Can we have some Mischief love for casuals, soloers, and non-campers?

Dear esteemed EQ Developers and loyal TLP community,

The random and free trade loot drops are welcome change for the upcoming Mischief TLP server! However, not every returning EverQuest player actively seeks to camp rare named spawns and many like to play casually and even solo.

Many former EQ devs have stated in past interviews that they realized in retrospect that the itemization in the classic newbie dungeon zones was lacking. If they thought that, imagine what they would think of normal outdoor zones that have little to no itemization?

For example, Oasis had only one rare mob called Lockjaw and he had two drops. In the Misty Thicket both named Mooto and the Goblin Shaman current drop nothing.

I am proposing a Mischief only mechanic where every random NPC between level 1-60 has a very small chance of dropping a random level appropriate rare item.

This is not something new for EverQuest. On EverQuest live, Defiant gear was introduced and can drop off any mob.

In Omens of War the mechanic of non-rare mobs dropping items was introduced. You could grind away and not have to worry about camping rare spawns and every night after 3 hours of adventuring, maybe one random NPC would drop a nice magical item. When this happened, it was a happy event. You felt you might get a nice drop without having to camp a certain rare mob spawn point.

Having random loot drop from random NPCs also incentives players to travel to remote and unpopular zones which helps take the stress off of overcrowded zones and the kill stealing and toxic behavior that this sometimes creates.

This new mechanic would also be a nice gesture to solo players and new players considering experiencing the magic of EverQuest for the first time. Imagine how happy a new player would be to find a magical sword from a random mob that would be somewhat better than a rusty sword and with a +1 STR on it?

I don't think it's fair to expect that non-camper and casuals should have to purchase all of their gear from other players and professional farmers. Of course many players will do this and that's perfectly fine too.

The new Mischief TLP sounds very exciting and as a result has become quite popular with the EQ community. Mischief shows the Daybreak Games devs have put a lot of thought into this new server. I hope they and the EQ community will consider this suggestion.

Best regards,

-a veteran casual EQ player

Sounds kinda cool, really.

A lot of stuff drops from enemies that aren't considered rare. Spiked/studded collars in Blackburrow on the low end to most drops in The Hole on the high end. It would be fantastic to get Rusty Spiked Shoulderpads off of an orc legionnaire in Crushbone or loam pants from a lava beetle in SolB. My biggest worry is the randomized loot ends up being much more narrow in focus so only certain "named" mobs will have the randomized loot tables.

TLP are not casual-friendly, the pace of unlocks alone will mean they would be highly dependent upon being carried a lot by their guild mates, casuals are way better served on Live Servers where the unlock pace is fixed at around 12 months now, they have a long way to catch up but they also have all the game systems & mechanics to enable them to do that fairly quickly.

Soloers/Boxers do okay so long as they have fairly high playtime / are not casuals, non-raiding groupers don't last long at all once the PuG dies off.

Therefore I don't think making allowances for casuals make sense for any fast unlock TLP since the population is almost entirely made up of Raiders on TLP - all that said your idea of a random item having a small chance to drop on non-nameds of the same level range is something the later expansions do anyway so that idea is pretty feasible.

I like this idea. It is rare I like someone else idea. Congrats.

Casuals, soloers, and non campers will have chances at loot theyd never be able to get because of their schedule/play time, etc. That IS the mischief. There's going to be loot floating around, going to people who are just as casual as you, but they got a group and something great dropped. Planar armor no drop as well? People farming that and selling it.. going to be great

Since this is a free trade server it is made for casuals. You can acquire platinum then buy raid gear as a casual. You don't need to camp the rare mobs just use the economy and buy what you want. Remember the price of goods are going to be very different than on other servers, so much more supply of items will be in the economy, many of the items non-raiders would acquire before will be much less expensive and other unobtainable items will now be obtainable.

Good luck having enough plat to buy raid gear as a casual when the server will be moving through expansions 4 to 5 times faster than live servers did, you'll get access to it when the Raiders Alts outgrow the gear handed down to them but whether you can afford it is another matter entirely.

You wont have 6-12 months to farm plat like live servers did per expansion
Mobs on TLP do not drop more plat than live servers do, just the same amount.
Server will be way less plat-rich than you might think, and casuals a lot poorer.

A casual will see MORE good loot for sale, and cheaper prices on regular highly sought after gear since rotting no drops are now being scooped up and taken to the EC tunnel.

A casual has a chance at getting rares from mobs that are normally locked down 24/7.

