Reading through the 100+ page feedback thread and this one as well it's pretty obvious that the community does not like the idea of FTE. They devs are going to put it in on this server anyway, they just don't care in regards to FTE. PLEASE LOWER THE SPAWN RATES. FIND WAYS TO MAKE THE SERVER FUN. DONT RUIN OUR GAME
I have been playing TLPs on this account since "The Combine". I have never posted anything on the forums until this year. Many others have spoken, I only wish to add my voice as I was truly looking forward to playing again this year, but feel underwhelmed and disappointed with the rule set. In regards to FTE Locking: I won't speak to the FTE locking other than to say I believe you would be wise to either walk this back or offer your players an alternative where they do not have to pay to test your game. Others have made many good points regarding the potential downsides to FTE locking - I sincerely hope that you are taking stock of these and working to address them. In regards to Legacy Characters: Why not just allow the full bonus of 100% bonus xp to apply to any character on the account when you have reached max level in Era? Thinking that the average player is going to level 10 alts for a measly 10% xp bonus each EVERY time there is a level cap increase doesn't seem realistic. Let people make the amount of alts they actually want to play after achieving the level cap once the hard way. Making people feel like they NEED to level 10 characters every expansion will only contribute to the burnout you are trying to avoid with the long term server bonuses. In regards to Long Term Server Bonuses: These are simply not enough out the gate. There is nothing interesting about 25% extra loot and 25% faction for the first two expansions (24 weeks). These values need to be set to the more attractive 200% values up front instead of roughly ~104 weeks out. Most of your population will never see these values and will not get to experience the impact/fun from them. As Free trade is not making a return this year, the 200%+ bonuses to loot/faction/coin ect only makes sense for all the Alt friendly gameplay design you are attempting to implement. Thank you for your time.
It's quite simple, really. I'll lay it out in plain language. THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE: While you could *attempt* to KS anyone, you could only actually succeed if you outdamaged them. This meant that it usually wasn't worth it to try. KSing a full group was very nearly impossible unless you had the same force on your side, and KSing is not generally something people run around in groups doing because it's not exactly a social activity that people get together and enjoy as a group. If you did attempt to KS someone and failed, you wasted a bunch of time (both the time the fight took and the fact that you probably spent all your mana), so almost nobody went out of their way to do it. Occasionally you'd get two groups in a dungeon occasionally peeling a mob off of each other's pulls, but nothing more nefarious than that. Due to the impracticality of sniping rare spawns from other players, hardly anyone made that an actual part of the way they played the game. Aside from a select few camps notorious for RMT/bot activity (e.g. efreeti), KSing was not some sort of everyday occurrence throughout Everquest. The fact that you had to win the damage race or get absolutely nothing meant it simply wasn't worth it over just playing the game the normal way. THE WAY IT WILL BE ON OAKWYND: Whoever gets the first tag on a mob has won, so it will be worth it to try. If you didn't manage, it cost you literally nothing. Anyone can waltz into any camp and just steal mobs from full groups, and there's no opportunity cost because you're not spending a full mana bar attempting to KS them with a risk of failing. Either you succesfully KSed them or you lost nothing from trying. A necro would be able to just move from camp to camp in LGuk, watching the respawn timers, and spam a /target + /useitem macro with a Thin Boned Wand each time a named/PH is about to spawn. The groups in those camps can do nothing whatsoever about it, so there's nothing to deter the players who want to do this. No downside, no disincentive, pure gain if you win and nothing lost if you don't. Since ordinary players won't generally be as prepared to insta-tag mobs as someone who goes out of his way to KS is, a lone KSer can probably steal a good portion of named mobs in a dungeon. Alternately, if this practice becomes as common as I suspect it will, all players on Oakwynd (and any future servers that may get this feature) will be forced to play the same way, creating a race to the bottom that completely redefines the way one must play Everquest in order to not be a chump who gets screwed over. Things like pulling with a spell will no longer be an option because you'll lose out to instant clickies. Any meaningful strategy goes out the window because you'll now have to play this game by sitting your entire group on top of the named's spawn point and spam a target+attack macro. For anyone who thinks that FTE won't bring a considerable rise in KSing, I'd like to offer you a nice, cheap bridge. When KSing has become so much more practical and accessible, many more will do it. Some would scoff at the notion but later change their minds after it has been done to them too many times. Some will do it for the monetary gain, some will do it for the sheer joy of griefing other players and ruining their fun, and some will do it as revenge whenever they feel like that other group over there has been ninja-pulling from their camp, etc. It will absolutely become a new problem that players experience far more often than they used to, where as long as you avoided the efreeti camp and what few other places the RMTers attempted to monopolize, you just generally didn't get KSed at all.
