Why are the new heroics level 100 and not higher?

I fail to understand how a returning player sinking time and effort into a game has any correlation to one's job or employment.

The context of one's opinion is relative to one's experience.

Reading the topic I changed my mind. 100 is laughable and a sad waste of effort. It should be 110.

Either that or increase past rewards and add progression huge bonuses retroactively, like they do ToV+. I especially like those rewards since it encourages engaging with the expansion content.

It was immensely disappointing to me after much urging making a Thornblade character expecting to level in Luclin at the time to find out people just grind in other zones. Obviously progression servers are not for me, the point of mentioning that being I think encouraging progression is good.

There isn't any point to purchasing a HC at 100 when for a few bucks more you can buy a PL from 1 to 120.

I would say "RMT being against the rules" is a pretty good point. If you mean Kronos, that's an interesting dilemma.

Inch, mile, yadda yadda.

Hey, how about just playing the game, as a game, versus viewing it as some sort of job.

Easy - I'll buy lvl 100 Heroic with DBC I got awarded every month. And so will many of my guildmates. We like making alts of different classes and for various purposes. And leveling those from 100 onward is no problem at all.
And I know of a few returnees, who bought Heroics after some stint on TLP servers. they didn't actually like low-level gameplay.
And I know of several players bringing their relatives into EQ via buying Heroic Characters and hand-holding their dear noobs while they've learned the game.

And none of those actually bought any PL service. So, it's simply different markets: Heroics and for-profit-PL.

I don't really know your positions on the topic so this reply might seem misguided, but EQ is a group-centric game that you can't participate in if you're in the leveling desert that includes level 100. Heroic characters get you nearer to the grouping pool, but don't do enough and will do less each year.

Social deserts, gear deserts, and poor mercenary performance make for a really bad combination.

If you think trivial busy work is good business just because you can get people to do it, I would really hate to be your employee.

110 is hardly end game. There are 5 expansions to experience and that's if you don't include the 105 expansions which are still enjoyable at 110, especially with limited group options and sizes. Even if you don't do any 110 content, there are still 3 expansions worth of content, 10 levels and tens of thousands of AAs. Few people buying heroic 110 characters will be complete with all of the available content before the next expansion launches.

I just don't want to see EQ turned into a microtransaction-pay to win type of game. A one time click and payment should not be required to enjoy the game.

I believe Ngreth has said in the past that Heroic Characters were designed to be limited to avoid the appearance and precedent of pay to win.

Heroics aren’t even pay to win, they’re pay to access the community. The version being released in September is basically pay to lose. You get limited access to the community. Either need charity or Krono to bridge the gap.

This is somewhat valid. I would argue that the completed progression portion of Heroic Characters are PtW - but this is arguable given the HUGE amounts of mudflation that's occurred since said progression was current.

You'd have a point if all level 1-100 content was suddenly removed from the game.

As it stands, Heroic Characters are a catch-up mechanism. Not a requirement.

I have not done DoN progression on any of my characters. I did attempt on my main and the fact that the only way you can really gain faction is grinding tasks was a huge deterrent. Even characters that I leveled manually I bought Heroics once they were past 85 to get the progression benefits.

I don't think the Heroic AA's should be granted from buying a Heroic Character but the ancient OOW and DoN progression is fine. At least going back and doing CotF-Current progression is still entertaining and can prove a challenge (I have had wipes on RoS progression with a full level 120 group).

I've said this on a few of these already but the idea that being level 110 with some basic gear is pay to win is a bit of a stretch.

I can understand to an extent where people say they don't want a scrub who doesn't know how to play in their group, but this is typically the same camp that says you can easily get rushed to max level with someone's assistance. At the end of the day if a player isn't good you don't have to group with them. If you want to be nice and help them along then you can do that as well. No one is forcing people to group with a player that isn't experienced, and if it is that big of a concern get them to link you a piece of their gear, achievement, etc. to see if they are have put a bit of work in to meet your high standards.

A level 110 character with T1 ToV gear, basic augs, Rk1 spells, etc. still has hundreds or thousands of hours of play to max out their character. There is certainly no winning involved here without putting the work in. It just gets people to a point where they can interact with other people rather than wander the wasteland of CotF-TBL. I can speak from experience that these zones are empty 99% of the time.

What they need to do is just set the heroic toons to be four expansions behind. Four expansions worth of leveling/progression is enough to learn how to play your toon, but not be completely obsolete out the gate. Keep in mind that the whole reason this thing started was because the devs "wanted to provide an opportunity for players to play EverQuest without worrying about an overwhelming level and Alternative Advancement Ability gap."

Level 100 would put them EIGHT expansions behind. That's a huge gap especially with the modern leveling model.

Current heroic characters still need Vishimtar for the last DoN AA. I wonder if that will still be the case.

Kudos to them designing it so you can't just burn past the "shoulder my burden" mechanic.

haha, that event is agony. I am sure they won't make any changes with the new Heroics, everyone needs to experience Vishimtar.

Heroic characters are a disgrace for merely existing. Devs should come up with a way to make the game enjoyable from 1-120, and that requires being able to group. So maybe a way to do a mix of TLP+Live and come up with the incentives for people to play that way.

No new players should ever start out with a Heroic, whether it is 85 100 or 115. Heroic Characters aren't for new players and shouldn't be sold to them.