A proposition for a new TLP...

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Crackers, Mar 16, 2020.

  1. Crackers Elder

    So I’ll be honest, I’m sure these posts are tired and old, but I’ve played on just about every round of TLP, and I think it’s time I shared some insight.

    Ultimately my hope, and the goal for the dev team is that the next TLP server should be a long term success, but additionally a server that isn’t a repeat of what’s already been done. That can be accomplished I think with a few key changes, which will honestly make the next server unlike one we have seen. Before going into my suggestions, I want to dive into why Everquest has been great, and how we can make the next TLP great as well.

    This game is built on community, the key ingredient that made it successful. How many of us remember our first character, remember our first adventures, our first in game disappointment, and our biggest moments? This game has in many ways shaped the lives of many of us. The community is the central driving aspect of that. We didn’t accomplish our biggest wins in this game by ourselves (at least in most cases), and when our guilds died off, or our friends left the game, it had genuine real impact on the players left behind. Think about that for a moment. The game itself is just pixels on a computer screen. What the game enables however is something much greater, a community within those pixels that helps people whom otherwise would never connect to do just that. So creating a strong community is the very first requirement of this new TLP, and to do that you have to fight the decline of population on the server.

    The second requirement to make this next TLP extremely successful is to add in elements that haven’t been done on a TLP. PVP isn’t the answer here, and neither is FV ruleset (at least not by itself). The biggest driver here has always been allowing players to experience content they once loved all over again, in addition to allowing them to experience content they never got to see doing so in a way that makes it “current”. Within that overarching theme, you had more hardcore players competing for server firsts and rushing content, while you had others playing casually and enjoying the game. This is of course a delicate and hard balance to achieve, no small challenge at all. So finding something that keeps this theme working, while livening it up I think is critical.

    First, let’s address the community aspect as I see it. The single largest problem with developing a long lasting community within the server is population drop offs. When the population drops off, the community suffers. I think identifying why we have population reductions is critical to making the next TLP the most successful yet. Ultimately I think a few factors weigh in here, and taking steps to address them will help give the next TLP the best opportunity to survive long term. I think people ultimately crave that as well, as many I’ve heard on the last few TLP want to make it to the end, but drop off because the community isn’t there. So let’s look and examine what I feel are the biggest issues to preventing a lasting population.

    The pattern I’ve personally noticed the most on the TLPs for population drops has been that it occurs during certain periods within the game itself. Specifically during expansions that in their day were groundbreaking, relevant, and fantastic that on a TLP just don’t have the same impact. In the first two years of a TLP, excluding the first week), the largest drops in population occur at two points. Kunark, and LDoN. These two points are crushing to the TLP populations in most cases, based upon my observations. There may be data to refute my claim, but this has been my personal observation.

    The reasons for these expansions causing drop offs is largely unique to each expansion, so I’ll address them individually. First I’ll address Kunark. Kunark itself was fantastic in its day. If I’m not mistaken, from a size perspective it’s the largest expansion ever created for EQ. It offered the first new race, and it offered uncharted new areas for us to explore, with new quests, creatures, etc. However, looking at it in its current form, it doesn’t have the content to hold players active. First, in the current form Classic and Kunark together are 24 weeks long. That’s just shy of 6 months, which is far too long for this content in itself. The hardcore players could go from 1 – 60 in 2 weeks. The casual players can do it in 6 – 8 weeks without much trouble.

    After leveling, it’s all about character development. From that perspective, when you look at the expansions themselves, you have largely the same gear coming out of raid content. Nagafen and Talendor share a loot table, with Talendor having largely similar loot tables. The same goes for Vox and Gorenaire, with a handful of differences. Much of the gear farmed in single group camps will still be the gear of choice by some classes, and frankly the end game of Veeshan’s Peak is largely unappealing because the itemization is mostly weapons which are inferior to the epics. Since most of the epics (I stress most) can be done in a week or less, you leave little to be desired from Veeshan’s Peak except a handful of best in slot items. From a character development stand point, most of your gear is obtained before classic is done after 12 weeks, and you only need to upgrade a couple of critical slots in most cases when Kunark launches. In short, 24 weeks is too long, and you see a lot of the population dropping off by week 18. Given the addition of instances, 12 weeks is plenty from a character development stand point.

