I wouldn't even mind if you dropped the servers for a week while making these changes (instances, bug fixes, class balancing). This will atleast give people some hope and something to look forward to once the servers came up.

It's true that their bare fists are better than any weapon that can be equipped but they are hardly over powered on raids or groups. Yeah Monks do good melee DPS but they are hardly overpowered. I also like the monks are actually the bare hand fighters that the original game manual described them as. The original Hand to Hand tables were not nearly good enough for them to fill that roll. However with the buffed raid bosses these bonuses really don't amount to much since the bosses are mitigating so much of the damage monks are hitting in the single digits.

It's not just monks that got a boost though. Tanks, all classes actually but more relevant for tanks, also get a mitigation boost since the AC soft cap is much higher than it was back in 1999. All classes seem to have a bit more hp than they used to as well which increases the survivability. The only issue here is that they have buffed raid bosses to the point where these bonuses do not offset the much higher DPS of the buffed raid mobs.

TL;DR - seriously, I think I can level about 3 toons up to level 50 before I get done reading any of this EQ bashing stuff.

As this covers multiple topics (some we are currently allowing and some not, this needs to be closed up). Feel free to PM me with concerns.