I Surrender

Oh yeah, fo sho. According to some I never shut up about it.

Brian Griffin is to bonerrific as Mayfaire is to public calls for attention due to being a female player!

Aka - you can't stop sayin' it!

Aren't you the only one who even mentioned it in this thread or did I miss a post?

Mark me as Perv, but females were the reason i kept playing Eq for so long lol...
thinking about it, that's pretty sad. Then again, it also was pretty fun.
/grpinvite Mayfaire

Maybe not like you'd expect.

[Wed May 20 02:39:31 2015] Mayfairre tells you, "Crazy cat lady LFG!"

...hence the joke. /whoosh over cat lady head!

I can appreciate the author's desire to remain an island as a player so to say...

Eww I actually have to group with these mongrels! Surrender you must

Honestly, I am sick and tired of people trying convince others that this pseudo expansion is worth it for group players. The non level expansion has typically been for raiders. I'm not saying the progression content is only doable for raiders - it is not. Daybreak's dirty little secret (sarcasm) is that they want you to pay $15.00 USD a month - you need to have all the essential AAs and mostly non f2p gear. Otherwise be prepared to be steam rolled.

Well, that's a whole other can a' beans right there. The responses to the OP that I have seen (mine included) is saying that a group geared (with real players) group can definitely get thru TBM. It being worth the money or the time.....weeeelllllllll, I don't see anyone in this thread necessarily arguing that, lol.

As for F2p (which is a different conversation altogether), I mean... <shrug>? Getting something for free usually does mean that you don't get all the same goodies as someone who is paying, no? Otherwise, why would anyone pay them at all?

So said the guy from Triton. LOL
My point was that the model for a group mission should not be Raid geared players with GINA and teamspeak, and raid know-how. And you just ratified it.
-R

its kinda weird that some of the group missions actually require groups huh?

not to rub salt in the wound but, in all seriousness, all but like 5 of them are soloable / moloable / 2 boxable.

the one's you're gonna need to get help with are the three nasty sul missions, grummus ( if you're not a ranger ) and the decay one.

the mission with the "very healthy" golems? i boxed it with two enchanters using a healer merc and a wizard merc.... but this isn't exactly how the MISSIONS were intended to be done... they're intended for GROUPS, so you should expect to have trouble soloing / moloing / boxing them.

if you're looking for solo / molo / boxing conent... stick with MERCENARY tasks and PARTISAN tasks and you won't be near as frustrated.

save the missions for when you're ready to work with others.

~b

Basing your opinion of the difficulty of the entire expansion on Arsin the Blaze's stupid manadrain ae is silly. Hes one of the hardest group named in the entire xpac (for my group composition). The only way I can get through that fight with my bard wiz mag combo is fully burn everything on every character all at once, I pop all burns then pull so theres no wasted time, put heal mercs on balanced, efficient and reactive so theres hots running after they run oom.. then when I see oom mercs I pop dichotomic on the bard for some extra mana. He dies in under a minute and I still have to sometimes tank the end with deftdance lol. That mob is costing me a lot of pet weapons.

Every other named ive come across in this xpac has been easy in comparison.

Because my post had a raid geared magelo sig attached to it? I can post the same strat with a group geared magelo sig instead if that makes you feel better.

But honestly, none of what I posted depended on GINA, voice chat programs or secret raid skills. Raid gear tends to make things a bit easier, so you can have that if you want, but I think you'll have a hard time convincing anyone here that it's necessary for the mission.

You just need a group of competent players I think, and if two of them are tanks then things will probably go a whole lot smoother.

I get a little tired of hearing about how " raiders in raid gear say it is to easy " and raiders are ruining the game. . . Raiding is a VERY small portion of play time. What do you think "raiders" do while not raiding ? They do group content !

As for difficulty I would be willing to bet any 6 players in my guild or even any top 3 guild could log on to your casual toons and smoke the expansion WITHOUT your precious raid gear that people like to use as an excuse.

If you can't find people to play with then I would re-evaluate your situation, because there are still loads of people to play with. Make some friends, join a diff guild, try to be enjoyable to be around and soon you will have people sitting on the sidelines waiting to play w you.

Just my opinion!

most of these discussions where obsolete if they had done raid equip in a way that it would just add special damage to raid targets and nothing else or if those items would only work in raid environment ... oh i'd love that outcry of some of the so called raiders


since i'm one of those damn old boxers myself ( playing 4 chars on 4 pcs along with 2 chars my wife plays we usually have a full group ) i can give the OP a good advice : play each char/class individual/molo for a bit and try to max dps/efficiency ... then fix your hotkeys with good ones for dps burst. Rinse repeat for all of your chars and then go back to the mission.

Most of EQ is trivial once you dps the hell out of the mobs - i learned that the hard way - not much healing needed if mobs die fast and with the above adivce you can sometimes double the dps you do.

Oh and mage pets are overpowered still over normal group tanks and im saying that although i have fun with my mage(s)

imho

Razgadz

It's not the gear, it's the access to people/classes*. Being in a large raid guild leaves you a bit short-sighted on what it's like in the trenches. Binky the Bard does not simply walk into TBM with a perfect group full of skilled players. Binky sits around waiting for a group, and after several hours of waiting, he get 2-3 more players, at LEAST one of which is probably terrible. Terrible to the point that they would actually be better if they just stood still and did nothing. This is the cold hard truth of EQ today.

And as a side note, trying to teach said terrible player is near impossible since they usually have their fingers in their ears, and their head up their ..............and is just as likely to be from a raid guild as not.