    Looking at LDoN, it too suffers from a critical issue of character development. First, augments are not near as groundbreaking at this stage as they once were. I remember farming the +6 wisdom augs because it benefited my manapool. Today, most TLP players are pretty close if not already at stat-caps for their most critical stats, and those types of augs are of no real value. Aside from some of the best ones earned on raids, they’re just not strongly desired. The absolute best raid gear out of this expansion is on par with elemental raid quality from the prior expansion, making raids even less desired. Ultimately, this expansion ends up being 20 (previously 24) weeks of trying to farm Plane of Time and elementals, while sprinkling in some augs at the tail end. The other major issue with character development is AA’s. With no new AA’s with LDoN, most classes have their critical AA’s already earned before LDoN arrives. Most players don’t have a strong desire to grind out AA’s to spend on First Aid and Innate Eminence, so this damages the community because people won’t group together.

    So the proposal here would be to merge LDoN with PoP. Simply put the augments are not going to make a lick of difference when it comes to beating PoP as most of the TLP servers experience PoP being conquered by the top guilds in a week, two at most. So the ground breaking nature of the augs in the past are not there today. What this does however is allows the LDoN content to be relevant, and doesn’t force players to sit through an expansion they really aren’t going to utilize. Also, this change makes the single most appealing aspect of LDoN realistic, and that is the adventurer’s stone. If players were grinding out their exp in LDoN’s during this era, they have a far greater chance of completing the adventurer’s stone. That said, that item needs to be address in itself. The required workload to maximize your adventurer’s stone, versus the reward you get, is frankly completely unbalanced. The Breakdown in Communications quest is less time intensive than a fully leveled adventurer’s stone.

    Here is a proposed schedule of expansions, and how it would probably best serve the goal of a long term viability of the server.

    Classic / Kunark – 12 weeks

    Velious – 12 weeks

    Luclin – 12 weeks

    Planes of Power / Legacy of Ykesha / LDoN – 12 weeks

    Gates of Discord – 8 weeks

    Omens of War / Dragons of Norrath – 12 weeks

    From here, I’d suggest 8 weeks per expansion even with a level increase. Simply put, most of us can get 5 levels in a week or two at most. If gear is a concern of players, consider a reduced lockout timer on instances if necessary. Ultimately, however, for many players there is a desire to play a TLP from start all the way through current content, and making this change along with the schedule above allows this to be completed in just under 4 years. This shaves almost a full year if not more off of the current required time table.

    Another issue worth addressing is the roadblocks, bottlenecks, or just plain poor choices that drive people away in these first two years that frankly don’t fit the TLP model. They also in some cases get toxic and drive players away from the game. Key examples would be…

    - Veeshan’s Peak Key – Make the key pieces easier to get. You almost always have the top tier guilds griefing each other over these key pieces, fighting for ground spawns, kill stealing key droppers, etc.

    - Vex Thal Key – Exact same issue as the VP key, you have pieces that are rarer, and as a result toxicity occurs here.

    - Plane of Storms – The flag pieces from the named giants, it’s just too rare. Instead of making guilds fight over the named, just reduce their spawn time. The current format requires guilds to “poopsock” these giants for long periods of time, holding down their claim for hours if not days on end.

    - For good measure, unrelated to bottlenecks would be make the instance version of Sleepers Tomb selectable. Someone always griefs the rest of the server by awakening the sleeper. You’re denying the players who specifically role with hopes of seeing this zone in its original state that opportunity. Once it’s awoken in open world, allow players the opportunity to select the version of the instance they want.

    - Adjust lockout timers on the Agents of Change. On most TLP’s, it’s 6.5 days. This is just straight silly and frustrating. We understand the idea was to limit content to once a week, but seriously, make it 4.5 days. This really is a frustration for almost every raiding guild out there on TLPs because it allows no flexibility in the early parts of the game. You either do Nagafen every week on the same day or you risk losing opportunities at him because pushing him off a few days doesn’t allow you to move him back up the following week.

