Take this thought experiment: Devs propose nerfing Overseer and achievement XP by 25% but increase mob XP by 50% of the current levels. Interestingly, I would think most players would prefer to leave Overseer and achievement XP untouched.
There is clearly a two-side separation among the players: those who prefer to midlessly gring trash and those who prefer to actually play some game besides trash killing. What we are observing in the latest expansions - the gradual shift of balance toward gameplay from a grind. Obviously, there is some number of players who are unhappy about that. As well as some number of players who are much happier with the change. I hope (really, I can only hope) that there are people in DPG who realize and observe the effects of the balance shift and try to find the right balance to the effect of game satisfaction increase in overall player base, not some secluded group. Meanwhile, I personally don't care at all about unhappy trash evergrinding automated teams. Starting GMM (nerfed later) and through ToV and ToL I am very happy with EQ questing and enjoying massive reward for a non-boring progressions I have to go through, instead of mindless grind.
I agree. I lean in favor of the change (achievement XP) but there is room for adjustment and balance. How about a way to increase mob xp temporarily such as buffing Lesson to 200-400% gain so people who like to grind get a major 30 minute boost session each day?
The separation is that progression isn't available to everyone at all times. People need to be able to log in and feel some sense of progress for their time played. Games that use quest based progression are solo based, with very few small group tasks. It's not ideal for EQ, because the LFG system is abandoned, quests are single use rewards, tedious to track between multiple members, and everyone just boxes.
I am not suggesting they do away with anything. I am just suggesting that killing mobs be more meaningful that what they currently are, and that they don’t continue with rewards that are clearly outliers. Incentivizing progression is fine.
There’s a balance as Alnitak highlighted. There’s a meta balance where XP would be too abundant or cheap. After the swarming nerfs, I think buffing Lesson by 200-400% xp bonus could be a happy medium. If you like or want to grind, you’ll get triple XP for 30 minutes every 20 hours (based on current mob XP).
This is a salient point. EQ's progression system is exclusively for groups "in era", mob-grind play was what allowed for those left behind & returners to tackle group content at a high enough "over-level" which made them soloable - with ToV & ToL that way of progressing as a catch up player or returner has been cut off at the knees. One of the following needs to happen if the ToV experience model is to persist: 1. Solo Quest system 2. Allow Players to operate up to 5 (better than the current) mercenaries at once 3. A DPG "boxing" system to allow solo players with access to more accounts to a DPG controlled boxing option. 4. A "squire" / "mentor" / "side-kick" system that boosts low level players to 5 or less levels of the highest player in the group effectively allowing anyone of any level to group with players - they would earn XP at a % per mob rate not the xp the mob grants so their levelling was at a "normalised" rate of level gain. This would also allow all players to experience current content or older & may help drive sales of the most recent expansion which might go some way towards off-setting the cost of development of this system, If none of those are on the table then: 1. ToV model persists & returning players are faced with a more & more hostile path to reach the most recent expansion levels, inevitably alienating new & returning players & putting the future success of the game at risk through player attrition that has no counterbalance from old players coming back or new players trying the game, such as from TLP players that somehow make it to later era expansions. 2. A change to the Experience offered by these expansions will be needed in order to allow players catching up to not be penalised by being late to the party - such as once each of these expansions is no longer "current" their XP requirements per level are reduced back down to what players saw prior to ToV.
You are missing the easiest option: Auto-grant a complete set of gear at specific levels (once an expansion is 2-3+ years old). Most legit players can ALT + TAB box and are willing to pay for All Access for 1-2 J5 mercs. There's no need to reinvent the wheel here. The sticking point for new characters is the daunting wall to gearing up (full suit T1 and Type 5/7 augs).
Most Americans consume content when they can, and they binge to catch up. Limiting them to one hour isn't going to fit into that model and you would probably would lose people. The rest exp idea (yes and I know it's been tried before) is better idea, or maybe a second lesson that is longer than hour (that can be used once per week).
Edit: mis-read the first time. Gear is only part of the solution, the XP gap that needs to be bridged by any player will not be made by gear alone, even raid level TBL gear doesn't allow every Level 111 Player class to tackle ToV Missions molo, even if for a few it could. And there should not be a requirement to play more than 1 character at the same time. Your suggestion is a good one, it has merit in the grand scheme but by itself it would be ineffective.
I am not a fan of the band aid approach - I rather them spend the time and properly fix the exp curve, rather finding ways to ignore it.
I only had 7 or 8 collections I could get the 2% XP from. It took me till that Saturday morning to ding 120. I accelerated as many overseers as the game would allow starting around Wednesday. So nearly three days' worth of accelerated overseers and maybe 16% from collections closed the gap that would have been left after I completed all of the progression. At 75% into 119 I switched all combat XP to AAs because with one zone's progression left to complete I knew that the XP from that merc/partisan and the overall Champion achievement XP I'd be over the top, and normal non-accelerated Overseer would work over time to widen the margin into 120 as long as I didn't die 30 times a day or whatever. Ended up being something like 4% into 120 when I did the final turn-in of that last zone. I think I paid something like 1600 or 1700 daybreak coins for those accelerations, and that was from the 500 free DB coins we get each month. Actual out of pocket for this was nothing. Did I pay to win? IMHO no, I teamed up with some other skilled players and muscled through the entire expack's progression to win. The accelerated overseers moved up the date of dinging by a couple days at most but that would have come whether I did anything more than just refresh my overseers every day. The work had been done. Guildmates who took another week longer than me to complete the progression eventually dinged 120 without accelerating any overseers, just doing them at the normal rate. What's a week? In another month nobody will give a crap who dinged a week ahead of whom.
So you want EverQuest to turn into a solo player fantasy game? That's a high ask. You can play a plethora of solo player fantasy games on consoles (e.g. Final Fantasy series on Playstation).
The first guy in my guild who hit 120 did so on the back of an automated bot army slaughtering mass thousands of mobs in GD for two or three days straight. I swear to God after hitting 120 he had to ask how to get to Maiden's Eye. A buddy of mine and I, and a separate other hardcore group in my guild completed the progression at around the same time, and were the first to ding 120 in our guild having actually played the expansion. My buddy and I dinged on the final turn-in of the progression due to some accelerated overseers, as did one person in that other group. The others in that grouped dinged over the next 2-3 days as they caught up, not having accelerated anything. I have zero problems whatsoever with game mechanics favoring actually playing through the expansion in order to max out the level. I think the ToV and ToL mechanics that gave so much XP for those achievements was brilliant. Little annoys me more than guildmates who are max level but six or seven months into an expansion still have to ask how to get anywhere, or how to run the missions. I respect that they're playing the game the way they want to, as is their right, but that actually playing through the content is the favored way to level up I think is a very good thing. It would be stupid if the most effective way to hit a new level in an expansion were to stay in the old expansion and just roflstomp easy mobs by the thousands.
Maybe he means real groups instead of boxed groups lol? There is content that can be done with small groups/molo, it just doesn't offer much level exp unless part of progression.
He wants to de jure systematically water down the DNA, culture, and difficulty of the game to where we can entirely decouple ourselves from the multiplayer aspect. Even if it sounds reasonable, I'm concerned that there will be unintended consequences (e.g. boredom, population drop).
This hits the nail on the head. The grind game is the province of the botters and automation crews no matter how much people complain about how they use to do things. It doesn't matter if your guild really is full of clean livin', right thinkin', single account playin' people who have 18 hours a day to sit on one spot socializing and grinding the majority of crews cluttering the landscape are more likely to belong to one guy who's watching Netflix and listening for audio alerts to let him know if a GM is checking on him
