But the game 1-50 is nothing like the game 85+ I dont know that the 10-15 hours of playing at levels where no one else plays is very helpful. At a point of the game where you can just watch your merc do everything, some of the classes really only have autoattack and kick and maybe one other skill for the first 50 levels. Really everquest needs a new tutorial and at the end of the tutorial you're a 100 or 110 character if you so choose. The barrier to entry for everquest should be as low as possible. I don't even think the 110 needs any quests auto granted to it, those are things to do in my mind when you make friends so you can do the missions. You guys have to imagine coming into the game at 100 with no friends and no boxing. Players don't want to beg for groups or task adds. Hopefully they'll drop the level 100 players in lcea so they can run 1 zone over to FM where the "low end" grouping exists
For some classes they are a hard requirement for raiding. Not having an epic is definitely not heroic.
Which will no longer be the case with the next FTP level cap increase which should be inbetween a year. FM already has become less populated and about nobody does need a lvl 100 PC there. Most players do only invite a low level PC by charity, boredom or if they are friends or guild mates. EQ has alot dilemmas and the Heroic Character feature for new players is one of them. There currently is no real solution for it without drastic game concept changes. Heroic PC is absolutely fine for experience players. The overall game concept of the last several years is a blind alley which is something a few devs do not like to hear/read about and maybe this post will be deleted like others before as harsh critique is not tolerated by DBG (investors ?) and might be rated as flaming or bashing which is not my intention. I just checked my statistics and it took me about (2x) 72 hours to level a berserker and a shaman separately and soloing without boxing and without mercs up to level 50 the classic way. No PL but with defiant and other twink gear not always taking the fastest route. For a newbie it will take more hours, maybe 100-150. This should be enough to understand the basics even for lvl 100+ content as the base concept is always the same. Just complexity does increase but is optional for most content.
So I want to make sure I’m understanding you properly, you think someone should have to spend 100-150 hours learning the game before they get blessed with the ability to get boosted to 100 where there is still next to no players so they can slog through another 100 hours to get to the point where they can contribute meaningfully (maybe) to groups of players where most of the player base is? To give you perspective, the average gamer plays games ~ 8.5 hours a week. Even if EQ is their only game at 100-150 hours to level 50 using your example you would expect them to play like that for 12+ weeks in a level range that plays nothing like the current state of the game and would only teach them skills that they likely already learned in another mmo or rpg? Also if you quote people but don’t leave their name in the header of the quote they don’t get notified.
What are you even talking about? Lifetime? - No one. - Iven - Let's shift the discussion to interstitial social game theory. I get people still use the spell book. Why they do is completely beyond me. Sorry your heroic messed with your spellbook.
Exactly. EQ is unique, and from my own experiences many new and also returning vanilla players have problems to control their PCs. What does happen after level 100 is not a problem of the Heroic Character concept. My own suggestion is lvl 110 btw. An unexperienced player that does hit level 100 immediately does face alot problems and quite alot players do quit the game frustrated at this point (currently lvl 85) so the best tutorial beside the Mines of Glooming Deep would be to learn the game by just playing from level 1-50 or a level range close to that. This never was a problem in the vanilla years and is much easier today with mercenary assistance and defiant gear. 100-150 hours does not mean much in an MMO. I knew a companion that loved to PL new players up to about level 90 for free and ALL of them did quit the game after it was done and were never seen again in years. They were lvl ~90 but mostly only had newbie gear.
It wasn’t a problem in the vanilla years because there was people to play with at the lower levels, you could get consistent low level groups for a very long time. It’s also not a problem on TLP because there’s people to play with. The magic in EverQuest is the community. While some players for sure a minority enjoy EQ as a single player game, its a multiplayer game and most people play it because of the community, thats why people keep coming back. There are much better games out there but when you go play them they don’t have the community that EQ does, your friends aren’t there. There’s people I’ve known in game for around 15 years now who still play, I can’t really count my brother who plays off and on that I’ve been enjoying the game with for 20 years. I think the answer would be a new better tutorial that is aimed at how modern eq gameplay works.
It was totally possible for experienced players to solo with only small twink gear, which was much weaker than defiant gear, or just with bad equipped classes that could root rot, kite or heal. A new tutorial would not be a bad idea but the best teacher is still to collect experience by just playing. It does not really matter if molo or in a group. You should know yourself that the community play style is non existant anymore on most servers at a PC level range from currently 1-105. The reality is that this magic is gone and much likely gone forever but you might not know about this if you only play on TLP servers.
idk it took me 1-2 hours (I didn't time it) to get a character from 85-95 with f2p gear, so I'm by no means cutting edge, and I know fast ways to get from 1-85 for spells/discs/etc on a 110, you go to PoK, tranquility, stratos, ethernere, overthere, and then you're either done or mostly done for gear, I don't know about your server, but level 105 visibles are basically worthless on mine, and well you could deck yourself out with a krono for less money than a heroic if you really wanted lol and heroics don't get progression in general I think?
