Proposed QoL Epic 1.0 Changes

Playing a Paladin for DPS is like playing a Ranger for healing. Don't belong.

There are many situations where playing Pally with Sword/Board is preferable. You may be geared enough to stay upright using a 2hs, that doesn't mean it's the proper way to play in every situation.

I know this is a long ways down the road for some of you, but TBM and later I have to use sword and board on named mobs if I plan on living through the fight. I play an SK but same discussion.

Exactly. This applies to encounters in every zone in the game. It's a fundamental part of the game's design.

I can't help myself, I have to necro the middle pages of this thread. There's some people in there that are delusional about the early years of EQ. To be clear, the populations of people on TLP's who are competing for epics is vastly higher than it ever was in classic. This isn't about subs, or server populations, it's about playstyles and access.

Things that are different now:

• All information for all epics is widely available
• All information for all raid mobs is easily searchable
• Raid guilds are similar in count, or greater, than family guilds

That's not all, but those are the things that have changed the number of people who would pursue an epic now versus then. But there's more, let's jump in the time machine...

Server: E'ci
Era: Kunark

When the epics came out, the percentage of guilds that could handle the hardest mobs in the game was very small. E'ci had two top tier raid guilds, Judgment and Souls of the Shadow. Judgment reformed as Reconstructed and still traded kills back and forth with SotS. The next biggest raid entity was an alliance of three guilds, Sacrament of Chaos, Forlorn, and Last Hope. The exception was the one Asian raid guild, whose name I can't remember, and I don't know their capabilities other than they were top tier.

Compare that with dozens upon dozens of family guilds, and plenty of people not in a guild at all. Most of the community was casual or surrounded by casuals despite their ambitions. These people knew they couldn't kill the raid mobs required to get an epic, so they rarely put much effort into them. Sure, they would do legwork when they could, in case the chance presented itself, but there weren't 100s of people lining up for any given epic, at least at any of the tougher stages.

The Rogue epic was considered the easiest, and aside from the bottleneck of the General, could be achieved by people with casual friends. Then Verant announced they would make the General repeatable, so we scheduled a public raid for the night of the patch, and invited anybody who wanted to join to finish theirs. We got a total of 7, including myself. This was still reasonably early in the existence of epics, there was no huge line of Rogue's waiting or fighting over it. We had a very robust public community on the server, anybody who wanted one could have joined that raid, and we got 7.

Contrast that with the Cleric epic. Raid guilds were furiously getting their clerics through it, because it was awesome. But even friends of raiders had to wait a while because it was too important to their raiding progress to help friends much before they had what they needed.

So yes, the population of any given server back then was likely higher than now. But the percentage of those players that were anywhere near the endgame or epics was much lower. And when those populations got big, they did server splits. When the Zeb server opened up they allowed free transfers off E'ci, and Souls of the Shadow left in the split. Leaving Recon and the three guild alliance as the top raiding entities to compete with one another. Others came up eventually, but then over the years the population dropped off with WoW coming out and all that.

TLP's are by far the biggest concentration of endgame focused players on any new servers I'm aware of. Race to the top, farm until the next expansion opens up, and repeat, until the next TLP opens up. The bottlenecks have a higher impact due to that, and the shortened timelines on expansions.

Very well said. While a decent portion of the TLP community may not be Neckbeards in grandma's basement, that doesn't mean they don't want to experience content and progress their character. Part of the reason they play on a TLP is for the ease with which they can raid end-game content via the AOC and much faster spawns of Bosses.

Bottlenecks in access to the Bosses have been removed, and everyone loves it!

There is no reason that bottlenecks in general shouldn't be removed, especially when there are repeated complaints about a certain issue.

Getting these issues fixed with the Epics is fantastic. I see no reason why we shouldn't direct efforts at other quest related bottlenecks as well.

Kudos to Bobby for this thread and the fixes it lead to, and hopefully the future fixes as well.

Have you uhhh looked at my magelo? I know it's a surprise but I was in a guild who finished TBM 4th serverwide. But tell me, how is TBM, one of the easiest group expansions ever? As a war - arguably the weakest group tank - I'm rarely using my shield even when a merc is healing. Just have to learn to play right.

I never said to play a pally for dps. However, you should always maximize your dps, regardless of class. Therefore, 2h is to be used a vast majority of the time.