    - Utilize a faster exp rate early on than what Coirnav had. The experience rate of that server drove away a lot of players. Lockjaw/Ragefire/Mangler rates were far more amenable to players.

    Now, the second major issue I said you had to address to make this TLP a major success was to do something you haven’t necessarily done. Everything above fits into that category. By merging Classic and Kunark, for example, you present the “hardcore” players with a new competition of sorts. It completely changes the game for server first epics because you’re going from 1 to 60 while trying to complete epics. You’re making Nagafen and Vox more viable for the casual players because they can do them in smaller groups thanks to having level 60 earlier. With expansions coming faster overall or being merged, you increase relevant content at the time and keep character development fresh. Making the version of Sleeper’s Tomb selectable allows players to choose to see the zone how they want it. And as a whole you’re removing unnecessary roadblocks throughout the expansions which allows a wider variety of players to experience content in era. All in all, the changes above shift the TLP dynamic fairly significantly.

    After doing all of that, here are some asks players have had for years, which could all be incorporated, or pick a couple. After doing all of that, you can consider other changes that have been widely asked for by the player base. For example, making beastlords and berserkers playable from the start. Many players are turned off by the fact that they have to relevel a character after the server is already months old because their desired class wasn’t available at the start. Another option would be adding in the Firiona Vie loot rules, which has been a popular ask over the years. Lastly, perhaps opening up PoP for travel purposes. Yes, we get it, it nullifies druids and wizards largely from a travel capacity, but it also opens the door for players to spend less time trying to get to each other and instead enjoying each other’s company in a group going on adventures.

    That’s where I’ll end this post for now. Largely, as you can see driving change that keeps population healthy is what is critical to the success of a new TLP. However, the change in doing so also drives a new dynamic that makes it fresh and exciting. I hope you’ll take these considerations to heart. I would imagine the new proposed TLP is going to draw players away from the current ones, further reducing the strength of those existing communities. If you’re going to do that, but not create a server with staying power, well frankly many of us will just quit overall. Putting that level of work into a character, only to have the community die off more and more every launch of a new TLP has left many of us completely lacking the desire to start over again…and again…and again.

    May the Gods shine upon us all!
    Foaming likes this.
  2. DeseanJackson Augur

    Anyone get through this that cares to summarize?
    Nolrog and Fraggly like this.
  3. Silver-Crow Augur

    You're right in one respect, what made EQ great was community and co-operating with others to achieve what you couldn't do on your own.

    Unfortunately those days are gone for 2 reasons.
    1. Boxing. It used to be that most people played one character. This was their main, their Avatar, and they played it pretty exclusively. Playing only one character forces people together, and this is how community is formed. With boxing, people don't need/want to group as they can do everything themselves. Additionally they then want to keep all the loot in order to gear all their various boxes.

    2. Krono. This is the absolute community killer. Everyone on the new TLP's are chasing it. Tanks roll on spells, and casters roll on plate. Need before Greed, became need everything and who cares about reputation as long as i've another krono. The server will be gone anyway in a year, so why bother about what people think about you. Without that co-operative play, there's no reason to join a camp with others, as you'll only have a one in six chance of getting what you need from a camp, be it a FBSS or GEB or whatever. I popped on to mangler recently, and one of the first things someone said to me was that you can't buy anything with plat. Krono is the currency.

    Truebox was supposed to fix point 1, but as you know, that was bypassed long ago, and the amount of bot armies says it all. Point 2 is only ever resolved after a new TLP opens and the a$$hats move off the server onto whatever new server is offered, but by then all that's left is a shell.

    Personally i hope they open a new Live phinny rules server and sweep all the old TLP's into it (queue screams of outrage about rulesets). Any time they open a new TLP, they should close one (as they do in EQ2). This would bring all players who want to play the game, together into one server, while leaving the cess pits that are the newest TLP's to people wanting to put up with that nonsense.

