I hit the same wall every time I come back

Let me start by saying that I love EQ. I've been playing off and on since release, initially playing up through PoP.

Today I was leveling a variety of characters, and I realized how much I dislike this game past about level 70. There is a great balance to the game, about level 60 or so. The length of time fights take, how hard mobs hit, how long your cast times are in relation to what you have to do to save a situation etc. From that point on, the game starts to deteriorate. Mobs start to hit harder, your cast times actually go up, and mobs start to have mountains of hit points. The end result of all this, is that the game becomes less and less enjoyable to play, the higher level I get.

I really really really dislike the game when it gets to the "blink and your dead" if the wrong person has agro stage. The entire feel of the game just goes out the window. Your ability to react to situations becomes worse as you level...that's incredibly unsatisfying.

Given how long it takes to level in EQ, the pace of the game, and the general attention you need to pay to it, that 50-70 range is fun. It's easy for me to log on, grind out a few levels, and not stress to much about what's going on. For me, if that path continued with a similar balance of effectiveness with mercs/skills/damage/ etc, I would happily level every class in the game to max. As it stands now, it just becomes more trouble than it's worth. If you're going to make me mindlessly grind hundreds of hours, at least make it more mindless. There's a relaxation and fun to leveling in the 60s, that completely vanishes from the game past that point.

I had a similar experience recently, when I talked a friend into coming back during the free heroic character period. After spending who knows how much time trying to sort out the god awful default UI and even attempt to start playing, he promptly got jacked repeatedly trying to do the first set of quests. Giving someone a level 85 character, and then sending them off to one the level 85 zones.....I can imagine your retention doing that is about 1% lol.

I've done hard mode in EQ, did it for years. Did the raiding, did the sleepless night corpse runs, been there done it. I just wish there was a leveling path in EQ that was a bit less insta gib post 80 or so. I just want to log on, be able to do blue to me content without the tank merc dying in 3 hits.

*Most* of this problem, could be solved by making the tank mercs not paper bags post level 70. When you have 2 healing mercs spamming spells on reactive, and your tank merc still gets owned doing blue to you content....you have a problem. This is a problem x1000000 given how much of that you need to do to level, it's just out of whack.

This isn't just about the difficulty, it's about the "feel" of the game. There is a great tempo to the game in the 60s, that starts to feel worse and worse as you level past that. I think it's probably the reason TLPs are so popular. There is a great balance and timing of skills/cast times vs mobs in pre level 70 content.

/shrug. Post level 85 especially, the game just becomes too much of a chore. I don't want to have to pay that much attention to something I have to sit and do for so long, it's one or the other. If you want to make fights blink and your dead, you better up the exp gains by about 1000%. I have no problem grinding, it can be fun and relaxing, but it just isn't to me at a certain point.

"I have no problem grinding, it can be fun and relaxing, but it just isn't to me at a certain point"

This is not the game for you.

How about sticking to content 5 or 10 levels below your own?

That typically slows down, and it might be the type of gameplay you seek?

Part of your problem right there....set one of them to balanced. When they are both on reactive they are following the same script.

What is your current level?

Have you done any Dead Hills Heroic Adventures? They were buffed a bit but are still the easiest route to level. The adventures are fairly simple but they can be daunting (long) if you don't have the right mix of agro management and DPS.

Best as some say 1 balanced and another reactive.

Another thing is to block certain healing things like promised and other ot healing.

That makes a difference.

Agreed! That's why I look forward to each new TLP and generally drop EQ in between. The game lost me after Omens and while I've played on every progression server since I have never been able to make it far into the latter expansions. Nothing wrong with that though since we have the option to stay in the past if we like it!

I mean there is 18 years of content, more than any other game in the world. There are just sooo many stinking options of different zones that you can hit at different levels that I dont understand how there is so much difficulty. You could literally level every single class from 1 to 105 and follow a different path through different zones and have a unique experience each time.
You TLP minded people that only want to play up until POP are only experiencing about 1/4 of the total content in this game. As soon as the game gets hard with Gates of discord, you bail.
This says more about the deficiencies of the players than of the game.

