The problem with low exp per kill of mobs

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Ozlaar, Jan 29, 2023.

  1. Eaedyilye More stonehive bixies.

    If you want to play the game this isn't an acceptable solution. I play the game and enjoy it for most part. Leveling isn't that slow if you use the tools provided for you.
    code-zero likes this.
  2. Tappin Augur


    While it isn't acceptable solution, it's the solution that most are taking. Log in Overseers, ask for taskadds, and log off.
    Stymie likes this.
  3. Eaedyilye More stonehive bixies.

    That's very sad if that's true.
  4. Tappin Augur

    If you have already maxed your toon out, why not do this? Overseers gives enough exp for the loss you take for raiding. Rush through the content during the first month of expansion release, then put your toon on maintenance mode while you raid. During summer you can either do TLP or go on a vaca.
  5. Eaedyilye More stonehive bixies.

    I'm not talking about making up for a little lost XP. Most people will do this I suspect. I'm talking about doing nothing but sit in GL and soaking up Overseer XP without playing the game. That's what I was referring to the post I replied to.

    When you RAID you're playing. When you fly through content, you're playing. Sitting in GL doing nothing but getting meager XP till you max your level out isn't playing.
    Dre. likes this.
  6. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Though the neat thing about EQ is folks can play their own way. I doubtthere is anyone who ONLY plays overseer all the time but the thing is if they are happy and not bothering anyone at all why do we have to comment on it. I see this all the time when folks do things different to others the others think there is something wrong. Not wrong just different and even if they sat in the lobby and did overseer and chatted that is not wrong or sad as long as they are having fun.

    Now some may either not have time or feel up to playing some times and like to log in do overseer and feel they progressed a bit. Been there myself sometimes. Not sad. Not wrong. As long as folks aren't disrupting the play of others or causing problems how they play is up to them.

    Just saying.
    demi and Rijacki like this.
  7. Velisaris_MS Augur

    It IS playing..it's just not playing the way YOU think it should be played.

    This is what the game has become for a lot of people, especially the casual/group players. They log in a couple of times a day to get the Overseer xp, maybe try to finish collections for more xp, and then ask around for quest/mission task adds. Then they log off...maybe an hour a day total spent in EQ.

    It's clearly not the way YOU play, but it's how THEY play.
    Rijacki and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  8. Tappin Augur

    I couldn't have even made this up - no one would believe me. Playing Overseers isn't playing EQ... It's a check in cell phone game. It's designed to give you rewards for checking in and has nothing else to do with playing EQ.
    Eaedyilye and Dre. like this.
  9. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Overseer is a non immersive part of EQ but it is part of EQ. So yes it is playing EQ not matter whether you like that or not. I would find it odd that that is all someone wants to do but its up to them. I also rather doubt that is all anyone does all the time unless maybe they have a life time account or money to spare and maybe just pay for a sub OR they have a free to play account and they keep up with overseee for the next time they want to get more into EQ. But yeah overseer is playing EQ the same as some folks just seem to do the bazaar game and that is playing EQ and heck someone playing gems is playing EQ.

    Folks play overseer with their cellphone? Never knew you could do that interesting.

    It all comes down to this

    IF SOMEONE IS IN EQ DOING THEIR OWN THING AND IT BOTHERS NO ONE THEN WHO THE HELL CARES WHAT IT IS CALLED OR WHAT THEY ARE DOING? AND WHY DO THEY CARE? ARE THEY THE THOUGHT OR GAMING POLICE HERE TO TELL US FOLKS ARE PLAYING WRONG?

    In my opinion Overseer is not a game in itself but it is part of EQ that is a game and it can be used to advance exp or gain items in the game. That is playing the game.

    I still don't really know why they added Overseer to Everquest but they did. I can see the benefits of it though.
    Yinla and Rijacki like this.
  10. Tappin Augur

    I respectfully disagree. What physical gameplay mechanic does Overseers use - where in game is overseer required to progress or make progression easier (outside purposely making exp poop)?

