This is coming from the perspective of a 119.65 level enchanter who has completed all quests and missions in the game. Leveling: The grindfest continues like TOV. Large experience gain from completing missions and quest achievements, and very little from killing mobs. They did tone down the mission bonuses. You get about 20% of a level from completing a mission. Complete all 4 and you have gained a little bit less than a level. I do like that the bonuses were reduced, and they now seem like reasonable rewards for completing missions or quests, however the grind is too punishing. But fear not, you can continue to level without playing the game via overseer, getting 1-2% chunks of exp for each overseer quest. Quality: 1 quest (Ka Vethan) was broken, and fixed within 24 hours of being reported. Type 3 augments are missing from game. Game has been stable. There were some achievement bugs after zone repops (which fixed the above quest), but to my knowledge the game never went down after launch. Overall, quality is pretty good for a new expansion launch, but the missing type 3 augments is pretty inexcusable. That just screams that they launched the game even though they knew all functionality was not completed. Presumably Tradeskill quest will also be added after launch. Mob Difficulty: Mobs are not that difficult and seem to die after a reasonable amount of damage (COV mobs had too many hp). Most of my groups used either a raid pet tank, or a merc tank (nice to finally have a max aa merc tank). We were completing quests, and beating names without issue. Even from a raider perspective, I never felt the mobs were too easy, though. They seem to have hit the tuning sweet spot. Tradeskills: I haven't explored this much, but it appears that TS are the same as other recent expansions. Collect a silk, leather, and 2 ore, for a chance to make a simple armor piece. 4x that for a chest piece. Problem is the drops are just too few. They really need to stop requiring all 4 drops to make a piece of armor. Silk alone should be enough for a silk wearer, ore alone should be enough for platemail, etc. It is rather nice that drops are by mob, so if you want to farm diamonds (aka garnets), you get rock monsters in Shadow Valley. If you want lumber, head to Basilica zone, etc. Quests: I was so hopeful when the first quest in Maiden's eye was a group quest, but sadly that is the only one in the expansion. Everything else is a solo quest. It is so annoying to try and lead 5 other people through solo quests. Did everyone get the task update? Your quest task should now say X. Please confirm in group chat. Over and Over. Bring back the group quests! One thing that I viewed as a positive was the mercenary collection quests. Collect about 4 drops from certain mob types, that only drop once every 2 or 3 killed. Group of 6 collecting them means you need 48 to 72 mobs killed to get drops for everyone. I am not a fan of group kill of 8 mobs and call it a day. The merc quest kills are a great time to burn lesson, etc. Shadow Valley quest drops are also tradeable, so you can farm for others and give them the items to complete the quests quickly. Other than that, quests are pretty vanilla. There was one escort quest, but everything else is location update, fed ex or hail between point A and B, kill a mob, etc. Ka Vethan had a strange quest that took you to Bloodfalls zone that is restricted to most players working on Ka Vethan quests. AA/Spell Line/Level Limit woes continue: You ding a level, get your new shiny spell, start using it, and your dps decreases. Why? You don't have the type 3 augment (not in game), your focus AA/synergy has to be upgraded before it improves that spell (lose 30% of damage there), burns by you and others don't affect the spell, etc. This is especially frustrating as an enchanter as I have so many that are affected. My group burns that affect 116+ spells are not even purchasable until 120. My COV raid robe will have to be replaced by a TOL group robe since the spell focus doesn't include the new level 120 spell. This time I even tried to focus on making sure I had the necessary AA to use new spells from day one, and I just can't purchase them (see 120 burns above). Darkpaw really needs to take a hard look at the leveling experience in game. They should want players using the new spells immediately, and not punishing players that aren't max AA and lose all focus bonuses every time they pick up a higher level spell. Zones: Regular invis works about just everywhere. Exceptions: Cave in north Umbral plains and wandering mobs in middle of same zone (undead). Shadow valley (more to be said here), and Bloodfalls has enclaves of undead vampires in ruins with the occasional wanderer. What is most strange are the shades which are not undead. They are everywhere in the zones, but don't see through regular invis. This is especially true of Basilica where they are obviously undead, but happily ignore you if you have regular invis up. I think that is my biggest beef with zone design. There are some notable zones. I like Umbral Plains, as the undead wander in the middle give you trouble, and you have to be careful to avoid them. Bloodfalls is a rather scary zone with the enclaves of vampires throughout the zone. For the most part you avoid the ruins, and you are ok, however there is the occasional wanderer. Bigger issue can be the named mobs that see invis in the zone. So moving around bloodfalls (and you do it alot) is always a challenging experience (hint, swimming in blood is a great way to avoid a lot of vamps). However, the most interesting zone in the game is Shadow Valley. If you are like me, the first time you get there, you just want to cross the zone to get to Basilica, pop up reg invis, con a few mobs and look safe, and the next thing you know you have aggro and are dead. What gets you is that there are avenging mass mobs that see through invis and have a large aggro range. There is also a see invis mob guarding the entrance to Basilica. The zone is a maze with lots of ramps connecting "islands". Levitate does work, but it is difficult to get on top of islands. Once you do, though, you can levitate around the zone easier (sans the KOS mobs). From an enchanter perspective, most mobs are mezzable, however you hit those that aren't. It isn't like wolves are mezzable, and lurkers are not, where you can learn which types to mez. Instead, it seems to be that higher level lurkers are not mezzable, but low level ones are, Very confusing. Pacify does work great in the zone. Ultimately, you learn where the avenging mass are located in the zone, and avoid those areas when traveling. You are going to spend a long time in the zone as there are a total of 9 quests. Everyone I talk to say they hate the zone, however personally I respect it. Zones where you cast invis, and can run around the entire zone are snorefests. Zones that have real danger is what keeps the game interesting.
