While there may be info to the contrary, I think it's FAR from safe to assume this, and probably best to expect the opposite. I can't find the quote but sure I read a statement not to expect this again. The dev/design time is significant.
People complain about running from the guild hall to... Lcea dragon. Could you imagine if it was the full zone and you had to run through to each event lol But seriously, this would be my dream raid. I loved doing VT so much. Right? The weeks spent on naming spells (instead of tuning them) was a significant chunk of dev time. What's sad is this isn't even a joke if anyone remembers TDS beta. /sigh
AA costs will be wierd if its a level increase. EoK AA cost so much because they wanted a serious exp investment since there wasn't a lvl cap increase. However, with a lvl increase, they can't keep AA costs at EoK lvls or higher. So an AA chain might go: 21,24,27 45,50,55 24,27,30
I'm really tired of the last few expansions contain mobs that debuff you. It's terrible. It's annoying. It is not challenging. If they want to reduce our power, have the mobs put a dot on us that lowers our HP, mana, END, etc. instead. Anything other than having to rebuff. The worst part is that they created the "shadow" buff AAs in order to free up our buff space. Then they right away started creating debuffing mobs, which means you have to use up that space with the shadow buffs. Why do they do things that fix something and then turn right around and create a new problem just like the old one the "fix" was supposed to fix? It's mind boggling. "Hey, we fixed that problem you had but we decided to change the gameplay so you have to have the problem again. Aren't we great?" It's at the top of my annoyances with EQ.
You won't have to worry about buff space when you have Chromadracs in Skyfire chain dispelling you! Debuffs not necessary! Those were seriously the most annoying mobs though
3 expacs. if there is no lvl increase this year that will be 4 years with the same spells and discs ... they might lose more customers if they don't do a level jump, cause i dont know about most people but im not a fan of stagnation in any MMO
A level increase is not the opposite of stagnation. Imagine an "expansion" that offered only level 110 and no new zones or encounters. While most here believe otherwise, DBG knows better than "Random Internet Guy" what can be achieved with the limited and ever-shrinking pool of money and resources. Nobody is a fan of a declining game. But most, including DBG, prefer that to closing it down. I know I am - and continue to enjoy what challenges I can find with it.
Level jumps are fake hoops you jump through to end up in most cases exactly as you were with less relative content. Right now there are various reasons that CoTF, TBM, TDS and EoK all have some value. THIS IS A GREAT THING AND WHAT THEY LOST IN THE PAST WITH ALL THE STUPID RESETS AND NERFS. A level increase strips most of that away and leaves you with the few new zones they have time to add. Non level gains are actually the farthest thing from stagnation as you actually gain power relative to current content and not spend 2 or 5 months grinding away to get back to the same relative you had prior only in a new spot. There are very few things that suffer with non level increases if handled properly. They just need to address those a little bit better. I would much rather more actual new content, slightly better quests and rewards, fun repeatable content then just chase the stick again to chase the stick again. With a ton of time and resources spent on making everything 110. Yes I realize the chase is part of the game but you can chase the stick for value one way instead of just getting back to where you were the other way.
Do you really feel like you haven't increased in power over TBM/EoK? When TDS launched a good nightly combined was maybe around 100k DPS with many classes unable to hit even that... Now it's what, 250k, with some classes able to do quite a bit higher? Now, to be fair, some classes have seen larger increases than others and those numbers are mainly for example purposes, but my point is the change has been pretty significant IMO. I don't like stagnation of specific things that don't naturally get upgraded without level cap increases (pets, buffs, level capped abilities, etc), but in general I don't think player power has stagnated.
im speeking for the group game fyi .. imagine your just a casual player, and in 4 years time the only thing you have that qualifies as content is a bunch of AAs and a few after thought spells. feel free to flame me for saying such things, but thats how a lot of 'normal' eq players see it. i guess on the upside, if you quit 5 years ago you can come back and only have to gain 5 lvls and be up to date *edit* 0 new tradeskill recipes since TDS also (unless you count dying ornaments ) wtb some real content pls and not this rehashing of old content like the artisans prize ... killing grey cons for 10 year old TS items is not current content
Group geared players got everything raiders got and more. Better gear relative to content then ever, more power from AA relative to content then ever, group weapons leave a lot to be desired compared to group spells but still pretty good relative to content and for the first time ever current raid gear from group content. All that not only made EoK more accessible to them for non ideal setups but also opened a ton of doors for them in older content that might have blocked them in past. Like getting expansion or achievement tied trophies, augs, mounts, aa, etc. The only things that suffer are pet power, capped stuff like charm or whatever when zones are to high for some of that stuff, the value of some buffs if not increased proportionally to gear and AA power gains and other things like that. A level increase takes that all away and just resets everything to a lower threshold with less actual viable content to boot. The reasons you give are the exact reason why most who get it don't want a level increase for the sake of a level increase. They want more current content thats harder requiring the same chase but that keeps all the older stuff valuable.
I have to agree with this. I don't know how group players at this point in the game can feel they have "stagnated". The group gear in EoK was extremely good (the visibles better then TBM raid in many cases) and current raid gear drops from zone trash, albeit very rarely. Group players have a horde of new AAs to work on, and whether you want to dismiss these or not, they visibly increase player power which is the opposite of stagnation. I'm not generally opposed to a level increase, but I don't think they need to add one just to add one, there are many other ways to increase player power.
Now matter what happens, the increases tied to level cap need to happen: new pets improved buffs Misc other things that only change with a level cap. What we are talking about is a full new set of spells/abilities, whether or not lvl increases.
I'm against a level increase personally as it is just a copy paste with a new name and minor scaling in the case of spells for example. I much prefer the addition of focus AA, new spell ranks?, new spells, and anything else except 5 levels. Want a power upgrade? Buy some new focus AA or release new slot 3 augs with the new content to scale up the spell. Just my thought on it. That said... why are they fixated on the idea of sets of 5? Just because it's a nice round number? Idunno... I thinkthey could maybe add 1 or 2 extra levels and still dedicate enough resources to actual content. Of course I don't know what the actual time investments are for the different aspects of development so it still may not be feasible. /shrug
but the older stuff will always become outdated no matter what .. thats why you dont see anyone but free accounts in TDS and TBM anymore. once you hit 105 you can just jump right to EoK, and skip all that crap loot in TDS and TBM. the only thing that holding out the lvl increase is going to do is make a bigger gap between lvl 100 and 105. at lvl 100 you can use 2200-ish hp gear? i cant recall now. but then when you hit 105 it jumps to 4k hps there will clearly be a split crowd on the lvl increase no matter what, i just feel that we got our moneys worth out of lvl 105, maybe its time to move on from those old dusty 3 year old spells lol but thats up to the devs to decide not me, so sorry if my opinions got anyone fired up or whatever, im just saying how i feel
