Game is headed into wrong direction

Keep in mind. Internal Testers don’t need to. Be devs. I can be other staff in the EQ team or. Even staff from other teams. And to test ant group content all they need is 6 for a full group.

Also there is beta for a reason and they take specific feedback on how tuned content is.

absolutely do.

I really have a hard time following their beta and test server logic. The experience we have had as of late shows they will micro view content and just hope it works with other similar content.

Take a running count of ToV mercs and partisans. Reclamation Officer Borrin went missing in EW just before launch. Surprise, he wasnt there at launch and then we didnt get him until their first patch. No hotfix, no "Lets go manually spawn him"...He just wasnt there.

Then we go to Test. They tried to rename mobs because in beta they just had all named PH and non named trash spawning in the same area with the same names. You couldnt tell one from the other. So they release a patch and make changes, They also fubar'd name spawn rates. With this change we got the variations between the named PH and the trash, but then we lost quest mobs.
~ Then they took a month to fix it. An entire month where we could not complete Great Divide tasks because the mobs were just not spawning.

They then release a fix. The fix spawns the mobs in the dark depths of the caves where you have to be on your game and running high DPS to survive.

A month later they put them outside of the caves, but oh crap. They only spawn on resets or 1 every Ungodly number of hours. (No Joke, Sprites took me 9 hours to complete, running mass DPS and killing everything that moved.)

Then we get a fix. It was a good fix.

THEN we get to CoV pre-release and beta. They update the Dervish graphics. The sprites still spawn but they no longer count for progression kills.
Any guess on how long that took to fix? A month. Another month where progression could not properly be completed, because TEST server content was not tested before being pushed to live.
So for Progression completion we had something like 4.5 to 5 months of intermittent inability to complete due to poor testing of content and inability or refusal to create a hotfix.


Now we are dealing with TL issues and Riposte issues because the content was rushed in on a patch, not properly tested and broken, and even when feedback was provided before release, they still decided to push it.
I CANT WAIT for expansion release. I think we will get a taste of direction change when we have massive server downtime due to deployment issues, and we are back to the early 2000s, in chat tabs complaining about why the servers are down for the umpteenth time in a few hours.

The first raid really doesn't count. It takes longer to run to the raid giver than to beat it.

You are correct. Thanks for the info!

So far here are the list of actual developers excluding community managers:

Dev Group 1

Absor
Klanderso
TrueNorth
Meeko
Ratalthor (also an EQ2 dev)

Dev Group 2

Ngreth
Niente
Zieri

Since I play TLP servers, I'm not up on EQ live raiding but I would assume that 8 players is not enough to test raid content. I'm wondering if Darkpaw is using people from the QA dept. to bolster their raiding ranks or if they are using actual raiding guilds to test/tune their content?

There is definitely some truth to this but I think it is more complicated than just "player X sucks", there might be a tiny few of those that never got weeded out for whatever reason (they have a couple of close buddies who are abso-freaking-lutely awesome for example) but almost all players will have a bad day at some point, a bunch have them a bit more often and a few have them often but they make up for it in other ways.
The best raiders are generally not the genuinely-talented players anyway, it's the highly consistent ones you want more of, very few are both.

What always puzzled me was the view that raiding guilds cannot be family-friendly, most of those I was in ran a fairly tight ship and scheduled raids on the same days mainly leaving the rest of the week free for managing your out of game time pretty easy.

Why would developers be testing? That's what QA Engineers do. I hope they have some.

The same QA department that fails it's job and purpose every single patch? It's all making sense now.

I checked the "Credits" for CoV at server select, and couldn't find anything about testing, but the "QA"-section listed 3 people for CoV.

It also seems like they have outsourced some of the work to https://lakshyadigital.com/ I guess they are responsible for some of the assets?

As a game designer, I'm always testing the content that I have created. However, I make single player games and not MMOs like EQ, so I can make make a build and test what I've created within a few minutes. That way I can see if what I created works and/or fine tune the content without waiting a day to hear back from QA testers. That said, even in single player games, you really need a robust QA department.

MMO testing is exponentially more complex as you are evaluating the synergy between various classes. I'm sure devs who are creating these expansion zones are doing hands on testing. However, I don't see that they have enough devs to do company raid unless they are inviting non-developer Darkpaw employees.

Maybe a dev could post here and briefly explain the testing process? I think that would give us all a better appreciation of the work they are doing.

My impression is that the raids are "more or less" untested until early closed beta, where they invite actual raid-guilds to test them.

I seem to recall rumors that the 32bit limit for HP was discovered in early beta-test of the cactus raid in RoS,(the boss only had a few 100 hps due to integer overflow).

The fact that this was not discovered before involving raidguilds in beta-testing, suggests that it was completely untested beforehand.

From everything I have seen over the years, I think you nailed it. Other MMO studios do exhaustive testing over a period of many months for their expansions and they announce expansions at least a year ahead of time. This gives their marketing and sales dept. a full year to promote the expansion. They also fly out journalists to their HQ and give them a sneak peek of the expansion.

It's been years since I've seen an web ad for EverQuest. Do they even spend a dime on marketing?

DarkPaw does things differently and announces an expansion two months before it goes live and then volunteer players test the expansion for them. After the expac goes live, the expansion devs tweak the content based on player feedback for the next few months. Then they start working on the next expansion. Rinse and repeat.

I'm just glad that Darkpaw is not developing rockets for NASA.

They sure are.