    Suggesting any tweaks to the rulesets are going to change the above is just flogging a dead horse. Sure a pvp ruleset might address the above, but that fundamentally changes the type of game you're playing, and really just opens things up to other kinds of a$$hats who are just out to ruin your day.
  4. Mrjon3s Augur

    Merge classic with kunark and merge PoP with LDoN. Something people have been saying for a while now.
  5. Crackers Elder

    This is more for the Devs, providing them with substance behind the thoughts as opposed to "we want this because we said so!"

    And yes some of them are recycled this, but again providing reason behind why it's meaningful to make the change. The bottom line is the current status quo is detrimental to the server communities.

    I would completely disagree that krono and boxing has ruined things. It's changed the dynamic in a way, but bidding occurred throughout the history of EQ, its just easier now. Krono has changed the economy and made more people involved in the farming aspect, but ruined is a far cry from change. I'm not a krono farmer, but even I can appreciate the added benefit of having krono as an option of buying goods in game.
  6. Guen New Member

    I read and read through these threads as I somewhat patiently wait for the new round of TLP's. I do get disheartened by some of the things people say, but this post is correct and should be considered.

    Three months of classic is something I will do if forced, but having Kunark available from the start would be 100% preferred. The other merges (expansion-wise) make sense to me as well.

    There are many reasons why I don't have a 'home' server currently (which I won't be boring you with), but I am determined to make Rizlona my new home in EQ. Pretty please be sure to have AoC's and /picks on this server and for bonus points add in FV loot rules. I am unsure how many folks are against the FV loot rules - if too many are against it, just leave it off.

    Currently I am considering the new TLP's announcement as good news. I have not had good news in EQ in a very long time.

    Thank you for your efforts.
  7. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    A bit of an over-long Original Post but some rationally argued points.

    I don't share the same view on all of them but this is a well presented perspective, which appears to argue the case for a Selo 2.0 style server with some additional condensing of expansions.

    I personally think the 12 week with level increase / 8 week without level increase is the most robust unlocking model.

    If you can have Berserkers & Beastlord classes available from the start this would add a real unique selling point to the server.

    I agree with unlocking Kunark with classic, classic is quite thin on raid content after all & most TLP attract a lot of raiders simply as raiders are what make up the vast majority of the playerbase interested in playing on TLP.

    LDoN & LoY should absolutely unlock with another "Main" expansion as they were completely horizontal in gear & content.

    I would also heavily encourage unlocking PoR along with DoDH, PoR raiding is very much made up of itemisation which compliments DoDH gear which provides the main gear upgrade after Omens of War, besides which, having played through that very long level 70 era on live & TLP I can for sure say that PoR aged poorly as a standalone expansion, it's now just too weak to justify giving it 8 weeks by itself.
  8. Aiona Augur

    In response to the OP, I am alright with all of that and agree with most of it.

    The keys you mentioned are a major issue, OMG - this needs to be addressed, it has cause so much drama it leads to a pretty nasty experience :(

    I don't care combining LDON and POP because I love both of those expansions and want to spend as much time in them as possible. I realize that this may not be the popular opinion though, haha!
  9. Jayjayjay Lorekeeper

    you are totally wrong about unlock timer. main contents of this game is RAID! to keep the healthy population going, this game should allow enough time for casuals to hit max level and farm raid gears. unlock timer should be longer than 12 weeks each expansions, even to 24 weeks.
  10. Crackers Elder

    I could see your justification for keeping it the same outside of my earlier purposes schedule, but you'd decimate the regular and hardcore raiders by extending to 24 week's. That's just not viable at all. I'd really like @jchan to present this ro her team and respond.

    I know I know, everyone wants a response. However the arguments laid out here are sound, but it doesn't mean they're feasible ideas from a development standpoint, and helping us understand why you'd avoid any of these changes would help us propose better ideas. Help us help you!
  11. Jayjayjay Lorekeeper


    it would be nice if DBG release 2 servers, one with 8 weeks timer and another with 16 or 20 weeks timer. win/win for both of casuals and hardcores.
    Overcast451 likes this.
  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Lockjaw & Ragefire had voted unlocks & they basically have the 24 weeks timer you seem to be looking for, albeit they didn't have AoC there, they had their own issues but they didn't have as big a draw as Phinigel did, people left LJ & RF in droves to play on Phinny & the AoC feature was the big selling point for it, in spite of the fact it had really slow XP to begin with - which did put some players off, I was one of them, had they released with a lot better xp.....they'd have had.....what Mangler launched as after revising it's initial ruleset.

