There was a non raiding paladin I would invite to join me for a lesson burn. During that time the paladin did not tank a single mob, did not cast a spell, and did not use any disciplines. There was a non raiding shadow knight I used to invite to join me for a lesson burn. This guy occasionally would tank, casted maybe one or two spells on every other mob, and died twice because he forgot to use a discipline. There is a non raiding warrior I invite to join me for a lesson burn. This guy tanks multiple mobs at once, picks up mobs in incoming, and generally has less than half of an endurance bar at the end of the lesson. The paladin needs to "git gud". The shadow knight needs to be shown assistance on how to play better. The warrior is what group content should be based around...
You have raid gear with 33% more HP's, 30% more AC, and much more heroics which compounds the ease with which you can do group content. It's a team of 9ft basketballers playing against a team of 6fters. To me, raid gear should be "artificially downgraded" to the top tier group gear of it's era when ever people are in group zones. Do the content in the gear it is designed for.
I also do group content purely with non-raid geared alts. Alts that don't get all the same attention as my raiding main for gear, augs, achievements or AA. My observation is that those that attack raid geared players doing group content don't want to believe that they're failing group content for any other reason than gear. It's a convenient excuse. I don't deny that it helps, but I can guarantee you it is not required.
Why can't people just let others vent here on the forums? I had to chuckle when I read the OP long winded opening that basically was a new and different way to tell folks upset about the recent dot changes to shut up...and then the thread quickly devolve into another let's tell some percentage of the paying EQ population that they suck thread. Let's go back to the original intent of this thread though. My question to the OP would be...why can't you just let upset people vent a little? I assume you agree that if you were given something and then have it taken away soon after, you would be angry. The best solution to deal with anger is to vent a little. I've never understood people's inability to let people vent in a safe manner (typing text into messages on a forum is about as safe as it gets). Let them post that the sky is falling...you don't have to respond. People want others to accept that they're angry. Doesn't mean they have to agree with the reasons why. Doesn't mean they don't think the other person isn't a little crazy. Just show someone you can see how they might get to the state they are at. If you have to post...post a there, there comment and go on with your day. And to answer the question that the OP asked...a Drogba-like situation happens on a weekly basis for at least the large family guild on Xegony that I am in. Where either raiders or botters or even strong groupers come take over an area where groups of my guildees have been playing for awhile and they just don't care and neither does their guild leadership (if any guild). Officially, this is not bad behavior since there are no camps so there is no DBG recourse. And this has gone on for as long as I've been an officer in my guild (going on 15 years now). Casual groupers have been dealing with crappy EQ players since the start of the game. Why do you think there were so many casual players upset with the original HA changes? (Spoiler: you cannot be bothered in instanced zones...you don't have to wait for an area to open...) You may be right or wrong...but your example is pretty meaningless to me...and a number of other people harassed in EQ on a daily basis. As far as the most of the rest of the comments (and a lyric quote from the height of Peart's Ayn Rand phase...what the hell?), the view is different depending upon how and why you play EQ. Just try to remember that.
For mission based progression I think the answer is rather easy in terms of having different levels of difficulty to pick from. Easy, medium and hard with the end rewards matching the level of difficulty. This would allow progression even at end game to continue for everyone regardless of having group or raid gear. Those with superior gear or who are willing to try the more challenging missions would be rewarded accordingly while those who cant beat the harder degree of missions can still enjoy the content but would not get the same mission rewards. For open world content I think having a true tier system is crucial but in order for this to work there needs to be more than 6 zones. 8 would be the bare minimum with 12 being ideal imo. This would allow for 4 total tiers with 2-3 zones for each tier. Not only would this make the transition into a new expansion more appropriate for even the most casual of player but it would also provide more gameplay throughout the year. Now for this to work people would have to be open minded to more revamped zones and less "new" content. Its time people get a reality check on the resources available to the development team and the expectations going forward. We will never see another mega expansion with all new zones (unless expansions were released on a biyearly basis). Another mega expansion with mostly revamped zones on the other hand might be within reach assuming the revamping process does not require nearly as much work as creating all new content. My ideal expansion would contain 12 zones with 4 tier systems and within each tier there would be two revamped zones and one new zone for a total of 8 revamped and 4 new. As far as class balance this is going to be a never ending process due to all of the variables revolving around the game. Each players skill and gear combined with each individual encounter can create unforeseen situations that the developers did not intend. It does suck when a couple of individuals who have figured out how to exploit their class show off and the end result is everyone having their abilities tuned down even if they were not engaging in said exploit but that's just the nature of the beast. In these situations people should shame those who are openly exploiting the content since they are the reason your class is getting nerfed. When its an obvious oversight by the development team such as giving a class xx power boost and then scratching their heads when players are doing xx damage and taking it back that is just poor attention to detail on their part. Ideally there should be a formula to determine player power increases based on mob power increases. If mobs from one expansion to the next gained x% power increase players should also be able to achieve x% power increase so the content is still balanced while allowing them to be more powerful vs older content.
