I reviewed the latest expansion when it came out last year (NoS), but I think it would be good to review the overall design of the latest expansions as a whole. Questing: Last few expansions have been doing " the minimum" when it comes to the number/quality of quests. TBL was the last expansion with an extensive list of quests to perform. I assume the reason for this is dev focus on improving the codebase of the game. There is not much point to redoing the quests a second time (see below). Leveling: AA gain is reasonable, level gain per kill is poor. That forces players in the direction of overseer to level their characters instead, which imo is not good for the health of the game. Leveling is very fast when doing level expansion quests, which puts EQ in the strange place that leveling is too fast and too slow at the same time. It also forces vet players to redo all the level expansion quests for others, with no benefit for themselves. Group Currency: This is too difficult to obtain. The only source, since ROS, is via missions tuned towards 6 man groups, which are difficult to form in EQ most of the year. COTF/TBM/EOK had a better solution where you would do partisan quests, or simple missions that could be easily duoed slowly, or done via 6 man group more quickly. This gave a benefit to all players to redo the quests - which is the highlight of the group game each expansion. You would also run into a situation where you start a simple mission with 2 men, end up with 6 by the end, and then run one of the harder missions next since you now have a full group. Group Missions: Besides the currency issue above, the 6 man missions give too much loot. Everything on the T2 loot table, and no unique items. Basically, it eliminates the need to camp any of the T2 bosses. EOK and earlier expansions had it right. Give a small list of unique items gained from completing the mission. Usually one item, and one spell. Group bosses: With TOV boss revamp, I believe the current timer goal is one boss every 90 min assuming that you are killing all the placeholders. That is too low - shooting for one every 60 min would be more reasonable. I would say that most play sessions these days are probably 60-120 minutes, which means it is too likely to not see a single boss while camping a boss in a single session. Basic Group mobs: Since TOL, the mobs have been quite easy to tank. That does make it more accessible to the non-raiding community. Probably ok. Since COV, mob hp has increased more than player power, so it takes longer to kill. This results in less AA and less collectibles per hour per player. The AA gain is fine, but the collectible drop rate is frustrating. I think a better solution would be most mobs with less hp, and some types of mobs, like giants, having twice the health with a double AA reward. Tradeskills: Tradeskills are well fleshed out.. I remember TBM/EOK which had little TS itemization. Personally, I preferred the ROS design of T1 that required no farming by the recipient, and T2 that required the player to camp, specific bosses to get the drops that they wanted, however I can see that current design works better with raiding itemization. Itemization: I think NOS took a major step back here. From TBL to TOL, you had to get a semi-common drop to include with the player made TS gear, but for NOS you had to get a specific item for each different slot. It was so demotivating, I just skipped itemizing my alts this expansion, and as a result played the expansion a lot less. Also, they introduced mobs that shared the loot table for an entire zone, making desired drops (like augs) incredibly rare. I didn't even get all of the augs I needed for my main, let alone my alts. Raiding: I see a lot of effort being put here to make raiding more accessible for a larger number of players. For the first time, my secondary raid force beat all raids in the expansion. Increased currency/loot as the year progresses makes it possible for less elite raiders to get a full set of raid gear. The banner change this year will allow weaker raid forces to take out some targets that were beyond them in the past. I suspect most year around subscribers are raiders these days, so getting more players into the raider camp is good for the financial health of the game.
I could live with all of that if they would just fix the exp per mob kill back to the % it was during the TBL~ era. I dont mind camping rare items. I dont care about wierd remixed loot tables or hard to get augs as long as I can just find a good exp spot and grind with pals for a few hours profitably. Grinding a few hours for garbage exp just isnt respectful of your customers time. If the game had been like this from the start then fine. This all started so these greedy executive scum can leech every dime they can from us with Overseer. I havent played since, and I personally only come back to forum quest every expansion to see if their heads are still up their butts.
Problem is, DBG wants pay per month users to play for the entire year. Increase named spawn rates, increase type 5 currency, increase mob XP kill percent... now it is not just the 1% who is finished in January and just raids the rest of the year. Now the casual is done in March, does some anniversary content, then unsubscribes from May through November. Loss of revenue for DBG. So things have to take time, they have to be a grind, they have to stretch out the expansion for the whole year to keep monthly revenue flowing.
