Make T1 casual easy. Whats easy? Test case here, 2 box, tank healer merc. fight a T1 named. tank merc can survive for 10 mins. 90% of the time. Fight a named mob. No slowing, its T1, your suppose to kill stuff being a dumb casual not have debuff known to man on that named. So no debuffs on the named. Tank merc is tanking, healer is healing. Let them do it for 10 minutes, if tank merc drops. It's too hard. Now look at the named hp, was the tank merc able to get it to like 25% in 10 minutes? too much hp if not. So your test is basically watching mercs can they survive do they do enough damage. Slow thats something beneficial to a group, doesn't mean everyone has. btw when I do LS T1 nameds they are slowed, 50+% slowed too, tank merc drops dead within a minute, if I don't intervene. Its a struggle. So simple, merc test. Can the tank merc survive 10 minutes against a T1, Tier 1 named, baby tier named. With a healer merc. Nothing else. You don't need a real tester for it, just 2 box and go afk while mercs are fighting a named, come back after 10 mins they still alive and kicking? Good thats a good test, thats easy. Thats how T1 should be. 10 mins is from terrible dps. Nameds have a buttload of hp, so thats why they need to survive 10 mins because takes a long long looooong time to kill a named. I remember they got point where they take 5 minutes and that was intense, but 10 min 10+ min fights, wow this is not fun, this is stressful. especially having to keep tank alive, always near death, healer merc has to have help. dps goes away when I'm helping keeping the tank alive.
Current content, even T1, should NEVER be balanced around any AFK play. Even with mercs, you should be required to actively engage and even "intervene" in the fight with a merc tank and merc healer. You complain about content being too easy and then want it made even easier so you don't need to play at all.
I'd just like to fight mobs that don't kill my tank in just a few seconds if I inadvertently get an add: Back in the day, if we pulled an add or a named, it was squeaky bum time. Healers pumping out heals... Casters burning their best spells... That mana slowly dropping. The tank's health would drop to 30%... back up to 80%... back down to 35%. Calls of OOM..., the odd DPS pulled aggro and died. The mob is now down to 15% and the tank is still alive. We can do it... Another player falls... The mob is at 4%... Casters are OOM as well... Tonight, if I'm not careful and grab an add - tank can be dead in a round... it's all over... Healer dead next round... DPS are dead before I can alt-tab to them. ...and these are usually mobs that are LB/DB to me
Thats not encouraging AFK play, thats how you test can mercs survive. This half , oh it might have afkers. Fix the afk, don't hold stuff because "oooh might encourage afk" Game got a lot of issues, being able to to casually play casual is one of the issues, because "ooh might encourage afk" so casual isnt casual. I don't wanna hear that, afk issue, fix that issue. Simple if someone didn't for a long time, spawn an eyeball and record. This is how you get afkers. This is for test case, Assuming "dev's don't have time, never enough time, time is always an issue" easy test, go afk since you don't have time, thats why I said afk, obviously someone is not going to afk. The afkers already getting away with afk. Afk issue is already there, fix the afk issue. Mercs can't even do it now, and still got afkers, afk issue. This how you to do a test if "don't have time" Casual being easy? Might encourage afk play!!! Other games casual is easy, and they solve issues that its so easy you can afk, but they solve afk issue, so its so easy you could but you can't. Anyways thats the test case scenario, assuming they have no time, all their time used. Just plop the named, plop a box, have a tank merc and healer merc last 10 mins, you don't need watch go do coding or something and come back. Do it like 10 times, 90% of the time they can survive thats a good balance for T1.
Sure if you want buffs on mercs thats fine. But no debuff on the named. Not everyone has slow. Its 125, they should but assume someone out there doesn't have slow. The whole point of slow is to make it even easier, less stressful. Not a must have if you want to survive. Especially T1, suppose to be easy content.
