As already was pointed out to you, people like myself were hunting with both non-raiders and groupers alike on the challenging content. In my case for 14 hours a day, every day, not with the same 5 people over and over either. Back when there were a plethora of fun things to go and do. There had to be a myriad of players interested for me to go and do that, no? What part don't you understand. There's no argument to be made for making no hard group content whatsoever, to let that well dry up. You want FM, dains and gribbles? go play in there, we won't stop you. In the next expansion, you'll have people to hunt with in the easy xp zone/s too, regardless of whether they put in a new challenging zone or not.
What gave you that idea, now? Are we being a bit offensive, trying to put someone with a differing opinion on the defensive? But since you ask: I want zones that offer "camps" (somewhere where i can set up my campfire, call in latecoming friends etc) in which i can have simply fun with people AND my ALTs. Zones that are diversified, well thought/laid out that are simply fun to play in. Zones where PATHING is not erratic... Yes i'd much rather have them spend a little extra time on careful testing+refining of pathing issues rather than make a zone for "the elite" that isn't visited anyways after the initial rush- And it seems i am far from being alone there. Now granted: MY "fun" might differ quite a bit from what you call fun. I've done FM, i have done Dains and i have done Gribbles. I have done a lot of Gribbles, indeed, because guildies took me there to "catch up" when i returned after 8years of EQ-abstinence. And Dains i liked for the simple facts that these monster-missions were a) giving me a feeling of playing the game from the other side and b) good "equalizers" - because they exactly negated the "gap" between raiders and groupers. Exactly why people like you moaned about them. You couldn't show off there, relying on your gear - you had to actually learn the monster's abilities and surroundings. And suddenly you had to compete with otherwise "inferior" groupers that beat you in skill.. oioioi! - a level playfield? Of course that was BAD, as it got to the ego's of people like you. All those you mentioned (and more) were nice and fun - for as long as it took me to know the mobs, their pathing and such inside and out. (and that wasn't too long) But contrary to many, i simply did not do them "too often" to get sick of them. When i had the bare necessities i needed for raiding, I ended up finishing my "katchup-game" and getting the "nice-to-have's" elsewhere, my way. So now i can go back to help to help the x-th app through his EoK or CotF or whatever progression while STILL having fun doing so. You see, i do not care as much WHERE i spend my time at or what type/level/difficulty the mobs are that i am fighting. To ME all that matters is with WHOM i play. I know my "worth" and what i can tank. I am part of a great bunch of people. That's more than enough. Contrary to you i need not show off. The extra challenge? That's what raids are there for. THAT is your "zone" where you need to "group" with other raiders to be successful, where the likes of you get your kicks - i get mine on route66. Not SEclusion through a "zone for the hardcore raiders" is what's needed - INclusion is!
You're making the relying on gear argument to the wrong guy. I was in group gear hunting every day for years, and even wearing such in an uneven playing field, you could impress raiders by driving well. I used to raid as well, but just not loot any of the gear. MM's have some wiggle room, though some more than others. In the OMM missions you could get by solo as an enchanter, which average joe doesn't do. I enjoy showing off, but that's also beside the point, there's nothing stopping me from doing that in the easy zones, or on poorly geared alts by driving them aggressively. One day during SoF, my gear needed petitioning and it took a week to get it back. I logged in each day and chain-pulled to random groups at camps that didn't contain mobs that could kill me with a single nuke. Showing off, and looking for a challenge are separate things -- though plenty of room for overlap! If you don't care what level/type/difficulty the content is, then why do you take issue with it? And if the answer is: 'it's not easy enough to have everyone want to play there' ..You do realize that this works both ways? Players not going to difficult zones because too hard, players not playing at all because not hard enough. Everything softer and easier is not as all-inclusive as you may think, the game has had a punishing reputation for most of its lifespan, and to some that's a drawcard.
Since PoP there's been some really good cycling of difficulty and balancing of zone content, but I agree now, that there could be room for some seriously tough content. I was hopeful that the Old Seb revamp would be a step-up, but it wasn't too hard.
