Is it time for a Plane of Sky Update/Fix

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Dembian, Jul 16, 2022.

  1. Dembian New Member

    I've Played most TLP's now Classic tends to last 8-12 Weeks with Kunark lasting 12 weeks

    Plane of Sky loot system is horrible compared to the other planes for example if you kill an hour in Hate/Fear for an hour or two you will get a ton of loot for multiple classes you can be in sky for 1-2 hours and get barely anything.

    The bosses for the most part will only drop 1-2 items per kill usually 1 item per quest with the ocasional Weapon/Belts that are fairly common and get left on corpses usually after a week or two in sky because everyone has one even in 72 man raids

    Some Ideas that could work

    *Bosses drop items you get from quests for example Gorgalask/Protector of Sky Can drop the Shadowknight Neck, Clerics Earring or Spiroc Lord could Drop Warrior Pauldrons

    * Halve the DZ Time on Sky to make it more frequent and accessible

    * Increase the bosses drop rate on quest items so instead of dropping 1 main quest item (usually the no trade piece) they can now drop 3-6 this would be in line with the other planar bosses dropping 3-6 pieces
  2. Xhartor Augur

    It would be nice if they removed the lore tag from trash drop quest items and made them stackable.
  3. Gheed Is not reading your response

    Pretty much the only change I would like to see. OP wants a loot piñata with infinite spawning bosses
    Yuno and Ishbu like this.
  4. McJumps TLP QoL Activist

    The easier fix to this problem is never to release JUST classic again. Every new TLP should start with at least the Trilogy Open. You get level 60 and Classic / Kunark / Velious from launch. Even just launching Classic and Kunark together at the beginning and letting it run for 8 weeks would be better. And then give Velious 8 weeks on its own. There is not NEARLY enough content in Classic or Kunark to warrant giving these expansions a full launch on their own. 12-16 weeks of Trilogy, then launch Luclin, that should be the standard model at this point.

    Classic EQ on its own is basically a beta version of the game. It is incomplete. Items are VERY poorly optimized for the classes that can use them. Questing is nearly useless in most cases. It becomes a very toxic environment most of the time because the only way to get any decent gear is to farm Hate / Fear / Sky for hours on end. This is the same reason Sky is the way that it is. It is basically a beta test for a raid zone. Let us be glad it is the ONLY zone that works the way that it does. Rather than wasting dev time on updating a poorly implemented zone and completely changing it, we should be focusing on getting people through the beta testing as fast as possible. Everyone knows that the game doesnt really start to come together, giving clear class defining abilities until AAs and Luclin anyhow.

    I get that there are people who enjoy playing the game before each class is clearly defined and I get that some people enjoy standing behind a mob and clicking on auto attack and not having any other abilities to "Complicate" the game play. But at this point, over the past 7 years we have had 8 servers launch with 12 weeks of classic at the start. If you have not had your fill of Classic EQ at this point, you are either a glutton for punishment, an AVID krono farmer, or you are chasing a nostalgia from 1999 that you will never be able to replicate.

    The general consensus in most guilds I have been in during my TLP journey on two different servers is that Sky is the worst zone in the totality of the game. It is so bad that it becomes a joke. "Hey guys, lets do Sky!" "NO" Because no one wants to do Sky. You only do it because in Classic, it is the best place to get end game gear, if painfully tedious to do so compared to other end game zones.

    So again, the best "Fix" for Sky is to remove any reason to go there. You accomplish this by never launching JUST the beta version of the game on its own again.
  5. Branntick Augur

    Classic is awful. The only winning move is not to play.

    EQ should honestly just launch with Kunark open from this point forward, although that would cut into revenue from race changes so we'll probably never see it happen.

    The only people I feel bad for are people who want to main classes that have BiS items from Sky that last until Velious.

    The best thing you can do on TLP is to start playing in Velious. That's the first expansion where the original devs finally got their stuff together and made well itemized content with staying power.
  6. Glowerss Augur

    The answer is to stop doing that, not change old content.
    Appren, Tweakfour17 and Xhartor like this.
  7. LeetKronolord Journeyman

    Yeah just make classic one month or a Classic/Kunark release and skip Sky entirely. I don't know why they reverted their initial plan of 1 month classic. I mean, how much months and bonus xp weekends do you need to get to 50 ?
    Appren likes this.
  8. Dizdemona Lorekeeper

    The real solution is smack the person who changed Yelinak from 4 weeks of classic to 8, and never do that again.
    Appren and Yuno like this.
  9. Larsen Augur

    If they start making big changes to content, I would prefer that they address the bizarre fact that the entire second half of Sky is just immune to spells. That has to be the most idiotic design decision in the history of video games. I don't know what the heck they were thinking when they came up with that.

    The quest rewards are frankly too powerful to be made more common. For all intents and purposes, Plane of Sky is Kunark content. If I recall correctly, it was released very late in classic and it wasn't really something people did at level 50. It's clearly itemized for Kunark, but it's available from the start of TLPs because they don't timegate content within expansions. The weapons and 41% haste belts in particular are so overpowered for classic that it's just silly. It's only okay because most players simply won't get one inside the pre-Kunark timeframe.