No Merc should survive without players also playing and "intervening". It's not just because it would encourage AFK play, that is not the purpose of Mercs. They're to supplement players actually playing. Content should not be balanced around players not doing anything in a group with mercs no matter how many mercs you have in the group. Current content should never be balanced around players not actively engaging in some way with the content. Not engaging, not "intervening" with a merc is not casual, that's not playing at all. Even so-called casuals shouldn't be able to rely on a merc doing everything. Based on your desire to have the "casual" game play be doable without actually playing or pay attention, I'm almost surprised you didn't specify your "test" be with mercs that have 0 AA and no merc gear and be apprentice since those can make a significant difference in the merc capabilities and you presumably want it to be balanced to the least equipped/capable absent player possible. Current content in the game should not be balanced around anything AFK, period. And, that is not how you test, full stop.
Exactly, thats why in LS T1 nameds it takes long time to kill them, many times, they don't even die. Then a raiders comes by they always track or something to see everything cheat codes. Takes the named. Tank merc is on panic mode entire fight. Even with named slowed. Mess up 1 round mess some rotation, its over. While worried tank merc entire fight, dps is pretty much nothing, so long long fight. If that tank merc can survive, guess what I can dps and not stress. Not have to worry about being unlucky in 10-20 mins of a fight. This why I say mercs. Simple test, can the mercs just survive. Noticed I said tank do like 25% dmg on a named in 10 mins, so if they was to just do everything on the named that'd be 40 mins. 40 mins to kill a named, T1 named, seriously? Healer merc lasting 40 mins? not likely. So mercs just survive I'll dps, or I'll be the healer. Me being the tank, stuff is just too crazy, so thats outta the question. Way too much catching up. Not everyone has a tank too. So 2 mercs tank healer, that works in any situation, of duo player classes. However no tank, that doesn't work for everyone so, tank healer is a combo any duo combo can do. Just survive, its not much. Survive 10 mins, and do like 25% dmg on it if fight is still going on for longer than 10 mins, to help out too. Which does happen, which is crazy. Simple anti afk is, merc stops fighting after 15 mins if player didn't do enough actions. Like move or something. boom afk solved, now you just worry sophisticated afk'ers, cheat program ones. But again lets stay on topic. Tank healer merc combo survive 10 mins, simple. Test case don't do anything because you know for a fact they will survive, if you got someone stunning the mobs every 5 seconds thats not doable in every group situation. Maybe some duo don't have stuns. So survive 10 mins, the duo/box players don't do anything just see if the tank and healer merc can survive for 10 mins.
T1 doesn't need to be easy. It needs to be balanced around an average group geared group. Not how missions are now, where its a downgraded raid and needs to be adjusted 15 times over 5 months
Tank merc should tank as well as the average player tank they are replacing. This should improve with gear. I believe, we have 3 tiers of gear at this point. Tank should still improve with healer gear rather than tank gear, but that improvement could reasonable be subpar to tank gear. Same sort of thing with the other mercs. It may not be intended, but they are replacing a player or box bot/slot/whatever. While some may not play nice with others, some don't have others to play with. After all, I pay that dang cleric merc rather well to follow me around and fix my boo boos.
Yeah balanced average GROUP GEARED GROUP? One metric for those think tankers to look at whenever they do new expansions. Hows the LFG. Is there a bunch of people LFG? Oh ok, that means lets do more group content stuff. OR Is there no one LFG? Ohhhh, this would mean not much grouping on, less group stuff. If you wanna say friends and guilds and what not. Returner doesn't have any Newplayer, doesn't have any You wanna explain its easy to do groups, get groups, and so on. Let show this video, tell this guy, tips on how to get groups. I'm sure he don't need your tip, it shouldnt be hard work just to get groups going. If you wanna give tips, just like that I already know, but I aint lookg for hard work. Its been this case for a long long time. What people do? EQ not top 10 not top 20 not top 30, thats what people do. Thats how people react. I been playing this for a long time I know how to get groups, I don't look forward to hard work getting groups. It should be a smooth process. like nostalgia EQ, /lfg ahhhhhhh 16 people LFG, ahhhhh this is good. Oh I know that person, let me catch up. nah this EQ, 0 lfg. I bought LS because I thought for some reason people go LFG when expansion is released day 1. No one went LFG. So thats a metric they should be eyeballing, and making decisions off of. No one LFG, should do more group content? Well if no is going LFG... hmmmmm. Lets get back on topic, this isn't about group content. This is about simple request, tank and healer merc survive. If you wanna turn it into group content, well can they survive 10 mins on every phase of that group content, T1 of course, I like hard, but I also like doable especially if its T1, 90% of the nameds in T1 should be doable with 2 mercs and mercs survive 10 mins, if you wanna have a crazy named thats fine but make a lot of stuff doable, I should be able to take down nameds and progress, get gear, trash aint giving me squat, those solo tasks, they aint give squat gearwise, usually if they do, it ends with some mission not doable I have to do to do the final combine or something, and I'm trying to progress, make it doable. Best way to check doability is if merc can do it, anyone can do it. If mercs cannot do it, gonna people that can't do it. It has been this way for a long time, look at the results. Should be doable. 2 mercs, 2 accounts or someone with a buddy, doable with a buddy. Should be doable solo, but not every combo works. rogue, what they gonna do, they need a healer and a tank.
