Staggered release was a terrific idea. I'm glad they are continuing it. The disadvantages advantages are: Guilds can't burn through the content, get into T4 in two months, and then whine about there not being content. You beat T1 in a week or less? Enjoy gearing up your guild for 2-3 months. The "race" is a lot less meaningful when it's 25% of the expansion's race and the "losers" could be a tier less well geared than your guild or potentially even better geared. There's still a race but its character has changed a lot. Heroic Adventures - I'll try to keep an open mind, but IMO they aren't that heroic if members of SallysSewingSircle is doing them too. How about NotHeroic Adventures - it's a lot more truthful. I figure it's a not asked for by SOE testbed for EQ Next's random events - so at least it will be a preview of how awful that feature will be.
Are there many "Groupers" left in Eq? Mostly i see boxed toons and alts, many forum topics are about how do i play the best with myself. At least with "Raiders" you get what you see, those are here for the social part and guild life in this game still. They also tend to form real groups for this reason. 4 Raids for a release is not enough, in a game that lives from it's raiding population. Groupers...come on, those easily leave for other games and that totally makes sense. I could not play a 13 years old game for the few zones that are released each year, i would at least add games like Vanguard in this case to keep me sane. Everquest is still full of people because of guilds and raids, and i hope the people responsible for content know that because currently the lack of raid content has a lot of people worried.
If you've been playing since before Planes of Power, you will still enjoy this expansion. Granted, as a grouper, I didn't get to DO much of anything there. (I saw one dev asking for a group of players, once.) SoE has choosen to try to do more with fewer employees. But, it's still EQ as you know it.
Err, most of the players in EQ are non-raiders (aka groupers). They're not raiders. Devs have given us that information in the (recent) past. I agree 4 raids seems a bit light, and I really hope they aren't designed so the top tier guilds beat them all same night again.
Now you would just need to find out how many of those non-raiders are in reality toons of people who are in a guild that raids, or friends of those. And how many play to eventually get a toon ready for raiding. I cannot believe you really think that Everquest is still known for it's grouping game, i can ask whoever i want of the ppl that i know who don't play it...they all know Eq for it's raids, nobody and i really mean nobody would be interested in starting this game *now* without aiming for raiding.
Boxers are still groupers. No one is interested in debating it, it is what it is. When talking about grouping it is about content and gear used to in that content. Period. As well, over the years I have seen far more raiders I know leave than any of the groupers. Since 1999 I have continued to play as a grouper with almost no raiding. No raiding as in, I haven't been to a raid since I think SoF. It's fine that you don't see how someone could be interested in grouping full time, I myself can't really understand how raiders don't end up shooting themselves, but they are entitled to have fun the way they want.
I'm torn on this one, there is nothing for me in group content, I keep trying to convince myself its worth it for 4 raids but so far I just haven't managed it. New spells and AA aren't great, I've never been a fan of missions and i detested LDON so I really don't think this expansion is for me. Collections aren't worth doing as they only give exp and AA for rewards. Merc AAs are only useful if you can use mercs in raids, but you can't so again they are useless to me. $40 for 4 raids really doesn't seem worth it, thats $10 a raid.
Well... be prepared for disappointment on that one. I really don't think we can expect raids to take more than a night for the top guilds ever again without a design philosophy change, honestly. Staggered content is one reason (that's not an indictment or a commendation, it just is), because there are fewer raids released at once, which means there's no "backlog" to clear. With a frontloaded expansion, even if it's relatively easy, it's constrained by time- RoF initial release didn't take one night because it was too many targets for one night (and there was a bug as well). Keying changes is another reason. Without books, or keys, there's no timesink to get people flagged- a whole raid is flagged at once. This cuts down on a lot of the time spent before breaking into a new event. Difficulty is another reason. Take Underfoot- warriors shone in Underfoot, because SKs and paladins had nothing akin to Final Stand, Deflection had no focus like the new Fortitude BP focus (until House of Thule), both knight classes were lacking their second lesser defensive disc, and mobs hit like absolute freight trains, further reducing the value of the Mantle lines in comparison to Final Stand- Mantle has a hp limit, and the way Underfoot raids hit, it absolutely chewed through it faster than the full duration. This is not a matter of emotes (though Underfoot had them), or HP locks (though there were those too), or timed events (ditto), or tradeskill combines (nyuk nyuk), but the sheer strength of the raid targets. Beast pre-nerf chewed through hit points like popcorn, The First Creation's ramp was a death sentence, the Cliknar Queen was a right female canine (and I loved that event). As much as people bring up the idea of a Big Bad Boss, in practice, most people don't want them, because when something's that tough, it requires just as much attention and skill (and luck, sometimes) as an emotes-driven event- and they're regularly complained about. All the people that say "Give us another Avatar of War- just a brutal hitting tank and spank" should be saying how much they loved Underfoot, because Beast wasn't tremendously complex (though it did have a run emote, yes)- neither was pre-nerf cliknar on Deconstruction, or key groups on Lichen Creep, or Brell in Audience, but they sure hit hard. Funnily enough, a lot of people don't rave about Underfoot (I had a lot of fun though ). Lastly, is beta. Not the "X guilds always have all the info and the devs give them all the leet stratz and it's not fair" stuff that crops up here occasionally, but the lack of bugs. The only