Just a guess, but maybe it is the result of being bought by an investment company? Get the money fast then get out. But even as I type that, I recall that the nerf to older content for TDS was done while still under Sony. So, honestly, I have no idea what the thinking is. The last 1-2 years of decisions just seem like the company is pushing itself off a cliff by driving away customers, and I cannot figure out why.
Or if the 'issue' was Gribble, then just further nerf Gribble - not virtually all older content. I want DBG to provide a consistent environment where I can choose what I want to do - not where the company decides to 'nudge' me by deciding to suddenly make something three times as hard on Wednesday thanas it has been for the last two years. While I'm done with COTF for my main and most alts, I can see working on other alts is going to be needlessly more painful. [I can also see that if I deploy for a year again, if the timing is wrong I have a strong potential of getting screwed in terms of catching up. Doesn't seem very friendly to older players coming back.] And if DBG is going to play this game - nerfing older content with every new release - then why not announce it before the new expansion is coming out? After all, no one could save up more than 105 AA anyway - it wouldn't impact their ability to 'nudge' players. They aren't afraid that it will pi$$ off players, are they? I waited months before getting TDS on more than none account, and never bought it for two of them. I wish that I had never pre-ordered TBM for accounts now.
For those who still don't get it, why this is such an outrage, I'll make it clear: 1) Time spent by DBG nerfing old HAs while releasing an utterly broken, incomplete expansion 2) It has no impact on the high end people while people in group gear get it up the badonk sideways. That's because you can't do anything to diminish the high end people without screwing group players far worse. But instead people in end-game raid gear can continue to blow through Gribbles while casual players struggle twice as long. 3) We've had these missions for two years, NOW they decide to 'fix' them? 4) A blatant attempt to push us into the new expac, which is no better if not worse.
And not only blatant but evil. Whoever made the decision to do it should be ashamed. Yeah its just a game and all but if you can't make an expansion that people want to play just be honest and sunset the game. Use the carrot not the stick I am tired of it myself. Lilura makes the best point ever. This sort of thing punishes the casual players. They did the same with the RoF nerfs and to be honest I think the abrupt switch to locking TDS beind progression also hurt the casual game (and TDS progression was doable but it turned off a lot of casuals). I see the results. I have the only large casual guild left on Xegony and without the boxes ever guild has it would be even worse. My guild may have 50-60 online max these days but the next largest casual guild is 10-15 and it goes downhill from there. The casual game has been hit hard and these actions are a big part of it. And Lilura is right raiders will still push through the CotF content with ease. My own gear is CotF T1/T2 from open raids and I see the massive difference it makes on just one toon. Daybreak is killing the casual group game. I keep going at the moment because if I left EQ there would be no large casual guild left on Xegony. But it takes me more and more work to keep the guild going with the stuff Daybreak is pulling. They don't seem to get the demographics of EQ either.. we have an older population where morality is more of an issue as is stubornness. We don't like being pushed into content. We also don't like answers like we are just rebalancing something we intended to rebalance. It just seems like they seriously want to kill off the casual group game. And I am not being dramatic.. they aren't doing it all at once... but its a bit at a time. I also have no intention of rage quithing... first I am thinking of switching my accounts from yearly to montly then continue to try and extend them with krono. If things continue I will deactivate some accounts.... I suspect it will be a pretty gradual process for me if I do start giving up. The sad part is I have invested a ton of time effort and money (money especially in the last few years). I can't speak for the raid game but they need a summit for the casual game to figure out what they can do to revive it.
I think this might be the biggest issue by across the board increasing the difficulty of the CotF HAs. I dont think anyone should argue that Gribbles needed a difficulty increase.. but to increase all of the other ones is bad mojo.. I actually do not understand why they scaled up past level 100. They don't want people still doing that content so why the hell make it scale past the level it was intended? /shrug.. nothing DBG does these days makes much sense.
i can honestly say i have done each theme HA at least 50 times.. Gibbles was by far the easiest set of HAs on CotF.. No one should deny this.. If so please tell us which ones where easier and faster.. considering most of the themes take longer just to get to the Collection/Named spawn point then it takes to complete an entire gribble HA.
Won't argue that Wiz. Gribbles are fast and easy. They also have the crappiest rewards. What frosts me is DBG's complete lack of priority. Nerfing the HAs and even worse, nerfing Silent Casting for NO DAMN GOOD REASON, while releasing a broken expansion. Their priorities are completely backwards.If I didn't know better they want to sabotage this game. Notice no one with a red letter name has the stones to answer us here or in any other critical threads.
This is the biggest thing for me. I don't want to hear about lack of time as an excuse as to why their expansions are tiny and broken when they do stuff like this. Whoever is in charge of work priorities in EQ has to have the absolute worst sense of time management I've ever seen in my life. "Terrible expansion that's not going to come close to being released in an acceptable state at this pace? Lets figure out how to alter fade code, nerf mages and work on re-tuning HA scaling!" I mean, thank god they're not actually in charge of a real triage.
They did the exact same thing last year. Release a pile of garbage, while spending time nerfing exp, HAs, and spells. Then spend MORE time later undoing and fixing some of those nerfs.
Holly and the devs don't care or even play eq any more. Holly and the rest of the devs have been playing EQ2 for the last few weeks. Not sure how that was helping with the eq release. But Holly is quite pleased that she was able to give us cats in a bag. Not sure why everybody is complaining, according to her, that is what all eq players have been asking for for years.
Anyone know if this change effects max level 100 groups? I can see it for level 105 groups. HP and general mob difficulty should be on par with TDS mobs i would thank. However, if they changed the difficulty of the HAs @lvl100 (across the board), this is wrong IMO.
I could not agree with you more about them spending so much dang time on things that they think should be old news. They spending to much time jacking with old crap and it obviously shows in new content releases... CotF HAs should have been max level 100 and all tuning from there should have not happened. especially if they want people to see new content.. why the hell would they just simply raise the level and exp for places that people sit around in the most?
I feel like it would be a good investment for DBG to get a psychiatrist on staff. These types of cycles are very indicative of several personality disorders.
Did I not answer this like 8 pages ago, or was that some other thread. It's because people have invested so much time in this game, they will buy it no matter how bad it gets. I did, but what sets me apart from a lot of you is, I don't stick around playing the game if the expansion sucks, I actually bother to pick up another game to play that I find entertaining.
He speaketh the truth! I know I fit one of those easily, but there is big subset of players that fit all those criteria, one I just replied back to because he is so narrow minded for all those above reasons.
Not me. My last remaining friend in the game abandoned our blue server for the TLP. Been playing SC2: Legacy of the Void Cut Scenes. Blizzard really, really wants to be a movie studio but they still make a great game.
