It feels weird because its so off script from what EQ has always been but this the way to do it imo. I level a Necro to 125, my alt is a warrior. I flag on one, I can raid on either. If I need to grind gear for my alt persona warrior well I had to do that anyway on an alt character. Hopefully I can just bandolier a gear set (*Cough devs) and not have to type /camp to swap between them. Opinion changed. The nerf ball my stay on my lawn.
I very much doubt there are any 'real' new players coming into EQ. If there are, they comprise such a tiny amount of the player-base that they generally won't get any real spotlight on them from the dev teams. For me, the game has two levels; current content players, and non-current content players. The current content players get to keep up with the latest progression, gear, raids etc., the non-current content players are slowly getting left behind with each new expansion. I don't see how personas are going to help with this - if anything, we generally need more players to make up the group rather than a single player that can switch to a different class. I believe they should have concentrated more on catch-up strategies to allow us all to play roughly on the same playing field rather than give us a feature that I doubt will be of much use to anyone but the extremely committed players.
And others and myself have explained multiple times that there is already lots of content for those levels, that making new content for them won't magically help people in those levels, and that the max level crowd already has a limited amount of content.
We don't need new content, we need catch-up mechanics to allow us to experience the 'latest'* expansions without having a guild, or waiting for a hand out for a free TA from someone. * by latest, I mean maybe latest expansion(-2). What does the current raid forces, guilds and DBG lose from making it easier to hit lvls 115 with mediocre gear so we don't have to go back through years of progression just to be 'relevant' in a two year old expansion?
You expect the max level players to stick around if there is no new content for them to do? There is plenty of lower level content for players to use to catch up. Making new lower level content isn't going to help anyone catch up if they don't have the ability to catch up with existing content.
I never said anything about max level players having to stick around - they get to play the latest and greatest as they always do. All I'm suggesting is introducing a catch-up method for those of us a couple of expansions behind - the exp per kill is woeful and there are no real groups doing progression anymore which makes it hard to get the gear to allow us to progress as the max players did when it was the current expansion. edit: I don't need more zones from 1 - 110, I need a more efficient way to play 110+ once all of the players have left and moved on to the newer expansions. I know I'll never be a max-geared raider, but I'd be happy competing in the 'lesser' expansions. As it stands now, we're just falling further behind.
There already isn't enough content to keep people busy throughout the year and adding new catchup content is going to reduce that even further. If max level players run out of things even faster they have no reason to stick around.
I have to be honest here. When the argument about a catchup mechanism(s) being needed I defaulted to thinking of very low level characters. But, the idea as framed to benefit those who are 115+ or so and to get caught up in things has merit. But, besides saying that something is needed I think that those who are arguing for this should throw out some actual ideas of how this might be accomplished. Just increasing experience wouldn't seem to cut it. It would need to be something that makes finishing tasks/missions somehow more doable. So, toss out some ideas.
Starting at 110 the amount of exp required to go up levels increased exponentially. I am not expecting this to change in the 120-125 grind. What about a repeatable quest(s) that give ~0.5%-1% real exp at 125. I don't know the exact exp values but I'd imagine that the reward at 110 vs 125 would be substantial. The quest could involve mobs that spawn when you're on the task and are scaled between 110-125 so a 110 could solo this quest as could a 125 (but it wouldn't be worth it). Add a 6h cooldown or whatever and at 125 it would be less beneficial than just doing over seer but at 110 it would give you large chunks of exp. This would also potentially fix the 110-125 persona grind if all achievements are shared across toons and they are not eligible for the hero/partisan rewards from ToV and ToL.
Many good idea and questions here. I hope Daybreak is watching this thread so that hours of development time isn't going into a feature that the community doesn't desire and won't use.
Hopefully the "shared achievements" will use 3-state checkboxes... ☑ You earned the achievement on this persona ☒ You earned this achievement on another persona ☐ You have not yet earned the achievement on any persona ☒ would control things like zone access, ☑ would control XP rewards XP rewards for things like merc/part completion would then require that persona complete the set, instead of being able to 'swap to a tank' for just one mission though. and how Heroic Vitality type AAs from achievements will be handled? The more I think about it, I really think they bit off more than can be chewed with announcing APs with all the little things in the game. Although I love that they are putting new investment into the game, with new UI, DX11, and Personas, I am hoping they are working towards a 're-release' of EQ for the 25th anniversary with a big marketing push around the new features.
If anything hugely rigid rules is less role play. The real role play is finding the reasons for things you would not expect. Edit: Oh, that was pages and pages ago. Oops. I responded to something really old, probably. Edited the quote out; opinion still stands. Hopefully they have a way to decouple type 3 augs per persona, if this will work how I'm guessing. Otherwise the shared inventory takes a hit in usefulness.