Is Overseer really the gameplay loop you want to promote. Do you find Overseer enjoyable? Do you rather play Overseer than EQ? How does Overseer help new/returning players learn and get into EQ? Overseer is really should not be the answer to leveling.
No, it is all the people who have played the game for any length of time and know that getting or not getting groups have nothing to do with people "botting," boxing, or anything else. It has to do with the fact that most people don't do random pickup groups, they do groups within their guild, existing group of friends or people that they others know or recognize. Additionally, the people opposed to 110 heroics don't want to have to deal with a bunch of people in current content who have no idea how to play the class they are. The people for 110 heroic characters are those who want EQ to be a wholly one player game without having to put any time into it. That last paragraph of yours is a joke right? If you got 120 with all AAs and T1 ToL gear and spells, then you are not weak at all, and you are prefectly ready to start raiding ToL. You could be geared beneath ToL G1 and still do fine in the raids. Not going to be the best, but you can most definitely do it and succeed. It is not the character that is the problem, it is the player. It is the lack of experience playing the class that is the problem. Thus why having 15-30 levels to grow through is about right for learning to play a class at the top. Nope, you will not find any groups. People don't know you. People don't invite people they don't know into the newest content. They tend to only invite those they know or guildies. You obviously haven't played much if you think that classes have been stagnate since 100. How you play at 120 is different than 100, I'm sorry, but it just is. You're under the mistaken impression that zones being populated = you getting groups. No, his solution was for the returning player or existing player starting a new toon to find some of their friends to help them do the tasks, which would get them a lot more XP. Also, do people still actually sell taskadds? Yes, I know 30-40 people who came back to the game and instead of the going to their 90+ toon, they used one of the HCs they had and leveled it up to 100. The reason it is better, is that you learn more doing the content when it is challenging to you rather than when you can pretty much ignore everything in the zone including the named. 20 levels is not much to ask at all, especially when 3/4 to 1/2 of those levels can be gotten just by doing the progression through RoF-ToV, which anyone returning who comes back to a server they previously played on could do with old friends and new players who invest in making new friends and finding guilds could also get done easily. Both would be learning in situations which are dangerous to them that heightens their uptake, because they take what they are doing seriously and are learning things one at a time. You can quite quickly level through 100 to 110, but you are not going to learn as starting at 110 as you would at 100, because the game changes between those levels. What you see at 110 is built off of things that you saw at 100, and so now you have to learn twice as much as far as mechanics while also brushing off rusty skills when returning or just learning the game in general for a new player. The quality of player becomes evident, and while people in general don't tend to do random pick up groups, they do remember those who are subpar in the random groups they have been in and talk about it to others. Could there be better catchup methods, sure though I would say introducing a shroud that levels down to one's own class would be the best route to go, as opposed to any kind of catch up mode. Not doing your own Epic, but instead just having it handed to you. That actually not heroic. I am fairly sure that he meant something more like life-time, as in RL time that one invests.
You leveled from 85-95 in 1-2 hours with or without PLing? If it's without PLing, I'd ask you to put your money where your mouth is. -- Even with a full group of 85s on a double XP weekend running Lesson and potions would be a stretch to make 95 in 2 hours. Yes, HCs get progression. Not all of it, but most of it. Most notably DoN progression - 4/5. Only thing left is Vishimtar. They also get pre-leveled casting, begging, Alcohol Tolerance, Pick Lock, weapon skills, and some language. They get all applicable spells. Bags. Mount. Plat. Gear. I'm not saying HC are the best thing since sliced bread. But I am saying they are a huge time saver. And I would wager the customers that purchase HCs are a much wider demographic than most of the posters in this thread would have the community believe.
Thanks. Yeah, I just was surprised at the depth of philosophy and the lengths to which they went to explain their point of view. Sort of like when you casually ask someone how their day is going and they launch into a 20 minute diatribe.
You have to take note of the classes, some can do solo what takes other classes a full group of 85s and do it in less time. The Capped skills, Spells, Bags, Mount, and Plat are relatively minimal, all things considered. You could have all that and better doing the normal leveling. Now, the 100 Bayle Marks and the gear are another story.
So your definition of heroism is to take your level 100-120 character and camp level 30-70 mobs for several hours to several days? Just checking.