really significant bug that prevented progression in RoF was in Xorbb, and it got fixed too soon for most guilds to even have to worry about it. VoA had Resplendent Temple requiring perfect emote response on Splendor tower, otherwise it chain-reset, but it was still beatable, and was fixed right after we beat it in the bugged form- less than 24 hours after. House of Thule had Ritual of Terror broken on launch, but it didn't take long to be fixed (though arguably it was still overtuned for its' tier, which was bridging content below the previous top tier). There were some scattered bugs in HoT, but most of them did not make an event unbeatable (though I jumped for joy when Morell changed, because I hated kiting that event). Underfoot T7 was bugged unbeatably at first- no matter how well you played, or how smart, an unburnable hit point lock is an unburnable hit point lock. A fail mechanic triggering when it was not supposed to and being unbeatable, is not something you can bypass. Once those things were fixed, T7 events started falling. Seeds of Destruction had Tower 6- bugged to the point of being unable to advance, at all. Secrets of Faydwer- bugs, particularly in Mansion. The Buried Sea- unlimited adds spawning crashing the zone, et cetera. The more beta testing there is particularly by different guilds on the same event, the less likely that events are bugged to the point of being unwinnable on launch... and the fact that that problem is diminishing over time is supporting that assertion. With smaller content releases over time, the likelihood that every guild that can field a beta raid force will test every raid each time is high. I used to argue against testing *everything* with a single guild unless asked to by a developer (and I was not beta raid testing with any developer that had a guild test every single event), but that argument doesn't tend to happen anymore... unless a guild bows out of beta testing entirely. I like helping, I like trying to make for a smooth functional release, but I like having surprises too. I like walking into an event and the raid leader says "We have no idea what will happen, so be ready for everything," and the instant something happens, people are looking up spell effects, they're reporting weapon weaknesses they notice to the rest of their guildmates, we're collaboratively making up a strategy on the fly. When raids come two and three and four at a time, there's not going to be a lot of surprises. Some people will love it, some will hate it, most will be fairly indifferent, because that's the way that people work, but if all four of these raids aren't beaten on the first night, and there isn't an unwinnable bug, it's because someone wasn't trying.
In fact raid gear is nice support, but never was nor ever will be the reason why somebody has it more easy in a game. It is the sum of all the lil tiny things (the correct augs, the correct power sources, the AA which dont get by killing, the achievements that give you rewards, the clickys from both EQ and LON and many many many other things) that provide the chance to do more. Every raider must at least solve a few parts of groupcontent mandatorily (e.g. class specific weapon missions) and the raids are so easy to solve and quick to pass through that every raider has more than 80% of his time online left to spend with other stuff. Maxing level and AA is today the base for high end gaming. Then the really hard work starts. Progression flags (even though you dont need them) are important for achievements and the really really nice rewards when you have accomplished them (e.g. rabbit illu in HoT, selyrah mount in VoA, or the xorb head ornament in RoF). Nothing of all that above a raider can get by only logging on for raids. In fact, most of the raiders have their own groups or boxing crews and spent most of the time in group content. To say a raider has no clue about group content just delivers evidence of not knowing anything about Everquest and stare jealousy at the others success. Sorry for being that straight, but it has to be said.
Just so everyone understands where Camou is coming from, this is part of a conversation in the Enchanter forum mentioning his signature file:
Maybe with more big guilds breaking up there will more room for smaller raids to make an appearance since there won't be as many people to go through the content. Or, this just occurred to me. This is the plan so there are less big raid guilds because there are less raids that exist. If you don't have as many people that NEED large raids then you don't have to design/create as many from a development standpoint.
Sadly, I think its going to feel more like a regular patch than a new expansion. Not a lot to the first tier. Four raids....minimalist approach across the board 4tw. if I wasnt a raider, i wouldnt buy it right off the bat.
Someone finds group content challenging? I don't know that they still play, but there was a non-raid geared two person box team that used to regularly beat expansions in 2-3 months or less. What you meant to post is one playstyle (raider) finds non-raid content almost entirely unrewarding - we're doing it for augs and flags (both could be in raid content instead), and um er ah hmmmmmmmmm oh yeah alts. Devs have done some small force raids wingz-83. I assume you got a shield and a Red Dragon Scale in HH and are eagerly looking forward to Dragonsx3 (or perhaps you've set aside your Gold Spiked thingie for a Stone of the Landing?)
Wow, just wow. You give them so much credit, I wish I could have that kind of optimism about how this is looking. I just hope they get their act together while there still is an Everquest.
You, know, if you look at CotF from a different point of view and see it for what it really is, it's not that bad. CotF is not an expansion. It's just a game update, similar to SoF. It has some content and some features. It's nothing like the full-year expansions of the past, which is why it's so small. It's just a game update, one of several that already happened in the last 12 months and will happen in the next 12 months. 4 zones, 4 raids, 2 new systems, a handful of new spells and AA - that's pretty good for a game update. The thing that misleads everybody into thinking otherwise is the $40 price tag on this particular game update and SOE officially calling it the 20th expansion. I wish they would stop doing that and adopted a new marketing model that reflected their new design philosophy better.
