EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

I'm not a fan of AoE PLing, never used it, it only ever annoyed me when I was trying to group in Velks having everything stolen by a bard puller.

But this solution breaks the game and is 10x worse than the problem. As an example, they could have fixed the PL problem solely by putting a reasonable mob cap on AE stun.

With this "solution":

• You literally can't help anyone outside of your group unless you are a priest class, and then you might pull aggro on a mob that you can't affect in any way
• Monks and SKs can no longer split pull (according to how aggro resetting was described in this post)
• You can't tag mobs for faction;
• Monks or anyone near a zone line or with an aggro drop can no longer PL or assist groups by damaging + FD or damaging + zone
• Priests can no longer PL except to buff and heal a character doing their own killing, and only in undead zones since runners can't be rooted;
• Bards can no longer have any involvement in PLing (i.e. classic PLing, not even talking about AoE groups)
• Single players can now grief entire groups by tagging named in situations where previously the named could simply be snared or taunted back (this happens all the time in adjacent camps on TLP - now named will simply be stolen)
• Out of group boxes are no longer an option

All because they wanted to "fix" AoE PLing without finding a less intrusive solution. Again, game is completely broken with this change. Welcome to EQ2 with older graphics.

I really feel people are overreacting on this.

Yes, there are edge-cases where FTE encounter locking could be abused by griefers. But the current system also can be. A single high level bard could run through Unrest and keep on training all other people for the whole day with the current system. It just does not happen and if it does, the player can be reported and that is it. Same thing will happen if some player perma-locks some rare or quest mob.

I am not sure if FTE locking will lead to a better gameplay experience, but I am willing to try it. My hunch right now is that in pratice it will not really matter. Maybe all that is missing is an official statement like "This is an experiment, and if it does not work out, we will remove it"

As for the rest of the ruleset: I really like it. The grind in EQ is real (and even with all these bonuses, there will still be more than enough grinding to do). At some point we will have DOUBLE loot and DOUBLE exp and many other bonuses with it. Even a 75% exp weekend does so much for speeding up the leveling, and on Oakwynd those bonuses are larger (eventually) and permanent. That is huge.

So yes, personally I think the backlash is far too strong. The community outrage on EQ2 loot drama was totally justified in my opinion, but here I feel people are just overreacting. I am looking forward to play on this new TLP!

I thought they already nerfed chanter stun though? And you want to nerf it again. Is this something Enchanters are going to be okay with?

I think Agnarr was the last time I main'ed an Enchanter, so I am not really up to speed.

You realize this nerfs Enchanters as well by not letting their AE hit outside of group right...or anything else for that matter.

That seems worse than putting a reasonable cap on AE stun (which I am using as an example they could have used as an alternative, not "wanting" it).

This also ends the idea of an out-of-group enchanter (or other class) box, by the way, which nerfs everyone that has ever used an out of group box on a TLP.

point of note- Nerf calls are expressly forbidden by the forum ToS

nerf calls specifically to coddle snowflakes who can't hang are also just plain bad form.

this new ruleset is so so vary dishearting.
i like the idea of a 2nd server
personally i was hoping for a free trade server with relaxed truebox at the start and i think most would get behind that and mabby relaxed class/race at the start
that server u should name after a currancy because u dbg folks would get a vacation bonus from lol it would be vary busy

First I'm not calling for a nerf, just noting they could have explored plenty of alternatives to arrive at their obvious goal of nerfing AE PLing (and by extension the classes that do it).

I'd argue I'm actually calling for a buff from the alternative of what they are implementing, which is a hardcore nerf on pretty much everyone's ability to do a lot of things in EQ.

Like many of you here, I am so disappointed. The last two TLP's were bad but this is so so much worse. How they thought FTE was going to be well recieved shows how out of touch with us they really are. By far the number one thing people have asked for is free trade, nothing else comes close. Except maybe ALL/ALL.

Here is my opinion on things;

Exp bonus for getting alts to max level - waste of time. Ill have 2 toons at max level per account max. Wow a 20% bonus, and this bonus is only useful for levelling other alts! So then I can level other alts faster? How many max level alts do I need?

Evolving part - modifiers are way too low. 25% bonus loot?!? Meh, I have to wait till TSS to get a decent loot modifier. These could be cool but need to be revamped massively to have a decent postive effect on the server.

Unlock schedule - way too long for PoP again. Need I say more.

And finally, the evolving part. Oh dear. This is going to be so broken. Remember how broken loot was on Mischief at first, then imagine how bad this will be. I can see invulnrable mobs roaming and killing everyone. Hackers warping to a mob, tagging it and warping back to zone in and watch it come solo to the rest of their waiting group. Or warping all over the zone, selling kill rights. If people think the bot crews are bad now, just wait. Its going to be so so much worse.

