EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

Being east coast and 100 ping I won't be able to win any contested FTE race which does not sound fun.

I don't think encounter locking is going to "solve" KSing.

Ultimately, KSing isn't "so and so did more damage than me", it is "I believe that this npc was rightfully mine and the game mechanics disagreed with me". Currently those mechanics are based on who did the most damage, but that's just an implementation detail.

In other words, no matter what mechanic the game uses to decide who the "rightful" owner of an npc is, unless it aligns perfectly with how everyone's internal thought process works, there is always going to be people who feel someone took a npc that was rightfully theirs, and thus "KSing" will exist.

I do think that encounter locking can mitigate training depending on exactly how it is implemented. The devil is in the details though.

I think it's likely that encounter locking makes a lot of new types of "emergent gameplay" possible that previously were not.

My 2 cents.

1) Please make encounter locking ONLY on raid bosses. This will cause soo many issues and so much griefing at a group level.

2) Please increase expansion unlock bonuses. 25% loot is too low. Please make it 2x at the start - 100%

3) Please reduce the timing in the PoP/LoY/LDoN era. This is just too long for PoP.

Current concerns with the new server ruleset:

First to Engage: As mentioned heavily by others, it should be noted that First to Engage has a great deal of potential for abuse, namely by gaining agro on a mob and kiting them perpetually or trying to manipulate pathing to keep them perpetually out of the hands of others. This could be particularly painful with targets such as epic targets (Cazel, Wraith of a Shissar) or raid targets (Rathe council/Coirnav open world). If this is a feature that can be turned off for certain mobs, it may be beneficial to do so. But either way, my recommendation (if you are ride or die with this system) is to adapt it from First to Engage -> First to Summon (97%). This would require that they have at least some means to actually engage the target and potentially defeat it, and it heavily reduces effectiveness of kiting scenarios where you are just preventing others from accessing content.

Legacy Characters: On paper its not a bad idea. Bonus exp for players who level up multiple characters. It works fine in EQ2. EQ is not EQ2. account-wide AoC lockouts will reduce potential opportunities for alt characters on the same account as their main. Additionally, as the game is not very alt-friendly in general, it may be preferable to increase the benefits to incentivize alt-creation further. I have no metrics to work with, but I would find it highly unlikely that as the expansions come and go, that people would be willing to run 10 characters on one acct to 85 or 90 or 100.

Dragons of Norrath: It is well-documented that the level 70 Era is difficult for players to stomach, just due to how exceedingly long it is. With the current system as-is, we will be looking at level 70 content for 36 weeks, 50% longer than the any other era of the game.

Omens: 12 weeks (12)
Dragons: 8 weeks (20)
Darkhollow: 8 weeks (28)
Prophecy: 8 Weeks (36)

I strongly recommend that rather than a combined 20 weeks of Omens + Dragons, that Dragons of Norrath be bundled into the last 6 to 8 weeks of Omens in a similar manner to LoY. Release Omens by itself for a time, then unlock Dragons approximately 4 to 6 weeks after Omens launch, for the duration of the Omens window. This will reduce the overall footprint of the level 70 era, and also provide the DoN content just as players are starting to conclude their tasks in Omens.

The new Level 70 era would thus look something like this:

Omens: 6 weeks (6)
Dragons: 6 weeks (12)
Darkhollow: 8 Weeks (20)
Prophecy: 8 weeks (28)

I believe the playerbase would agree that shorter level 70 era should be the goal, and this would help tremendously. I would also recommend the same for Lost Dungeons of Norrath, but that may be a more controversial opinion so i will not fight too hard for that one.

The more I think about the encounter lock the more I hate it, there has been many times players have helped each other out with overpulls, by killing unwanted adds which have spawned when the named was pulled.

I also dislike the increase spawn rates for the same reason, some expansions have really fast repop which makes it difficult to keep an area safe, speeding up those spawns is not going to be good.

Wow, this is awesome.

Thank you @Daybreak!
<3

We need more information how this encounter locking will work.