I found ToL to be of nominal difficulty. Tough enough to challenge some players, but not so difficult it's impossible. I agree with most of what you say above. Especially the point on solo quests. I don't mind solo quests, but damnit give us the ability to see the entire group's progress, then.
Partisan quests really need to be Shared tasks. Mercenary tasks are fine as solo, since they're simple.
I only have two criticisms for this expansion 1.) The mob HP seems a little too high for me. Edit: Some mobs (like the named ooze in VT) seem to die way too fast 2.) Bloodfalls and Shadow Valley have quests to collect items, but mobs only drop one. In Shadow Valley it's not 100% drop rate so it took a semi-raid geared group 8 hours to complete these quests. Bloodfalls was around 6 or so. These two zones were terrible to go through. As far as the missions go, they were fun, although the mechanics on basillica are a little too tough, but the mission can be cheesed pretty easily. KV was easy, but groups with lower dps or no cc will have trouble. VT mission had a perfect balance of mechanics and difficulty. Bloodfalls seems a bit easy, except for that first wave can hurt if your tank doesn't hit shield flash or whatever super tank disc they have
Several non-raiders in my guild have worked through part of the progression already with maybe 6-7 pieces of t1 raid loot between the whole group. You've gotta be way more careful, and kills take longer than they did in ToV but it's still doable.
And overseers isn’t P2W… Leveling: The grindfest continues like TOV. Large experience gain from completing missions and quest achievements, and very little from killing mobs. They did tone down the mission bonuses. You get about 20% of a level from completing a mission. Complete all 4 and you have gained a little bit less than a level. I do like that the bonuses were reduced, and they now seem like reasonable rewards for completing missions or quests, however the grind is too punishing. But fear not, you can continue to level without playing the game via overseer, getting 1-2% chunks of exp for each overseer quest.
I'm totally fine with them toning down the first time rewards for doing the missions. Hate how low the rewards are for repeating them. I enjoy doing missions more than I do grinding a single mob to get kitted out with type 5s, but the low AAxp reward for 2nd/3rd/50th completion is a touch disappointing.
Since they've toned down the XP rewards for progression/mission, there's zero reason to continue with this idiotic "hell level" xp model. Just keep the XP rewards the way they are now and go back to the normal leveling curve that we had for 20 years prior to ToV.
I have said this many times in the past, usually at the start of an expansion... Devs take a lot of time to create mercenary and partisan tasks. They come up with the lore and storyline, they create the dialogue, they think of the steps a d flow of the quest. They want their time and work to be recognized and used by the masses. In order to ensure that people participate in what they work on, they need to incentivize players to play their content. XP gains to help get to 120 is the easiest and best way of accomplishing this. Let's say that EQ came to you and wanted to give you a thousand dollars to create an in game quest. The caveat is that 80 percent of players must complete this quest for you to get paid. And the quest must take 90 minutes to do. And you spend the next 45 days, four hours each night, creating a d making this quest. Would your reward for a player accomplishing the quest with a loaf of bread? Some silver and gold? A ring that not even a level 4 would wear? Of course not, you will need to incentivize them with a nice reward. You want to get paid, and you don't want to see all of that time you spent go to waste. Higher XP rewards is the incentive. You can choose not to do them and still hit 120 by never doing any quests or missions if you want. No one is forcing you to play the game how you want to, you are just being incentivized if you work on quests.
