From my casual guild perspective, TOV is largely spot-on in terms of difficulty and reward. A lot more folks are grouping together in ToV. A lot more folks are getting into current expansion gear. The vast majority have ample challenge in the group missions, and still fail regularly without certain group makeups. Casual guilds rely more on pet tanks, and having pets be able to tank T1 named was a boon. Contrast that with TBL where hardly any progress was made by anyone. Smoke Trials were a full stop. Players soon realized it was futile and a horrible experience to even try, and the expansion went largely untouched. I personally love both expansions a lot. The main problems i see are TBL zone access progression (Stratos was all many people saw), and TOV zone difficulty curve (I would have liked one harder end zone). Both could have used steeper difficulty curves (with TBL T1 being easier, and endgame ToV being a touch harder).
I think the only thing about ToV I would want to change is the terrible grindng exp (or for purists the amount of exp to grind). Grinding out levels should be viable in any expansion. As it was the only ones who could easily grind their levels in ToV were 24/7 afk botters.
I think of TOV as the catch up expansion. I fairly enjoyed it. I am in a raiding guild and we have beat the expansion. We raid up to 3 nights a week leaving me plenty of time doing things on my alt accts. I have done 6 earrings so far to max. I enjoyed doing the ear while grinding for AA or doing stuff for the next phase of the ear. I planned on going back to do COTF and up, this gives me plenty of time to mingle that in.
A few comments I like the fact that there were a ton of undead in the expansion, and the overall ice theme. Perhaps that is because my main is a Paladin. It has some nice nostalgia feel to the original expansion. The ability to get alts into ToV armor pretty quickly at 110 is appreciated. I enjoyed the progression in TBL, and even though it was frustrating, locking zones off made me actually do it. For me it is just average, nothing exciting. The main issue for me is that if you have been playing a lot previously your tradeskills are very high, and you can farm the T1 zones to get the crystalized velium ores and then just get T3 armor and weapons. There is basically no reason to actually farm T2 zones, except for the challenge. The challenge of the T2 zones in many cases is simply avoiding bad pathing and aggro. Tower of Frozen shadow floor 4 especially is just nuts, if you try to pull anything around a corner you get can get 6 mobs. That zone has so much potential but the pathing is simply wretched. Similarly Velks has some areas that are frustrating to play as you get random adds and the pathing/aggro ranges make no sense. And yes I have spent many hours in that zone. I can handle the issues generally but it's really not fun in certain parts of the zone to even attempt to farm. I get it that trains are part of the history of everquest (Plane of Hate, Sol B, etc)…. but it's simply not worth it beyond a few type 5 augs if you do the tradeskill items. Kael is ok I guess, but there isn't much interesting there after you play it for a few hours. Given I have played it a few times already I was hoping for something more inspired. I play on a lower population server, but I haven't seen anyone in a T2 zone in ToV for months. Everyone just farms T1 zones I guess to get AA/Levels/Ore's for Tradeskill armor and weapons. In a sense that is great for more casual players so they can gear up for the next expansion which I assume will be a "hard one" where it level locks still at 115 but content will be hard enough that you need the T3 tradeskill gear from ToV. In another sense it makes progression sort of pointless, just farm chase loot and tradeskill gear. Only other comment is the hitboxes on Dracoliche's are so broken, which is sad because it is a nice challenging mob to fight.
So you have things to catch up on... what about your raid guild member that aren’t behind? What are they going to do for the next 6 months? I bet more of them quit early because of this “catch up” expansion as you like to refer to it.
Total opposite. Most of them have paid alt accts (2-3) like me and are doing the same thing. Some people just like to play by themselves for various reasons (Play-time, Social Invert, content being done, etc...) I am not saying there are people are not doing what you implied, I am saying there are those that are doing the opposite too. It can go both ways.
umm.. if they are doing the same thing (cotf+) that means that they are still behind like you. Sure those people have things to do because the older expansions were better and had more content. That has nothing to do with ToV though.. you're actually LEAVING ToV to do other things. Leaving ToV to do old content doesn't make ToV a better expansion at all. My question was about people that were all caught up, such as myself. I have done all the COTF -> ToV. I just purchased ToV at the end of April, during the coronavirus shutdown. I've ran my main and 3 alts through everything.. they all have 5th ear+ they have all their important AA's and theyre all maxed regular exp. They all have almost all t3 tradeskill group gear already.. there's just not much to do in this expansion.. no roadblocks, and nothing challenging. Its all about grinding the ear up. Some people will decide to grind another ear up on an alt.. a lot will say screw it and stop logging on/subbing (especially when things start opening back up from coronavirus) You have completely missed the point. It ALWAYS goes both ways.. but this expansion has encouraged more people to quit early and stop subbing because its been much easier to complete. That doesn't mean everyone will quit, just like when its harder that doesn't mean that everyone will keep playing.. the point is that with how easy it is/quickly people can complete things there will be LESS people playing at the end of the expansion than years prior. Your guild may not feel it now because people are home for the coronavirus, but you will start to feel it when things begin to open back up.
So you are the expert I guess and know what people will do. You know how many people are out there completely done and will quit compared to the others that will use the time to do other stuff, especially returning players with much to catch up on. Which by the way was never implied as making part of this expansion good or bad, it is however a side affect of it. Your opinion is that if is was beat to fast it or if it is not new and shiny, people will leave does not make it better or worse?. Could you can have your opinions while not trying to trash or discredit mine. Why not make your opinion known and let others have theirs. Oh wait you did in bout 20 words.... then went on to gripe about others.. This is my review, I didn't think the topic of this thread was , "Give me your review, so we can tell you how you are wrong." Thanks, expect no further replies from me on my review.
The evidence is here in this thread (including yourself who has 6 earrings completed) I trashed your opinion because it didn't make sense. Saying that you like ToV because it gives you time to go back and do COTF doesn't make ANY SENSE. That has nothing to do with ToV.. and has to do with you being behind. So I asked you about your guildmembers that weren't behind and you said they're doing the same thing.. (what are they going back to COTF+ for if they aren't behind) you see how you aren't making SENSE. You are talking about players that need to catch up, yes they have content to do. Players that don't need to catch up, don't have content to do.. THATS LITERALLY WHY YOU ARE LEAVING THE EXPANSION TO GO DO PRIOR THINGS. There's no more content for you in ToV for you or your 5 alts.
Steve Jobs had this great quote: “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” I felt the TBL expansion was like that novel invention (e.g. iPhone) that people were hesitant to adopt - even groaned about - but came to love. Now we have ToV where it stuck with the fundamentals with some modifications (new XP system). Compared to TBL, I felt like ToV was more analogous to the Disney remakes of Star Wars. Satisfying, yes. Entertaining, yes. Fresh, slightly. Thought provoking, no. Disruptor, heck no. The fact that TBL is getting several mentions in this thread shows what kind of impact it had on people.
I "hated it" myself until I did TBL progression. Did you play though it (at least to get Jann's Veil)? I feel like people change their opinions once they actually do the content. It's very original, entertaining, and jam packed.
TBL was just PoP. Keying, progression, and locked zones have been done over and over. The novel invention was EQ itself not any of its expansions.
TBL only used Doomfire reskins but incorporated very original storylines, content, and mechanics. Otherwise, Stratos, Plane of Smoke, Empyr, Aalishai, Esianti, and Mearatas were original zones. The content and mechanics were a novel mix. Devs could have played safe and picked ToV before TBL, or they could have reskinned PoP entirely.
