25th anniversary should be something anyone can do. The only way to do things anyone can do on an even playing field is shrouds. The easiest way to worry about balance and everything in the events is via shrouds. What EQ should focus on next is meta events. Therefore 25th anniversary event should be a shroud meta event that happens every 3 hours. 3 hours because you get to control how often/quickly people obtain the rewards. The rewards? Similar to OMM. Possibly a RMT/ TBM expansion like gear that goes to max level, 125. The event, you decide. I think more of a history/lore. Like Kelethin Crushbone battle. Highpass hold gnolls and orcs invasion defense/offense. Qeynos defending against blackburrow gnoll attack by fippy and his army. PoK defense from OMM armies coming from oblivion portals. Abysmal Sea sea battle vs Tunat Murams invading navy forces. Maybe you can play the other parties role, as in your playing as the crushbone orcs and invading kelethin. You play as discord forces and invade or defend against norrath. Gotta be shrouds though, everyone can participate, everyone benefits, everyone is on same playing field. Meta event because this lets everyone participate even if they are new and no friends and we all know the LFG system doesn't really work, has been broken. 2024. 1. Work on Meta events (particularly shrouds because then anyone can join regardless of level/gear differences) 2. Make LFG system better LFG no one uses it, means its not good, people not using it because they aint looking for group its because that feature is not in good shape it doesn't really help you find a group at all Speaking on Live server experience, on TLP LFG is great, but Live server, its bad. LFG system needs to be looked at from a Live server perspective.
What like Stone Cold Summer, this mushroom killing event meaningless event? Where you get good reward if you beat it under 10 minutes or so. Aka your a raider or high end grouper. The reward meaningless if your either, whereas someone not raider or high end grouper they could use the reward. So meaningless event. Which has no story at all too. Stone Cold Summer was bad. Anniversary is about everyone coming together, thats where meta event comes into play, everyone is all sorts of levels, thats where shrouds come into play Then you can easily continue a story if anyone can do it anytime. Which is shrouds or level cap that doesn't change often. Hence why GW2 is in a good shape storywise lorewise, and they even have their shrouds. Which is very very popular, unlike EQ. GW2 shrouds, highly successful, aka costume brawl, aka SUPER ADVENTURE BOX aka shrouds. Winter event, toypocalypse, etc etc etc. They do shrouds GOOD. They went to GW1 to GW2 GOOD. WoW is taking stuff GW2 EQ they should be looking at GW2 for staying up to date, staying a modern MMORPG. dodgeroll thats popular from GW2, a lot of games implementing it. this is basically shrouds, the only thing its not a meta event, you can do similar and have it be a meta event. comments, @ShinRyuuk 3 years ago The only stuff I really miss from GW2 and I was never that good at it You'll be saying this comment if they do make meta event shrouds, @aarondanaher9426 3 years ago The content I never knew I wanted @DeeDee-op1zy 3 years ago I will come back from the grave for super adventure box @TheSunflowerSniper 3 years ago I literally only play GW2 for SAB anymore. Lol @sammikofficial 3 years ago Yay!! My favorite festival! Nothing but positive things about shrouds. Shrouds are super underrated in MMORPG. EQ lacks these dodge meta events world bosses (in live servers, modern day EQ, no world bosses) gliding jumping puzzles breakbars etc etc etc etc etc can add story living story Shrouds can be the story, the living story. Right now EQ is pretty much on a 2 similar expansions then 3rd expansion is new. ToV/CoV ToL/NoS LS/those other doors for the second LS then new expansion No story, theres no transition Nothing from CoV hinting ToL nothing from NoS hinting LS theres no story, no living story. GW2 living story, not just main game, in their festivals as well. SAB, now a new zone in SAB, living story. living shroud event. EQ > EQ2 a bust EQ shrouds a bust GW1 > GW2 (GW1 was perfect game btw) successful GW2 Shrouds successful all these costume brawls, and SAB, heck even mounts you could consider them shrouds. Gliding, your in a shroud pretty much. They use shrouds to improve the game. They have a smart hotbar, changes depending on what shroud your in. EQ I feel focuses on too much "we did that and failed, don't do it again" GW2, is like how can do better EQ, LFG system is a fail, don't even bother with it GW2, how can make it better (LFG in GW2, squads, easily join them, easily find people doing of interest) GW2 people could box just like EQ, but they don't. LFG system is good, they don't have issue of I want to do this and no one is doing it. They are good at making it popular, so everyone rotates through everything. GW2 you don't just farm LS, farm current expansion. Its a rotation, you follow the world boss pattern, you follow the fractals, you follow the timing of everything like tournaments. Doing your WvW daily. You don't just goto 1 zone, its everywhere and your playing with people while you do it. Not boxing because you can't find others. Not no broken LFG system like EQ, and they just don't anything about it. Make excuses, insert your excuse. Meta event, you just appear your in your in the fight, you don't need to do an LFG, your in it and your rewarding for participating. None of this, cool kids only. Guilds only. People with friends only. 3-6 boxer only. Events.
