These are great questions and feedback. 1. Lockouts - if you didn't share lockouts with a persona, you could (potentially) raid the same thing 16 times in a row and get that much loot on the same character. Because items are shared, this is a problem - design is careful about how quickly / how much loot enters the game because when players finish gearing up, they often stop logging in, and that is bad for EQ's future. I don't personally mind if people want to raid many times, the main issue is being able to collect too many items. If we could do this with a loot lockout type mechanic it would probably be OK, but that would be somewhat complex to implement and I think it may still make people unhappy. 2. Bag space - I agree and this is an important thing for us to solve. Unfortunately, the way that equipment sets were implemented initially means this is going to be very challenging. EQ is very strict about "item moves" - moving an item from your bank to cursor, cursor to inventory, inventory to cursor, etc... Equipment sets had to break some of these deeply set item movement rules in order to work (mainly augments). I would like to fix this but it will be difficult and I don't know when we will do so. Our team is primarily working on new projects and we don't have a lot of room for emergent bugs and issues that come up (as well as remaining issues from previously launched projects). 3. Faction - if faction were shared between personas, things like not being KOS in your starting city would not work. I agree that grinding faction on a persona is not fun, but I don't know what an alternative solution would be. Personas have many benefits over alts. You do not have to repeat Slayer, Achievements, you can share equipment and items, character flags, etc. You can swap and use different buffs from different classes on your group (in PoK etc). That being said, these benefits may not be appealing enough over an alt and that is OK. Personas may not be for everyone, just like not everyone wants to play on every new TLP, or will personally use every new game feature. I do hope that many players will enjoy it and if there is positive change we can make to the system that makes you also want to use it, we are listening.
This. ^ Wish we had a Sherpa mode for missions and raids. Assuming we have current lockouts and want to go again, rather than our name or toon showing in the task or dz put them in some type of sherpa label. Can do everything but loot from chest, no coins, no rewards, no ach while active lockout, but grants the ability to run tasks again to help others out that still want to run missions and cant find the classes / numbers they need. Granted I have no clue the problems with coding something like that is but well I'm not making the game, I just enjoy playing it. And this request has nothing to do with personas or non personas, strictly any person that has an active lockout that wants to run it again to help someone else.
don't know a thing bout coding but couldn't they just change the lockout for missions/ha to instead of running it to you can't get xp/loot if you go again(and make it a personal lockout only?
How is it every other MMORPG and MMO-lite, can exist without lockout timers for group dungeons? Why is chest loot a concern? It's already no-trade. There's no currency vendor for group gear, and so the amount of loot entering the game on a non-FV server is minimal. For raids, you need at least 40 other insane people that want to raid the same content over and over. Again, the gear is no trade and the currency is no trade. Raid loot already gets increased as the expansion ages. So, there can't be that much concern behind loot velocity.
With the faction complaint it is mostly the ones mentioned like DoN Faction or OoW one for BP's more specifically, or probably a couple more that have in expansion requirements behind them that you generally can't or don't lower What if only certain specific ones like those could be shared instead of everything
This. Those fall honestly under "Progression" systems more than just "Faction" systems. Faction is just the shell used to hold the progression together. They can't obviously make every faction cross since it would essentially make character created during a classic TLP launch unable to make an iksar for instance <As you would be instant KoS in your own starting city and basically death looped>
Everything in Everquest is literally a grind. From leveling your character, to camping an augment or gear, to spawning an individual named or finishing hunters, to collectibles (dropped ones, including those in missions that need to be flipped), to AAs, to tradeskilling (farming mats), to evolving items and now personas. I'm sure I missed other ways in which EQ is historically and continually a grind. This answer was truly disappointing to read.
My main character is a Necromancer. Does the team believe that if I spend enough time on a monk persona, my monk and necromancer personas should be able to be as powerful as the best non-persona'd Necromancer and Monk? The current design parameters in the game suggest that the answer in practice is no, but I feel like the implementation plan was yes.
So could a dev answer what the intended path to level a persona from 111-125 is? Without grind XP, or repeatable task XP there isn't a feasible way to finish levelling a persona on Live. Sure you can use overseer and get 1 persona levelled over the course of months but you would think you would want people to *play* EQ
There's a clear distinction between faction as it started in Classic EQ and the faction that is used a means of Progression. Other forms of Progression are clearly shared between personas. Zero PCs are default Ally with Norrath's Keepers (as one example). I am not a dev, but I believe that allowing every faction that is default hostile to EVERY PC to carry over from persona to persona, should not create KOS in starting city situations. From an outsider's point of view, I would think it best to take every faction that is designated as non-hostile for each race/class combination and overwrite those values from a set table (assuming adding a 'persona' flag to each faction is not viable). Given the /faction command, it would be quick work for the community to populate that table, which would allow for the devs to verify, rather than generate the data. I would be happy to coordinate this effort, as am I sure others would. Please use the community to offset the shortage of dev resources to chase these player's pain points. Cyberdyne <Quorum> on Thornblade
A quick search of the forums and googling shows a very clearly slanted desire for a feasible way to level personas. The dev team from the AMA clearly has a ton of pride and investment in the persona system, and it is a super cool system that I was really excited to try out. It's a shame to see the dev team so against resolving the clearly glaring issue of 115-125. I literally didn't believe there wasn't any reasonable solution to level and spent a while searching for reasonable ways to level personas and instead consistently saw complaints. Assuming you're good at overseer, get 8% exp daily for your persona, that's just over 4 months to level that way. Alternatively at 115+ you can kill yellow/red mobs for ~.08% xp a kill, and if you have a solid group killing at say 45s on average, that comes out to a mind numbing 15+ hours of straight grinding per level assuming zero breaks, no med or downtime, not accounting for pulling, etc. I understand that it creates artificial content to keep players busy, but it really feels like they're super out of touch with the player base and what the player base would like. There by severely hindering engagement with their own effort. Always willing to believe I'm wrong, but scouring the forums it's far and few between to see anyone praising the current level of grind for them. Where as it's frequent to see consistent feedback that it's a drag and therefore they won't engage with the system without some reasonable way to level. Even some of the more prominent eq youtubers have made videos directly complaining about personas at 115+. I missed the AMA, but perhaps a good question would have been: Why does the dev team think that the persona XP situation is acceptable? FWIW: love the game, think the dev team is doing great with the resources available, but this one just feels like such an easy place to revert stance on and at least consider changing, or at least providing more color on their position.