    Most guilds continue to raid Sky through Kunark, so while the quest drops are very rare, the content is relevant for a long time. I mean, some of the weapons practically rival the ratios of melee epics. Kunark itself contains a grand total of one 41% haste item whereas every melee class has one as a quest reward from Sky. It these were something you could just outfit a whole guild with during classic, it would be pretty broken.
  10. Aegir Augur

    Plane of Sky is a Museum in MMORPG Design. It was fun to re-visit - and just be happy that you can clear the place in one night now. It used to be an all weekend show haha.
  11. Shakara Augur

    I think they should change old content. No reason why they should keep outdated and archaic content in the game. Even games like Runescape that preserved their "classic" iterations make updates and additions to the old content.
  12. McJumps TLP QoL Activist


    If they got rid of all the "outdated and archaic" content in the game, we could just erase Classic from the game completely. Its BARELY a working beta even after 23 years. Entire swaths of completely useless spells and quests for multiple classes. Insane, brain-dead itemization for Classic equipment, like the ravings of a madman or a shortsighted trolling of the player-base, "LETS PUT INTELLIGENCE ON THIS WARRIOR GEAR FROM HATE" - "MAGES NEED MORE STRENGTH ON THIS ROBE"

    If someone released a game today, in 2022, with just the itemization issues Classic EQ has, it would be an abject failure just based off the incompleteness and the total uselessness of some of the aspects of the Classic EQ world.

    If you think Runescape is doing a better job at updating classic content, I invite you to go play that. I dont know anything about it since I have never played it. But there is a very good chance that Classic in that game is not as bad as Classic EQ when compared to the rest of the game.

    Unfortunately, the nostalgia you are chasing died in 1999 and nothing, not updating Classic content - or whatever other wastes of Dev time you clamor for - is going to bring it back.
  13. Trevor Elder

    hate to break it to you, but live EQ, in 2022, is an abject failure

    that's why there's barely anyone playing this game, the forums are extremely inactive compared to most mmos, the discord is slow, reddit is slow, etc.

    whether you interpret the changes since the trilogy as bad or simply not enough to compete, the end result is that other games blow this out of the water, population-wise, for a reason
  14. McJumps TLP QoL Activist


    I think you missed my point. EQ is still releasing content. They will release whatever new expansion this winter for the who knows how many consecutive years. I am saying if Classic EQ in its current state, with all the itemization issues were launched TODAY the company would fold in under a year with no more updates, no more content.

    I think you need to read up on what "ABJECT FAILURE" means. If live EQ was an abject failure, we would not be getting a new expansion every year.

    Perhaps I should have said COMPLETE failure, I guess thats on me
  15. Captain Video Augur


    Can I have your stuff?
  16. Abhorsan Journeyman

    100% - finally someone suggesting a fix to this crappy zone that makes sense!!!

    Sky is such a stupid concept on a TLP. It's not like any zone that follows in relation to loot. No time to hit properly and guilds lose interest in the content really quickly. You end up having a full attendance at Sky when you're keying through - then a really steep drop off with no one wanting to go back. If you're only going to have 8 week to 10 weeks to complete this in era - it would make sense to at least reduce the DZ timers down to 3 days. I tend to really like the idea of increasing the boss drop rate to make the bosses in line with the drop rates of the other planar drop rates.
  17. Triconix Augur

    No. Keep the design and maybe rerollers will get out of their yearly amnesia and realize early era content sucks and stay around for better content for once.

    The more people who realize this content is terribly designed the better off they will be. You've got to have brain damage to willingly do garbage like Sky, hate, fear, naggy, and vox on repeat every year.
    Appren likes this.
  18. Womble New Member

    I am all for tuning the loot in sky - tedious damn zone, not enough raid loot to go around given effort required and DZ lockout wait times. In fact given the pace of TLPs I think loot right up to and including POP needs to be looked at. Gates / Omens is where they get the quantity/quality of raid loot right. I hate the elemental plate/chain/leather/cloth armor templates in POP - never ever enough plate and way too much cloth.

    I won't be doing early classic again - only reason I joined Yelinak is that was where my old comrades in arms were going. And we are doing very well - sky and other planes cleared multiple times.
  19. Trevalon Augur

    I agree.

    Furthering this, Its time to really take a look at some of the TLP zones and choices over the year. It is clear that TLP servers are an extremely popular part of EQ, arguably becoming more popular than even live servers. So it is about time that DP puts some money and time into the TLP experience.

    Fixing Sky so that its loot isnt lore and stackable would go a HUGE way to making the zone more playable. How about making it so casters can hit the mobs while your at it, it was a bad decision originally and should be fixed.

    Lets work on getting original FP and other zones in...we know its possible, it just takes time.

    There are tons of things here and there that they could do to increase the quality of life to TLP servers (They already did some of those things with Mischief, like finally fixing the Zone quests for VP, Anguish, etc.)

    Its time to put more money into the part of the game that is making you a huge chunk of money.