How about we wait and see what the details is of the new stuff already announced. HAs & towers sound very interesting to me.
Tuco's guide to mid-year live player retention: Streamline the HH process so you can produce them cheaply. There's no need for new spell/gear drops, just re-use whatever you used in the most recent expansion. I don't care if I'm murdering a butterfly that just so happens to have the same stats and abilities as an orc in current year expansion. Easier said than done I'm sure. Create ~6 of these a year exploring some of the least used or most nostalgic zones. Create a new hunter achievement for each HH zone. Create a new type 7/8 aug that starts out OK, but improves based on how many new HH hunter achievements you get, ending up as being much better than the dozen type 7/8 augs that get kicked out each expansion. Within a 2-3 years, it should be on the order of Artisan Prize aug when it was released. Make them accessible for only one month each year. Don't let them have miserable spawn rates + easy mobs. HH Seb was a bit annoying because it could only feed a few solid groups. Make a few of the mobs require a solid group to take on to motivate players to socialize. I don't know how common my situation is, but a HH Karnor's Castle (or whatever) that gives me a bunch of garbage gear I don't need isn't a compelling reason to re-subscribe. An evolving augment would be perfect motivation, combined with exploring all the crazy zones I've not been to in a long time or didn't explore that thoroughly yet. http://www.eqmaps.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/World-2019-04-17-GMM.png
Everything you said except for this. Limited time stuff is literally limiting. If Darkpaw takes the time to create content, limiting the time you can access it is wasting some of that effort.
The easy way to make content available to a wide variety of players is Heroic Adventures that scale down pretty far. And as much as I'm not really a fan of the way Alternate Personas was launched, HAs+APs really does cover all the things shrouds were supposed to do, and better. Monster missions are a little different, but the problem with those (and also with shrouds) is that there's a lot of friction baked into the system. The biggest problem is having to manually set up a hotkey bar for every new shroud/monster mission you do is unnecessarily irritating. Like was hinted at above, it should have automatically switched you to a pre-made hotkey bar for your shroud, and automatically switched you back when you leave. Doing things like spending AAs for OMM missions was a mistake that adds very little actual depth and just makes getting set up more annoying. Just adding more content without fixing these fundamental problems would be a mistake IMO. There is a kernel of goodness in there, but I wouldn't want more shroud/monster mission content unless they're also willing to put in dev time to improve the UX.
Issue with HAs is scaling the factor. Also gear factor. You goto some thread I'm not gonna look for it. I just turned, all mobs are insane. Well whats your gear, oh thats the issue. You gotta upgrade your gear, all of it ASAP now you can do HA. Thats a hassle. HA isn't on gear, its on toughest mob at that level. No one fresh 90, firsttime 90 is gonna be perfect gear. First time 115 perfect gear. Look at Skuz signature, they have 1 toon 420k HME, another toon 290k HME, big difference. Then in another thread, 115 with 185k HME, most likely a new fresh player. 185k HME is gonna be doing 420k HME expected HAs. They gonna get crushed. The people doing that HA don't even need the gear and they can do it. They give it their boxes. The people that need the gear can't do it. People don't need gear can do it. People that need gear can't do it. oh your not 420k HME, can't do the beat everything within 10 minutes challenge with you, sorry. Thats HAs. That HA? gonna be tuned for the 420k HME. Who benefits long term players. Short term can't do LS missions can't do this can't do that. Thats why Shrouds is better. Not HAs. Shrouds. Shrouds, you don't have to worry about. Scaling lvl 80 is broke, have to fix that. Scaling lvl 115 is broke, have to fix that too. I'm lvl 92 and playing lvl 115s, I can't do squat, because HA is for 115. Shrouds, everyone is equal. If its broke everyone experiences it, not just lower levels, fresh new comeback players. Meta event, you all missing this part too. HA scaled to 125, meta event, those other players won't be able to participate effectively. Shrouds, anyone can participate effectively in a meta event.