I wish they would listen and give us another FV or Mischief. Add in ALL/ALL and I along with many of the people here will be spending obscene amounts of $ come May. As it is........your server is DOA.

I'll be most likely be playing on this server, not sure if I like the "encounter locking" feature, but I hope they will tinker with it a bit so it doesn't completely ruin immersion.

I'm all for measures that prevent AFK PL'ing, KSing and 6box armies, but like others have said I also like the idea of being able to help other players in need as well as the possibility of trains happening.

I guess what they could do is:
- still allow others to attack the mob and if the original "tagger" doesn't do more than xx% of damage it just goes poof (to avoid another form of PLing).
- make sure tagging only lasts for an X amount of time on regular mobs so players cant disrupt the zone.
- If the original tagger dies/zones let the mobs walk back to their bind spot and aggro other players on the way.

And in case any devs read this some more features I'd like:
- I know it is a truebox server, but let's limit it to 2-3 boxes, nobody likes 6 mages (even if they are able to do manually control 6 pc's)
- I'm not really in the free trade/random loot camp anymore since mischief (everyone in BiS gets boring), but perhaps make more items heirloom and make some quest bottlenecks dropable
- no keying for most places would be nice
- option to turn off all mounts (including your own) as well as familiars please
- disable the loyalty AA's (except for maybe the lesson AA)

Looking forward seeing some of you on the new server!

Just saying, after a quick brainstorm last night, we have already figured out a few ways to ae pl with fte in place, may be slightly slower than whats currently in place but still better than afking in pok looking for a group!

Im assuming the people who sell ae pl services have already considered these and will be selling from day 10... just gotta remember that ae pl in PoI is only minorly better than sitting in pofire c2 with 2 charm pets being healed oog, so u go from selling 5 group slots to 4

If they are so worried about PLing, there is an easy fix. Sell a potion in the market place that gives 5 levels. Charge $30-40 or something. No sitting in a AFK group for 3+ hours, instant levels.
People are going to do it anyway. Legit no difference to paying for a PL and they get the revenue.

Pretty please start with relaxed truebox

Looking for a guild dedicated to experiment and beta test the new FTE mechanic. Testing what works, what doesn't, how could the system be improved, if it could be abused, what kind of minor inconveniences it could lead to for the average player . Well testing it thoroughly to help Daybreak improve it.

Very disappointing ruleset to say the least. We waited for this to be announced? What a letdown.

This shows the team is disconnected completely from the wishes of the player base.

Limited relaxed truebox, FT, RL and perhaps tinker with unlock timings - how could this possibly not be profitable?

Yet you have chosen to run with a big pile of uninspiring fluff, while implementing none of what was clearly wanted by your player base. Just fire yourselves already.

RIP once and for all EQ.

I understand they want to nip powerleveling services in the butt. They could improve the solo leveling experience, modify overall xp, etc. They chose these rules and I will be skipping this TLP, see you all in a year.

This is where the devs say April fools and give us the real tlp rules please

I mean if they implement the encounter locking well, then it seems like a good improvement. We had so many changes over the year to game mechanics and QoL additions, that the argument that it would EQ no longer make EQ is stupid. Who wants to play without AoC on a TLP anymore? You guess hate change to the mechanics of the game, but call for random loot?

It is obvious to see, that a lot of players are in reality concerned that Daybreak will implement it poorly and the game will be more buggy and prone to griefing than without it. Understandable, but maybe they nailed it this from the beginning. I will definitely try it out. If they double the legacy buff, fine tune some of the evolving server buffs and implement the idea of more heirloom items many propose, than this could be fresh enough experiment worth my time.

And it is surely not a last minute replacer for some loot box stuff, a mechanic like encounter locking was probably months of work for the devs.

You must be new here. There is another forum for the hopeful addicts lol.

Oakwynd doesn't sound even slightly interesting. There's nothing exciting about this ruleset. None of it seems like it improves any aspect of gameplay. Are we supposed to be excited about this? How is this "truly experimental"?

Legacy characters are irrelevant. Nobody levels to the cap and then rerolls and does the same again so many times that a stacking 10% XP bonus has any real impact. It's pretty insignificant. Nobody changes mains five times on a server where expansions last a couple of months.

The expansion-based bonuses aren't particularly impactful until it gets to the expansions where TLPs have already pretty much fizzled out and everyone moves on to the next. The only exception to that has been Mischief, and this server offers nothing that suggests it might replicate that.

And the encounter locking mechanic sounds like straight garbage.

Unfortunately not, been around more than 20 years. I know the technical "limitations" way too well, but I appreciate that they try to improve game mechanics. Not all stuff the implement were permanently broken. They made some core mechanic changes on Vaniki without introducing any major bugs or problems. We'll see in 7 weeks. But a beta server wouldn't be the worst idea given the level of scepticism here