GoD-Mode TLP

Well what it would need is a very large amount of feedback from more than a handful of players, or for the Dev team to take a look at it & think it has merit enough to discuss it & possibly even try it.

Of course everyone hopes their idea will get used, I'm realistic enough to know that even if my idea is a great one it may not be used, the dev team may see a different path than I do. So it's in the devs hands but also in the hands of the players if enough of them like the idea.

I missed out TBS so since it was pointed out here's the expansion run times with it added in:

Level 10 - Week 01 *Classic XP*
Level 20 - Week 02
Level 30 - Week 03
Level 40 - Week 04
Level 50 - Week 05 *Progression XP*
Level 50 - Week 06
Level 50 - Week 07
Level 50 - Week 08
Level 60 - 12 Weeks
Level 65 - 12 Weeks *GoD XP*
OoW - 08 Weeks
DoN - 04 Weeks
DoDH - 08 Weeks
PoR - 04 Weeks
TSS - 12 Weeks *Live XP*
TBS - 8 Weeks
SoF - 12 Weeks
SoD - 10 Weeks
UF - 10 Weeks
HoT - 10 Weeks
VoA - 12 Weeks
RoF - 12 Weeks
CoTF - 08 Weeks
TDS - 12 Weeks
TBM - 08 Weeks
EoK - 12 Weeks
RoS - 12 Weeks
TBL - 12 Weeks
ToV - 12 Weeks

Extend content longer. I am 400% casual and need longer to consume all the content.

Sounds neat but I'd prefer it to stop unlocking after the release of OoW :-D

Thanks for the Feedback, blunt truth is that accelerated unlock TLP (90% + of them so far) really are not casual-friendly.
Maybe you would fare better on one with a much longer unlock schedule like Ragefire has but I think you are far better catered to on a live server as a casual once you have caught up to live but it really depends on the guild members you have, and what kind of casual you are.

A casual who can only play 2 days a week but plays those same two days week in & week out is going to have a much easier time staying relevant than a casual who plays a few random days a month or a seasonal player who only plays in the winter.

This server is not catered to casuals, I'm not a casual, the vast majority of the players I know are not casuals, feel free to create your own TLP idea though as many do, I don't think there are many casuals playing EQ on TLP at all & if they are it's maybe only early on so you may find you are in a very small pool of players who want long unlocks on a TLP (there are a few advocates for that though, if you search this forum, like 60+ pages back, you may find prior TLP ideas better suited to you).

Thanks for the feedback, there is Agnarr which is PoP-locked & while that started well it has lost a lot of players now & only has a small hardcore following remaining, it's still active though.
I am not a fan of locking servers at a particular expansion myself so I would not want this server to be locked at all, I feel locked servers have a much shorter lifespan even if they may retain a few hardcore fans of the lock for a long time they don't interest me or most of the players I know.

If its not active, they need to open up the tutorial on Agnarr, give the server FV XP rates, unlock all keyed zones (VP/VT/Emp room) and remove truebox. Might get some folks just playing there out of curiosity occasionally.

Maybe.

What do you think about my server idea though?

I think the first 4 weeks should be level 50 cap, with only bosses that drop gear that is applicable for level 50, putting a cap at level 10, 20, 30 etc.. is foolish because there's no real content at those level brackets besides leveling.

weeks 4-24 unlock level 60, and open up Kunark/Velious/Luclin/PoP Tier 1-3 (up to tactics)/GoD (Leave Tipt locked so no Kod'taz access) and let folks grind AAs, try their hand at bosses during a level range where they're actually a challenge.

I'd start the level locks at 40 or 50. Add fv loot rules. Double loot, normal lockouts.

I'd make the maximum expansion time 6 weeks or 2 months, and completely merge don and por into their prior expansions (release at same time).

Group progression also gets a little tedious, I think a server that allows skipping that would be cool and make the game feel like less of a treadmill to be able to see all zones and raids.

All raids should unlock, the difficulty should be the limiting factor, not killing the previous tier N times as a stall tactic.

Is it so alien a concept to you that you feel you must be insulting about it? Foolish?

Plenty of content and raids are not the only content that matters, levelling as you have so reduced it yes, but LDoN's also once level 20.