Requiring Shrouds is always a bad idea. People have spent a great deal of time improving their character and learning how to best play them. Forcing them to play another character (shrouding) is not fun. Having Shrouds as an optional play style is good. Forcing people to use them to access content is bad.
Coming back to the game and not being able to do squat isn't fun either. It's the anniversary event. Comeback to EQ, and enjoy MMO aspect the roleplayign aspect. This isn't an expansion where, expansion should be long term players. But anniversary event, thats for all EQ players, ones not playing anymore. The ones thinking about EQ but don't play. The ones that miss EQ, but don't play. The ones who already know its gonna years to catchup so they don't play. You got events everyone can do, they come back, I can do that, that looks and I can jump into it day 1. I don't need grind years to catchup and do stuff now I'm catched up after years of catching up. Anniversary event, should be jump into day 1, regardless of where you are in EQ. Meta event, you don't need to friends. Don't wanna because no friends they all quit and its a long and solo experience is bad and yada yada. Gotta box to effective catching yada yada. Anniversary, anyone can jump into it day 1. Meta event anyone joins plays with others. You don't need to rely on LFG system that no one uses (on Live). 1. You goto an NPC. 2. I'd like join the event (get sent to instance with every other player on server doing the meta event) 3. Pick your shroud 4. Get instructions we are to defend this, use the ability 1 and its free target and click on mobs and they vanish from your arrow attack free target. Make them tough, more players farther you get. Farther you get the better rewards. every 3 hours so, should be like an 30min to 2hr event. Get rewards on phases. simple 30 min phase reward. next phase another 30 min, reward. next phase 30m reward. If you fail thats that, gotta till the next 3hr timeslot. 3hr timeslot to control rewards, give people time to get ready, give people time to do other stuff too. shrouds you only need a few attacks you don't need to go crazy. Think of GW2 SAB, pretty much a few attacks that it, the other stuff is skill wise, moving outta the way, jumping at the right time, etc. If you have more than 5 buttons to push thats too many, KISS
Frankly, if I was an absent player coming back just for the anniversary event, if I was required to play a shroud and not the character I played before that is part of my nostalgia, I would not come back and I would not play EQ ever again. A shroud is not the character I would want to play at all. While there may be some issues with HA scaling for certain level ranges, HA allows you to play your own character and the rewards are generally in the level range of your character. If you're doing an HA scaled to 75, you aren't getting 110 rewards but you are getting items you can equip at 75. Same for someone who is 120+ isn't getting items for 75. I am hopeful for the Tower and a special currency. I am hopeful the Tower is going to be more on the HA model since that would allow characters at a wider range of levels having available content. Yes, a character that's 125 won't be able to run something with a character that's 75, but that's an unreasonable expectation anyway. At that point the 125 could choose to use shroud to play with the 75 just as they can at any other time for any other content. The special currency and merchant could also give a wider variety of rewards, too. It wouldn't have to be limited to only food, drink, and familiars as most event rewards are. I'm even hopeful there might be new house items that aren't weapon slot items since it would add more choice and not all players are focused on only gear gear gear.
Limiting it accomplishes two things: Funnels the players into the active zone, which makes it easier to find groups to take on the harder content Motivates players to maintain an active sub throughout the period. Note that this method is targeted toward players like me, who sub their characters in once a year for a single month at release and then play intermittently throughout the year as f2p.