I suspect that the people who consistently lost DPS races are the same ones who'll have their mobs sniped. I am curious to see if trains are eliminated as I am not buying some of the complaints about it not fixing that. In short, I don't care about KS and haven't for a really long time.
unintentional trains will be lessened...not gone because mobs will unlock on their path backwards. intentional trains are the same as always
I think we can mostly agree that although this is their stated goal from the FAQ it will in fact NOT solve or help these issues in the majority of cases. The people who got KS'd before will get KS'd now. The people who lost out on spawns in their "camp" due to slow killing will still happen. None of that changes, it probably will just anger them more. Now when a mob is KS'd from them you can just sit right in front of them and mock them as they spam with you report threats about play nice policy that doesn't exist and hasn't for years like the Ion Blazes of the world from P99 who like to parrot that stuff. It won't stop training - maybe unintentional a bit it will? - it just makes it hard to actually deal with IMO. Before you could preemptively take action before a train arrived to you. Why do people get upset about Kill Stealing? They are missing out on XP, Loot, or what not. Why do people intentionally train? Usually to make you move out of a spot to get a chance at that Loot, XP, or what not. Why not simply take the suggestion of many others and their own Dev team and lower the gloabl respawn timer except instead of waiting until Legacy of Ykesha where it isn't helpful to the average man move it onto the start of classic where it will have the most impact. I am not championing or hoping for a 75% reduction as some others as that is too far and much too challenging for the average casual player in a dungeon setting. However, a 25-33% reduction would already do wonders in soothing contested mobs from camps wanting that XP or giving additional rare chances from PHs. It would give all players, casual and hardcore, simply more TIME to spend doing the things they want us to do on that server - leveling alts testing the legacy system etc. If dungeon respawns were no longer 26 mins but instead 17 (33% reduction) it doesn't fundamentally change the game, but it does save 10 mins per spawn cycle. That adds up quite quickly over the course of a leveling path. It would make the leveling path of the alts quicker. It would make the rare, quest, and other NPCs spawn quicker and be less contested for people who need/want stuff on their alts now. It just gives us more time to enjoy and explore Everquest and the mobs still need to be killed so it isn't simply boosting XP per kill.
Explain to me exactly how you're going to intentionally train anyone with the proposed mechanics? I want details, I want to attempt it on Test to see if it'll actually work. I don't think anyone will be able to intentionally train at all with these mechanics so prove me wrong.
122 pages in the other thread, 44 pages here so far, I dont think I have seen a more robust reaction to a ruleset in a little over 30 days, I hope the next ruleset update takes the suggestions into real consideration. This is the best one so far Decrease the current spawn timers by 75%
I am still holding out hope for a dramatic decrease in spawn times for mobs. The sheer amount of FTE brings in essentially kills a lot of the OW scene which many focus on. I know several will make some comment about playing passed PoP and that won't be an issue, but many only play these TLP's up to that expansion before recycling to a new TLP. Reducing the spawn time on mobs dramatically causes people to focus on the environment / targets rather than the people themselves. Doing so also gives opportunity for Guilds who don't get much OW to get a couple here and there in addition to their dz's which overall increases morale. Decreased spawn times on mobs globally is a win win all around. @devs, please consider this change.
did you miss the part where all you had to do was /yell at the mobs to unlock them? once unlocked you can drop aggro and voila. mobs aggro someone else=train and you are either clueless to the rampant problem that plagues EQ, or unwilling to see it. many people use programs. coding into those programs a way for you to /yell at every mob pulled is surprisingly not all that hard if they wanted to do it. But yea code. go back and read the FAQ. they said you can /yell at the mobs and it will unlock the mobs.