Most of the art you see in video games is outsourced from Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and other places. American artists are too expensive. You don't have to pay contractors benefits either. It really makes a lot of sense from a financial perspective.

I'd believe this but,
out of those 15, 10 of them beat the very last raid at the sametime, 2021-03-08 the 09 is because it was west coast/very late night beaten.
3 months in and 10 guilds beat the very last raid at the sametime AKA ASAP can = TOO EASY
meanwhile casuals/nonraiders mains still struggling with group content = TOO HARD

Meaining
Raids entry =

everyone beats, easy
Group content entry = Has to be toned down, wait for the toning down patch

Meanwhile
Raiders = Raids are officially beaten by TEN raid guilds
Casuals = Still waiting on them to tone down group content that raiders even struggle with
"game is headed into the wrong direction"


You telling me all 10 of those guilds are equally as good as the best of the best of them? Thats a lot of guilds if you ask me, sounds too easy. The other 5, probably couldn't get 50 warm bodies day after day, which hindered them beating it most likely.


If any content needs to be toned down, it should be raids, not group content.
Raid content = TOO EASY
Group content = TOO DIFFICULT
"game is headed into wrong direction"

Beta content? Is it tested by casuals/groupers for the group/casual content, or is it being tested by people in raid guilds?
What gear are the people testing it wearing?
T1 group gear CoV?

If you say that every expansion will be later "catchup content", T1 group geared CoV 115s should be able to handle the entry parts of the new expansion
because as a returner/catchup player myself, I go into the next expansion with T1 of the previous expansion gear.

Let me say this
Back in the days EQ was known for
How difficult the raids are
Not saying it should be that way again, but how about at least you let the best of the best beat it a week or more before the rest of the 10 beat it too, rather than all 10 that can fill 50 warm bodies day after day beat it at sametime
Nowdays, EQ isn't even mentioned, but if it is, its just known for "still kicking eh?" and people go onto mention stuff not in EQ anymore like corpse runs, trains, etc.

People only talk about good ol days, because it was that timeframe, everything was good back in 2002, it was the good life. They aint talking that because they dying for a progression server. There have been so many progression servers, you pretty much milked it already since Mangler.

I am in a guild that has not beaten CoV. We hit the hard DPS check for defenders and crusaders so its not as easy as just getting "50 warm bodies".

Just looking up some stats about the top 10 / 15 guilds that happen to register their progress does not paint a complete picture.

If you aren't raiding please just stop commenting about raiding ... you don't know what you are talking about.

With the exception of a few "capstone" quests there are people who can solo the group game. That means the group game is way too easy.

Right?

I also expect you've forgotten what it was like in the "good old days of EQ".

Walk into the wrong zone ... get killed in one hit. then spend hours trying to get a corpse recovered.



The same is true now.

You can't expect to just solo/molo every quest, until you have truly mastered the game. Even then some things will require you to have to make friends and do things as a group.

You know, it is not only raid-guilds who are invited to help with difficulty tuning, YOU are invited too! Everyone who has preordered is invited...so Preorder and jump in!

Right now you are just complaining to us players, while you COULD log into beta and talk to the devs, while they are actively asking for feedback. Beta is open to you!
Stop complaining and DO some beta-testing instead! Betabuff to 115 and equip some free CoV tier1 gear and try the new zones out....(I assume you still get free gear when betabuffing?)

If you really care about tuning for casual players, then you have an excellent opportunity right now!

Otherwise we will just assume you are too lazy, and only want to complain...

Some folks might be able to skip directly to CoV. A lot would depend on what class they play, and how well they play it. I certainly wouldn't recommend a returning player jump straight into doing the hardest group content there is with just T1 CoV.

I have a friend who recently returned. He was 110 and had maybe 125k hp/mana. Ran him through the ToV quests, got him setup with ToV T1 gear and he's been hanging out in GD working on levels and AA's with no problem.

Maybe instead of saying "group content is too hard", try providing some context like what class/level you are and what specifically you are trying to do.

Do we have to go through this every Beta? The devs want feedback yes, but they largely just stick to their current iteration and see how it plays out with the current population. The Beta isn't even a Beta test, it's way too close to release to even be effective.

Why should anyone waste their time in a "Beta"?

You don't understand how this is set up and should probably stop trying to act like you do.

CoV missions were tough for ToV raid geared folks at release. They fixed the over tuning issue in short order. The quote you took is no longer valid after the tuning issue. So it's no longer relevant and cannot be used in your argument. Now...3 months down the road when the raids were being downed, if those ToV raid geared folks were having issues with group content at that point, then you could argue that group content is too hard. But as soon as those missions were tuned correctly, group content was completed nearly instantly.

CoV raids were beaten in 3 months (TLP raids are beaten within the week they're released...let's not get ahead of ourselves on what is "easy").

Incorrect again. Raiders were still needing to complete the missions to help them gear up for raids. It's not like they just surpassed the missions and ignored them and went straight into Raids with subpar gear. EVERYONE waited on the tuning patch to fix the problem, then EVERYONE went about completing group content.

Beta content is tested by a lot of people. Casuals, group oriented folks, raiders, and I'm sure some top end people inside the company itself.

As far as the catch-up content: that is exactly how it works. One minor blip with a few things being overtuned and fixed in decently quick manner does not condemn the entire game and every aspect of it like you're making it out to be.

They made a small mistake in their tuning. It was noted, it was patched, it was fixed, the world moved on. You need to do more research or at least take things in proper context. Your quote and argument of "group content is too hard because of [insert outdated thread] is no longer relevant