Why rush to 50 on every single server?
The lock is there deliberately to offer a different start to all of the TLP that have already been made previously which did almost exactly the same thing at the start as you suggest, people always moan that TLP are so cookie-cutter then when a real alternative idea gets floated they just want to go back to the same old cookie cutter again.....

I also think it would be interesting to see how guilds try to tackle content that it above their level, who would be the first guild to break into GoD raiding before the 65 level cap etc.

Thank you for your feedback but there is little if any constructive criticism about my idea here, just floating what you want personally.

Maybe you have the basis of your own TLP ruleset in your mind & have only shared parts so I would suggest you think about your whole concept more deeply & put your ideas forwards in your own TLP ruleset suggestion. Your ideas lack consistency & really don't critique, relate to or advance my concept in any way at all as they are on a completely different footing about what you want from a TLP ruleset and this thread wasn't about your own unique ideas, start your own thread for that.

Forgive me, but did I ask what your TLP idea was?

Make your own thread & flesh out your ideas into a full ruleset of your own if you cannot think beyond your own ideas to constructively critique mine and just want to piggy back your own concept onto mine as you lack the confidence to post your own idea & see if it stands on its own two feet.

So you literally got feedback (Your idea - this is what I would change)
And you cry about it like I took a dump on your sidewalk chalk drawing of a cow.

But yeah, foolish, as in, done with out logical reasoning, unwise, not thought through.
If you think that's an insult your skin must be so thin its translucent.

Do you even grasp the concept of how to critique an idea?

Do you hate my ruleset, if so why? Outline objections and reasons for them
Do you like my ruleset if so why? Outline the parts you like about the idea and why you think this may be an idea worth trying.

You don't need to be an English major to understand what I was looking for, most of the others posters seemed to grasp it perfectly well.

All you did was give your own personal ideas of what a TLP ruleset would be, that's not even remotely the same thing as a critique of my idea, nothing you said was even remotely related to my idea & that's why I criticised your post.

You want to be snotty because I didn't like the way that you responded?
Yeah that's real mature.

You could have just actually asked what my logic or my reasoning was, instead of simply assuming I had none and labelling it foolish, you'd sound less arrogant & condescending that way.

I asked for constructive criticism, what you offered was anything but and then you get shirty when I point out what you did was not really helpful.

Tell you what, rather than putting in the effort to be a jerk here make the effort to go write up your own well thought out & well reasoned TLP ruleset post & I will give you a proper critique of it.

I never got this mentality and one of the major reasons why I never tried a TLP until now. It's amazing how little content is known and knowledge a majority of TLP flippers really know because they've only experienced a fraction of the game.

It's amazing that they don't even give the game a chance after PoP. Are they afraid of it being too difficult for them? Too complex? Older EQ content is fantastic, I truly love it, but the gameplay is very slow at times and overally simplistic. Most classes aren't more than a handful of buttons and staring at your screen. Take my primary class for instance. In TLP a warrior consists of kick/slam, taunt, and...provoke. Wow, that's so difficult! /sarcasm off.

In reality, much like many classes, the gameplay is so over-the-top simplistic and inherently flawed it's insane. Wars have no special "tank" abilities besides the innate 5% (DI roll minus 1) mitigation bonus. Wars have terrible aggro generation. Plus provoke isn't even original EQ. It's a bandaid patch fix for how f---ing terrible warriors were in one of their two primary roles in classic. True class balance didn't occur until many years after the initial release (PoP and beyond).

The game has changed so much and classes have gotten so advanced that limiting yourself to the first 4 expansions means you don't know about 95% of the content in EQ. The average TLP expert is no more than an EQ novice coming from a live perspective. Some of the best expansions are past PoP, especially for raiders. I'll take DPoB, Solteris, CoA, etc, over any end zone of any era not named PoTime. OOW and TSS are quite possibly two of the top five expansions ever made, both of which occur long after PoP.

Good post in general however....

I think he meant he did not think any server which started with expansions beyond pop open at the start would have interest, probably had Miragul's less than spectacular appeal*** in mind when he said that, I think he missed the point that the only way we will probably ever see Beastlord & Berserker available at the launch of a TLP is with GoD & below expansions being unlocked.