    For TLP AoC is the feature with a big draw, fighting over open world spawns blows, ****socking blows, that's why servers with AoC were so popular, now of the ones with AoC we have had Selos & Mangler, Selos had a much smaller population than Mangler, so Mangler's "model" for unlocks works very well, if you think a 24 week unlock would be as popular as Mangler I think you would be proven wrong, yes it would have an audience, but it would be smaller than Mangler by far, maybe as small as Selos & Truebox on it would pretty much leave it DoA.

    DPG are going to try new things but they also inbetween being experimental have to tap back into the vein of successful formulas, Mangler's (Phinigel 2.0) formula worked so they are using that this time around with some as yet unannounced tweaks to it, maybe next year's TLP will try the longer unlock schedule but with AoC & we can see how that turns out.


    Thing is there are almost as many TLP ideas as there are forum posters, everyone has their own idea of what they think a perfect TLP for themselves looks like, very few actually think on it a bit harder & try to imagine a TLP that has a decently broad appeal & has considered how populations actually develop, & decline on these servers, especially with how pretty much every expansion even including Kunark sees players leave servers.
  13. Jayjayjay Lorekeeper


    1. ppl hated Lockjay&Ragefire, because almost every valuable raid targets were possessed by one big guild, not because the unlock timer was way too long. yes. there was a deep drop in population at some point, but when it happened? it was when the Phinny with AoC was introduced. Actually those servers kept healthy population even with 24 week unlock, which means 24 week unlock timer was acceptable to most players.

    2. Selo had much smaller population than Mangler. Yes, it perfectly explains that ppl do not like faster unlock timer. it's not about that ppl liked the certain timer, which was 12 weeks. ppl choosed to play on Mangler simply because it had longer timer than Selo.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    You've actually contradicted yourself because you actually do admit that there was a deep drop in the playerbase when Phinigel unlocked, you can't lose such a big proportion of the player total & still claim that MOST of the population liked the longer unlock. Personally I think Ragefire would have been completely wiped out if Phinigel had not been a Truebox server & being able to box on Ragefire was what kept you the remaining players that you had post exodus to Phinigel & that the retention you did have had little to nothing to do with longer unlocks. So in short, I think you have arrived at completely the wrong conclusion, though it is one that suits you personally the evidence simply does not support it.

    That's a reasonable point to make, that just because Selo's 1 month unlock timer is TOO fast it doesn't mean a 12 week one is the ideal for most TLP players - it has still got an audience just a much smaller one than Mangler had.

    I still disagree with you that a much longer unlock schedule has a bigger audience, I think Mangler's 12 week unlocks is going to work out fine until that long Level 70 stretch, then I think it will feel painful & boring & it will almost certainly lead to a larger decline in player numbers than what has been seen up to that point, particularly because PoR has a lacklustre itemisation & unfulfilling raid design which aged particularly poorly but also because that many expansions in a row without a level increase just feels far too stagnant for character progression. With 24 week unlocks that level 70 stretch is going to lead to even greater player attrition. I have suggested unlocking PoR alongside DoDH as there are no visible armour upgrades and the upgrades in PoR mainly compliment the DoDH loot set rather than replace it with a new set.
  15. Machen New Member


    The players that stuck it out on Ragefire and Lockjaw overwhelmingly voted to get rid of the 24 week unlocks, and the servers are currently 12 week unlocks. So no, 24 weeks was not acceptable to most players. The players that actually tried it found it not acceptable.
    Stewgottz likes this.
  16. Stewgottz Augur

    Instancing and Fast unlocks were a huge driver for people leaving RF for Phinny.

    Instancing and Long unlocks? IDK... haven't done that one yet. Just no truebox lol