I don't think that's right (TBL). NoS - 47 quests/missions ToL - 49 CoV - 40 ToV - 45 TBL - 52 RoS - 50 EoK - 69 TBM - 50 TDS - 109 Other than CoV, the # of quests/missions has been pretty flat (45-52) ever since TBM, with the exception of EoK at 69. TDS was the last expac with a LOT of quests. Totally disagree. Overseer has been GREAT for the health of the game. Allows EVERYONE to get to max level. Leveling is never "too fast" If you want to grind, grind. Just apply it to AAs. There are plenty of those to grind out, especially for returners (over 30K after auto-grant).
I'm completely fine with the design. It's predictable and meets expectations. It's perfect for just playing a month or two a year.
Thank you for you analyze report, Fian. Which is a good concept if those missions are needed for the progression. But how does it force veteran players into redoing them if there are no benefits for them ?
When everyone is more excited of what the next TLP is going to be than the expansions, its time to consider EQ3. Predictable, not in a amazing way. More of a just continuing the aging process way, don't look forward to new things out of the norm. VR, weather system, visuals, graphics, new stuff in MMORPGs. Nope, just predictable copy paste system from TBL/ToV and ongoing. Sure miss the days when dev's hyped about state of the art in game weather system and ship to ship combat, had drive. Just predictable now. Only thing unpredictable is TLPs. Don't need to make an expansion for TLP though. Put some drive into these expansions, each expansion be something you want to explore state of the art. Going to delve deep into how great we can make the weather system in EQ, prepare for blizzards. Very little visibility, track feature hindered. NPC mobs they act different, they actually do stuff. Miss those days, miss the dev's when they were young, had drive, even though WoW was in its prime destroying EQ, the dev's still had drive, believed EQ could make a comeback. Now its 49/140, its not comeback mode its aging keeping the game not from dying, ending mode.
I think they did that because of afk boxers. But now that I think about it the most simple fix could every X amount of mobs. decrease exp per kill for the for the group in zone by X amount until a few hours later the auto box groups would get NO exp. This could reset ever 24 hours or something per zone. It would almost be like timers for for missions.
Your idea for a simple fix is to track every single mob a person kills in a window of time, in a zone and dynamically alter the xp rate? I hate to hear what you think a complicated idea is. Also, bot groups could just... move to a different zone after the "stale" xp kicked in.
Too bad because you are going to hear it: In other threads they talk about a cleaner mob to kill groups sitting in a zone too long. creating a rule that decreases exp by a fraction each kill until its Nill and sets a timer for reset seems MUCH easier than creating Ed209 robot to roam zones. I realize they could move to other zones but that takes intervention. Which would take setup. More than likely they would just use a secondary group. ideas are just ideas until they are developed my guy =)
So your solution is to...punish players that are trying to get nameds to pop to acquire gear to level up? Bold strategy Cotton, let's see how that plays out. Can easily just log out, and log back in once you clear the camp. Reset your timer and pretty much not be affected by the decreasing mob xp.
That doesn't reset mission timers does it? Also if you are camping for named who why care about exp? Plus I never stated any timer.. It could be 8 hours. Man if you are camping a named now days for 8 hours and not getting a pop you aren't doing something right. I know I know I camped a mob for 23 hours straight once too in SOD
I guess you don't do old hunters then. When was the last time you had an 8 hour group that wasn't solo or didn't involved 3rd party software?
Who cares if afk boxers are in instanced missions? Losing track of what you're trying to discuss here? Well I don't wait until I reach max level to obtain gear. Perhaps you do, but I definitely do not. You mentioned "a" timer. You never gave a set time. Logging in and out resets that timer, otherwise you killed the game by having no one want to log and do anything out of fear of not gaining any exp. "a" ? Name one zone that has only a singular named mob that drops loot.
Whilst I agree with your comment, I would prefer the answer to have been more content, more zones, more loot etc. rather than just drag out what little there is.
I agree that Overseer has been great to reach max level. However, with the chasm that has opened between players and mobs, being lvl 120 compared to 115 still puts you way behind in terms of competing with the current content. I think sometimes it lulls people into a false sense of security. It certainly did to me when I went from 108 to 120 on Overseer and then I pulled a light blue mob in some zone somewhere that killed me before I could blink lol.
I think a good option would be to introduce a new Teeks in PoK and have him / her hand out the partisan tasks on the older expansions and have them give something like 10-15% a time with the standard lockout timer (is it 24hrs?). It would pull people back into those zones and give people a hands-up on the exp gain. However, as I mentioned in a previous post. Just getting to max level is not even half the game when you think of augs, gear, AAs etc.
Well, you don't HAVE to fight in the latest expac. I don't, since I still have lots of content to catch up on. Also sounds like you were soloing, which is pretty hard these days, even for well-geared vets. Get some friends (even if those friends are all you )