You could take this both ways. Not everyone benefits the same from raiding. Tanks and melee surely do, casters less so and priests hardly at all. People who raid do so for the challenge and because they like it, for most of us gear is a ribbon for a job well done. My guild is pretty big about 20pct are hardcore raiders about 30pct are casual raiders and the rest don't raid. You have good and bad players of all three types. How are you going to design content for us? You could nerf raid gear AC and raid weapon damage/delay ratios but have you ever looked at how tiny the difference is between a rank 2 and a rank 3 spell? Not saying the game isn't skewed here, its just the only way to fix it the way you want is to create two separate games. Also a lot of the things you might think are raid-oriented about RoS is not raid-oriented, its just broken, buggy content e.g. almost every mob in OT casting an irresistible, incurable dot. They didn't make that for raiders. Raiders complain about that just as much if not more. The devs then compound the problem by "fixing" things that aren't broken instead of grinding off the broken razor blades from their unfinished, untested, too small expansion; or actually adding real content.
Make a separate Hardcore Mode progression server, with difficulty of encounters scaled up such that only half or less than half of the raids that bring appropriate numbers can progress beyond minibosses or the group game and attempt the end of expansion raids. (because of difficulty, not because of numbers required to attempt, but dialed up until it stabilizes where you need much more to zerg, or much better than heroic* fighters) And dial it up such that unless your class has intrinsic skills allowing it to solo, you would die a lot fighting trash mobs in any zone with less than a partner. And named geared for 3-6 player groups. If content gets wrecked too easily, when the next expansion launches give a boost to the previous expansions mobs difficulty and dial up your initial settings for the newly opening expansion. These could be percentile adjustments to basic characteristics such as health, armor, avoidance, resistance, accuracy, damage caps and so on. With potentially every monsters abilities toggleable on or off for every singular monster spawn in the game. It would take active monitoring and maybe more frequent tweeks to encounters even between expansion unlocks. Maybe assign values to monsters based off its size physically such that a large number of smaller creatures with enough numbers could overpower any player en mass, and the larger the monsters in the fight the less required to "overpower" the player resulting in penalties or weaknesses applied to the player or outright death or unconsciousness. Or just get really creative and try to throw curveballs at players shifting mobs spell lineups and abilities more often. So that players cannot enter an encounter and know 100% they cannot fail to win without slowing down. Because heroic characters are mortal, only demigods stand a chance at completion of an expansion. Maybe set a timeframe on expansion unlocks so that once a raid keys itself to the end zone(s) that is when the timer starts to unlock the next expansion. Giving competition to the race to finish, more akin to how velious and gates of discord played out, than how original eq did. Expand on what happened with original veeshans peak, give risks of permanent loss. Maybe 3 attempts on a raid target and if failure then every worn item is irrevocably destroyed. Do not allow armor or weapons to be folded into purses, instead allow one set of worn armor and one set of armor banked, like a bandolier for alternate armor like there are bandoliers for weapons. Having 3 losses to a raid target, would wipe the best "item/level of each armor piece. and when you respawn or rez you are wearing the weaker "itemlevel" of the 2 armor sets now and the bandolier armor is empty. so you must make or hunt for replacement gear before you would risk another strike out on a target. Or just upgrade eq with better merc ai, add chatbot, and let the npcs be the players role and the players create monsters who hunt or be hunted by npc parties and raids. That would be more fun I think in ways... because the chat bot npc raiders would yell back and forth with you randomly intelligently and could be fun. *edit- perhaps change it so that once a raid has keyed for an expansion that is 2 expansions beyond an older raidkey zone, the expansion that is 2 behind permanently locks its raid zone, or changes to a group zone with dead raid target bodies and just trash mobs left behind.
