I know I'm not the first person to suggest this, or probably not even the 50th person. However, with the recent changes, and some people feeling a bit of a shift in their desire to continue to play and work towards something (even if it's PL'ing another toon to 100), I thought I'd bring this to the forefront once again. You may agree, or disagree, and both are fine! lets hear what you have to say. The way I see it: Pros: 1. Something new for players to aspire towards 2. Something new for the players to get excited about 3. Something new that is not easily attainable that will have some longevity to it 4. Breathe some life into the raiding guilds, and encourage non-raiding guilds to enter that realm with new desire to do end-game raids i) create new raid content opportunities to support the lore of new epics 5. Give players a new way to show off Cons: 1. development time for new epics 2. creating something for a smaller subset of players (until the players and guilds grow into the new content) Anyone agree? disagree?
That's precisely why epics 3.0 will never happen. An item that will lock up a gear slot for a very long time (necros can tell you just how long). The devs said No repeatedly, naming this as the main reason.
Right now I just want the rest of CotF, anything which takes away from them completing that gets a no from me.
They aren't particularly good at understanding how things will affect the future. I am unsure they are capable of coming up with new epics that are good enough that people will be interested enough, and willing to put in all the work to get them while still making sure they aren't something classes will be tied to or balanced around for the next 10 years again. It's always a bit of a guessing game as no one can tell the future, but some things are obvious problems that are just ignored.
They did - but I wouldn't call it an epic (although some people called them that in short) it was a class-specific weapon rewarded for completing an achievement set .. only a few remain current through CoTF weapon upgrades but for RoF they were statistically the best group/raid weapons you could attain at the time. I don't know how realistic it would be to implement so many different quest lines, most of which would probably take place in instanced zones unless they were to isolate the quests from the current expansion and go the triggered event/mob route in older zones like Epic 1.5/2.0 .. I think for longevity's sake i'd prefer another long quest arc but perhaps an aug i.e hand/face augs in TBS/SOF.. logistically it would be easy to implement and you wouldn't need to create 16 unique quest arc's to do so..
It's funny. That was one of the things I loved about EQ. Having items last multiple expansions because they were just that awesome. It made the feeling of getting that item very rewarding. I can't say the last time I had that happen on a normal PC server. Probably UF when I won my guilds first TFC head for my 8th Shawl. Before that though... Probably epic 2.0
Well i am pretty sure for efficiency sake they wont be adding any new unique quest lines like epics. but with what they have now in the achievement system they could continue to add nice items to those rewards each year for relatively no additional work from what is already being constructed. Each class weapons and such will be the same quest so yea it will be a little less unique but the reward for doing all of them is there. I am thinking they will get more bang for the buck if they do something like that. I just dont see them pouring a bunch of time into long quest lines for each class anymore.
No, it's not going to happen 1-RoF gave us weapon pretty close to what a 3.0 would be. 2- Designing a single epic require a tremendous amount of work. the EQ 1 staff no longer have such a work force. 3- It won't be easily attainable by the casual-box group. People may not remember how hard and tedious it was to obtain a epic 1.0 during Kunark days, how hard it was to obtain the 2.0 during OoW days... little hint; if you weren't in a high-end raiding guild, you didn't get your epic. Can't you hear the QQs from the 95% of the population, should the new epic require more than a 3 player- 3 merc group? ( aka, the complaints about some of the heroics), a mob on the level of the undefeated blade? a mission on the level of sepulcher 2? ( can't you hear the complains from 95% of the population should the epic 3.0 be easy enough for that same 95% to obtain it?) 4- some of the epic 2.0 became monsters devs could barely contain ( SK epic ), other became a requirement and balanced an entire class around it ( necro, shaman melee support), other became nothing more than an ornamentation ( wizard, druid). The unforseen repercussions of epic 2.0 makes it highly unlikely devs will try to be that creative in one go, and include such unique powers on a weapon.
I dont even know if i would say epics lasted more than 1-2 expantions. I know people were getting there 2.0s and upgrading them in DoN/DoDH. outside of a few classes i guess they were upgraded before TSS. However i think most classes still use the clickies.
items lasting more than 1 expansion? sure. lasting from omen of war to CoTF like necro? no, never. it's also not the weapon themselves but what make it epic ( the effect.. proc.. clicky). Do you really like how one of the melee dps'er main burn is a 7 years old shaman clicky? or how SKs epic clicky has been such a big deal, the class has been balanced around it for 7 years?
I cringe a bit saying this, because I'm sure people will jump all over this - but perhaps this could be done outside the preconceptions people have around epics, specifically around the difficulty. Why couldn't there be a new set of epics geared towards a larger proportion of the player base? More heroic mission/group-based activities, and not making it *insanely* hard to do? I still think there's value in making it difficult, but perhaps not top-1%er-difficult.
I totally loved both epic 1.0 and 2.0. I think the ones for my class (wiz) were tuned right in terms of power and longevity. Yes, they occupied my primary slot for several years, making all other wiz weapons a waste of design time. But I still think that a couple years would be ok. However, I don't have any faith in the devs making 16 new epics without making mistakes of the necro, cleric or sk epic 2.0 proportions. Clicky effects that become mandatory to have, or even worse, items that become irreplaceable - the only thing epic about that is an epic design fail.
This is actually what I had in mind too. The 3.0 would have to be more along the lines of a long, long, LONG, 6 man group chain. Some parts solo of course. Make it about as powerful as a top tier raid weapon of the current expansion, and each new expansion add more quests to the line to keep it in the same power bracket if you choose to do them. I'm talking several weeks or months of investment time here. Casual people are going to need a lot more out of EQ now that the first 4000+ AA's have been trivialized imo. The casual group players are happy, raiders are happy because it has no power creep and is comparable to raid weapons not better or required, plus they could just run through the quests quite easily with their raid geared groups if they decide they want it. The reason for it being 1 groupable is simple. The amount of casual players vs raiders has completely reversed since OoW days. I would say for every hardcore raider you are looking at a full group of casual players. To change the Epic 3.0 to fit this new player dynamic in game only makes sense, and wouldn't tick off a majority of the player base.
Then instead of a slot, make it a combination of AA's similar to the LDON progression ones. You get a passive AA, then an active AA. Both unique to completing the Epic 3.0 quest. You also get an ornament to change the look of your weapon, etc. There are methods around what you mention and again, this is a copout to not do it. Dev time, sure, I can buy that. What you mention, no.
The issue is dev time nothing more. You know how long Epic Request took ? Hint it was actually started during the HOT beta. They simply do not have the resources to make a quest for every class and have them all be unique.
ya. I agree - I don't think that saying "they don't have the dev team resources to do it" - it's just about whether or not the want/choose to put the resources they have to doing it.