Regardless on how much you group/raid or with whom, I see no FUN challenges atm. Doing hunters in greyconzones while afk or endless Artisan skill ups is not my idea of fun. Watching Drogbaa die is kinda fun though, so I do agree we need a new PoW.
What was the tank? Was it a grouper in purely group gear doing PoWar when it was current? Please give more of your anecdotal evidence. Healers or DPS, gear is not a huge deal unless you're raiding and dealing with AE damage. A grouper healer/DPS can do great with a raid tank, it'll just take a little longer to kill stuff and maybe a little more medding for mana recovery. Group tank in pure group gear (there are "groupers" with raid gear) is a whole other tank compared to a raid tank. Where you can have a shaman healing a raid tank in a lackadaisical manner in boredom and thinking it's easy, with a group tank a cleric will have to constantly spam heal all the fastest heals to keep the tank from dropping. That is where I am saying it is not the same thing because of gear. Design GROUP game for the average GROUP tank. Not talking about mechanics to keep you on your toes and paying attention, talking about incoming damage on the tank. A tank should be able to handle it without a cleric having spam heal on trash. As already pointed out, I went from a very average tank where I had multiple healers spam healing to keep my tank from dropping, to the absolute best group gear a tank can get plus every single best in slot EoK rare and every single best AC aug you can get short of near current raiding and now a ranger can heal my tank through trash. My tank is an "above average" tank, but still much weaker than an actual raid tank, with raid gear in all slots and not just EoK rare slots and the difference this has made, not just for my tank, but the whole group is night and day. An average geared cleric, caster or melee is still about as useful as raid geared clerics, casters or melee for the group game. An averaged geared tank is a show compared to a raid tank and the group will struggle much more in group content.
I played through Plane of War with 4 toons (raid geared CLR/BRD and group geared SHD/MAG), it is by far my favorite zone. I remember getting though the wall the first time, and when the Judicator popped on me, I was so scared I was going to wipe, my palms were sweating. I remember pulling together anyone I could find to kill Kijarl and our entire group exploding, and trying to figure out how to kill Inasch, which I have seen completely wipe two different raid teams. I remember beating the raid for the first time, after wiping 50 times. And fighting the Grandmaster, which is one of the most clever events in the game. The only disappointing thing about PoWar is that its difficulty deterred a lot of people who never got to experience a large portion of it. PoWar certainly is accessible to group geared tanks (as long as you have a real healer), and many of the difficult parts come down to being patient, and being able to invest a lot of time into completing the quests. It also really requires players to have a decent support structure - easy for me to say by boxing my own group, but difficult (if not impossible) for people who are on their own. There were many occasions where I logged out in frustration because of this zone, but the high points were exhilarating. As for difficult content in EQ's future, I find things like the Artisan's Prize, the 350 TS achievements, and the new hunter achievements are all excellent because they are accessible to everyone (even lower level players) whether you have a group or not, they require a lot of time, thought, and effort to accomplish, they are fun, and they have valuable rewards (except hunter, which is super fun EQ Pokemon collecting).
What exactly is difficult about any of those things? The 350 tradeskills is about the biggest piece of bs I've seen in this game. The only challenge is keeping your sanity unless you're ocd. It was nothing more than a low cost way to implement a gigantic time sink. Notice they had to drastically increase the reward to even get more than a few people to do it? Hunter is far from challenging. Yet again, they had to tie a reward to it to entice people. What's fun a out camping trivial named (sometimes for 20+ hours if you have bad luck with the rng) that drops nothing you need/want? Time sinks do not equal challenge. They're just things you can do while half paying attention and mashing a button. I want to actually have to be engaged and paying attention. Have actual risk. Rely on everyone in the group not screwing up or being afk. To actually wipe and have to figure out a new plan of attack. I want an actual bloodrush, not a snooze fest. As it is, my fully group geared sk box can easily handle 3 mobs in lab/droga/chardok while the healer merc is dead (sometimes I screw up my aggro macro while watching TV). What a joke.