I think Daybreak needs to cap mercenaries to level 125. I don't think mercs have to be removed, they play an important role in helping lower level players get through content that higher level players don't have time to help with. Mercs are a bandage at best at the higher levels, so let's bring back people needing to either group or pick toons that can solo the old fashion way. If Daybreak caps mercs at say level 125, they could theoretically, make them more powerful in the future. That is, if EQ is at level 135, Daybreak could tweak mercs to be more helpful up to level 125. But level 125 would be the cliff. No matter how good a level 125 merc tank gets, it's not going to be tanking a level 130+ camp. I'd be open to Daybreak adding another level cap, over 125, to mercs in the future, but only if it's 30 or so levels lower than the current level cap. So essentially, a level 126-130 merc wouldn't exist until the player level cap is 160.
T1 is already extremely easy. My group geared shaman and even wizard have no issues soloing or moling. I really don't know how much easier it could be. To be saying you should be able to kill a named without deduffs is silly when you can go back many expansions to get these debuffs or slows (tank belts, weapons, some clickes etc). Everone has abilities and if you are too lazy to use them or go back and find items that have these abilities then the issue is you, not the zone. In the end you are saying you should be able to kill mobs without doing anything other than auto attack. If that is the case, along with your other posts, EQ is not for you. If it was made even easier then ask yourself, where will raiders go to fill up their glyph AAs after raids? Where will raiders and cutting edge groups go to evolve their current evolver? Where will the majority of groups go when they want to just XP grind. It will be these stupidly easy zones and they will be able to monopolise more of the base zone than they already do.
Where are you fighting? Was the group at full mana at the start of the fight? I really can't think of the last time I went OOM during a fight when I was at 100% mana.
One big problem I could see if T1 zones were made stupid easy. Mass pulling. Imagine multiple groups pulling 30 to 40 mobs at a time? The OP would get his wish, but there will be no mobs to fight. The well geared groups pulled them all. There's always consequences when changes are made.
It is sorta expected that a group have 1 merc just to fill a needed slot. It may be a little rough but the real players will counter act that either by having a real tank, or a real healer, or real dps depending on what group the merc is filling. Depending on both merc tank and a merc healer is setting yourself up for failure. ONE group slot (maybe more with dps mercs, they can suck but they don't make or break the group - they just dps bad)
UKK don’t even play EQ. I have offered him help to get to the bottom on his noobness but he didn’t even respond to the message, just spewed the same raids are too easy rubbish, no want to get help, to see where he can improve. He either just wants to be rubbish and the game catered towards him or he doesn’t even play / have issues he just wants to complain and annoy everyone else
That example was EQ classic / Kunark when Dvinn decided to make a pop during a fight, or Sebilis when a wandering add decided to join in. Sometimes (Karnor's castle) you'd get wandering adds and pops over and over and still survive the epic battle. Recently, if I get an unexpected add, I'm generally dead before I can react quick enough
Back in EQ classic it was easy to run out of mana. I remember only nuking when the mob was less than 50% health. No chain nuking in early EQ. The good old days LOL. I remember yelling OOM and everyone stopped. "The mage is OOM, stop pulling!" How things have changed.
Yes, I miss those old days. The mobs were still tough, but it wasn't complete suicide on a bad pull like I experience nowadays. I was aggroed by a named in WW (CoV version) a year or so ago. I was summoned and died before the screen updated. I literally just appeared dead by the mob. When I loaded back in PoK, I'd had my entire hitpoints taken down in a single round.
