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Crossposting an ex-EoE's thoughts on Progression

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Vaclav, Mar 3, 2015.

  1. Vaclav Augur

    This was posted elsewhere by a EoE member I'll leave anon unless he wants to reveal himself - but it's a very sensible assessment (which according to him was made with zero input - just ideas he mused himself during some work doldrums) IMO.

    Especially those closing notes - that's what happens on these servers now if you don't put in some version of fixes. Not sure if I'd care about the "other randomness" section - and I have some minor points of contention of his first section, but that's 90% on point with me and some has altered my own suggestions. (The raid mob HP buff and reduced spawn timer vs. my "player debuff" idea)
  2. vardune Augur

    Nope. Bury this post back where you found it.
    Xanadas likes this.
  3. Taddius New Member

    More than sensible; these are exactly the types of ideas we should be asking the devs to consider. Thanks for this OP.
  4. Peone Lorekeeper

    I agree with these two;

    -Open with Kunark (better zones - there simply isn't enough room for the surge of players because vanilla's mob population is extremely poorly distributed, this has been proven four times over now)

    -Three month time lock worked fine, but voting turned out to be redundant and destructive (the one time a vote failed, the population was decimated. Without voting, there's no disappointment - everyone knows what the pace will be and what to plan for)

    When GoD failed on Fippy, it was decimated also. Didn't realize the same thing happened on Vulak.

    But I am adamantly against instancing zones in classic.
    Ferry-Tunare likes this.
  5. Frenzic Augur

    -Open with Kunark (better zones - there simply isn't enough room for the surge of players because vanilla's mob population is extremely poorly distributed, this has been proven four times over now)

    Hate this idea. Ideally we would have Classic last a shorter time than the others, but I don't want Kunark on release. To me that is destroying a large part of the progression. I enjoy the old world and it's constricted areas. I enjoy having level 50 as a level cap. I don't want Classic items to be obsolete before we even obtain them. A better idea is to increase the spawn rate in all zones and add raid instancing as an option.

    -Reduce 26 minute zone spawn timers to ~15 or less, in effect making zones "denser" and counteracting the general increase in class power / player density

    Sure I could get on board with this. Faster spawns would help more groups claim the same content.

    -Allow TSS OOC regen because holy **** 20+ minute med times are dead, dead, dead and should stay that way. (plus its a class balance issue - think of the game as being tuned for TSS and work from there)

    Hate this idea. Enchanters have a role and I don't want to see it diminished. OOC regen has it's purpose, but in the early game let people get clarity and sit and socialize like it's supposed to be.

    -Double the HP of pre-Velious raid bosses plus if possible some further tuning to make them relevant and interesting again (easier than de-tuning nearly two decades of class balance changes just to do undo it all later.)

    Indifferent. I'd prefer just the instancing idea that's been tossed around this week.

    -Find a better way to throttle XP than the awful xp cap you tried last time

    Yes please! The exp cap was terrible and punished soloers and groups that could kill yellow/red cons. Please find a better way to reduce exp intake or make levels bigger.

    -Instanced copies of all raid zones with no drop loot. Remove open-world versions because the CS staff to handle them no longer exists

    Obviously I love the instanced raid idea. I don't think they should remove the open world versions though. Leave them in for the guilds that want to compete for them but let it be known that it is 100% FFA. Gms will not get involved so it's straight dps race on everything.

    -Whether or not to leave general zone pop in instanced versions untouched as a leveling alternative (over-population solution) is up for debate (no respawn?) but I'd lean towards no

    Definitely no. I don't want the entire game to be instanced, just the highly contested and volatile raid content. Guilds want to be able to experience the game as it's current without dealing with the and rampant hacking. Let them have their instanced versions at a greatly reduced frequency.

    -Three month time lock worked fine, but voting turned out to be redundant and destructive (the one time a vote failed, the population was decimated. Without voting, there's no disappointment - everyone knows what the pace will be and what to plan for)

    Absolutely agree. Voting is a good idea in theory but turned out to be terrible in practice. Do straight time unlocks based on the expansion. IE each expansion can be different.

    -You'll want to take the hell out of the hellish key camps for VP, VT and epics etc because you are going to have an unprecedented number of people trying to do them at once if you do the above. (multiple drops?)

    Maybe but I see this as being more difficult than adding instancing of raid mobs.

    -You may as well activate mercs with Luclin because that's when the majority of "groups" out in the world are boxers or frustrated people trying to find the one open spot in a boxed group. AA essentially destroys social grouping. We've seen it over and over. People try to blame instancing for something that actually occurs much earlier with the introduction of the endless XP grind.

    Get out of town sir! This is just a ridiculous notion. Groups were still plentiful and enjoyable even through dodh when I was playing. PS Mercs are terrible.

    And if this destroys your precious nostalgia, consider this: How much nostalgia do you get from two guys killing the first Nagafen on the server? How about one shaman solo breaking fear? Trakanon dying in 7 seconds?

    The people who are against instancing of raid spawns are in two camps IMO.