Thats easy, remove type 3 augs from the game and roll them back into the spell or ability they come from and or the AA that already modifies that spell or ability. Also make one less thing the Dev team has to deal with every year or two.
Who are these people you refer to as "we", and why are the "we" not banding together to overcome their problem? Im level 119 (from level 85) on my Beastlord on Bertoxx. Never once did I have someone go "would you like to join me/us". Know what I did get though? "Habe room for a 112 Necro?" -"hey I'm on quest too, I'll come with" - "just killed a returned dracoliche near /loc, has some faded rotting on it. Cheers" Stop expecting a group to fall into your lap. Be proactive. Start groups. Be social
You yourself have admitted to not reaching max level, your live guild doesn't raid and you play on Mischief instead, so please don't blow your horn about how 'easy' it is to be max level and smashing all the content. How the heck does this make any difference to you anyway - it isn't your play-style or play-population that is being affected, nor would having a catch-up mechanism affect you in anyway, yet you're always here with the same old mantra - 'just do it'. We're not expecting a group to fall into our laps - there are many reasons why we're not banding together. For instance, I play in UK on a US server (a historic decision as I used to work nights and could raid US time from 2000-2006). However, it also means the server is always down in population when I play. I also can't play for too long at a time so if I wait for a group, I often have to log before one turns up, or I have to head out halfway through what we're doing. Other people may just prefer to play the game at a different pace and not want to be always at keyboard, or possibly can't. I grouped with someone a few weeks ago (a few weeks!) and he was working whilst playing so he often went 15-30 mins AFK whilst he had to do something. I'm not 'expecting' anything. I'm asking for a mechanism that allows me to play almost upto-date content (an expansion or two behind) in a feasible manner. As for ideas, I agree that it's not just about levels (with Overseer, they're easy). It's the augs, the gear, (not even so much the AAs as my chars have around 35k each just through grinding). I would suggest group or raid gear become purchasable through an expansion-specific currency once it becomes expansion -2. That way people like me can work in expansion -2 to earn the gear that max players had 2 / 3 years ago. I get to explore much more of expansion -2 than I currently do (never really set foot in NoS since I bought it last December). That would keep me playing and allow me to explore new expansions and stand a chance at surviving. It doesn't affect the max players now, the gear I'll be working on is way below what they currently wear. The grind to get the currency may even take longer than it did when the expansion was current.. I don't care. I'd still work towards it. It would give me a goal, an incentive to keep playing.
If you're willing to put in the grind that would take longer than it takes to acquire currently...why not just go get it now? You're willing to wait and complain for 2 years when you could spend 4 months now and have the exact same results?? Take a character and move it to FV and you can have current raid gear now. You say you're not waiting for something to drop into your lap, but you 100% are. You're waiting for a catch up mechanic that isn't going to come. And for what?? Youre caught up. You've got the levels. You've got the AAs and the spells. And I'm going to Faded Snowbound for gear at the very least. You are over qualified to do exactly what you want. And tbays go back and tackle expansions from a few years back that you havent experienced. Go do it. Stop making excuses. If you've for a pet class grab a healer merc. Your molo group is now S tier Have a tank class? Grab a healer merc and be A tier Hybrid or healer? Tank or Healer merc and B tier Almost every combination you can think of will perform above average in ToV (unless you're a rogue or a zerker) but you said you have 5 characters at 120 so the chances that you have at least 1 of the 3 I mentioned. What happened? Named mob in WW and now youre afraid to go into the wilds? I'll be 120 Wed easy when I get a chance to play again, and you think my journey has been flawless? Live and learn. There's ways to deal with summoners. Figure them out and go again. There's no reason you shouldn't be walking over ToV content right now. What server do you play on? It's 3am here and I'm wide awake. This is a regular occurrence. I may have a character on your server or I can make a new one. Once I hit 120 i have no intentions of touching NoS yet. It'll be sticking to ToL for AA farming until the next expansion hits. Then after seeing LS for the most part I'll go look at NoS.
you say 'people' here and the problem is that you are talking about different 'people' than the poster you are quoting. when a new player looking to start everquest looks at this forum and sees these kinds of replies from max level players who clearly couldn't give a crap if newer players were given a better pathway to get up to max level without having to try to find groups for progression from the previous three expansions - or sit around and be told to just do offline overseer and not bother PLAYING the damned game - you honestly think they are going to stick around? invest their money into this games' economy by buying krono to sell or setting up multiple accounts on whatever server they chose? all of you that keep arguing against this need to make a new account and play from level 1 with zero powerlevelling from any source. no freebie handouts from anyone. box if you wish, but you need to get to level 1 to max level before the next expansion drops. Then, only then would you have a clue as to what's actually going on right now.
i love it. your solution to someone who says previous expansion progression can't be completed because it requires a group and there are no groups to be had is to transfer to FV and spend real life money on raid gear. you couldn't be more out of touch if you tried.