This is an excellent point, certainly in my experience Family guilds are slim to none on TLP, casual EQ players in general do not last long given the pace of the unlocks and of the many raiding guilds that start up on TLP most will fold, merge or move on to another TLP sooner or later.

For the players who stick it out not only have they been fast-tracked through the game, they've also been fast tracked through the ecosystem of guild formation, merge or collapse and all the associated disappointments, sense of loss, drama & emotional turmoil that inevitably go along with that. Speaking for myself I certainly found the process educational but at the same time it has fuelled my desire to try & see to it that the TLP that follow Phinigel do well.

The cloak IMO is fine as it is. Getting Quil to spawn is actually fairly easy. The only problem is A LOT of people do it. Back in mid Classic during an 8 hour session I whispered at least 15 different people selling Loot Rights to the cloak before I finally found someone willing to sell for 1Kr. 1Kr being the equivalent of farming for 1-2 hours, even faster if you know your s**t.

Imo the Staff is a rarer drop than the backbone, last 2 TLP's it took me at least 5 resets for each staff. Not sure how many back bones I saw

LOL, thanks for the advice. I perhaps should have said that my SK is group geared. Once geared in top group gear I didn't have much trouble, except for the named in HAs which were significantly more difficult.

And, no, I haven't looked at your Magelo. Why would I?

I mean it's a simple link on my posts and it would prove that I'm not some random TLPmiller who doesn't know content past OOW, which you insinuated by stating "it may be awhile for some of you" as a direct response to me.

I simply meant that some folks won't see that era for quite a while.

your never gonna get them to unlock gnome/halfling "extra" classes after they locked them to SoL in the Phinny TLP era

No reason to restrict class / race restrictions other than Drakkin. I feel for those who enjoy Berserkers but want to play on a TLP. By the time they arrive the server begins to turn into a ghost town.

From Test:

- Cleric Epic Changes
- - Blood Soaked Prismatic Priest Robe can no longer be traded.
- - Lake Rathe
- - - Only someone that has handed Lord Bergurgle's Crown to Shmendrik can loot the Damaged Goblin Crown from the spirit of flame.
- - - Once you hand the Damaged Goblin Crown to Natasha you will have to hand a new Lord Bergurgle's Crown to Shmendrik to loot the Damaged Goblin Crown again.
- - - Natasha no longer despawns.
- - - Most of the time Natasha cannot be attacked. She can only be fought when she engages with Shmendrik.
- - - Shmendrik cannot be attacked until someone hands him Lord Bergurgle's Crown.
- - Timorous Deep
- - - Only someone that has handed Blood Soaked Plasmatic Priest Robe to Omat will receive the Ornate Sea Shell II when handing Lord Gimblox's Signet Ring to Natasha.
- - - Once you hand the Lord Gimblox's Signet Ring to Natasha you will have to hand a new Blood Soaked Plasmatic Priest Robe to Omat for Natasha to accept another Signet Ring from you.
- - - Natasha no longer despawns and cannot be killed.
- - - Only someone that has handed Sceptre of Ixiblat Fer and Singed Scroll to Omat will receive the Shimmering Pearl when handing A Message to Natasha to Natasha.
- - - Once you hand A Message to Natasha to Natasha you will have to hand a new Sceptre of Ixiblat Fer and Singed Scroll to Omat for Natasha to accept another Message from you.

Thanks Absor and/or whichever Dev's helped!

So you can't multiquest the cleric epic anymore? How is that a good change rofl

OH I see, so using in game krono to purchase items is an issue now. I get it. Lets just disable all trading and take krono out of the game.

Bard epic can be fully multiquested, mage epic can, etc. Seems like whoever cries the loudest about getting griefed on turn ins because they are clueless about their surroundings get things changed.

We could all hope, but since that's probably not a option, this is the next best thing. Now even though they changed spawn timers, they should take all 's out of the game or make them not doable. That would cut the Krono sellers sales a bunch - no pegasus cloaks, phinny items, green stones, ect. Want your epic, do you epic.

Yeah lets all hope for the thing keeping the game we love alive gets removed. Weirdchamp

By your logic the Bazaar should be removed as well. If you want that item you better acquire it yourself. Buying it from a player is not how I want the game to be played!

Found the guy that sells Gimblox ring MQs