Lack of thought relating to gear

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Lelandod, Jul 6, 2020.

  1. Lelandod New Member

    I'm sure there are many examples of this out there...

    The lack of thought/foresight that goes into gearing "upgrades" is pretty astounding.

    I play a Monk, and I'm using a GMM raid belt from TBL. I cannot "upgrade" to a ToV raid belt without losing DPS because they all have a lower flying kick bonus (16) than the TBL belts (20). In addition, the best HDex/HStr belts don't have Overdrive Punch, leaving me with no good option besides losing certain stats by switching to a ToV belt or just remaining with what I have.

    The best HDex wrists are Ice Woven instead of Velium Enhanced, there are no ToV upgrades to legs in terms of HDex, no upgrades to Cleave or Fero...

    It's pretty annoying that I have nothing to look forward to in an entire expansion of gear as a DPS class outside of a few HP/AC boosts that are useless to me and some very minor HDex upgrades on a few pieces of gear here and there. If we're never going to see anything creative or cool in terms of gear upgrades (outside of Chase loot, which is alright), would it be too much to ask that somebody at least verify there are actual upgrades to DPS gear in each slot from one expansion to the next?
  2. Duder Augur

    Those mods are inconsequential in the modern Everquest. You're talking 4 damage difference tagged onto your flying kick(s). So instead of a 1,000,000 damage kick you'd have a 999,996 damage flying kick. As for Hmods, all hstat amounts on armor are calculated by the whole set (258hdex for T2, 252 for t1). By interchanging them you can get 10 more hdex at the sacrifice for roughly 2k hp. Weigh which one means more to you. And in reality you're complaining about depth and decision making options that are avaialble to make your character unique. Options that are really great to have. If you value the hdex/str from t1, or even tbl armor over the tradeskilled tov armor then use it. Nothing wrong with having to make sacrifices for your spec. It'd be super uninteresting if every single monk wore exactly the same gear.

    Upgrade the belt, you're selling yourself short for 4 FK damage.
    Szilent, Nennius, KarmaKitty and 2 others like this.
  3. Lelandod New Member


    It may be inconsequential; it still makes no sense. Why is the mod randomly lower on every belt from ToV compared to the TBL belts?

    You may be satisfied with the extremely formulaic gear upgrades that I'm guessing take DPG about 10 minutes to churn out with some algorithm before the newest expansion; I'm not. I don't find much joy in upgrading anything these days. Here's my new copy/pasted legs that are exactly the same as the legs from the prior expansion but with a little more HP and maybe some seemingly completely random inconsequential stat fluctuations, woooo-hooo. So fun.

    If "speccing" actually existed, it'd be cool. If I could be a monk that does AoE damage or single target damage, that would be cool. You can't even choose between 2hb and h2h/1hb because 2hb is always better in every single situation. It's lame. I hardly consider choosing between 1 HStr and 1 HDex "speccing." If all I'm going to get is copy/pasted crap from one expansion to the next, I'd at least like it to be an objective upgrade.
  4. Cadira Augur

    You're 100% right that gear has zero thought put into it. I'd be happy if they just updated the algorithm to always give brilliance items more mana, adroitness to have more dex/flying kick, etc.

    Although it's stupid that lower end gear sometimes has more flying kick than new stuff, you're unquestionably losing dps by chosing that item. Overall the loss of hp will cause you to die in situations where you might otherwise have 1% life left and survive before getting a heal/FD off and dead dps is no dps. Not chosing the belt with odp and boon because it has less str and dex is absolutely a loss in dps.

    All things said your point about gear having lost its amazing feeling of accomplishment for having special effects and stuff that set it apart from this cookie cutter system that doesn't even make sense half the time is right on point.

    Didn't have coffee yet so I can't word well this morning fyi!
    Coagagin and lockjaws like this.
  5. Monkman Augur

    Ignore the FK mods, it literally is a fraction of a fraction of a single % in regards to your dps. As for the belt, all the new TOV belts have the combo mod (overdrive punch + seeress) so I’m not quite sure what the problem is there.

    As for the itemization yeah it’s sucked the past couple years since the addition of the “of adroitness/brilliance/security/vigor” items... it’s just very bland with no real differentiation between them aside from AC. I’d prefer CLEAR advantages to using one vs the other as opposed to a loss of 1 or 2 heroics between each item.

