Why is it a problem if someone else in lesser gear is finding it easy? As long as the game is fun, then I don't mind if you can walk through the expansion naked and blindfolded.
Ugh, HA's were terrible. Alot of players hated them. They sound good on paper but weren't in reality. What really happened was that everyone just farmed the easiest path over and over because everything else took longer with no additional benefit. Why do bixie when you can do gribbles for faster exp/points over time. You are literally wasting your time by NOT doing the easiest one to farm exp/points. The HA game rewards you for NOT doing additional content. It penalizes you for branching out and doing more content (slower exp/point gain). Even in LDON, after a few days you learned all the variants (which weren't all that different really, just a slightly different layout). Then it was all samey anyways. Just maximizing point gain at the fastest farm spots. At least LDON didn't let you buy all the loot with points from 1 area. You had to farm 5 different areas for different points. However, the point farming in any HA was soul killing. Soo glad its dead and gone.
We did bixie as it was more fun, if they all had a 6 hour lockout like missions do now, more would have played a variety.
They could have tied in all of the HAs into a chase objects that got better the more HAs you completed. But I agree with what your saying about grinding them, this is from someone who has levelled around 8 or 9 characters from 75 to 105 almost exclusively on Gribbles.
Basically the target for difficulty is "doable with group gear, but not needing massive playtime to achieve it". So that means LS is probably very challenging for some players or groups that don't have either a good group mix, or doesn't know the best strategies. But still doable, with some changes to either the group makeup, or the strategies used. That being said, you don't actually need raid gear to do any group content, and with nothing but non-raid gear and the right achievements, Lauren's Song should be pretty easy, as long as someone in the group knows the right strategies if needed. Certainly Slayer and Heroic AA, if nothing else, would make content easier for most. Slayer is more tedious than anything... mind numbingly boring if its a newer character. From what I've been told, Heroic AA's are the best "time cost vs performance boost" upgrade in EQ not directly related to obtaining better gear.
Hardest parts of LS for me in order (boxing 2x raid geared 4x group gear): 1. Heros are Forged mission because I box w/ mostly melee. Easier at 125 when Lich melts faster. 2. That bugged quest where dozens of mobs spawned at the NPC 3. Trying to finish Hunter with bot groups camping everything 4. Trying to tab target mobs in Final Fugue with an army of friendly NPCs in the way 3 is mostly just tedious because it makes the camps sweaty
My 18th string shaman buff bot alt at level 117 in full ToV T1 attunable gear, with ZERO type 5 or 7 augs....self buffs to 261K HP. Stop the bs.
18th string, thing is thats your alt, you got them geared. There was a real thread where someone had way worst stats. Believe me there are people who are casual casual 120+ with terrible stats like 275k HME. Stop trying to make casual game harder. Instead make raids harder. Casual game is already difficult. Raids, done in 10 to 15 minutes, all of the raid fights. Disgustingly easy. 10 to 15 minutes? Thats too quick. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/eq-raids-are-digustingly-easy.295306/
People in ToV gear with zero augs, whether type 5 or 7, should not be attempting the latest content. Full stop. End of sentence. There are literally 4 expansions prior to LS for them to work on. Yes, they are geared...in T1 attunable gear that is obtained from missions or /baz. On my server if you wanted to buy it all it is like 5K pp per piece.
Thing is you have the plat and you have the know how. Casuals they don't got the plat and they don't know how. Usually way worse gear. Hows the earrings and rings? You realize you gotta pay for the ore too, how much are they like 20k each? You think casuals know all these expansions and how gear is determined? They go from, Heroes gear and defiant armor, to another expansions totally different system then 3 expansions a whole new armor system. You got the TBM armor system too. Got all these armor systems going on, you think they go into the next knowing, all the ins and outs? WRONG. 18th string alt, you already have a main, whats your main a raid geared, someone who does LS easy on farm mode? Casual aint have no main like that, they too busy on the leveling grind. They busy upgrading gear constantly too, and its expensive constantly for them too. They aint no comfy end game main providing all the plat and giving gear to an alt. Tons of factors. Like I said, if a cleric merc and tank merc duo can't handle the heat of a T1 named, it aint easy. T1 tank gets whooped, named slowed and everything. Only thing keeping J5 tank merc alive is stuns, slowing down the T1 named, which is what lvl 129? Can't do these nameds duo'd. Mercs need a buff, its a 15-20 min fight for casuals. If you got 1 raider or 1 person can already solo, that fight is already beatable, but if its casuals, no powerful person, its 15-20 min fight, best believe that. T1 named. I already know, already seen it, its not no opinion. Your suggestions, sure but if you don't you don't know. Not many casuals even make it as far as to LS too. ToV/CoV and beyond scaling is pretty steep. I personally dislike every expansion after TBL.
Are you saying the casuals are incapable of farming even like 100k pp at 110, the level for this ToV gear in your scenario? Are you also implying that these casuals have no idea how to use google and can search up eq items?
LS is easy, tank and healer merc at level 120 can do stuff at in LI. It is the first time in years tank mercs have survived being healed by a single merc. Any 2 players can kill stuff in LS regardless of gear, they don't have to tank or heal just DPS. Plenty of undead for clerics to nuke and tank DPS is pretty good these days. Mercs will survive even better when they get the new merc gear, but only 1 piece dropped while I was killing in LI, but I'm sure it won't be long before I get a couple of full sets. By which time I should be progessing into T2 zones. I'd lost interested in my AB alts for the last few years so they haven't been geared up properly since ToV. Cloak from NoS but still on level 1.
