Another Returning Players' Feedback

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Liralen, Feb 14, 2018.

  1. Liralen New Member

    My husband and I returned on Valentine's Day for the nostalgia. We played during EQ's final beta, and for several years after that, then moved onto other games, including EQ2, which we played for longer than we did EQ.

    While combat is substantially easier, the hardest part now is the really awful User Interface, in particular looting and the fact that we were constantly dropping group for no apparent reason, which contributed to problems figuring out how to share loot automatically. If there's a round robin looting option, it wasn't apparent. We finally figured out how to disable the default master looting and just take turns looting. I suggest a round robin default for beginners, and master looting as an option for experienced players.

    It also took us a bit to figure out the 3 step process for moving spells (mem'ing the scroll to spellbook, moving them from the spellbook to the vertical bar, then finally moving them to the hotkey bars. I vaguely recall that it's not too dissimilar from the original (it's been about 15 years and many games since then), and I understand that making "interesting choices" logic behind limiting the amount of active spells is a feature, not a bug (having had 6 or more hotkey bars of active spells in EQ2) but making the UI mechanics so inconsistent for each step is not a good thing.

    I mean this criticism with the best will in the world. Running into another EQ player in the wild makes me assume them to be a great team player. But next Valentine's Day, we might try Project 1999 instead, but I'd prefer that option to be available here.
  2. Goodn Augur

    Welcome...back...? 15 years is a long time to be away from any game and expect things to go smoothly after just one evening session. I would always suggest that someone coming back from such a long break start with level 1 toons and go through the Tutorial zone and be sure to do all the quests. It helps folks catch up with modern EQ. Once you are done with the Tutorial zone, I would then recommend doing the tutorials from the NPC in PoK. And using the channel NewPlayers frequently if you have questions (or /ooc).

    I'd also recommend looking for a family guild on whichever server you are on. Being with others who have gone/are going through similar things that you are really helps. And the guild can be a great knowledge base to drawn on.

    To start from your last comment, if you are considering Project 1999, I have to question your complaints about the UI interface, looting, spells, etc. All of those are much worse in Project 1999. I think 99 out of 100 players (but only because there is always that 1 person) would take modern EQ interfaces over those from Velious era. Doesn't mean they cannot always be better, but they have gotten much better over the years. You do have to get used to it.

    Project 1999 is never going to be available from DBG. They don't have the code...and they have difficulty enough keeping up with what they do have than embark upon a massive project like that. They do have progression type servers (which you need to pay to access) which combine modern EQ UI elements with limited expansion availability (usually timed release or in one case, will be expansion locked around PoP).

    Spells are as simple as ever. Right click on a spell to learn. Right click on a spell gem and pick your spell out of a list (you do need to learn the categories). All players start with alt + 1, 2, 3, etc. available as hot keys for your spells. Move a spell gem over to a hot bar. Except as flavor graphics, you never really interact with your actual spell book anymore.

    As far as limiting spells...that is EQ. Always has been, always will. High level toons get aa abilities, which often can act like spells to make choices easier. They also get more spell gems (up to 13 at max level). But you will always have to make a choice in EQ as a spell caster about what you want to keep up. That's just...EQ. If you want access to everything, then this is not the game for you.

    I have no idea why you were dropping group...most likely someone was hitting Control + d. (Quick note: pretty much all key commands can be seen and changed under alt + o and the Keys tab) Loot is...different under the new /advloot system. But once you get the hang of it, the new loot system is quite powerful. For friendly groups (which is what I assume you and your husband are:) I'd always recommend for one person to loot and just divide up cash/items at the end...save your time for fighting/adventuring.

    You tried it...seems like you weren't impressed...that's okay. I would honestly give it another shot with the tutorials, just to see if the things that are annoying you are just lack of information. But sometimes EQ just doesn't click with folks anymore. As an officer in a large family guild, we get a lot of returnees. And most actually stay...but some leave (mostly due to difficulty finding other players to group with under level 60). But have fun, whatever you decide to do.
    Niskin likes this.
  3. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    Don't forget you can create more hotbars (up to 10), so if you're worried about hotbar space, you can get up to 8 more (I think they start you off with 2 by default). Go to the DBG "button" and then there is an option in there somewhere for more hotbars. It might be Character > UI >Hotbar3 (4,5,6...) or something to that effect. I'm at work and can't check the interface right now, but I use all 10 hotbars myself.
  4. Liralen2 New Member

    I assume Project 1999 is like the original? We did just fine with that for a couple of years. ;)

    And we've been playing MMOs ever since, so pretty much have seen it all. WoW's interface (without add ons) is even worse. At least you can move windows around in EQ now.

