Any classes still not happy on Live at 125?

The problem with "challenging" group content, is that it would require something of raid level gear.
Then to make raids challenging, you'd need it to be hard even with raid gear so it's a bump up from the "challenging" group content.

But then that begs the question: if the content is hard enough to require another level of gear, how does one get into that content to get said gear in order to do the content in the first place?

Raids have to be able to be done in group gear. Raid gear is just supposed to make raids progressively easier as you continue to get gear.

So how would making raids require raid gear to be completed work, when you need to complete the raid to get the raid gear in order to raid in the first place?

The only thing i can think of is making things a linear leveling/gearing path, but i'm not sure how well that would work out.

You get 2 starter zones that would be based around 120-121
You get 2 progressive zones that would be based around 122-123
Then you get 2 more going into what would be more of a T2 zone difficulty with 123-124/125
All prior zones offering T1 group gear
Then you get your group missions that are based strictly on level 125 and this would offer your T2 level gear
Then raids doing what raids do.

The whole conversation around easy content started from a raid Mage complaining about content.

This can be true, but man I don't like when people try to gaslight me and tell me raid gear makes no difference. It's not the god-mode of previous eras, but that still makes a difference.

Secrets of Faydwer was the last expansion that really encapsulated very easy to very challenging difficulty curve. Start in DSH and Loping Plains, move up to the middle tier that has easier like Fort Mech to harder like Zeka, cap off the expansion with MMM and Crystallos.

Not until after my first quote where it was brought up, unless I missed it far back.

Don't make this about group vs raid gear - no one else is.

This is incredibly disengenuous. You started by complaining that group content (missions) are too easy for your raid geared toon. Thats too bad, because raid gear is god mode. You're fond of claiming raid gear doesn't matter, which is just gaslighting (hi kizant).
This isn't to say anything about the difficulty of the only 2 group missions, thats only you implying that. You want challenging content - great. We all do. However a challenge to someone in raid gear would be mob dps so high that it requires raid gear (which really does matter).
More challenging and complex raids? Great, I don't think anyone objects to that.
More group content which is for all players? More important than additional raids.

You appear to have me confused with cicelee.

Only you are. NO ONE ELSE IS.
No one is saying your a bad person for being in raid gear. However its pretty easy to put 2 and 2 together to understand that content challenging for a toon in raid gear will inherantly exclude those not in raid gear.

true, I think I was mixing your responses a bit.
However how can this not be about group vs raid gear? Its not only about making raids better (no one objects to that idea). However alot of the convo HAS been about more challenging content for non-raids. Also a great idea in theory. However its silly to imagine that a challenge for a raid geared group wouldn't be impossible for a non-raid geared group.
Kizant and Cicelee like to gaslight and pretend that raid gear doesn't matter, and then conflate that with the garbage situation that is LS. Sure it has easy raids and garbage missions. However tell me how much raid gear didnt matter in Cov? Missions were virutally undoable without it for awhile.

There is the massive frustration that most content is already for raids only. Leveling content is not "group content". Its just the stuff we all have to go through to level up. Progression is how you level nowadays, so its leveling content. After that non-raiders have 2 abortions of a mission. When was the last time there was a single mission which wasn't just a poorly altered raid, TBL? Eok? The game already caters to raiding, its understandable that players who do not raid are very frustrated with this. That doesn't mean you are a bad person for raiding, but lets not pretend all things are equal.

As well, there is additional crap in this thread. The assumption that players are better because they raid. Some are very good, others get carried. The pretentions that players are superior because they raid log is pretty bad.

No, go back to Cicelee's post where they repeatedly complain that they can solo content.

There is no way to have a discussion on content difficulty that doesn't involve character power. All of our perspectives on difficulty are shaped by our class and gear.

Nobody has offered an opinion on what makes content difficult, and only thrown out generic too easy complaints. What are people really wanting with difficulty for a game that they've put 20000 hours into? Increased HP, mob density, or what?

My view on difficulty is that modern expansions are just a bunch of dumb mobs that melee attack and do nothing special, and if a rare does spawn players have too many tools at their disposal. You really don't have to pay attention to the game at all, and can just spam your multibind without a care.

But you are, you did, you were the first, ergo started the whole debate. Here, I'll even quote you again where you said it. Feel free to quote people BEFORE THIS POST of yours I'm quoting where people said group content should be hard for raiders.

In any case, carry on. Just had the throw out the fact this aint about group gear or raid gear. I don't even have a dog in this fight. I'd love just as much to see more group content as you do, as a raider.

Side note: most raiders I play with think most of the raids are garbage. They aren't fun, they don't follow an interesting story line like they used to. (Ya know, actual immersive content)

They're just quickly thrown together mostly boring events that mostly ignore what we want.

Perhaps instead of crusading for better group content we should just crusade together for an entire better expansion. If you think we're happy with raids or feel privileged for having this slop thrown at us, I got news for ya.

All your objections seem to be we are not only discussion specifically what you wanted, and not about what literally anyone else in the thread has said.

You'll have to reword that in English, but otherwise, all i did was point out that you made this about group vs raid gear out of no where and that has nothing to do with making harder group content for group players. It's currently trivial for group geared people.

I dispute this.

Note that I don't raid or have any raid gear.

I challenge DPG to come up with group content I don't steamroll in gear from the previous expansion.

You are intentionally taking things out of context and you know it. To quote KushallaFV:

You are also coming from the perspective of a player with an optimized group using alot of 3rd party software to run as efficiently as possible. This isn't about you bragging about how good you are, because no one cares. We're talking general game design, where most people don't use a bunch of 3rd party software to run a full group. Game design is about all players, not someone's silly bragging.

