I feel like some form of scaling out in the open world has the best chance of making the world feel big and populated. Anything to make use of old content in a more meaningful way would be a huge win though.
Maybe go to a 3 years (3 expansions) cycle for level caps. The 3rd year can be devoted to more challenging content, and a way to bridge the gap between stat gear of the next level cap. It's getting crazy where T1 tradeable gear of the new level cap is nearly as good or better than the last level cap's raid gear. With more focus on group content and mini raids (18 or less players), and be able get gear that's closer to what the next level cap will be. Like gear that is a halfway meeting point between the best of the last expension, and what the next level cap will bring.
Back on track, I would have been happier with 2 T3 raids and 3 T1 raids rather than the other way round. Only 2 raids for the first month is blegh.
If they take a year or two off from creating new expansions the game will plummet faster than it already is.
I agree with this, and its sad. It's like football game the QB is trying too hard. And your getting blown out. So many expansions. Stat padding. 30 expansions wow this game must have everything its 30 expansions, must be a lot of features, way more than other MMORPGs. Runescape worse graphics, worse mechanics, EQ is at 1.3 million players https://mmo-population.com/r/everquest. Runescape 18 times bigger https://mmo-population.com/r/runescape. Just as old as EQ. You don't see runescape scrambling trying too hard. People talk about, quit trying to make EQ be like that kind of game (FFXIV, GW2, ESO, etc.). EQ isn't even EQ anymore. Runescape on the other hand, its still Runescape. See this, Runescape simple hp bar, its a classic. used in memes and what not. EQ its not EQ anymore its sad there is no meme, maybe some of the classic stuff in EQ could be meme'd but its forgetten because it changed so much. Can't show YouTube Shorts on these forums doesn't translate properly, but see this video, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z4YS-eM2fjI Runescape healthbars. Simple simple simple. Not trying too hard design. Catchy. 2 raids T1, 7 raids T1, it don't make no difference. Amount of raids isn't what this game should be worried about. Honest opinion of EQ raids, its pretty dated. By meta events. People still think EQ has 72 people raids other MMORPGs don't have the 72 people stuff. GW2/ESO just go to a meta event, big boss fight, 100+ people. 72 is nothing. And you got animations, cinematics, voice, storyline going at the sametime, everything. The challenge? Way more complex. Man the turrets, jump over shockwaves, dodgeroll outta attacks, breakbars, its no walk in the park.
This would be terrible. Nothing is worse than needing a rare item from a low level zone and finding out you cant farm anymore because a gnoll pup is level 130.
Take a lotta work too. It's just like AP, UI. Think have enough on their plates? A lotta work to be done. Tougher to make changes on an existing app, especially on things that causes breaks everywhere, then it is to make a new app. Know what does it better, for what you quoted Thats how modern MMORPGs do it, 3rd thing that other modern MMOs do it and EQ should do it, its good, EQ should use that. It makes sense. Its like 1980 thought process vs 2020 thought process I mention elsewhere. The explore the unexplored, that was a 2000 thing. It's long gone now. Trust me. Doesn't work with what EQ has now. So many topics on modern MMOs do it this way, EQ should be doing like so. Pretty if your attention, EQ just isn't cutting it anymore vibes. Drop loots based on level, why? If LS is so easy the loots drop like why have mob scaling drops? Because its not easy. Anyways where I was getting at. Shrouds. Go into zones as a shroud, events as a shroud. Do the event. Come out of the event and you have your currency to spend on gear for you level. TBM has this, but honestly, before 115 DS, it was a lot of work to get RT. It's people going to bazaar they have to buy them, can't them naturally. People want to do stuff naturally. Assume there is no groups, no LFG for those players too, because is no LFG on Live. Assume they are not boxing, people don't do that unless they find out, its a boxing game, start considering boxing. Shroud event you can make it possible for solo, to get stuff and do stuff. You control the parameters. It's harder to cheat the system if you control everything. Thats why a lotta people shrouds, they love their cheat the system, by doing it raid geared, then turn into a krono farm for doing it for others. Not natural, its a krono farm. So shrouds, thats how you go about wanting wishing there was stuff that scaled. Because to do the scaling its a lot of work. A lotta zones to do it in, and a lot of factors like say the mob as a DD, its level 30. How you gonna scale DD which does like 100 damage at 30. Is it gonna be 125 and doing a 100 dmg DD or now its 500k DD? Shroud you don't have to worry about that. Everyone goes same level, same shroud. Same leveled playing field. Can be solo'd, can be grouped, can be event, can be meta event. They control all the factors its a shroud, if they want people to be 75 shrouded its 75 shrouded. Thats that. Next. Its easier to shrouds/monster missions than HA/ missions/ etc.
You're not thinking big enough. The rare item, let's say the 15% specialization augs from CoTF, wouldn't just be spec augs at max level, they'd be spec augs with stats like a typical aug slot. Those chase old items don't see upgrades and I'm saying with a new system they certainly could.