    Sure Overseer is a part of game... but playing overseers isn't playing EQ. If you want to pretend it is, then you're entitled to your opinion.
  11. Tappin Augur

    How does incentivizing people to put as little effort as possible in actually playing the game, not impact people who want to play the game? How is anyone who's not up to date with current content supposed to progress through the newer content? Beg or pay for task adds... then log in for overseers and log out? It's nonsense.
    Dre. likes this.
  12. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Why should your play desires be greater then theirs? How are they hurting you? There are folks out there who can't get groups until they get closer to max level and no one wants to rerun older missions so they can get the big exp hit from them. Overseer lets them get the exxp they need. Overseer lets them catch up if they can't play all the time. The fact is the ONLY grouping game in EQ is the end game. Overseer does not encourage anyone to do the least they can. It lets them catch up.
    Rijacki likes this.
  13. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Overseer gives exp plus collections plus TS items. It reduces the grind and also reduces the value in afk players who farm stuff to sell. Folks can get the same stuff via Overseer. Overseer hurts nothing. I don't like it but I realize the value and usefulness of it.

    Call it whatever you want. Call it playing call it using a EQ feature. I call it playing because DB made it part of the game and it progresses you through the game. *shrugs*

    I hate it because it isn't immersive and seems strange to be getting exp for fighting by sending folks on missions BUT I do see the value and utility of it for players. Up till the last year I wouldn't touch it. I wanted to just exp but I also liked to level up by grinding THEN do missions but DB axed that with the nerf to leveling by grinding BUT I still leveled by griding mostly till the last year but I was away from the game and took the plunge on Overseer to catch up. But even before I used it I could see the value of it for others.

    Try putting yourself in the place of others and look at things from their side. It really is a good way to actually be able to speak to other then just voice your own opinions.

    And I agree Overseer isn't much of a game. Not fun for me at all just extra clicks I do to get some exp though once maxed into 120 I will move on to other rewards because I wanted it maxed up for the future. The fact is the Everquest population is geting older with more responsibilities etc and a lot of people need to take time away from the game or simply have too many RL responsibilies to play a lot. Overseer helps with that and keeps more people caught up and I suspect less people quitting. To me thats a good thing.
    Rijacki likes this.
  14. Bernel Augur

    One negative aspect about Overseer is that it allows EQ and the players to sidestep the issue of players not being able to advance on their own at the higher levels. When a player brings up their frustration at trying to level up, the answer on the forums is commonly "Do Overseer". That is, rather than advice for particular zones to visit that give good exp (like at lower levels), the answer is instead to stop adventuring and to play a pocket game inside EQ. And rather than the community pressing EQ to address the adventuring leveling issue at the higher levels, the community defers to Overseer. If Overseer didn't exist, then the community would likely press EQ to do something so that solo/molo adventuring is viable post-100 like it is pre-100.

    I think that's really the underlying reason that people get frustrated with Overseer. Rather than being something that people do along side adventuring, it has become the thing that a subset of players are guided into for the bulk of their XP. Their hope is to get rid of Overseer and maybe EQ does something so that those players can once again use adventuring as their primary way to level up.
    Dre. likes this.
  15. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    The other thing about Overseer is it does encourage folks to at least log in for a bit each day. That helps keep the daily log in numbers up which I would guess is a metric the big bosses might look at. That is just a guess though.
    Rijacki likes this.
  16. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    And during that time they're logged in, they might be able to chat with guild mates or friends who want to group for a bit of adventure and, if they have the time, they can do so or plan a time with the guildmate or friend when they are available (i.e. if you log in during lunch to do Overseer, you might not have the time to group but might be able to when you get home from work). Significantly better than not logging in at all.
    Yinla and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  17. Strawberry Augur

    It's called "Appointment Mechanics". It's used to keep retention numbers from falling when people don't really feel like logging into your game anymore.

    Overseer is a daily Appointment with a simple Mechanic attached to it.

