Better Expansions plz

It seems you are very frustrated with the evolving items. I don't think the final rank of the evolving items were designed for people to kind of stumble into, however, there are lesser ranks of them that are also very good and require far less time. It sounds to me like you don't utilize voice chat and that you don't play with other people.


The trials are difficult-ish, if you have 6 human beings, theyre not so difficult. As for saying that they are unfriendly to group geared folks, I reply with it being your strategy and group build that is unfriendly, reevaluate your ideas of beating content. I have done these trials with countless ros group geared players. I applaud DBG for putting large design into events that require good teamwork and hardy ideas. In your description it sounds like you are trying to lead the way in what you do, and I agree with a prior poster in that I think its not that the content is too strong, in fact, it was dummied down to a point that I dislike, but that it is your approach to the content. Find some other interested people, and talk about strategy with them, is that too difficult?

Progression is only mindless when you're using a walkthrough. I challenge you to do the content either when it is new and there is no information or without a walkthrough. Id hardly call it "mindless", id be more apt to call YOU "mindless". From the sounds of what you wrote, it is apparent to me that you prefer mindless, you don't want a challenge, you don't want scripting, you don't want to activate your abilities whilst you play, a little autofire and tab over to youtube, tab back and win, with a participation trophy!

Do you think that this game would be around 20 years later If all the content were still the exact same idea? They have TLP servers if that is more your dig but don't be upset because you want to experience the live game and its too much for you.

I have liked this expansion very much and feel it is one of the best in the more recent years of Everqust. A lot of hard work went into the design and it shows with in-depth events and new and unique design. That doesn't mean everything was done perfect or was of the best design, so be it, is anything?



Thank you DBC for a great expansion

Personally I think collections add an interesting element to the game. Sure some of them can be rather annoying to find and other frustrating to have drop but its something different and can provide a very non stressful sense of achievement to the game.

As far as tradeskills go they have been relevant since day 1. There have been expansions that had little focus on crafting and others that placed a major emphasis on crafting. If its taken someone nearly 20 years to figure out how important crafting can be for a toons progression that is on the player side not development. I understand for a new or returning player trying to climb the mountain of combines can be rather frustrating but over 20 years for a regular player is it really that difficult to do some combines here and there? Sure there have been some who have skated by without having to do them while relying on the production of others who put in the time. Things like cultural gear over the years are a great example. POW access requires someone with superior crafting ability and every major raid guild I am sure was eager to gain access to test out their skills and obtain fat lootz. Without crafters raider would have been locked out. Now there are some items that actually require individuals to put forth some effort to obtain and people are upset? Crafting to advance your toon and obtain better gear is just like raiding. If you don't do it don't expect the end results from your time invested. Personally I appreciate the fact that there are alternatives to obtaining nice thing outside of just murdering countless mobs, questing, or raiding. Trade skills provides that nice casual experience this game needs and the players that enjoy doing them should be rewarded for their efforts. If anything I wish there was more developer time spent on crafting not less.

Drop rate on the collects across the board should be upped a bit, the rarity for some of them is not connective towards the better aspects of the game. Collects need to encourage exploration, not camping the same mob for hours on end.

Farmed the Smoky collects last night in Plane of smoke. Got about 5 from 185 mobs. Still need two more, not looking forward to it. Place is a hell hole.

Ugh... The purpose of crafting has always been to supply supplemental gear - either resist (when that actual mattered) or that 1 missing piece. Granted, drop gear was always superior.

Using crafting to obtain a rare piece of loot or access to something, was clever repurpose of game mechanic to waste time when there was not enough content (bad content design)

If we are going get any new content...

I do not care if the expansion is hard, but please make the majority of it entertaining. That means finding another way to waste our time besides using FedEx style quest (zone tours, garbage collection, and soo on).

Nothing is going to make more casuals upset, then locking zones behind progression. If you want to have 1 or 2 out 6 zones locked behind progression, that is fine, but not the whole expansion.

Oh, and mobs shouldn't be able to AoE half a zone and through walls.

I just do not understand what the devs hoped to accomplish with TBL - beside get people not to buy it.

1) I can get people flagged through trials it's just not easy. That was not my point but you lack the ability to read. My issue as stated in the OP was that the Trials are way to early in the game, it cause massive separation of raiders vs casuals thus all my friends not In Triton were 3-4 months behind me. By the time they get to the next zone I'm done... pay attention dude, like try...

2) I brought up how I feel too much attention is on silly things like collectibles over building solid interesting zones, I even stated in my OP that I'm sure some people like doing collectibles and my point was not to end it but rather not force people to do things for "end game gear" that is boring beyond boring. It didn't used to be like that, collectibles blocking end game loot is bran spakin new, I'm giving feedback is all... You're just making things up.

3) I absolutely didn't complain about everything in the game... I even mentioned I had posted in the past on how much I liked EoK, and that's part of the game. I said I liked Trials and MPG trials. I even talked about loving old EQ and playing on a TLP server, soooo the opposite of your claims.

4) They stole my time when they took all the PoP named kills away from me and thousands of other people and then required it for a chase loot quest. I'm 100% correct on this and that's why I DON'T log in much at all outside of raids.

5) You got all 4 points devastatingly wrong. No matter, I'm sure you have more made up talking points to poop out onto the internet.