    But the fact that there are worse ones out there isn't relevant. I'm guessing that there aren't as many newbs starting out in a group (yes, we did make new toons in the tutorial), because our basic problems were group related. We kept finding ourselves ungrouped, which took a bit to notice so new anti-ninja code (I'm guessing), which is a great improvement, but confused us on the looting because it took us a bit to realize we weren't grouped.

    Then when confirming we were grouped, we could not find a round robin, set and forget looting option. We weren't interested in master looting, which was the default, and then having to figure out how to distribute it later, we just wanted to play!
  5. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Coming from EQ2's interface, EQ1 must feel pretty shoddy.

    I agree EQ1 interface could use a heft facelift, but who's willing to pay for that? It's a 20 year old game. Just enjoy yourselves.
  6. Goodn Augur

    Okay, I think I understand your looting question. Yes, if grouped, there is no way to have the game autoloot so that you don't have to interact in some way. If single, you can use filters to pretty much do everything (loot what you want, ignore what you don't)...but you have to set those explicitly.

    What I would do is simply set at the bottom for one toon to get everything. For each kill, click that set to button and then have whichever one of you is looting hit loot all at the top. That would be the easiest thing to do for looting and keep playing.

    And definitely, if you kill something while grouped then break group without assigning loot, the system gets confused and you have to wait until normal corpse unlock.

    As far as the losing group issue...I follow the forums pretty closely and I have never heard of what you seem to be experiencing.
  7. Dahaman Augur


    I'm with you on the auto-looting feature. When I first came back, it felt like I was hitting my head against a brick wall trying to figure out how to use the new auto-loot system in a group setting. They really could use a basic instructions page with some better pop-up descriptions for some of those buttons.

    It took a bit, but once I got use to it, it became reflex to use. Today, it's a fantastic feature to use and one that I would have a very hard time living without. It eventually becomes a rather nice time saving feature.

    But that learning curve... crazy!
    Liralen2 and Quatr like this.
  8. Liralen2 New Member

    OK, the lack of toxicity on this thread is really making me homesick. Although the original EQ had lots of toxic people, those of us who weren't tended to band together and were able to neutralize the bad ones. Reputation mattered in those days, when you couldn't just sign up for a random dungeon group.

    As I said in the opening post, we just stopped by on Valentine's Day for the nostalgia, and are currently playing another game. I just wanted to give some feedback on the newbie grouping experience, which wasn't good compared to the single player experience I had a couple of years ago.

    But EQ is not a game to solo and I have not been able to convince my regular gaming friends to try it, and so I generally just go with the group if their choice isn't too horrible.

    But the kindness shown here makes me think that maybe there are new friends still to meet.

    Thank you so much!
  9. IblisTheMage Augur

    EQ is indeed very soloable! :)

    With you and your husband, with the right choice of characters, and the mercenary system, you can easily play for years without problems, and as you reach end level, move into the raid game, if that is what you like to do.

    Or you can join the Boxing people, whom like myself run several characters at once. There are methods to make this a very enjoyable experience. I play with my buddy, and in total we play 6 characters at the same time.

    And there are classes that can just solo with no mercenary.

    It is indeed the greatest game ever made, but at a cost as you say, with some quirks. The advanced loot system is a bit... impossible to understand? But the spell system is really easy to use, when you start using the tips and tricks. Also, one of the challenges in the game is to choose which spells to use, since you can only have a limited amount available.

    :)
  10. Scorrpio Augur

    Default UI layout is blah, but you can get some good ones on EQ interface. The loot system can be a tad confusing at first but as you learn it and set up how to handle what items, it becomes an incredible tool. I suggest watching some tutorial videos about it.
  11. Quatr Augur

    Yeah, the advanced loot system was very confusing and I hated it back when it was released. Eventually I learned to use its core features and now it's a huge time-saver.
  12. Kahna Augur

  13. Grum New Member

    Honestly the game isn't the best anymore, the direction Sony took it before Daybreak took over ruined the game, can't blame Daybreak for Luclin, PoP, & running off players lol they didn't have it yet.. I wish Daybreak would go back to classic EQ & take a different direction after Scars of Velious... Just my opinion
  14. IblisTheMage Augur

    Strongly disagree. For me, EQ is by far the best game in existance.
  15. Ironnuts Journeyman

    There’s some nice things in some of the custom ui’s. However I got frustrated with logging in after a patch and my ui is not right anymore. I guess then you go redownload the ui to fix everything. Just a step I’m not usually in the mood to do. Default is customizable and I just use that now. I guess it’s more important to me to log in and know everything will be just how I left it. I do miss some of the nice custom banking windows tho :)