    There is the classic enthusiast who really has no idea what happened on Fippy. If they saw what happened they would feel differently I'm sure. This was not competition, it was boring and automated.

    The other camp is the hardcore raider who doesn't want to share because it subtracts from their dominance. Some players enjoy being better than others and enjoy taking content away from others. To these people being number 1 is not about completing content first or having the best gear, it's about sheer dominance and preventing others from truly competing.
    Merry likes this.
  6. Hendar Augur

    I'm happy to wait until Mercs come into era before I see them.

    Depending on how they would do raid instances, having other mobs in the instance may be needed. Clearing to the encounter, and risking backspawn are important mechanics.
  7. Peone Lorekeeper

    Don't rewrite history. That was the very reason it was blocked, to get back at the raiding guilds. If you were there and was reading general chat, you know this.
  8. vardune Augur

    Yup it was absolutely locked to piss off the main guilds.
  9. Stehlik Augur


    I remember it quite differently.

    Some of what you put did actually happen. But your reasoning is faulty.

    The no vote happened the first time because Citizen was locking down mobs in the then current era and preventing other raid guilds from progressing. So those other raid guilds, along with the casual population that didn't want to progress, all voted no in protest of the behavior.

    Citizen responded, like you mentioned, with emphatic profanity and locking down old world mobs to try to "get back at" all the people that voted no.

    However, this strategy backfired on them again, and everyone voted no a second time to purely spite them and say that their behavior wouldn't be tolerated.

    After the second no vote, I heard quite a few raiders quit. Not the casuals. Citizen then decided to help the other raid guilds to progress instead of rooster blocking them in an attempt to gain some good will (and hopefully some yes votes on the next poll).

    This worked and the next expansion was unlocked.
  10. Actonup Elder

    Not at all.
  11. Silentchaos Augur

    I don't like all of the OPs suggestions (although none of them would be a deal breaker for me) but the last paragraph was very poignant.
  12. Xanadas Augur


    So lets recap:
    - Make mobs spawn faster (essentially making more experience available)
    - Bring back OOC regen
    - Bring in mercs
    - Make key camps easier
    - Remove competition for raid targets

    He already has all this - it's called playing on any of the current live servers.

    I'll pass on these changes.
  13. vardune Augur

    Yes i agree just go play live and dont post on the progression server forum any more.
  14. Vlerg Augur

    You can't be serious...

    those change arn't to make the game easier. it's to make it less toxic.

    when you have 25+ people sitting around a PH waiting to KS eachother for a key, when raid target get 1 group'd yet there's a hundred player waiting for them, when 2 group can keep all of solusek B down... that's not '' nostalgic fun''...

    One of the good point about classic EQ was the strong sense of community, right? let's try to help that sense of community a little bit... not encouraging everyone to be total jerk training/ KS'ing / eachother would be a nice start.

    I also like how you left out the part where he asked to make raid mob harder... you know... so 4 mages together can't kill nagafen...
  15. Zama New Member

    Trak never lived longer then 1 second on fippy.

    That being said, its probally better that way, as everyone complaining about "toxicitiy" now never actually played these expansions back when they were current. The sense of accomplishment for getting these things done is what made them worthwhile, if people wanted to ezmode the game more, they would just play on regular servers.

    The way that this message comes off is that you want ease of content, and the ability to gear up multiple toons quickly, opposed to requiring people to work together as well as provide some kind of balance of classes.
  16. Labatttttttttttttttt Journeyman

    There is no challenge to progression servers. It is literally just sitting on spawns waiting to blow up a target until instancing. Mitigation both for NPC's and PC's is so skewed now that everything is trivial until later expansions. Nothing will be changed for this server and I doubt EQ has the development power/time and resources to dedicate into making this a land for everyone to enjoy.

    Reality will set in for you guys just like it did on Fippy and Combine. People ask and ask and ask for these servers and in the end it is 1 guild destroying virtually everything while others cry and beg for changes/quit due to lack of raid targets. People don't want to share, people don't care how others feel, and people only want to do things that benefit them.

    We all want old EQ back but it will never happen. Enjoy the memories. Raiding Thanksgiving night just to make sure another guild didn't get a target was a blast.
    Hendar likes this.
  17. Hendar Augur


    I certainly do not want easier content. Really. I like a challenge, and beating it feels good. I played those zones at release, and I don't remember things being that bad. Reputation on the server counted -- we didn't have the "witness protection pack" in the marketplace. Being a troublemaker tended to have long-term consequences. At least that is the way I recall things. It has been a long time.

    The issue today, at least for me, is that the experience on Fippy wasn't even in the same star system as during EQ's original run (ie not even close). Vlerg's post sums things up pretty well. Now add in 30+ hour activities with hosiery and raid mobs dying before they've rendered into the world, and we just can't pretend that is a "classic" experience. We had a chance to participate before. It wasn't perfect, but guilds seemed to work together much better back then than they did on Fippy.

    For one thing, GMs used to be on the servers, and aren't anymore. Pull some stunt and you might have found yourself suspended. During Fippy's run there were people openly using 3rd party tools, and YouTube videos of them posted. Nothing was done (that I could see).