As well, it wouldn't be hard to create challenging content for a raid geared group that would wipe you. Single round can simply be higher damage than your max hp in group gear. There, now raid gear is a prerequisite. Also note that chase gear = raid gear.

Eye es be does not run characters more efficiently than good ol, regular players, lol. Tuco doesn't have any handicaps because of his program.

I mean it might run them better than some of the poorly geared, half afk, senile players in the game, and comparatively to a decent player, but a real player can account for so much more than any eye es be bot.

Side note, chase gear has raid lvl stats, but is mostly obtained in group content. And if two or three items with a few k more hps are gonna make a difference....

Lol, your silly if you think all that 3rd party software with an optimized group doesn't give him a leg up over most people. As well, chase gear is incredibly rare, to equip a single character in mostly chase gear requires either:
1. automated bot groups to farm it for days on end (blatantly cheating)
2. raid geared group to constantly swarm 60+ mobs at a time for a long time to farm it (still alot of farming, and only an option for raiders who can swarm 60+ t2 mobs)
3. being a krono lord, through whatever method you obtain the pile of krono it would take

There is alot of bad faith arguments here from people who I honestly thought knew better. There is no "raid people are bad" in this thread, however you seem to have this idea that we're out to get you? We are simply thinking the problem all the way through of what challenging content is and what that means. How it applies to all characters and not just the person posting a reply.

Back to the topic, please describe WHAT challenging content would be that is gear agnostic? How can we make stuff a challenge for a group in current raid gear that is also doable by a general group in group gear (Even one not without hand picked optimized class setups)? Anything that would make the raid geared healer and tank break a sweat would obliterate your normal group in group gear.
PS: Lets stop the bs that all group players are bad and all raid players are good. Yes LS wasn't balanced well, but playing with the limits of group gear makes players try harder and excel. Raid gear is the easy button that trivializes content. There are PLENTY of bad raiders out there and plenty of skilled non-raiders.

[quote="Cadira, post: 4331055, member: 420878"
In any case, carry on. Just had the throw out the fact this aint about group gear or raid gear. I don't even have a dog in this fight. I'd love just as much to see more group content as you do, as a raider.

Side note: most raiders I play with think most of the raids are garbage. They aren't fun, they don't follow an interesting story line like they used to. (Ya know, actual immersive content).[/quote]

Raiding hasn't been interesting in Everquest for a while, I think the only thing that makes it fun is hanging out with a big group of buddies that you've known for a long time.

One of the reasons I think raiding isn't hard though is also one of the things that would get the most pushback if they changed it. It's harder to make challenging content for a group of 54 people because every raid guild has some dead weight and if you're not the top couple guilds then there's a good chance there's a core group that actually is carrying the raids. If raid content was hard there's a bunch of raid guilds that wouldn't be able to do it.

Raid design looks better in some other games but there's always going to be a limit to what they can do. If raids were smaller I think they could more effectively make hard raids and I also think more people would raid, it's a lot harder to organize 54 people vs 24 people and then you have to balance the raid for 54 people but in everquest there's such a variance of performance among the player base it's hard to balance it. It's also hard to QA the raids at that size, since it's hard to QA and balance the raids at the size coupled with the small team that EQ has they're really in a tough spot.

The smaller hardmode raids of SOD were not really well received, but at the same time because they were able to be done with 36 people the normal mode ones were easy and a ton of guilds were able to finish the content.

Like with grouping instances I also think raids could use a hardmode but I don't think cutting the raid size and calling it hard mode is an answer then you just have people cut, specially when it was 36? vs 54. I think hard mode raids could just stay hard too so there's a carrot on the end of a stick for people to reach for, not sure how you would itemize it differently, maybe instead of gear rewards it's ... another aug to enhance your raid gear? Maybe that'd be the answer to hard mode grouping instances as well another aug to enhance your gear.

But you can't. It has to flow.

Entry level of new expansion is on par with end zones/missions in latest expansion.

Broadcasting does run it more efficiently compared to someone with 6 computers or having to alt-tab over or whatever. There is no denying that.

To be able to have 6 characters react instantaneously is a leg up - now that's not to say anyone else can't go out and do the same thing.

Now ISB isn't going to give you a leg up on running only a single character in comparison to someone else playing a single character, but that's not the discussion at hand

Not silly, I've experienced both. I box my own 6 with raid gear, as well as play a single toon with 5 other raid real people. They destroy my bot crew in all situations, and especially in unique situations I can't plan behind being one person.

And oh, you said chase gear (nos cloak, rallos ear, LS necklace). You meant "ultra rare".

I'm pretty sure tuco avoids ultra rares and wears literal group gear unless he changed it up.

And I'll throw your strawmen on the fire behind me with all of the rest of em and ignore them. Was enough fun for one day.

Why are you here? You knew I was discussion "ultra rares" which are also called "chase gear" in other places, yet intentionally gaslighting and missunderstanding. There must be something about this conversation that scares you and makes you uncomfortable. Or maybe its just pointing out how wearing raid gear doens't actually make you a good player, infact it degrades your skills outside of the raid environment. In all expacs (not just current) you basically cannot die in raid gear when doing group content.
But look at me, trying to have an honest conversation when you very much have no intention of one. Why does this topic scares you, make you gaslight, lie, and misdirect? Makes you blow it up and be angry we aren't talking about your point only. Getting mad at people for discussion other topics than what you said? Its very wierd and needy