Not talking about killing mobs. Talking about killing nameds. Tank Merc and Healer merc duo struggles to survive against nameds. Nameds don't even do much either, except hit very hard. btw yes slowed, debuffed. Still making the tank merc struggle. Duo. No merc gear. Its called burnout. Gotta look up the gear 85-90. Gotta look up how the gear is 90-95. Gotta look up how the gear is 95-100. Gotta look up how the gear is 100-105. Gotta look up how the gear is 105-110. Gotta look up how the gear is 105-110. Gotta look up how the gear is 110-115. Gotta look up how the gear is 115-120. Gotta look up how the gear is 120-125. Spend plat on the gear ups 90 95 100 105 110 115 120. Get broke quickly. Thats happening to casuals, if you already 125, already got things on farmmode, you got alts 113 beating LS. Thats an alt. There is people 500k 115, people 420k 350k, 300k 250k 200k. Casuals probably sick of having to regear up, spending lots and lots of plat to gear up. So they end up 200k to 250k. There was already thread, someone already quit, they had low HME, its not all opinion. I'm seeing firsthand. There is a huge gap HME wise. Not everyone is full geared caught up. Even if its T1. Hows the rings earrings, thats 4 slots, a bunch of slots too. A lot of slots to fill up, not just gear, augs too. How about them heroic AAs. How about them merc gear. How about even more to stuff to worry about. Augs. Ooh not so great HME anymore. How long does it to obtain all of that? You think people to spend year solo/molo grind to get caught up just to partake in new expansion the thing everyone is playing in? Not everyone is diehard get to 125, and take advantage of people giving freebees. What I mean by that is they don't constantly at allakhazam, make sure they full set of the best T1 gear. People want to do it naturally. Right now, LS is difficult, naturally get to 125, and being effective at 125 is difficult. EQ touts explore the unexplored. Too much google, too much allakhazam it. EQ exploring the unexplored isn't happen when its constant google constant allakhazam. Wondering why getting whoop by nameds. Wondering why not as effective anymore. We talking nameds, the trash is trash. J5 tank merc healer merc duo cannot do nameds, even if named is debuffed and slowed. Nameds = difficult for casual player.
So what is your complaint? That EQ requires too much outsourcing of information to 3rd party sites, like Zam, Raspers, Lucy, individual class sites, magelo, eqlogparser, gina etc? Is it that the depth of knowledge required makes it too difficult to quickly grasp the game and jump in? I could agree with those points. But you make outlandish claims. Also, this is a 25 year old game, of course the depth of knowledge required is steep. If your argument is that a ToV geared toon with zero augments and just doing overseer everyday is somehow too OP/twink, then @ me your server and I'll make a level 1 and come show you it isn't. If you want a real dialogue though, you're gonna have to drop the chicken little act.
Or ask in chat and find out you can gear up easily from 75 to 105 in one zone and how to do it. You do know that in the game as you go up in levels that level appropriate gear drops and you don't need to spend a single copper to gear up? You put forth so many detriments to the game that I wonder why you play if you feel this way. Try to be encouraging sometime, point out the good things in the game.
Does Uberkingkong even play the game? Or just moan about it constantly.. if he put half has much time into playing that he does in on forums, he would get somewhere.
I'm having a fun time reading all the posts in this thread, without seeing the quotes they're responding to
So, you don't want Joe Schmoe to be able to have fun because you are wearing the latest and greatest gear? If you want a challenge, put your armor in the bank and go out and kill things. Grab a nice rusty weapon or mem spells from 20 levels back. Have a blast! We've had plenty of expansions that were tough and a challenge, it's a nice change to have a 'fun' expansion.
Those who want cake content also have the option of getting max level, aa and gear then going back and playing in 1-2 year old content where they have easy mode or fun. This is why the greatest mistake this game ever made was SoD bringing everyone to current content. Instead of letting playtime, skill or whatever variable dictating which content you played in for upgrades they forced everyone into current content despite drastic gaps in play time, skill, knowledge or whatever variable. LS was fun for a few weeks but with everything being so easy there is nothing left to do. So many now have zilch to do outside of a anniversary task once a month for the next year.
LOL. "LFG is broken." Who has even used that tool in the past 15 years? I haven't. I had it on all the time as a wizard and nobody ever wanted a wizard in a group, not even a BIS raider most of the time. I group with guildees, or box, sometimes invite or join people who ask for groups or help in general chat. the LFG tool has never worked. LS is super easy imo, but again yes, I am a raider. My merc tank has zero problem staying up on nameds and most nameds in LS I kill in less than a minute if that. LOL at 20 minutes. Also they seem to have almost zero special abilities. Remember in RoF- when there was a named that 100% reflected spells? I burned on it and instantly killed myself. That was fun. Or the king of all group zone nameds ever (at level) The Champion of the Triumvirate- The Sepulcher- did extra damage to summoned pets, quadded for 50k+, mezzed, charmed, and some other things too. That was a real challenge. Seriously. If this expansion is too hard.... I think EQ beat you.
