Multiboxing is a sign of a deeper problem with the game.

Rogues have a lot of utility, much of it with poisons. We can slow a mob, lower its ATK, and other things. We also attack fast, can proc a lot, and riposte with a rogue on anything but grey mobs is pretty darn good. And lets take the current expansion...if I had a good healer merc I could assassinate my way through most blue-con mobs. Sure, non-assassinatable mobs would take longer to fight, but with poisons, procs, ripostes, and fast dual wield attacks it would be possible.

Great analyse Jumbur. The game designers keep ignoring the fact that the play style and needs of the players has changed drastically. The focus is set way to much onto the minority of raiders and achievers which basically is the same player type. But 80% of the players are different and most of them want to play solo with the option to build a party with other players. Fact is that the classic open experience party is dead on live servers since many years and this will not change back. Even friends have very different play styles, goals and PC levels an tend to build chat societies instead of building a PC party. Fun fact is that all this is selfmade by DBG and SOE as there are just so many options with an ever ongoing level range now which does spread the players over many different content.

The mercs are definetly a problem regarding class balance as mercs do benefit some classes much more than others which does go that far that the majority of the players does not need other players to replace their mercs. I think it is pretty even for the rogue and zerker classes but the wizard cannot make much use out of mercs without boxing. Every tank and tank pet class does shine with a healer merc while a healer class with a tank merc also does work to some point but being the weaker combo.

The original merc concept was to assist players who cannot find a group so that they could at least solo some of the content. The reality is that the healer merc made player groups obsolete for players with a PC tank/pet class which was not intended but also got never corrected which is an issue since the merc launch with SoD more than 13 years ago. It is not that the healer merc is overpowered, it is just overpowered when being combined with a PC tank/pet class. The wizard would only benefit from a new merc class that could heal and attack at once, which would be a paladin or a modified cleric that does also actively build tank aggro with nukes and melee instead of only casting heals and buffs.

What gear level of rogue are we talking about?

You are right, I forgot about rogues. I don't know the solution there, maybe give them some stun-attacks or something? Im not an expert on rogues, and don't know what tools they have.

I think they should allow kiting as a playstyle, and remove summoning tbh. and for indoor areas you could root mobs and nuke them(just be ready with a quick stun when root breaks and reapply root), it did require a bit of room though.

Let people do more without a group.

Well, being as I thought we were still talking about a hypothetical world of soloing, it could be T1 to start with open zones, upgrading to T2 for dungeon zones. Again, it wouldn't be camped gear, but quest reward gear or coin-bought gear (have some dailies that are available to all at the beginning of the xpac to earn coin for T2 gear, "end game" dailies for T3). There would still be, of course, raid level gear as well.

If we are talking about real game now, I don't know. Back a few years ago, I knew a rogue who is no longer on the server that could go solo open world mobs with T3 group gear. I am not sure if it can be done today, but I am sure some rogue much better than I out there has figured it out.

Noboxing! Multiboxing leads to the cheat program dark side, single boxing leads to eternal LFG, noboxing is the only way to win. We knew this all the way back in the 80's.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Hypothetical? This is what you think a rogue can do and not what you have done with a rogue or seen one done? In the case you mentioned at the end you are talking about a rogue with group level end game gear which they likely couldn't get by soloing. When talking about soloing you need to consider the players who are still gearing up and do not have end game group or raid gear.

What we need to be concerned about are what players are actually able to do with gear from the start of an expansion or from the previous expansion that isn't the best possible for the group or raid game.

Again, hypothetically, it wouldn't be the class that would change, but the content that would change. See Jumbur's post. If the content was changed then yes, a rogue could do it.

Not sure I care about what a class can do hypothetically when we are talking about who can and can't solo in EQ. What matters is who can actually solo and what level of gear/skill it requires.

Probably scaleable content and better mercs.

I've been boxing since Kunark's release - for a long time playing 5 individual PCs. Now I only use one PC with dual screens and two accounts at a time - still never succumbed to any software.

I like boxing. I play EQ at the moment because it is such an unusual way of playing. I love that classes are different and react differently to Merc help - not every class should be able to deal with every situation in the same way. I'd happily go back to more individual classes (druids get rez far too early for example) and keep boxing in the game. If you made solo content, the lure would be to make classes (even) more alike so they can all 'do' the solo content - but that makes for a duller group.