Yes but your not, your the one thats been here. Your not the one thinking, missing, having to think about years of catchingup, etc. about EQ. Also, what they have been doing, are people coming back? Did a whole slew of people come back because stone cold summer, wooo wee, lvl 120 stuff. Eh I was lvl 70 back in the days, good to see EQ still kicking, I miss EQ. But don't play. You think people remember the leveling, catching up, gearing up? No its really the experiences. Shrouds give the experience to everyone. You don't need gear you dont need level. You just show up. Simple. One of the biggest experiences is playing with others. 2005 wasn't about boxing, and solo, grinds. Exploring. Learning. Talking to others. Interaction. Mysteries Thats where meta event comes in. Could have 20 different things that can happen in a event, randomly picks the thing, and you gotta deal with. Never done it before, hopefully someone else has, they'll teach you. Giants you don't use arrows, you have to let them do their slam and rush in and smack em, then rush out bait into doing their slam and rush and smack em again. Mutliple giants, targeting multiple people, its not a tank tanks. Its a event, everyone can handle their own. Should be able to do own their part. Feeling of accomplishment, participation. Can be like a tower defense event. Simple giants, in and out, simple. Smack em run away smack em run away. Pretty much GW2 SAB knows this. old school play. when they wind up , rush in smack em and rush out, after the attack rush back in smack smack smack, rinse and repeat. its fun. Requires too much work to fix every model and what not outside of shrouds, but in shrouds. You need something specific design. Well its shrouds, make a new easy, quick, its exactly what you needed. Shrouds should be less time spent on making great content. You don't worry about oh what ogres they are funky design, oh this other is funky, its gonna be tough to do all races to do this. Shrouds, boom easy, they not already perfect, make a perfect boom done. Tough to make a current model smack fast animation. Shrouds, new model, boom done, this new model smacks really fast, it can do this event as visioned. HAs, oh gotta balance for all classes a lotta work. Rogues don't feel they are doing anything oh tough. Gotta balance around that gotta balance around this and that, and for ungeared and over geared people, this and that. Shrouds, simple, this and thats all you balance around. Reminder this is an Anniversary, should be for everyone to enjoy from day 1, not gotta level up really so I can do this 30th anniversary event. Oh shucks I'm not lvl 125, oh shucks my gear is bad, oh shucks I can't do this in 10 minutes that impossible for me, I get 1 rounded still. Anniversary shouldn't be around, lets show case the toughness of raiders, beat this event 5 minutes and you get really reward that you don't even need. Everyone just be in awe of the raiders. Thats not an anniversarry. Anniversary is suppose to be fun times for all, stuff everyone can enjoy, day 1, its an anniversary not an expansion.
If people have trouble finding groups the answer is not limited time content. If the content is good, they will come. To me, limited time content does the exact opposite of this. You sub for the month, then you don't because the content is gone. If the content was year round, then you have more incentive to sub for longer because you can still do the content. Your idea shows it continues to improve. So when the month is up and your sub expires, if it was still in the game there is an incentive to sub again, to keep improving it. Basically, your arguments for limited time seem to me to be more in favor of unlimited time...
I left EQ in 2007 shortly before GoD launched (had nothing to do with the expansion, just a time marker). I returned fully in mid-2020. So I am not one "that's been here". If I had been told I needed to play a shroud to do any content when I returned, I wouldn't have. I likely wouldn't even have played a month let alone continued to play. I got hooked again because I could play my old characters (and create some new) in the races/classes I remembered. Not to play a completely different game with a limited skill/spell set as a creature of some sort. Since returning, I have tried shrouds a couple times when I chose to try one to play with a friend's character that was lower than my current. I was so completely and utterly underwhelmed by shrouds and just prefer to have characters in a variety of level ranges now to play with friends who don't have characters the same as my high levels. Personas can also potentially fill some of that role, too, and aren't playing a limited, wonkey class as a non-PC race. Even on my high level characters, I still am not "caught up". I don't have AA anywhere near the max. There are many expansions worth of content I have never done on any character. However, I do play in the current expansions with some characters and in older expansions with others. But, I'm not a raider. I have no desire to do that min/max hard core raider thing again. I even tried a new TLP for several months until my community/casual guild with non-progression raiding changed to become a raid-focused guild allowing casuals. But, not all players of EQ are raiders or want to focus all of their gameplay on raids and we're not the minority.
It's not permanent, its anniversarry. Your thinking that shrouds is the way moving forward expansion wise. This is an anniversary, best way to do them. Where everyone can participate at anytime any level, any gear, undergeared overgeared, any stage they are in EQ. None of that matters when its a shroud event.
I can assure you that participation in a shroud event will be minimal. You might as well be asking for more /gems content.