No but you do learn from the experience. You learn various ways to get around to all the zones needed to do it like pokstones and Dru/wiz ports and doing wayfarers to use the magus, not just using guildportal and placeable clickies ports in your hall. You learn how to do a quest without having bluetext to click on at every npc. You learn that for top items a raid is needed even if you don't need a raid to get your orb now, you do need to enter a raid zone which has different mechanics like the incombat timer and lack of mercs, and if chasing a specific nonguaranteed item, you have to wait days to repeat it not hours. There are innumerable things to learn about the game, and yes there's time to learn it from 100+, but not really from 110. At 110 the gear nearly triples from 100, but 110-120 it goes up like 30-40%. At 110 you'd only be 5 levels behind where we all were 2 months ago, and since the actual content doesn't last, you'll be bored before you have time to really get attached to the game. 110 would be awesome, as someone who likes new alts to be useful right away instead of doing this or that to get to 100 to do to to get to 110 to wear ok gear for current content, but that's someone already playing, not a returnee or new player. Yes, I think a lot of users of HC boosts are current players, but it's also there to help returning and new players, and helping them is just like irl. Teach a man to fish vs giving him a fish and all that, or making your kids learn responsibility and the value of accomplishing things themselves or the effort needed to buy this or that rather than just doing it all for them or handing it to them. No one gets addicted to a game they just bought an almost finished character in, they get addicted to a game they put time and thought into developing their character in, and learning the mechanics of to get better. I do think there should be a new, second tutorial available for new and returning folks, a tutorial for all of them that's maybe 100-110 with this proposed new level(85-100 with the current). I don't think current players complaining their new alts should be 110 to start because it's more useful should have any impact. Those people already know and can get tov taskadds from 100-110, they just wanna do it at 110 instead to make it even more instant gratification because if you start at 110 you can catapult even faster via all the taskadds instead of work before or between, because that new alt is a tool, that's why they made it, I do the same thing. But I don't expect a new or returning character to know all the nuance of playing or leveling or getting caught up because their biggest catch-up is mental. You learn by doing, and a struggle you learn more. Getting help is one thing- and a lot of people will help this thing or that with knowledge or stuff- but being thrown in the deep end guarantees more drownings. I am both a returning player and a current player as I returned a couple times briefly with breaks between, but that return was from 100 and there was a LOT to learn, and still is much I can't remember consistently that's happened since 100. I'm playing in current content, but I'm not in a rush to get everyone to 120 and Max gear(though my main is 120 and certainly close) because there's so much to do that WILL by doing so teach me those things I can't seem to remember because there's just so much. But everyone learns at different places and in different ways. Doing, reading, watching, discussing, etc. While an idetic memory is rare, for the rest of humanity being just told everything at once isn't gonna all stick, nor will there be an attachment to anything that took no effort, forming players that no one wants to play with because they want everything handed to them and they care about nothing.
What I meant by autogrant AAs is you get the current autogrant which is up to RoS. I wasn't being serious that it should be level 120, just making a point... in that example you would still need a lot of AA grinding to be viable. I don't raid but I have seen recruitment requirements and they typically require near max AA, heroes AA, epic 2.0 for certain classes, etc. WRT class differences, I would need some examples as I only play 3 classes, but the spell list at level 90 is essentially the same as 120. Yes they added the non level xpac spell lines, and composite, but it isn't a leap.
I already went through an enormous but NOT exhaustive list of all the things that's changed or been added just since 100, as a player who minmaxed and researched everything and played incessantly through to 100 when it was new and then returned at 110, 115, and now 120. The stuff since 110 has been negligible, but the stuff from 100-110 is majorly important and gamechanging, and huge in it's scope. Either several pages back or another similar thread but I'm not gonna repeat it.
The thing about new players is that they do really exist and they don't know what they don't know. So unless someone takes the time to bring them up to speed they will have 'all the gear but no idea'. The Gloomingdeep experience teaches the basic UI mechanics and combat but not the deep knowledge that players who have ground their way to the high levels have. Things like setting up macros, or what a main assist does, aggro management, raid tactics and even group combat tactics. They need to know the real combat basics. You know the stuff we all take for granted. For them it doesn't matter if a heroic toon is 85, 100 or 110 they are going to need handholding if they are going to enjoy the game. I agree that the game we grew our characters through is pretty much a desert now and for most players only has relevance as lore or nostalgia. The cash and gear drops are far below what can be had by following the hero's journey so some form of fast track to the higher level game is required. For existing players looking to add characters to their rosters going the heroic route is helpful...BUT...it isn't the whole answer. I have heroiced (is that actually a word?) several toons but they are not combat ready from day one. I have to understand what the AA's and disciplines and spells do, how they interact with other players and how mobs react to them. A second tutorial would help with some of that for new players or returnees but it won't teach the tactics of playing the game. That needs other players who will take the time to teach that stuff. The bottom line is to ask the question: 'who is this aimed at, existing players or new players'? The way it will be implemented really rather depends on this. If it is to grow the player base and so grow income (which is a good thing as it extends the life of EQ) then heroicing (Is that another non-word?) a toon has to allow a bit of head room to let newbies grow into the role their heroic toon fills. New or returning players will not stay in a game which confuses and frustrates them. We have to help them. Existing high end players still face a learning curve with a new class. Either way player support helps either in game or in forums. Actually I just had a thought, the real bottom line is that we should be enjoying the journey not rushing to the destination. YVMV of course.