    Only online games that require a constant revenue stream use this, like MMO, online games, etc.

    It's generally a bad sign when a developer implements this, because it means players do not want to log in by themselves, but you have to force them to log in with a daily reward.

    All these "Appointment Mechanics" are also designed to be extremely low treshold, meaning the amount of time people have to spend in the game, is extremely limited. Usually it's just clicking on something, or in the case of Overseer in EQ, just clicking a few mercenaries.

    Raids are not really appointment mechanics, since they have a high treshold and players are actively playing the content. But there's some overlap with Raiding and Appointment Mechanics.

    The idea behind Appointment Mechanics is that it doesn't even matter anymore if players even play the game, as long as they don't cancel their sub and you can keep logging them in with the reward. In many games it's just clicking on something stupid and logging off a second later. It's basically the developer throwing in the towel, deciding that he can't entice players with gameplay anymore, designing a system whereby it doesn't matter if anyone still plays the game, as long as they log in for 2 seconds to get their reward and pay their sub.

    This mechanic stops working after a while of course, because players start to lose all connection to your game and the reward becomes meaningless. At some point players don't care about the reward anymore, since they feel no association with their character or the game anymore.

    [IMG]
    Wulfhere likes this.
  18. Strawberry Augur

    In case you're wondering, there's other predatory mechanics to keep retention rates.

    -FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. Online games use this just like shops. They're basically the events in EQ, you can only get this item/augment/reward if you log in on day X and do the quest. Players who normally don't log in will feel enticed to log in. These FOMO campaigns are usually also accompanied by a lot of promotion and hoopla on social media, the idea being that you don't need to entice existing players, but those who decided to leave the game. You can still reach these ex-players on social media and draw them back in. It's easy to recognize FOMO events when there's a lot of developer hoopla on social media about the event, but little to none in the game itself.

    When you watch Twitch, some of the ads are FOMO campaigns. Developers will try to figure out which competing games ex-players have most likely gone to, and they will run a FOMO ad on Twitch streams with competing games. Knowing that's where these ex players are now. It is much easier to draw ex players back in than to gain new players.

    -There's something that EQ doesn't use, and it is much more popular in Asian games. It's time locked rewards. They're rewards that only unlock after you have left the game running for X hours. Basically forcing people to stay online to get the reward, to try to stop them from leaving.
  19. Tappin Augur

    I have not heard or seen anyone in game or on discord refer to Overseers as playing EQ. They aways refer to it as Overseers. It has nothing to do with EQ's game mechanics besides selling you back what they nerfed starting with ToV (why does this remind me of AAs every expansion :D)

    Look, I don't care (nor do I want nerfed) about Overseers. But, encouraging people to log and do nothing but play a cellphone game, is encouraging bad behavior - This game doesn't need anymore antisocial behavior than it already has.
    Dre. likes this.
  20. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    LOL now Overseer is antisocial. Overseer is a means to an end just like Heroic Toons are. Simply because you do something on your own does not make the activity antisocial. Some uuse it to get to the end game so they CAN socialize. Some may also use it so they can solo better. Overseer by itself is neither social or antisocial it is just a neutral tool in the game that can be used for either social or antisocial activity.

    But now we get to the root of things. Even in a multiplayer game there is nothing wrong with being antisocial to some degree. If you want to play Everquest and your actions are not harming others then who cares? And besides which folks can solo in the game from start to finish and still be socializing. Socializing is not simply being in the same group and something I like to add is that you are in no more and no less a social setting whether you play in a group or solo and just chat with folks because in either case you are not really with anyone whatsoever. You are just connected to them in a game and whether your toon is the same location as another persons does not mean anything because it is not real. No one is actually in a room in a tavern in Qeynos with another player. They are both sitting in their homes, or for those lucky or foolhardy enough ,playing at their place of work.

    People use overseer to achieve a goal in Everquest. You don't like that this is part of playing the game and frankly I don't either. But it is part of the game.
    Rijacki likes this.