You're incorrect sir, it is not confirmed that /yell puts them into an aggro mode. The way they made it sound was /yell makes the mob attackable IF YOU SO CHOOSE, nothing that it attacks anyone around it.
Training wasn't even that abd on tlps. But just wait for a monk to take a whole zone, flop it and then the train back gets them, it will still happen. But that isn't even the issue. People will easily just run and face check mobs in different camps and run them to their group. Experienced people can kite half a zone if they wanted to while their group peels some mobs off for exp, rinse and repeat. They'll sit right on named spawns, face check it as soon as it pops and run it away to their group.
/yell allows others to be put on the "aggro" list. you think yell would allow people to attack and not be put on the aggro list? LOLLOLOL and remember, once a mob is unlocked and able to have others be put onto its aggro list, social aggro is now a thing
Another good explanation of the very obvious eventuality of this server. FTE will absolutely turn the player base into a “can’t beat ‘em, join em” mentality of which I completely welcome. Designing a ruleset to promote toxicity even in those who always steered clear. The salt mine is gonna be POPPIN. Kudos though to the team on trying to get creative with their first (original) Oakwynd ruleset updates. Heirloom and AoC changes, I believe, did add value to a much worse original idea but a creatively interesting concept. However, FTE efforts in this game will backfire and unfortunately it looks like Oakwynd is going to be the test location for Proof of Concept to fail, all while people are pumping money to play it. Also #FreeTrade hahah
I have a strong feeling this is how it will end up working based on some very subtle dev responses. From an immersion perspective it's pretty bad, but I'd guess that went out the window for most a long time ago anyways. It still sort of opens up other questions and potential exploits. If a train of mobs are yelled, then dropped off do they become neutral to every other npc in the zone until they get back to their spawn point? If they are still social then someone would just need to wait until you are fighting other mobs for the special delivery. If they arent social until they return back it makes splitting and pulling absolutely trivial. And really this could be accomplished without it even having the 'only aggro if you re-engage during reset' method. Pull train to group while oog, yell one mob off at a time and proceed to fd over and over before the rest hit their reset timer. Group's healer can even keep him healed with no threat of aggro. this would require a puller not in group so not really a possibility at launch, but you could eventually have 20+ mobs in your camp, waiting to be killed at your own leisurely pace with zero actual threat. Edit- but even at launch, no reason this wouldnt be viable method to snipe names throughout the zone and just grouping for exp on the rest.
Was really looking forward to playing on a new TLP until I read this. This will allow even fewer people to control an entire area. Outside it's going to be trains of bards tagging mobs for their groups. Inside you'll have monks tag and feign to lock named mobs up. Literally sit and think of the worst way this is going to be abused and that will become the norm. Before if someone tried to KS your group you stood a reasonable chance of maintaining your mobs, now they'll just walk past laughing. Who's awful idea was this? Locked encounters = controlled rampant exploitation
You're right, man. But unless they're hearing "It's Mischief 2.0" or whatever their master tells them to hear, they don't hear anything else. Imagine petulant 3 year olds throwing a tantrum, this is pretty much that. The thing that these people seem (likely intentionally) oblivious to is THE GLARINGLY OBVIOUS FACT that /yell in EQ2 disables XP and loot and is still only aggroed to the original person. So.. Hmm.. If um, say, the OWNERS OF THAT IP were going to implement THE EXACT SAME COMMAND, is there any chance they may consider doing it the same way? Just visualize them face down pounding the floor with their fists and it will make replying to them more entertaining.