The lack of foresight of the devs and players who support this short-sighted paradign simply beggars belief. This "XP model" works great for the stated aims in this post. but it creates a problem that is easy to see for anyone with a few grains of foresight. How does anyone more than 30 levels behind the level cap make it through the expansions built like this? Overseer all the way? What an absolutely stupid way to build EQ for the future, creating a gigantic XP hole that cannot be filled except by a massively inflated XP grind - there is a reason the loss of the mob-grind method was lamented by casuals but nobody was listening. These expansions are designed exclusively for the 12 months they are current content, later on they will be the most punishing content ever created for anyone tryiing to follow along behind the curve. This short-sightedness is not at all surprising, the lack of thought given to EQ players who are not max level is a historical achilles heel, a tradition even. If you are not currently at max level or within 5 of it & actively playing, these ToV+ expansions are saying to you that you may as well quit now, if you want to return to the game later on do not bother, you are not wanted. And no, TLP servers are not going to be the answer, they will be dead long before they reach Live server current expansions.
1) That's not how you should design a game, and EQ's most popular gameplay styles are not a result of dev design. 2) The quests aren't worth repeating.
EQ SoD + = a game built by a railroad company, EQ as a living Sandpark has been systematically destroyed & dismantled. In SoD the devs laid down the rails along which you must travel. Progression system was the railway infrastructure they laid. in ToV+ they removed all alternate forms of travel to your next stop on your journey. Here they removed the mob-grind almost completely. it's like the railroad company got to your government & outlawed all personal use cars, motorbikes & bicycles, and then fitted you with lead-weighted trainers so you can't even run fast any more. So they took away most of your ability to pay to play your way to your next level, but in it's place gave you a way to level that involves you just paying to log in every 6,12 or 24 hours. Current EQ for players at or near level = "all aboard!" EQ for anyone else = "you're on your own, pal!"
Your concern is for the level 90 player, which probably represents less than one percent of the playerbase on live. My concern is for the level 111-115 player, which probably represents 95 percent of the playerbase on live. If someone comes back to the game, why are they? Friends or guild mates? Then some lesson burns and friends helping them level up gets them to a level playing field within a few weeks/months. Which negates high bonus XP on partisan quests. And if they are back because of guild mates and friends (who BTW have already done prior expansion missions and quests), those friends can power the returning player through prior expansion missions and quests in a week or so. There is a good chunk of XP right there. And if you are new to the game, or haven't played in over a decade... then TLP is probably the best for you. Yes, live is punishing for new and returning players who have no friends to help them out. But new and returning players who have no one to help them initially represent such a tiny percent of the live playerbase that devs cannot create expansions around that. They have to think of the overwhelming majority of players who play, and how they get those players to play the content they created.
Well I will say this... if this game was called EverGrind and there were no tasks or quests or missions in the game, and all you did was go to a zone and sit at a spot for eight hours and mindlessly kill random mobs for XP, then this game probably would have sunsetted a decade ago. I get some people like to do that. Cool. You can! But for those of us who cannot stomach that, we need other things to motivate and challenge us. And picking up shinies isn't either of those. The game is built around tasks and quests and missions. Those who want to sit in one spot for eight hours and kill mobs can do so. It is just going to take you longer to get to your destination. Just like if someone wants to walk to work, bike to work, drive to work. You have options, as long as you understand some will take longer than others. But eventually we all will get to work, just like we all will get to level 120.
That's fine, but they need to give better rewards for completing quests a second time. There is no incentive to repeat the quests. They give less repeat XP per time than grinding. If partisan was a group task, was repeatable and gave currency, more people would repeat them. It would also give more options than grinding the same 4 missions for aug currency. Right now, the only reason to repeat these is out of charity or boredom. Edit: I for a long time of playing EverQuest felt it was an ironic name because there wasn't very many quests. I really like the current questing and progression model, just needs more replay-ability (on the same character).
OK? We all recognize that there is a large XP curve for a new/returning player who is alone with no help on live. So what?
Exactly my point. All players like you & the devs are doing is saying this. For me & a few others this is like watching a blind & deaf man walking into a swamp of quicksand, he won't see the forum posts - signs a few people placed to warn him, he won't hear you when you scream "Hey stop heading in that direction or you're going to get yourself killed!". By the time he realises he is in trouble it will be too late. If you build your game with no eye on the future, eventually you will not have one.