As of right now, 25% benefit to certain gains per expansion is so underwhelming, and none of this is really exciting or something to look forward on the TLP Launch.
Consider making some changes, and explaining further the encounter locking.

They know which accounts are yours.

I got myself into a death loop. Got all my exp restored and told it was a one time deal and they wouldn't help me again. Got in a death loop on another account, (ADHD FTW) petitioned on the new account for my one time exp return. Nope, they knew they had already given me the one time deal on a totally separate account. Now I don't know if that can be extended to in game benefits, but they absolutely know which accounts are linked.

I like the server having bonus exp, bonus aa exp, bonus loot, increased rare spawns, and reduced respawn timers. My only complaint about the expansion bonuses is that the PoP one is pretty lame. 150% coin drops is very meh. Kunark has 125% bonus loot, and TSS has 200% bonus loot, changing PoP to 150% bonus loot would be great. And all the bonus loot could include coin drops.

Also, another change that would better align with the whole "Legacy characters" concept would be to add "Heirloom" to all "No Trade" items, so you could distribute hand-me-downs to your alts on the same account, since they all have the same AOC lockout timers.

I would love to play on a server like this, except for 1 thing.

FTE encounter locking is an absolute deal breaker.

It will lead to the most toxic behavior we've ever seen on TLPs. Removing a DPS race does not mean removing competition for mobs, rares, and loot. It just changes what the competition is. The group who did all the work to clear the camp and kill PHs and got the named to spawn then has no way to secure the kill the some rando tags it real quick, even if the groups could out DPS that person, it doesn't matter. You will now lose mobs to people who previously had no business even attempting to steal your mobs, because the new FTE rule makes it a guarantee that they can take it from you.

This is a half-baked idea that lacks any foresight of the consequences it will introduce.

FTE will have just as much griefing as we currently do, just in different ways. People will 100% find ways to exploit it. Would really like to know what they are trying to accomplish with FTE

I think they wanted to kill Powerlevelling. I don't mind if they do this, but I wish you could still powerlevel lowbies. You know... The good kind of powerlevelling

The overwhelming amount of NEGATIVE feedback needs to be addressed. In my opinion this was a completely dropped ball based on actual feedback and input from users. It is a shame we can't use the EQ Discord to represent actual feedback because if they looked at it they would realize this server will be more DOA than Vaniki was and could be the least popular server by a LARGE margin.

First to Engage is extremely vague and gives no actual insights on how this works. The only assumption is that it means mobs literally lock to the first to engage. I dont know if a viable solutioning process went through for this because the amount of edge cases and toxic behavior that can be drawn from this is absurd. This is a HUGE mechanic change to the game and cannot be made lightly or without impacting other major mechanics of the game. (I.E spawn times, no drop, etc.) If this doesnt get exploited heavily I will be surprised.

Legacy Chars is a complete joke for a server like this. With heirloom not being a thing, no trade items still being implemented. What is the point of leveling these characters? So that its slightly easier to elvel character number 9? That way my lvl 60 character can get to max 60 twice as fast? Oh don't forget that if you raid on ONE of these characters you wont be able to on the rest because of AOC account wide lockouts. Seems to be yet again a halfhearted solution to add accessibility to the game in the wrong way.

The additional rulesets as expansions unlock is the most okayest rule on this. But why timelock so many of them? Why keep the timelock for so many already LONG expansions?

There were so many other things people asked for that this ruleset could not have taken ANY of their input into account. A complete oversight or misunderstanding of why people play this game. This is what happens when development efforts dont understand actual needs and desires of their users as well as the problems they are encountering. Its hard not to be incredibly disappointed by this, and some heavy consideration should be taken to make necessary changes to make sure this server isn't the largest flop in EQ history.

Everyone better be dead set on the right mains. Because once the low end leveling dies without friends to help you get your new main leveled by PL its going to be a real PITA

I have to wonder at the people coming up with the ideas for these kinds of servers....First off are you trying to limit your revenue? Encouraging multiple account holders to make their alts all on one account seems like a poor way to increase your revenue...Making it harder for PL'ers while this might make some of your players happy it will cost you money in the long run and you know this. I won't even touch on the multitude of ways encounter locking is going to be a nightmare for your staff... Over all I have to say nothing about this server really makes me think hmm that's pretty cool.