*Although I would love to watch a group of tier 1 people do some of these achievements, but that's a different argument.

Posting on pointless dumb threads, thus keeping them alive is so beneath me.. oh god, am i really that bored that I'm doing it..

This game was built with the idea of requiring player co-operation to get far. Unlike many other games that include co-op, this one is a true co-op. Many of us know this, and laugh at complaints regarding difficulty, when the player complaining is boxing, not grouping.

I've done that demiplane of decay mission with 1 tank multiple times. enc rune aggroing / brd can handle/assist with the bokon/ooze adds. I've done all of the missions with just one tank class in TBM.

Finding groups has never been a problem for me. At times you have to be patient though. Get into some chat channels, learn who everyone is on your server. /tell /joke with players you see hunting in the zones, suss out their group makeup to see if you think you would be an asset and then introduce yourself. You don't have to be a really social person, many players aren't. But go through a quick assertive process of meeting people, at first joining groups to help random strangers with whatever they're doing, you'll quickly build a network/find materials(players) to work with for whatever goal you have. Many missions throughout various expansions have not been box friendly, and i laugh at anyone who whines about being unable to box something when this game was initially created to rely on player co-operation, not boxers/solo play. Go out and play the game as it was intended to be played. Creating a network of players to hunt with can take time, don't expect instant results, just be patient, be on, and search. I got to a point where i could probably create 3 full groups to hunt with at any given time, if only i could clone myself to join all 3 of them.

I used to pride myself on beating everything in the group game within weeks of an expansion launch through grouping with random players, with no boxing/no raid gear, and I had to go through the process of gearing up through each tier as I usually played as the tank.

Many players (like myself) like to showoff their capabilities as well, target some chunky tanks and dpsers with large epeens and bring them along if you aren't good enough, you'll eventually find a champion or three to pull you through the harder missions. I used to do the ToR 2 mission 3 times a day (and burnout was another) and there were other players i knew that relished the chance to help players with those too because they were some of the few missions at the time to actually provide veterans with any kind of challenge on the second pass. No doubt there are players out there cruising for groups that could utilise their abilities for the only 2 missions in TBM that are remotely challenging (demiplane of decay last hero and crypt of sul last hero), it's a matter of finding the talent, and hunting with them a bit until you feel comfortable asking/nagging for their assistance. Infact if it weren't for occasional difficult missions, there would be people on the other side of the fence that would not want to play for lack of challenging content.

AA's are earned so easily now compared to originally, you need to max out many of them, and have your tank max group geared(augs included) for the content you are attempting before you can make credible complaints about the difficulty of the content on a grouper as well.

Find players that do well and ask them what they do, see if they have insights on how you can better play your own. The same goes for methods to exp/beat tricky missions, there is a wealth of knowledge to be extracted from all the strong players out there. Constantly try to evolve yourself as a player.

EQ started as a hardcore game, and in some respects still can be. Get good at playing 1 character, people will want to hunt with you. Hunt with and learn the players(resources) on your server. Be online all the time. If you don't have the time, then you may need to just accept that at times, there will be things you will simply be unable to do. In which case; lower your expectations, this is not candy crush. If you want an easier experience, there are plenty of other mmorpgs that were not built around having a reliance for co-op. Many roguelikes/diablo-style games out there for you too that are designed for solo play.

"Get good at playing 1 character, people will want to hunt with you."

This, all day. I've beaten the hard missions in TBM, and not by boxing, but because some REALLY GOOD players sought me out because I guess they think I'm good........or maybe I was the only cleric on........either way.

To the op, choose a class and be excellent at it, use your box crew to help that toon get everything it needs, not to do progression. This is what I do, and it works quite well, a lot less frustrating. There is definitely a sense of accomplishment when some of the top players on the server ask you to join them and you work together to beat this crap.....vs a box group where it's just you going "weeee, look what I did.....:-("

From the OP:

Care to explain that one? I've read lots of complaint threads since TBM came out, but haven't heard anything about TDS being changed.

Tat

Agree to an extent, but a couple of notes:
-large active guild and raiding aren't mutually exclusive. I'd imagine in a lot of the top guilds after the first month or two it's a lot harder to find people to group with given everyone is max and most of the content is so mediocre that it's a few times and done thing, as opposed to repeating it over and over. There are times where I'm sure it's a lot easier to find groups in a less raid/max focused environment.

-lately there seems to be a mission or two per expansion that requires an atypical group for success, i.e. 2 tanks or 2 healers. That makes finding a good group even tougher, and the good player ends up getting asked to do it until their eyes bleed and burn out, leaving slimmer pickings.

-with the exception of tower of Rot and an anashti mission or two, we're talking a very small percentage of the group content being this "hard", so acting like there's nothing to do but sit around with /lfg on and thumb hiding from sunshine is pretty silly. Most content is really quite box friendly, and a group game having a tiny shred of its group content require *gasp* grouping with others isn't onerous.

-raid gear matters immensely less than class makeup and skill in the tiny bubble of most missions....at this point it's what, ~30% better than group? It's impact is more in class flexibility like being able to 1 tank instead of requiring a second than anything else, and it helps but it's definitely a crutch people keep citing for poor reasons.

-quite often the "Wuah tuned for raid gear I don't have wuah" crowd is comparing a casual, non maxed grouper with a max raider for the above scenario. The difference there is indeed a lot larger, but it's really a pretty meaningless comparison. If you don't have all your AA by now or auged/geared yourself to the best of your capability, complaining about the difficulty of a tiny handful of group missions is absurd.