Ngreth - I'd encourage you to look at item IDs 151460 and 151461. These are the IDs of the evolving neck items for Priests and Casters from Laurion's Song. The only difference between these items are their item ID and their name. You can also compare items 139387 and 139386. These are the cloaks from Night of Shadows. The scenario is the exact same, except they have a different tribute value as well. I don't think you're protecting us from bland itemization by keeping these items class-specific and locking people into using best-in-slot equipment on a specific archetype for their personas. Outside of the priest/caster items, the differences between the archetype gear are slight differences between AC/HP and some heroics. The itemization is already bland. The itemization gets fun by allowing characters to choose the augmentations that go into them, which is something you're currently doing very well, particularly with the type 18/19 augments.
Meeko/Aristo - I don't think you'd ruin many people's immersion if you consolidated these into one AA line if that would help.
Signed in to say that I was excited for the AMA and glad they followed through despite the responses. I made my character back in 2000, I think, and although I haven't been subbed all concurrently I have come back several times, the latest being during level 115 cap. Recently I tried to level my HC enchanter and it's been the same experience as the last few times; no one within 10 levels to group with, no responses to general LFG, me contemplating/asking for PL prices, me wondering if the only way I'm (my specific circumstances) supposed to play is by multi-boxing. None of the responses here gave me hope for actually being able to play the game. I want to sub but logging in for my daily 6% overseer exp is not how I want to play the game. Finding a casual group to try to grind in, especially with the added design philosophy context, will especially be DoA for me and begging for a group to take a gimped, FTP, H. char. for missions/prog exp is just as asinine. What's worse is that the devs specifically comment on the barren wastelands that are the leveling zones and its population but still insist that the game is meant to be played in a group. That's disheartening to say the least because from where I'm at that won't ever happen. I'd love nothing more than to be playing current (within 5 levels) EQ, subbed and wearing that prestige/mission gear again, and being able to contribute/enjoy all the expansions have to offer but it's been made impossible for me to do so. I have chosen to not purchase the latest 3 expansions or remain subbed during that time, the same goes for my brother who feels similarly to me. All I'm asking for is a way for me to easily get to a spot where I can be invited and contribute to a group without having to spend a year doing overseer and sitting in GL for buffs so I don't get insta-gibbed while trying to charm a mob so I can solo faster than a snails pace. Please Developers, hear my cry. I'll buy the latest expansion every year and stay subbed if my solo leveling experience isn't a worse torture than having a toenail extracted without anesthesia.
At least that's over quickly. Every day I see a returning player who wants to "catch up" and sometimes even the occasional newbie looking for that retro experience, or to enjoy what their parents/etc did some time ago. And yet, none of them last. It's not a surprise why. People would love to catch up with groups, but the opportunities don't exist. People would love to be able to catch up solo, but that's not "supported". Dozens of fantastic ideas have been shared to (re)capture this audience, however it seems that the accepted answer is for these folks to catch up to max by not playing their characters. Buy a heroic. Leech/buy a PL. Grind with overseer. AFK to get buffs. Get carried by a merc. Wait until a new TLP launches. Get 3-6 accounts (but don't automate!) It's fine to have a game that encourages, if not outright requiring grouping. It's not okay to have that game locked behind a grouping path that no longer exists.
I think a great catch-up mechanic would be a lvl 115 heroic. That still leaves plenty of content/leveling (cov, luclin1, luclin2, and ls), and gets them close enough to be able to play with their friends.
Who are you trying to fool? It is an extremely flawed system, that has *zero* benefits over alts. You talk about the potential for benefits, but that should have been figured out way before you launched this moneygrabbing feature.
I will be using the benefits personas bring on the next TLP. I cannot be a beastlord at launch so I will be getting flags and keys on another char and switching to a presona Beast when they become available. I will also be doing tradeskill on that char prior to beasts being available so that I will also be able to complete her epic without messing around with that instead of leveling. Sharing flags, keys and tradeskills will be a big bonus when rerolling to a different class for me at least. And if I decide to start as a monk, she will be able to use a lot of that gear also. She will also not have to start from scratch with her banestrike or any hunter achieves I may have completed.