    Having messed around on Aradune the past month or so I can tell you our current itemization issues pale in comparison to the classic itemization on planar gear. Those devs were on some serious smack when they created those sets.
    Szilent likes this.
  6. Tucoh Augur

    The gear isn't perfect, but I can assure you a lot of thought is put into it.
  7. Lelandod New Member


    It really doesn't feel that way. Some of the items are literally copy/pasted with a changed name (see Ice Encrusted gear). Everything else is a small HP/AC upgrade and some random stats (in some cases worse stats than the prior expansion). With the same exact focus effects. How is that a lot of thought? If somebody is really sitting around thinking about this gear for a long time before they put it out, they're doing a bad job. It doesn't take a lot of work to rename gear from "Heavenly Glorious XXX" to "Velium Enhanced XXX" and throw a few more stats on it while changing literally nothing else.
  8. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    They sometimes have really good ideas though.
    The introduction of type 5 augs was one of them. :cool:
  9. Lelandod New Member


    I mean I totally get it, they're busy, they have a lot on their plate, they're trying to get an expansion out every year, etc. etc.

    Maybe it's an unreasonable request, maybe I'm just old and jaded, but gear was always one of the coolest things about EQ, and it feels super lame now. I'm sure Luck was an attempt to remedy that, but Luck feels super lame as well. /shrug
  10. Kelset Elder



    It would be interesting to hear what those thought processes are because it appears just to be an effort to limit a min/max approach. In a game with limited options for class specialization and minimal benefits for emphasizing secondary stats, the current approach doesn't make sense to me. I get the idea of giving people options and choosing different paths, but in this game it doesn't provide any real benefit and only adds needless complexity over clarity and class effectiveness. That said, this is more of a quality of life issue for me since it takes extra time to pick out the pieces for my 5 characters. As others have mentioned, I don't think the impact is that large on picking one piece over another as long as it is directionally correct for the class.
  11. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Gear choices are pretty limited, I have a couple of slots which on my wish list I've put any, the gear has such small differences that it makes no difference to me which I have.

    Brilliance is supposedly aimed at pure casters if you look at the level of the Heroic Int, but the higher mana on Security makes that the better option, especially when the spells damage is identical on both items.

    There needs to be bigger differences between items (not just the HP/Mana/End) and each item needs to be better than the previous expansion.
    Coagagin and Cadira like this.
  12. ForumBoss Augur

    I actually enjoyed when gear wasn't so linear, and you had one off items with real high ac, atk, or avoidance for the era. For example in potime the 60ac faceguard of frenzy isnt upgraded ac wise for several expansions, but one could choose to lose it for hp, cleave etc if they chose. The uniqueness of those items made it more exciting when they dropped. Purely linear increases are boring, but all armor in eq is fairly generic now. The unique things that aren't super cookie cutter across characters of the same class are sympathetic, belt effects, shawl procs, augs.
  13. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    LACK OF GEAR RELATING TO THOUGHT

    When I am not geared up I think "damn I need some gear"
  14. Duder Augur



    I would rather them the way they are with all around power and a lean toward a spec than as you suggest. Where an item, for example, might have an inflated hdex number and zero or extraordinarily low hagi and hsta.

    "If I could be a monk that does AoE damage or single target damage, that would be cool." - To Destructive Force or to Focused Destructive Force? That is the question!

    But I well know that isn't what you're referring to. You're referring to features and styles of different games.
  15. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    How much thought would there be in upgrading gear if every stat was increased for every upgrade?
    Vuplar Endoscribe likes this.
  16. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Gear changes. We need too as well. I have been playing EQ for almost 20 years. 60 years old IRL if that matters. I find myself having to adjust my thinking about things as well. What was obvious once upon a time isn't always obvious now.

    As Forumboss noted above about the "potime...60ac faceguard of frenzy", having a piece of gear now and again that spikes the curve now and again might not be a bad idea. It could actually be a fun and perhaps simple addition to things. Make it hard to get so it will not be commonplace. Just a thought.
  17. Lelandod New Member


    I really like this too. The Berzerkers Ring is a great example. Massive HDex / HStr upgrade over even current-era gear, but very low HP/AC. Give us a real choice.
  18. Lianeb Augur

    Then everyone would complain it's to rare or to hard to get.
  19. Astral64 Augur



    Truth.

    However I do agree it is a weird choice on their part to fluctuate mods like that.
    Monkman likes this.
  20. Nennius Curmudgeon

    /rant on

    Someone once said that change is the one true constant. They were wrong. Complaints seem to be constant and all too often meaningless nowadays.

    /rant off
    Coagagin and Duder like this.