I completely agree with the OP here. This is my feeling as well. I love the game through the first 70 levels. After that it's no longer fun at all.

It's not about being hard! I did Gates/Omens back in the day and on many progression servers since. Probably six or so times through to OMM at this point. And the expansions after that actually got progressively easier.

It's more about everything being rinse and repeat. Gear and spell progression became standardized with nothing that quirky or unique anymore. What was once about the open world and dungeons became group and raid instances where you barely play with someone outside your circle.

I'm not even sure if 'new content' really adds to the 'game'. It's more a change of scenery than a change of game. One of my favorite games outside EQ is Texas Hold Em. It hasn't changed in my lifetime and I'll probably still enjoy it years from now.

That's not to say that there is anything wrong with people who love new content every year. Just that it's not for everyone. Some players like the world and play style of classic-ish EQ more than the latter versions. I'm glad we have the choice to do both these days!

You guys who don't get past Omens don't even know what a partisan quest is, or a mercenary quest, or a heroic adventure, or a hero mission (and the challengers within them). There is some excitement for random rares that are raid quality that can drop at any time in EoK too. Get out there and find out what the end game is about, they have added some pretty good content imo. I wish there was more of it, but it's pretty good. Now I realize there is a hump that you have to surpass, but part of that is because they had several expansions within the same levels, and sometimes you might be in the higher end of that lvl and not realize you don't have all the aa or gear that the content is set up for. Or you may not realize all of the aa's/combat skills that are available and might be needed to succeed in 80+ content.

This is the point of the OP. When you get to that level 80-90 area, the fun goes away because your stuck trying to grind out gear, an AA's etc.. before you can even begin to have fun again. This is where the game becomes a job, feels like work, instead of having fun. This is where lot's of people hit walls and drop off or quit.

Well you can skip the aa farming if you select the autogrant. Then it is only equipment + levels.

When they offered the free heroics, I redeemed it to see just how much of a difference it would make for me in performance.

My account was FTP at the time, my SK was 85, in Rustic, and had around 3500 AA unlocked and spent. Running the box crew through Gribble HAs up to this point was very spiky HP-wise on most of the trash and named would sometimes get in some lucky rounds and end in a wipe.

After going heroic, it boosted my AA to nearly twice what I had before. The content this time around was nearly trivial, including the named. Instead of having to focus so much on the tank, I could just position him and put all my focus on other things. Turning on autogrant gave me a couple thousand more up through to 95, and it has saved a lot of time.

What was important though, is during this time the "tempo" of the game, as you have said, felt much like any other camp I've been at since the beginning. It could have very well been at the fungoid caves in PoV, or ganking random trash in Riwwi hoping for a named.

Before all those extra AAs and such, yes, you will certainly feel it if you are underpowered doing things in many zones and instances.

Almost every class gets better after level 70. The TSS spell revamps make casting classes a lot more fun to play.

I suspect OP's issue is that Defiant gear and J1 mercs are... OP... pre-70 but there is no content bridge aimed at 70-80 players in defiant gear with J1 mercs. The next tier of campable upgrades are around 90-95/J5 difficulty.

If you are a casting/melee class you can get by with substandard gear but tanks can not.

Gosh. At least pop the free heroic character (level 85). If nothing else roll an SK and try the JF5 quest for a better healer. I can promise you that the scrub healer prior to completion of that first quest will keep everything in that first zone from inst-gibing you if you do the slightest amount of inquiry into how the class is supposed to work.

As ftp you cannot use the j5 merc.

For faster progress you need all-access due to j5, augs, rank 2 spells and prestige armor/items. And more AA.

Soooo...1 month all access, then a set of cohort gear? Seems worth it to me.

The FTP system in this game is garbage. They might as well just level lock players at 85 or so. It's one thing if your progress is hindered, it's something else entirely to lose what you've already achieved due to a paywall.

Paragons gear in that range gets you through. It's better than Underfoot gear and makes SoD and SoF content rather easy.

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I dont disgree, just mentioned the rules due to person who got heroic and doubled up his aa.