I was talking with a friend last night and we got on to evolving gear, then our old epics. My idea is basically to take the old epics most people have collecting dust and turn them into a current level evolving weapon. Start about 1 or 2 expacs back with a quest line that will turn the old epic into an evolving weapon. Each expac you'd be able to evolve it to 100% through quests and raiding. The evolving part would continue through a quest chain through the entire expac, before being reset to 0% for the next expac, but keeping the fully evolved stats already gained. Burning Lands Solo quests and grinding would get you 40% evolved. Group quests and missions would evolve it to 75%. Raiding would evolve it up to 95%. A special quest obtainable only after reaching 95% would add a new click effect (from a predefined list and bump off an older effect of your choosing) and evolve it to 100% A fully evolved weapon would be equal to any raid dropped weapon (or shields for the clerics). Tov The fully evolved BL weapon would be reset to 0% (not losing any power or stats from BL) Weapons that are not fully evolved would keep the evolved stats they did have from the previous expac when a new expac is started. I know this is something that likely wouldn't get done but its my 2cp on how to bring the old epics back and make the useful again.
Its an interesting idea. However I wouldn't bother doing it because raiding is required. I don't raid. Instead you could make a tradeskill requirement which fits in line better with the Original Epic and Epic Retelling. And after the Artesians aug everyone can do tradeskills. I have of lot of evolving items I never bothered to finish cause I got better ones before the evolving could evolve.
Raiding wouldn't be required unless you wanted to evolve 100%. You could still get it to 75%. I know thats not ideal, but the raiding was added for those who enjoy raiding and still keeping the epic relevant. Tradeskills aren't something I enjoy doing but maybe the last 5% could be done via tradeskills?
The game is moving towards a Tradeskill slant now. If anything i'd like to see a quest to get an extra level on GM tradeskill trophies...maybe bump up the modded amount to 400+
i'd think adding an earring style TS quest to upgrade your epic (do a bunch of stuff in game and then craft the new weapon) would be something that would be cool to add. 2 quests even, 1 which requires raids and one which does not wouldn't be that bad either.
Tradeskills are not hard today compared to what they were. Mostly they are a matter of plat. The make all button and saved recipes are great. Putting each damn component into the proper "Toolbox " one at a time was god aweful. If that was your last remembrance of tradeskilling give it another go.
Not unless they make each epic as powerful and useful for each class. Every epic they have ever done has been more use to some classes than others. Even the things created for the new earring is bias to some classes over others. For example the empowered gem augs (slot 7/8) all 4 of these augs have stats that are bias to melee even the caster/priest one.
Would love to see the next expansion have a long quest line that relates to epics in some way. It doesn't need to be a "permanent" thing that grants a clicky like the 2.0 epics, but just an interesting class item. We kind of sorta got that a few years ago when Ngreth received advice on breastplate clicky improvements and rehauled them. Some classes wanted to keep their current types, others got dramatically different options that were really quite nice (clerics, warrriors and berserkers among others). The dynamic of having a grindy but groupable item that can be upgraded through raiding is perfect, though I'd personally like to see three tiers: a grindy level achieved through easy content a harder level achieved through hard group content (challenger achievements or otherwise) a top tier achieved through raiding (like the TBL / ToV chase items) Then again, I still kind of regret maxing the TBL chase item. It was exhausting, mostly boring and in the end conferred only minor benefit since ToV was completely trivial. If I replaced the 4x TBL chase items with T1 TBL items or conflagrant gear for that matter I probably would've barely noticed a difference, and that's on the most gear-dependent class (warrior). I doubt I'll do the chase items again unless there's some commitment by DPG to providing end-game content in EQ.
I would buy an expac or mid-year DLC that only gave me the opportunity to get an upgraded Epic (accessible for 12-person content). I know the design work is huge, with quests, balancing, etc, so I would gladly fork over 40-50 usd for such a DLC, that gave no other thing. They could reuse as much they wanted - I am so tied to my epic quest, that any continuation would be accepable.
I don't raid nor do tradeskills. I would like a level 1 rat in Freeport drop an upgraded epic to 100% every time. Otherwise I like the idea.
For the people who responded, thank you. For other who say they wouldn't do it because they don't raid, raiding would only be required if you wanted the full 100%. If you were okay with having a less than fully evolved item, you could certainly do that and still get the stats for the amount of evolvement you wanted to do for each expansion. An example, if this continued through 5 expansions, a player who only wanted to solo could evolve their item to 200% (40% x 5). Someone who grouped but didn't raid would evolve theirs to 375% (75% x 5) and someone who raided could evolve to a full 500% (100% x 5). Even though the 200% wouldn't be ideal, it would still give a good bonus over the base stats (once the item was changed to an evolving state and brought in line with whatever current expansion it started in). There isn't a requirement to raid, unless you want a full bonus.
Ugh, no more evolving items, please. Nowadays, they just encourage and reward automation. (Same deal with the ultra-rare drops.)
I think a fair point to bring up with epics and raiding is that when each iteration of the epic was current, raiding was required. 1.0? Raiding steps back when Kunark was current. 2.0? Yeah, you were not clearing CoA in 2004-2005 without a raid. 2.5? Raid back in 2005. Obviously as time passed and toons became more powerful, going back to older content to smack it for epic related stuff is no problem. But epics in all versions involved raiding in the journey if done in the eras they are introduced in.
I would agree, if not it was for the element, that some epics where very short lived, while others are still quite good.