This server will have the best geared casuals in literally years.

The entire premise of the mischief server is good for casuals or part-timers and bad for hardcore BiS completionists.

This is complete and utter BS. There are tons of casual players on every TLP, even in the top guilds.

Only if they are buying a lot of Krono from Daybreak
Casuals relying on generating plat in game will be no better off than they are on regular TLP if they are trying to stay at the max level, for the ones happy to play 2-3 expansions or 2-3 level raises behind they'll be okay once prices come down.
But don't be surprised if a lot of the cool loot vanishes into tribute pools.

I've never played casually, but I love this idea. Casuals should definitely be able to hit the "loot" jackpot every once in awhile too.

On every TLP I kind of do this myself once I am wealthy enough...I'll charm a few mobs in crushbone/upper guk and give them some nice rare loots. I never get to see the reaction when they are killed, but it makes me smile

These silly arguments that surround how casuals play Everquest always stem from the fact that people have VERY DIFFERENT ideas on what a casual Everquest player means. I know people that think casual means logging in and playing 2 hours Friday night and 3 hours on Saturday AND THAT's IT.

I also know people that think a casual Everquest player is one that ONLY plays 3 hours each night Monday-Friday and then only 4-5 hours on Saturday and Sunday (for a total of 23-25 hours a week). There are probably people that consider casual to be even farther on either extreme, these are just players I know and talk to in game.

So please save us all some drama and extra reading and when you include "CASUALS" in your post, define what you consider a casual. That will help us all avoid needless argument ;0

Yes of course, thats called every other MMORPG outhere

It doesn't matter how you define casual. Top loot is now more accessible off the "lower tier" of mobs, at the cost of being less easily to farm concentrated off the highest mobs. More loot will be in the economy than normal due to increased rares in early eq and handmedowns in later eq. There may not be more of the very best items of an expansion, but there will be way more total good items in general. This helps any kind of casual. Finally, with loot being spread out, monopolies cannot block someone from named. Sure, it'll be harder to focus camp, but you also cannot be boxed out. You just go ANYWHERE with a named of your level range and either get your item or, more likely, get random items you can market for what you may want. Again, helps casuals.

This should end up being the most casual friendly tlp ever launched.

I mean it does matter how you define casuals because the question is not, is this the most casual friendly TLP? We all know the answer to that is yes. The question is, is it casual friendly ENOUGH to let casuals get whatever gear they want in EQ during each xpac with this new twist. The answer is probably "no" but that depends if a casual is someone who plays 5 hours a week or 25 hours a week.

I get your point Yerm, but I don't think I've seen much debate on if this is the most casual friendly TLP from a historically very unfriendly game towards casuals.

If you want every single best item in each expansion before that expansion is over I STRONGLY question you being casual. That's a frankly ridiculous expectation.

In early EQ, yes more loot will be in the economy, but most of the increase will be trash that no one wants.

Take the level 42 mobs from Bobby's chart, and the FBSS. Great, you can now camp an FBSS in solb and kedge keep. More mobs, more access. Except, chances of each named actually dropping an fbss will be ridiculously low. Let's assume that only the level 42 mobs share a table. This is the best case scenario if you want to camp a fbss. Probably you will have even chance to receive something from any of the seven. Let's discount Proon, who knows if he even counts. So that's six mobs. FBSS is a 15% chance to drop from Frenzied, so if you've got a one in six chance to receive Frenzied loot, that is 2.5% chance per named that it will drop. On average a player will have to sit there for 40 named spawns to actually get one.

Those 40 will drop mostly moonstone rings, shark tooth, darksea harpoon, Fleshripper (grats rogues! That at least will be relatively easy to come by), Dark Mail Gauntlets, etc, things mostly no one wants or will pay much for. You aren't going to be able to trade those for a FBSS.

Meanwhile, the best place to actually camp a fbss will still be lguk, since you have 3xfrenzied ph's per spawn cycle. But the chance of fbss dropping per frenzied has now gone from 15% to 2.5%.

This doesn't sound "more accessible" to casual players to me.

All the math gets worse if they include a bigger level range of mobs, although some of the loot gets better if they go say, 41-45. With 13 named 41-45, you'd have only a 1% chance for fbss per named, but you would also have a 1% chance for a SMR.

Yeah, no offense but these changes are the best thing to ever happen to the casual tourist EQ gamer. If you think these changes are good for Batphone guilds and people who like to sit at Efreeti for 10 days straights you're wrong it's quite the opposite.