Ditch Overseer and just make exp better

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by hein, Jan 18, 2023.

  1. Iven Antonius Bayle

    6-7% level exp is a lot for just 2x 10 minutes a day. It should be about 10% for lvl 120 PCs and 2x 12 hours which does equal to 3-5 hours for one level without the need for any gear and without any challenge. And because it does also mean no loot it does boost Krono sales. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

    Dunno on which server you do play Celephane, but I can confirm Strawberry for AB. It should be less distinctive for more populated live servers which are all the others but Zek. Only a few zones of newer expansions, daily quest hotzones, and some of the TSS newbie zones are partially populated there beside the well-known PoK and Guild Lobby.. Of course you can find here and there a lonely wolf working on epics and other random stuff sometimes.

    The latest expansion does hardly count because those became a flying circus just like unlocked TLP server expansions where nearly the whole crowd does gather. For those loyal customers that have remained.
    Strawberry likes this.
  2. hein Augur

    I took my BST + Bard to Howling Stones so RoS content and grinned with non stop pulls for over an hour and did not obtain 7% exp. So I'm going to have to disagree with your Eok or RoS statement above.
    Iven likes this.
  3. Strawberry Augur

    Even if someone could gain comparable XP as Overseer in some scenario, it still involves risk and Overseer does not.

    Dying and getting a 4% knock from a 96% merc rez (or God forbid, a 90% rez from F2P mercs) is brutal at higher levels.

    Overseer takes all that risk out of the equation. It completely disincentivizes anyone from going out to actually play the game.
  4. Windance Augur

    The fundamental issue is the XP rates vs time required to level.

    The EQ devs have been following a standard increase XP by 10% per level which has lead to leveling by traditional grinding untenable to a large percentage of the EQ population.

    To help "Fix" that they first added the one time achievement bonuses for doing progression.

    Overseer is just another band-aid "fix" to address game imbalances.

    Overseer at least encourages people to at least log in and say hi to their guild mates.
  5. code-zero Augur

    The fact is that the XP grinders brought this on themselves many expansions ago when they'd start threads to discuss where they would go to grind out the new level increase and fill out AA's before they even set foot in the new expansion zones and did a single progression task. The Devs decided at some point to reward people who actually went to the new zones and did progression and that's where we are now
    Rijacki and Yinla like this.
  6. Sissruukk Rogue One

    I use overseer to top off my XP after a raid if needed. My only beef with it is that my maxed out overseer (all agents, all achieves) didn't xfer over with me when I transferred servers.
  7. hein Augur

    For me personally, the issue isn't that you now gain most your exp from progression. The issues is the content leading up to that progression. At 110, your not moloing or boxing ToV progression. It's not happening. So what do you do? Grinding is so slow it makes you want to put your head in the oven at level 110. You can do older progression but the exp reward is so dismal, its not worth it, unless you want the other rewards associated with it. So your stuck, either hoping a friend or guild is on who wants to run you through ToV content, or something similar, or you're banging your head against the wall, grinding 200 hundred mobs for 2% exp if your lucky. So guess what, like ive said a half dozen times on in this thread, in that case, which is the case FOR MANY under level 115, or at least 113, your best exp on those days comes from Overseer. A mini game instead of playing the actual game! Why can't people grasp this lol???
  8. Strawberry Augur

    Let's shame XP grinding, when EQ has been about XP grinding from day 1.

    Zone exploration and killing of mobs. That is EQ. No one started playing EQ because of the awful fetch quests.

    Turning EQ into a game about quests and Overseer is like McDonalds changing into a restaurant for vegetarians.
    Dre. and Eldur like this.
  9. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Correct overseer doesn't require much time at all and it is not the reason for people not doing the things that you want them to do. There is still many other ways for them to gain xp and they are limited to the amount of AA that they can get from overseer. There is no reason that using overseer would prevent someone from playing the game.
    Rijacki likes this.
  10. code-zero Augur

    And you're missing the point. At one time the optimum way to get anything done particularly progression was to grind out all levels and AA's before even touching a new zone. The thing was that the grinding was always really fast and I know this because I always wanted to hit the new zones ASAP and usually within a few days I'd see max level/AA characters beginning to show up and blow through progression.
  11. Vizier Augur

    Straw I just wanted to say that I completely agree with your stance as well as your comments. I see you here trying to reason with a horde of jerks with stockholm syndrome and I really feel bad. I wish I could say I was shocked at how people can just ignore reason, and accept this crap that has been injected into our game for the SOLE PURPOSE of leeching our money.

    No one, and I mean NO ONE was asking for Overseer before it came out. We were asking for actual content and class balance. They gave us a mobile idler that pumps out xp and simultaneously reduced the value of exp in the wild.

    If you cant see the greed behind these moves then you have full blinders on and you are on of the awful horde that is willing to eat garbage and hate on anyone that wants real food.
    Eldur, Iven and Strawberry like this.
  12. hein Augur

    Exactly. Honestly, it's pretty much just a metaphor for the actual world these days. Zombies hordes defend nonsense and can't see basic truth and logic. I regret creating this forum post. What was I thinking, that the Devs would care, that the hive mind would actually agree? I'm done with this conversation. I digress, the zombies win. My sub just expired, I'm done. I tried to come back, purchased two subs, two expansion packs, and even a krono in an attempt to get on track and enjoy this game. Even the krono purchase was a joke, three days to deliver a digital product? lol... In what world is that acceptable? The last month playing had its good moments, great guildies, but mostly what I encountered was toxic players, automated bot groups, and frustration. Would love to have those purchases back. Good luck friends. Enjoy and keep feeding the beast.
    Vizier likes this.
  13. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    It might be your server. I'm on FV which is not a TLP. Anytime I go to new (last 2 expansions) zones they are populated perhaps not to the extent they need several versions of each zone, but there are groups and soloists. I also see various older zones populated (especially Feerrott and the House but also other zones in expansions after that) and am always surprised any time I create a new character by how many are in Gloomingdeep. Yes, there are many older zones with absolutely no one in them other than myself because for many of the lower than 85 levels there are several available zones and most have better XP and drops (even without a Hot Zone bonus) than the original lower than 70 zones.