They tried that in EQ2 with player made dungeons that used items looted, quested, bought in-game, and bought from Marketplace. Some items would have effects others were purely decoration. But, the system was quickly abused with some dungeons being designed to be XP/loot pinatas for no effort. They were tuned several times to try to eliminate the abuses. When last I played EQ2, I think they were still in-game but no one wanted to use them because the reward for doing so was extremely limited due to those who had earlier abused them. I'm absolutely sure the same thing would happen in EQ. You would have a handful of players that would make really cool stuff and many who would min/max to have loot/XP pinatas. The rewards would be nerfed to the point no one would bother.
While the idea sounds great that would be a lot more work for the developers to upgrade each of those items as the levels increase which adds a lot of work to each level increase expansion.
IF they did something where they auto scaled the level/loot,and XP, I hope they would also add some dynamic scaling based on how "popular" the zone/area/missions are. One of the coolest ideas they had was during the expansion with Solteris. The group mission coin rewards were self balancing in that the missions people did a lot had their rewards drop in half while missions folks avoided ended up having their rewards double. This mechanic made it worth while spending a little longer to do the harder quests, rather than blowing through the same quick quest everyone else was farming.
I believe it was initially introduced in The Buried Sea, but ya, was a different take. Prevented people from just spamming the same "gribbles" easy mode mission over and over.
You arent thinking small enough. What happens when I want to go get some tradeskill item, say spiderling legs, and I have to go fight my way through 125 level super mobs to get it? It renders the illusion of player progress completely moot, and makes items a pain to get already. Or what happens when I go to CR to do the tradeskill quests, or even better, have decided to exercise my Origin button? Do all the mobs in the zone level to 125? Is it only ones in my agro? How long do high level mobs last after they have been spawned by people in the zone? Seems like a great way to get the rare low level people killed who are out engaging with the content that was created for them 20 years ago and prevent people from being able to try and generate plat when they are starting new characters on the server.
A pipe dream has turned into all this. But I'll try to answer how I'd envision this. An AoC to spin up the "classic" gray con mobs you're looking for in an instance. Didn't think people actually enjoyed killing trivial gray con mobs, personally I like progress on my character while also getting needed mats. The better solution tbh is for mats to drop globally. The other thought on this would be encounter locked levels with mobs. The mobs would be the static zone level and would have 2 cons. One con would be the base static level and the second con would be what the mob would morph to if you engaged it. This would be the method if not instituting an AoC to separate the base levels from the dynamic levels. Origin at will. Is invis rare for you? The low level folks wouldn't have issue with either of the above methods, because the mob would con appropriate to their level if all in one static. I'm not sure I understand the last bit about plat generation? Are you afraid this will kill your spiderling leg corner on the market? Again this was a random pipe dream of what I would do if I had unlimited resources for everquest is make some sort of dynamic play through that doesn't waste 100s of zones, to only churn out like 6 new ones every 365 days.
Still sounds like it will inconvenience level appropriate people who are trying to level in those zones. Given that in Everquest all mob drops are created when the mob spawns just having them auto level will provide little value for higher levels. You also have to deal with what happens to those higher level mobs if they are not killed and left alive in the zone. It would be better overall for the instanced versions of the zone to handle for different levels and leave the static/pic versions alone
There are, occasionally, people that start playing EverQuest fresh. They have no platinum, and have to try and gear their characters up from scratch. These players have a difficult time gathering enough platinum to buy spells and gear as they level up to max level. Many of these players turn to farming low level grey con mobs to generate the platinum that they need to play the game without partaking in the Krono market. A system like you are describing would make that monumentally harder. I don't have any corner on any market, I just know how difficult it was for me to return to EQ in the ToV era when you had a plethora of people returning to the game during the pandemic. I shudder to think how miserable I would have been trying to get my spells if I couldnt go farm Dulak's Harbor for gems because all the mobs were level 100.
Maybe I'm not being clear in how I'm describing it? Captain Kar the Unmovable already changes between level 129 and level 118 mid fight. So there's already a mechanic in game, coded, that could make this system a reality. The mob would return to the base level "pre-revamp" if not engaged....and then change to the appropriate level when engaged. As far as the loot system. Again, it would be a pipe dream revamp of how loot scales, why would they stick with loot that is static to the mob upon spawn if the goal would be dynamic loot based on the player level? It's all conjecture and a dream.
I'm not a coder or even remotely aware of what would be required to create mirror zones similar to those that the AoC's open for players. However, I can see some value in having an AoC style NPC or even a dialogue box open when you zone into older zones giving an option for you to increase the mob level and loot table for your version of the zone. Zone layout stays the same only mob levels, forage items and drops increase. So (for e.g.) If I zone into The Commonlands a voice in my ear tells me that I can enter the original zone or a version of the zone suitable for level 25, 45, 65, 85, 105 or 125. That zone would be shared with any other players who selected that level. Other zones might offer levels 20, 30 etc. The zone level options would only need updating when the level cap increased. This is not really too different to entering an instance for missions/raids is it?
No, I understand exactly what you are saying and that is a special scripted mechanic that is used in other places as well just you don't see the level change most of the time. It isn't just a matter of changing a mobs level and what items that it has on it. The only feasible way I see this being done is to have it all done in an instance and the level is determined when it is requested or people zone in.