Encounter locking kills all forms of PL'ing, forcing people to actually level their characters.

People are drastically overstating how contesting mobs is going to work. Necro 3-boxes sit at Efreeti now to KS full groups. Necro 3-boxes will again sit at Efreeti to KS full groups, but the group will at least have a chance to get FTE. Since the 3-box Necro group will actually have a chance of losing the mob, it will reduce the average reward for sitting on-top of a group and incentivize finding a different camp.

There is no doubt people will try to find ways to abuse FTE by stalling, but I don't think it will end up as poorly as people are expecting. I guess there is only one way to find out.

I'm excited to try it out and see how it impacts the game. The TLP is the perfect place to see if it resolves some of these issues. If it sucks, theres always next year.

Did you even read the producer's letter? It's not vague, and there are no assumptions. They literally told us how it will work. The mobs literally lock to the first to engage. Until they return to their spawn and reset and then unlock. Then of course it will re-lock to the first to engage it at that point. And, when the mob is locked, no one outside of the group or raid that it is locked to can damage it or cast spells on it in anyway.

The letter was very clear on exactly how it will work.

OOG enchanters cannot spam aoe stuns for PL groups. You cannot have oog dps characters to help kill things faster. You cannot have oog mezzers. You cannot have oog snarers.

I had been trying to think of the worst ideas that could be put into a TLP.

And congrats, you've managed to surpass all my bad ideas. I see absolutely nothing that actually happens outside of the extremely toxic truebox TLPs like Aradune that this solves, and keep coming up with ways that this breaks existing, intended gameplay, and allows for far more griefing than exists currently.

but if it works like I think it will, Man will it ever make raids even easier than they already are.

FTE alone kills this for me. Feels very care bear. Hurts what little open world feel EQ still had. Seems like this server is catering to a very small, but vocal minority. I can't see anyone getting excited to play this. Very disappointing. Free trade / random loot / reduced expansion unlock times, so many other things could have been done, that would have made for an exciting new TLP. Instead we got this. I think it's already fair to say the "community" is far from excited about this. Seems very out of touch with what players actually wanted.

If they can tweak encounter locks to eliminate training and PLing it will be amazing. Encounter locking is obviously going to be very complicated. Hats off to the devs if they can pull this off. Would like to see a few things clarified.
* ALL Group members should only get xp if they actually do something to get aggro (heal, dps, buff/debuff,etc) OR have less than 50% mana or health. This prevents AFK PLing but allows mana dump classes to med up if very low.
* ALL aggroed mobs should IMMEDIATELY reset when aggro is dropped, regardless of if they were damaged by the initial puller OR socially aggroed by them. Immediately reset and teleport back to spawn point because it will diminish interruptions waiting for resets if someone pulls a bunch of mobs then FDs to cause disruptions.
*Please also clarify to the player base that intentional abuse of this new mechanic will be grounds for account action. I believe that alone will greatly diminish those events.
* I personally think LOOT should require that you had aggro when the mob died. No more SLR. If you have it, you earned it by not only being there but also participating in the kill OR it was always tradable, this goes with the spirit of encounter locking.

IF this prevents AFK PLing AND training then it will be a HUGE plus for the masses and make the server quite fun imo. PLers, KSers, trainers, megaboxers SLRing, etc, will be very loudly against this of course.

For disappointed people that love free trade, I anticipate this TLP will greatly boost Mischief and Thornblade populations with the people that love that. I played there a ton but in the end I don't enjoy that ruleset. I think if you enjoy those servers you should be very happy with this new TLP because it will enhance your server populations with players coming back and others that were on the fence waiting to see if the new one was free trade.
Moved to this thread as I understand it will be reviewed for suggestions.

Why is it always classic with you people, you do know that there are more expansions than that, right?


Also, "Forces people to actually level their characters."

By the time I'm looking at powerleveling something, it's usually to change mains for something new. forcing me to heave through 1->55 so I can group with my friends is excessively dull.