    In EQ2, instead of a "shroud" system they have "mentoring" which can be used to kind of lower one's level and abilities (I say kind of because it doesn't scale perfectly and a mentor is still more powerful than a 'natural'). One can mentor a lower leveled group member which also gives an XP bonus to the one being mentored (and if 5 in a group mentor 1, the bonus can be substantial) or one can self-mentor by going to a specific NPC in each starting city who also gives quests at that mentored level. There are special rewards and achievements for doing those quests in addition to continuing to get XP (but not at the rate of the non-mentored level). This makes it more attractive to both group with those of lower levels and also to do content in lower than max zones. There is even a special rules server, now, that will automagically 'mentor' your level to the zone when you enter and all characters start at 90 there.

    In EQ2, though, even with the ability put in place to be able to alter your level to still get XP in any zone lower than your actual level, there are empty zones as well because of how many zones are available across the whole world and the almost 2 decades of expansions and the proclivity for players to want to play where others are and so congregate in specific zones which may or may not be the "best" for their level or mentored levels.

    Disclaimer: I dislike the shroud system because it isn't playing my own character and has stripped abilities that aren't like the classes, etc. It's an odd hybrid thingy. I will admit I haven't played with shrouds enough to really understand them either.

    NOTE: EQ2 also has an Overseer minigame that's similar and not to the EQ one. The EQ2 one rewards stat items that can be used but aren't the best for the level range or, I think, can be sold for plat. I haven't played it much and the rewards were always above my character level, massively above for most of them. I super rarely play EQ2 these days, usually only to do something with my sweetie who still plays there.
  14. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Technically that is true; psychologically and practically it is not. Overseer made the players lazy and demotivated them to do anything else. No need to play alts anymore when they do reach lvl 85, as it all can be done by Overseer when reaching that point. That also started a downward spiral of player activity and new players because not many of them do want to play an MMORPG that is largely a wasteland in content below the latest expansion.

    For most players every EQ session does start with that boring and very repetitive mini game and the day does end with Overseer. A game that is boring its players to death in the first 10-60 minutes of a gaming session, which does depend on the amount of accounts, is doomed. Remember that most players do have multiple accounts which can turn Overseer into a very time consuming activity ! Many players do only have 1 hour time to play per session. Subtract 10-60 minutes from that and not much time is being left. Whoever had that "fantastic" idea to add Overseer to EQ did a great disservice.
    Eldur likes this.
  15. Ozon Augur

    @Rijacki it's not the server Strawberry is on, they are on Bristlebane. There are plenty of zones that are populated, and in fact you can go to many zones ToL and lower and still find certain camps populated. I suspect their lack of groups has very little to do with lack of population.
    Yinla and Rijacki like this.
  16. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Overseer doesn't grant players any gear or items that you can gain through gameplay and it also doesn't grant you any AA once you complete all your collections. Unless a player is just using EQ to chat with other people at some point they will be doing something besides overseer. You can only do so much with overseer missions and otherwise you have to go out and explore.
    Yinla and Rijacki like this.
  17. Alnitak Augur

    Bristlebane is hardly lacking population. From HoT and up there is alwys somebody doing something. And raiding scene is busy: Open Raids Wed-Thu-Fri (dkp or not), guilds raiding all week and some invite guests. At least 3 large non-raiding guilds recruiting all the time (The Dark Reign being the largest). Many smaller "minding their own business" guilds of all kinds. People doing something everywhere.

    It's never enough playtime to do everything there is to do on Bristlebane. All it takes - be there, show others that you are a nice person and have a blast.
    Yinla, Rijacki and Ozon like this.
  18. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Players that do level up their toons by Overseer do not need gear or AAs until they have reached the level cap and maximized merc AAs and it is questionable if they then will play the regular game with that PC or do switch to another toon. For lazy players Overseer has fully replaced the regular game. Many players including the devs are not aware of that Overseer is rivaling the other game that we once knew as EverQuest and is not only an optional extension. It is a parasitic and canibalizing mechanism that is slowly destroying EverQuest including itself just like in the virus theory. Whoever implanted that virus called Overseer must be either a genius out for revenge or being stupid. Of course it could be also used to sundown the game intentionally while being shrouded and out of focus to prevent angry customers for a successor project.
    Eldur likes this.
  19. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Sounds like you are just trying to think of any reason you can to be mad at overseer and try to get it removed from the game. The fact that it lets someone who is level 85+ get experience in a way that you don't like isn't bad. There are still large parts of the game that can't be done with overseer and all of these complaints seem to be ignoring that fact.
  20. FYAD Augur

    Please keep repeating yourself over and over, maybe eventually it will be true. We get it, you don't like something. You know what else is ruining everquest? Forum warriors who spend their time here complaining instead of playing.