imho as long as the model is backwards mismatch.. ie raid gear in group content.. no matter the skill level or knowledge; content cant level to the middle. So simple ideal answer would be make all gear scale to the content you doing.. ie if you raid its raid rated.. if you group its group rated. This fails in a money.. err marketing ideal way as many players raid only so they pawn group content.. false sense of legit skill. Note this is not a gear pawns all. you need the knowledge and skill. But better gear allows for errors in skill or delay reaction. A driven knowledge player can do many of things.. but will be limited to his gear. If player X lacks knowledge and want to.. no matter of gear level will help the potato.
FWIW, Neil Peart has rejected Objectivism once he's become an adult, like most people who read Ayn Rand as youths.
I could care less what Neil's past or current philosophical bent is. The words say something some of these people need to understand. I have never read Ayn's stuff either. I still wish I was a youth. You have to work on yourself to see your own potential. You are responsible for you. No one can make you be the best you can be or do the best you can do...only one's self can do that. Are trying to tell me that isn't true? You can't make people competent in this game by making it easy for them. If someone wants what others have, they will need to get in the same line and pay the price. There isn't going to be a special line setup for people who can't or won't do what is needed. You want to do group junk in EQ, be competent in your class, develop your character to the point you need to be at for that expansion and earn it. If the group tasks there can't be done by competent well planned groups of 6 people, then developers will need to tune it. Let's not tune it so the lazy or crappy player can do it however. To the person saying quit picking on the chicken little types...No one is saying they can't vent, but if you are going to vent, be aware someone is going to respond to your hysterical blather. Sure they have the right to vent, but others have a right to vent against the lunacy being posted here. Where are our right's? You can't tell me it is ok to a person to post the crap they do without a response? How are they so special from the rest of us? Should we seal them up in their own private forum so they can post irresponsibly without consequences? I know you want to be their shepherd, lord knows a lot of them need one to guide them and keep them away from the real world. Keep up the good work. I do not agree with some of the changes in the game and I am not defending anything. If you read anything else I post you should know this. There are things that need to be fixed or made to be more fair in some areas, but the crap some of these people post needs to be thrown back at them.
Umm...do you know what quotes are? I think not. I am not saying that at all. I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I don't care if anyone does. Are you defending BS crap people like Avory, Milliana, HeatherPurrs post? If you don't want to see me rip on people like that for posting nonsense, then ignore me and read their crap only. It is you who detests dissenting views by the very nature of what you posted above. I have seen your work too, so don't get all hypocritical on me. Do I know I am a little harsh? Yes, I do. Should I turn my cheek more often? Sure! I can either suppress my opinion so your delicate fragile egos are saved or I can express myself just like people like you can. If you are gonna come at me, you should do better than this. This ain't my first forum-quest environment rodeo.
Why can't content scale based on what you have completed in your achievement window as well as your level? An instance would score the group based on their collective achievements and levels. Make the chest loot scale as well. Say you get a bronze chest of you have only a few achievements and not everyone is at max level, then as you progress you get a harder version and access to the silver chest. If the group contains mostly raiders then they would get the hardest version and access to the gold chest. I would always give the group the option of selecting a harder version with the better rewards. I would even consider putting Rk III spells and chase loots in the gold chest. The hardest version would be in essence a group raid with raid type mechanics.
This would be ideal. However there is the reality that Daybreak will only dedicate so much development time towards the game. Time spent on an expac is split between raid content and group content. Decreasing the amount of time (and content) available for group players so that raid players have more content specifically for them is the wrong way to go.
Honestly, if you think "raid gear" is the only thing that makes a difference... you need to re-evaluate things. We run casual raids every week. There are group geared people that both tank well, and DPS well. There are near 100% raid geared people that tank terribly and parse worse than Paladins in the raid. Sorry, but if you don't know how to push the correct buttons... you will do poorly if the devs summon you raid gear from the 30th expansion and hand it to you.
You've won this thread, Segap. Thanks for this absolutely on-point post. Nuance is the key when asking for useful responses. Some people ask questions lazily, and become upset when they aren't spoon-fed the answer. Rewards are for those who put forth the effort. Whether it be group or raid, the diligent and work-wise will obtain the rewards.