I see this mentioned many times by folks. If it's not such a big deal maybe allow access to smoke by beating any one trial. Just seems silly that you need to do one trial over and over for access.

I agree with you this was a big mistake by Daybreak. Yes there are ways to get around the very difficult trials in trials of smoke and avoid doing them BUT a lot of casual players didn't know all the tricks about avoiding the trials and they were used to straight forward progression not "sort of" blocked progression. So many got turned off early and and just didn't bother with TBL.

It sounds easy beat a trial every 2.5 days. Some peeps can't always get an optimized group to complete a trial every 2.5 days. Yeah if you box right on the 2.5 day mark you do your trial. For others it could be 2.5 days... 3 or 4 days. What does this achieve? I just don't get what the devs think they are adding to the game fun by doing this. If people are going to farm a trial for gear they will do that whether they get access or not.

One Smoke Trial should have been sufficient for progression and completing all of them should have given some item like a bag or aug or something. The current situation just pissed folks off for no good reason that I can see.

And although not the fault of Daybreak, the third party sites that detailed progression don't mention all the ways to get around not doing all the smoke trials. For casual players relying on these sources it seemed like a dead end. And sure some will say go find info etc... talk to people.. and yet every other single EQ expansion had third party walkthroughs that show how to get through it... and that was the only way. All of a sudden we get an expansion with approved loopholes that were not covered by third party sites.

Who is telling you what to do ?

Who said that?

No not one sentence have you stated "this is my opinion". I even went back an reread it to make sure. Perhaps it may now that this has been pointed out, that you may "edit" your post. But clearly you have not said it is my own opinion.

Careful.

He never said you were not in Triton. Does your self "victimization" SJW syndrome now simply make up points?

He never said you were not in Triton. He never said you were a superstar what ever. He explained the triton process as he went threw it.

Does that bother you because it clealy looks like it does.

You rather insult and SJW self identify as a victim rather then speak on what he posted. Or better yet actually try to bait him into a fight (then say your not, but ya did) Cause his view's are not yours .

This expansion reminds of of Gates of Discord !

YiMin

Not sure what the people who play with you are like. Raiders who play casual geared toons or all casuals. Some of the trials take a casual group right on top of their game to complete. The average group of group players aren't there in my opinion.

Personally I don't judge where content should be based upon what I can do. Some years I am playing as a hard core group player some years I seem to drop back a bit more. But I do look at how the players in my guild do and look in particular at the group players at mid level of ability. I figure they should be able to do all the early content of an expansion and only have difficulty in the very end zones. Again just my opinion.

Chill
It is just a game...

This is the big problem. SOME people can litterally do the progression in 1 day. A lot of folks can't. So no matter how difficult you make progression SOME people will finish it in a day and it just hurts those not in that boat.

Well I hate that the normal T1 zone Smoke is blocked by 5 trials.

It should of been .
1 trail access to T1 zone Smoke
5 trails needed for access to T2 Mearatas.

Yep. No need to cater to people like me and provide hard progression for anything but maybe the last zone, and even then just put it behind relatively easy-but-long key camps. The chase items (ex: evolving items) are perfect for try-hards. My top item, the gloves are 90% to T5!!

Avory, trust me - you are wasting your breath on these people. This expansion is awful and everyone wants to be some kind of fanboi about anything negative being said about it. These people all think that because "I've been hearing about the death of this game since Kunark!" that there's no wrong that can be done on DBG's part here in the the game's 20th year.

Just unplug these boards. They are a complete waste of everyone's time and effort. These boards are a microscopic representation of the player base. There's a reason for that. Like every other MMO world, the message boards are an annoying caustic cesspool. To enjoy the game, the vast majority of people playing this game avoid coming here. They're the smart ones. We're the fools for coming back here.

You can come back and say I told you so if TBL is as devastating as GoD was to the game as I fear it will be. Find something else to do is the only recommendation I can give you. Log in play the game, enjoy the closing era with your guild and in game friends. The end - It's coming sooner rather than later.

I tend to agree except they are a good source to confirm what's currently broken and what nerfs are coming.

I suppose it would be pertinent to add, much of the traffic on this message board is to read test patch messages for upcoming changes and of current server stability.

You know before I posted I thought about all that, I even told myself I was not going to respond knowing it turns into you defending against attacks from people un able to even quote you properly.

Being told I'm not even who I am in game, like I'm some failed ap of a guild is a new low for these guys... It serves no purpose to name drop who I am of what guild I'm in... my post was not about any of that.

Instead it's a bunch of trolls (actual trolls) making up arguments that don't belong here and loling as big as they can because the bigger the lolz they give their own posts means it's that much more true.

Quite a few people have mentioned they agree or agree in part with me and even gave their grievances with EQ's direction but the trolls like to attack a minority so they ignore others to focus on me while making up fake quotes.

I just had a guy claim my OP was not an opinion piece... I mean I clearly state "I" in it and at no point pretend to speak for anyone else... That's an opinion, I didn't claim my opinion was held by everyone else or something, oddly... THEY DO.

You have always been a cool guy, even when you disagree with me, why can't people just be people online rather than think being a ^&*# means they are right.

Posting just to be a part of this hilarious thread.