Phinigel Flagging issues EoK to live

In favour of boosting key rate, but please don't slow the server down.

Upping the key rate is unlikely. It is more fraught than it sounds to do it for a particular expansion. The script that does the work is passed a variable to look at , looks that value of that variable. That variable happens to contain a time entry. It does math on that time, and sends back a multiplier.

While I could add an "If it's this variable do this," exceptions like that are messy to have in scripts. Scripts are "black boxes" where something goes in and something else goes out. Yes. we can open it and look in. What's near impossible is to search our scripts for these exceptions.

Exceptions make more sense in DATA where events are stored. Event data decides it's time to open an expansion, runs (a different) script that does the unlock work. This event data is eminently searchable, and easy to look at on say, a chart.

It's about the TYPE of exception too. The multiplication script already have "Live vs progression" server logic. Adding logic to say "fast server gets this" is within the same logic, because we are talking "servers". There I could make a general "fast servers start at 3x" and its more "in line" with whats already happening.

I know what I'm saying sounds "petty" but, it's really not.

And yes. Selo is 1 month. That's not going to change, even if it make EoK on rather difficult. That's part of the challenge of that server. It's what makes me hesitant to even do a "fast server" multiplier exception.

I have never raided EoK so I do not know precisely how the flagging requirement works. My sympathy for this cause stems from my experience with other expansions that are simply too short on the "standard" TLP servers.

My question for you is, can items be placed in additional chests that would effectively work as flags, after completion of the event? Yes, I am sure this change would impact live, but would that be overly negative?

Edit: or perhaps a hail mob. I'm only seeking easier changes than an exception script.

Yes. But the magnitude of work involved is ten fold.

TY responses, they are very appreciated. I ninja edited my post to add another suggestion but I will assume it is the same response.

Thank you Ngreth for the feed back. It's extremely appreciated to get some information that tells us more about your end and what these changes mean for you and for the game. its a tough spot for Selo for sure but what are your thoughts on the other suggestion for Phinny, Miragul, Coirnav etc that this is a 2 month xpack for and possibly extending it 2-4 weeks? Would that be easier? I dont believe we know how that is scripted and so I would hope it might be a better solution since it seems the key increasing is very intensive on your end. Either way even if nothing changes, thank you for having a dialog with us.

If the access is based on the achievement, how difficult would it be to change the achievement to lower the threshold?

Personally I've always felt the 2-3-4x multiplier on TLP servers should just start at the 4x multiplier always. By the time you get to VoA+ expansions, there are no guilds progressing in content except the most recent content. Guilds that are over 1 expansion behind at this point cease to exist.

By starting all TLPs out at 4x multiplier on flags/currency rather than making them wait 6 months, guilds can almost certainly clear a tier of raid content and then immediately or at a minimum 1 week later unlock the next tier. This is a healthy pace for servers with even 3 months in the content, and it is manageable for a Selos 1 month server.

EOK (In my opinion) is one of Dakpaws best expansions, and done really well. For that reason alone, I believe it deserves the extra 4 weeks.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this.

Thank you for the consideration Ngreth! Those of us playing late stage TLPs tend to be passionate about seeing it through. We appreciate that you all are sticking with us.

No...it isn't. Being forced to sit around doing nothing because we have to wait for lockouts isn't a challenge, it's just stupid. If you can't up the key rate just remove them all together.

It's not that it makes it harder or difficult. It makes it basically impossible to complete. And the response to that feels like "Sorry, not sorry. It's too much work to make it so you have an enjoyable experience"

If Selos can't complete an expansion "in era" due to flagging & no movement is made on that I think it's not a challenging server more that DPG had not planned the progression on Selo properly and boxed itself into a corner with a technical hill to climb.

Difficult it might be but I do think the keys issue needs to be adressed on Selo

Phinny etc can manage by an extension of EoK to 12 weeks from 8 to alleviate the keying problem, selos doesn't really have that option, so if you can;t up the keys remove the need for them, let the difficulty of the content be the gatekeeper for the last few expansions before live.

If you can't change the keying for a single expansion then just increase the key multiplier to 3x for all expansions. This will fix the issues for both EoK and RoS in one go. RoS would be less of an issue for Phinny with it being 3 months but it would still be a problem for Selo if you don't increase the flags.

Needing EoK gear to make RoS gear makes this even more important.

Edit: Actually looking ahead TBL is even worse, 7 clears per tier on live so 4 per tier with 2x keying and 3 even with 3x keying.

The wording on some recent patches seems to suggest you may look to do a 'fast' progression server again, I would assume similar to Selo. With that in mind, wouldn't it be good to get the fixes out now rather than have to revisit them in the future?

That being said, I do enjoy seeing Ngreth being open to changes on very evolved TLPs.

My personal feeling is that the keys and the currency should be upped a little for everything as a general rule, and not specifically for just EOK

Thank you all for the overwhelming positive response from the community and leaders across multiple servers to increase the keys and extend the expansion. The journey the community on Phinigel leads is a prolific one on TLPs, and we're always happy to trailblaze the optimal experience for future TLP generations.

How's this -- Instead of changing the keys dropping which you've indicated would be a lot of work, reduce the achievements down to only require two full tier clears, instead of three. This would alleviate the need to change any scripts you've mentioned and would properly align the expansion to be more in line with the other ones. I believe this would properly act in spirit of TLP progression instead of "live" type progression as it presently stands.

More specifically, these are the changes that I believe would be merited and would ultimately be the right and easiest course of action:

Changing T2 access from 12 to 8 Keys required
T2 Access Achievement: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=8378

Changing T3 access from 16 to 12 keys required
T3 Access Achievement: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=8379

This is two changes that are made to the achievements, instead of dealing with any scripting matters. I believe this would require a patch and cannot be hotfixed.

Same overall effect, different way to get there, I hope that this is a viable alternative solution.

I also hope something similar can be done for the other expansions after EoK until Selo / Phinigel / Miragul - maybe this method helps Selos better?

I would also ask that in development of future live expansions some small consideration is given to how the flagging/keying/opening or unlocking of tiers of raid & group content is going to work on TLP with various unlock schedules so that in future far less re-visitation & changing of old expansions is required on future TLP servers - save the team some future work.

I would like to thank all the people that make EverQuest a fun game to play. I know a lot for work and time goes into games like these. After 20+ years it's amazing to see EverQuest still strong and enjoyable to play.

I support extending EoK to 3 months or increasing the key drops or reducing the requirement on the achievement for flagging. I believe this would be needed, the time frame now and or the drop rate wouldn't be enough to complete this xpac.


I'd like to thank Ngreth and Aristo for their past work on flagging/currency for the TLP servers. I believe without those changes they made in the past xpacs, I wouldn't as well as my friends that have been playing , wouldn't been able to thoroughly enjoy the end content that each expansion has to offer.

I'd personally love it if they just removed the concept of having to beat content multiple times to proceed to the next tier. Im sure this is unlikely, but perhaps on another server.

I understand that they want people to stay busy on new live content and not be farming the final tier in week 1, but new content seems to be released in phases by tier anyway, so it would not be affected by some global change along these lines.

FWIW I am an active selos player, so I am interested, but not totally panicking about what happens here. It is frustrating to have to do low tier content 2 or 3 times when you only have a month in that expansion. However, on fv, my guild had to go back and farm eok during ros for molds, so I am used to backtracking, and it is sort of reminiscent of "in era" despite not liking it as a design choice for gear acquisition.