***Though in my opinion (and others) Miragul's appeal was probably hampered far more by the Truebox being enabled in such a late era in which most players are already needing or wanting to box than by it being a server that started in House of Thule.***

I would still play this. As long as I could start my iksar sk on day 1 and not day 91...

Yeah it's kind of lame that people cannot play Iksars, Frogloks, Drakkins, BSTs or Berserkers until much later on, sometimes later than most TLP populations start to dwindle (which is even more pathetic).

I like your idea for opening a TLP up to GoD. I don't like the initial level caps. Maybe the first one should be level 50. However, there will probably be guilds attempting many Kunark, Velious, and possibly even Luclin raids at level 50 so it may trivialize Classic from the get go minus some exp grind zones. It would be difficult to implement without people trying to completely skip some content.

I wonder if having Crescent Reach open at the start with the difference being that the zone from Moors to Highpass being closed and no PoK book until TSS opens. What do you think? Drakkins and anyone that wants to do that content open but no interaction with the rest of the world till appropriate

I think the devs may have multiple reasons for not enabling all of the current class/race combinations available to live servers on a TLP, some of it will be the places they come from, Vah Shir & Beastlords are from Luclin so having them in from the start would require either moving the full gamut of trainers so some other zone temporarily (such as Kerra Isle) or locking the zone outs from Shar Val & putting a portal in the city that would take players from there to one of the classic zones, Berserkers would need their trainers available from the start and those may be coded to only show up once Gates unlocks.

There are reasonable work around solution for most of the mechanical issues around classes/races but I think the devs may object to doing it on different grounds more tied to how they feel those class/race combinations should remain tied to their original era, a position I do not agree with if that was the case.

I think though that the TLP system as successful as it has been does need to explore a wider variety of options to avoid getting stale, I think there will always be a place for that classic start TLP which opens with only the classic race/classes & no expansion content but having some that break that oft repeated model and break it in creative ways that completely deviate from the pre-existing timeline of how TLP have worked before deserves exploring as it offers up a chance to have a very different experience.

My thinking behind the level locking was really rooted in the need to have a meaningful progression system even with a server that had Gates of Discord open from the start, but given that to do that you have to break from the restrictions placed on players when you have expansions being the "gate mechanism" to content the only real option beyond creating a bunch of zone locks is the level locking mechanic.

Sure we could open with no level locking between 1 & 50 but that's been done so many times before I wanted to have a ruleset that really brought something different to the table, level locks have certainly been suggested before but as with your suggestion they never went for anything that had locks below 50 & I thought that it would be very interesting to see how that would work.

Once I decided to go with level locks I also thought about some of the problems all the TLP thus far have had at launch, one of the biggest complaints is just how many players cram onto a freshly unlocked TLP like Ragefire, Phinigel & Aradune did.
By way of the level locking at 10 the first week you have a situation where there is a much reduced drive to hit 50 that first week, and instead it may create a wholly different dynamic amongst players so there is less of that fevered gold rush situation and it's a bit more relaxed.
Another aspect of that dynamic is the FOMO so many players suffer when they cannot get onto the server to play and no TLP thus far has been able to handle every player that wanted to play there in the first few days & weeks (or in Aradune's case months due to additional issues the prior TLP didn't have) and a big part of that FOMO is that rush to 50.
With a more staggered roll out of available levels from the weekly caps that FOMO is reduced as it stops the race to 50 happening the very moment the server unlocks and it gives a much broader number of players a chance to be there when everyone else hits 50 - creating a much lower amount of stratification of players & a more even playing field when being able to hit 50 finally happens.
The hope is that what this would enable is far more grouping than even a regular TLP that opens with the first 50 levels available would see, and a much lower number of players who streaked ahead (whether through a knowledge of the game & how to exploit it to race ahead or just a pre-arranged & organised group of regular players).
So once you get to the week that unlocks level 50 you have not just a thin section of the player base ready & raring to go you have a much, much larger portion of players all ready to hit 50 at around the same time, could be good for guilds too to have some real serious competition from a much larger number of players in other guilds if they are racing for server firsts etc.