Boxing + Mercs allows all of the pre-end game to be accessed by anyone who cares to have a go at any time. Think how many zones would go completely wasted if boxing didn't happen - it's a unique, challenging (if you don't use s/w) and fun playstyle. Botters should be banned forever, but genuine boxing? I really don't see the harm.

I think we are on two different conversations then. I have always been talking about the hypothetical world, in comparison to other games that do it. You are talking about the game as is now. Somehow one of us took a left turn and the other didn't follow.

What good does talking about what a class could do in the game depending on what changes are made? This is a thread talking about boxing in the game as it stands which is the result of an inability to solo tied with a need to group. If boxing is an issue what needs to be discussed is what is possible for solo players to accomplish now so that there can be an idea of what would need to be changed to allow them to solo.

Again, I refer you back to Jumbur's post, or even FranktheBanks...change the content. I haven't missed your point, we do need a starting point to see what is possible now, and the answer is that most classes aren't able to solo/molo their way through current content, or even content that is a year or two old. And what I was presenting was an idea, and how it could work. Is it the ideal idea? Who knows, but I wanted to present an idea instead of just complaining about not being able to do anything.

Perhaps they could give us the option of using multiple mercs, but the tradeoff would be that there wouldn't be a group bonus after the first merc. Moloing would be like normal in terms of bonus group exp. If you had a challenge or something was too tough, you could enable more mercs. But the tradeoff is that the additional mercs take exp shares without giving a group bonus. So you would have to decide when you wanted to use multiple mercs. Use them all the time to quickly go through content, but your leveling may slow down. That way the multiple mercs aren't overpowering from a leveling standpoint. And multiple mercs would only be possible below a certain level. After 100 or 110, you should only be able to have one merc.

One advantage to DB with multiple mercs is the $DB from buying additional merc slots.

My point has always been what can a class do now and I don't care about what might be possible.

only issue with this is there are only 4 type of mercs tank/healer/caster dps/melee dps. they need to make at lest 1 or 2 more with some sort of cc/slow/etc. a bard or ench type or make a second healer type being a sham based one instead of cleric.


To add to this they have to bring the mercs up to speed and for the love of god can they alow healer merc to rez in battle.

A bard merc where you could set the melody would be hugely helpful. From an implementation standpoint, that might be easier for them than trying to make a enc/sha merc that knows what to cast.

Multiboxing is fun. Grouping with good players is fun. Grouping with bad players is not fun. Most players are not good and refuse to listen on how to get better. They should look in the mirror and ask themselves why people don't want to group with them.

Download a damage parse and see what you are doing. Look at your AAs and see if you are pushing all the buttons. If you can't take basic steps to make your play better why would anyone want to take the effort to group with you?

There are a lot of strong assertions in this post that deserve direct responses, so I apologize for chopping it all up.

I don't agree. At best, one could say that "design that hasn't adapted to the changing preferences of a portion of its playerbase". I don't think management comes into play here.

That may be true for some, but I know many others (including myself) that both greatly enjoy group- and alone-play. Hunter achievements, for example, I prefer to do with my shaman box and a couple mercs. I don't have to make a time commitment. I don't have to negotiate targets. I can screw up a camp and take a rez because I was too focused on a movie. I can rage quit.

I've also boxed a shaman in group simply because I want to play with the 4 other humans in my group and no one else.

Boxing makes certain playstyle choices possible and that's ok.

In my experience, boxing prevents burnout. It allows people to consume at their own speed even if their own consumption is limited by not being in a full group of other players.

Should? I don't think "should" factors in to the discussion. The EQ devs have no obligation to adjust their game to any particularly playstyle. Instead, they have an obligation to preserve the integrity of their vision of what Everquest should be and they can also allow boxing as a playstyle (which they do). THEY control the "should".

I think it's worth remembering the context here. We are paying Daybreak for the opportunity to play in the virtual world they created. We are not paying them to adjust their vision to each and every one of our own visions. They are willing to take feedback, but they aren't required to heed any advice. And that's OK. It's their product and their artistic intent.