Seems to me they should have made this change for intensity of the resolute and armor of experience, and left the rest alone. There is no reason whatsoever to restrict things like the permutation peddlar to late expansions.
If this wasn't enough of a problem to have been fixed on any prior TLP, it's not enough of a problem to fix it now. This is either pure spite, an attempt to cash in on even more potion sales, or reactionary thoughtlessness to the feedback of people that are deliberately trying to ruin other players fun.
Exactly why then? The issue I read was it was things like intensity making it hard to win a dps race w/o it. I'm really just at a loss as to why they think taking stuff away from their few remaining players is a good plan. MOST of those abilities are pure convenience. The few that aren't? outside a dps race.. who. the. . cares? Oh well.. I wasn't really .. feeling it this time around. Thinking this might just be the straw that convinces me to move on finally... not that anyone cares, I know. I'm just.. I guess disgusted with this change is close enough...
The DPS races are just an example that we can see play out over many trials, but in general DBG has been making changes to tone down severely OP "late era" EQ changes that have effected TLP's. After all, that is exactly why they put in MOTM. The devs are making an effort to offset the ridiculously high power creep over 15+ years so that TLP's are not uber cheese mode. It's not personal.
The problem is that for every change they make to offset player power, they make two more changes that increase it. Preventing armor of experience from use in early eras does nothing if they leave in glyphs that are far more powerful.
If we kept that mindset we would still not have many of the modern things we've come to appreciate on TLPs. I'm glad they've continued to fine tune TLPs year after year rather than releasing Fippy clones. And I'm not trolling when I say that 7th and Armor are terribly designed "Veteran" rewards that have no business being tied to how many years you have been paying SOE/DBG.
player power isnt even the reason they are making the change. armor and intensity are just as powerful in dragons and whenever they get released as they are in gates. their silly reasoning is that non-sense about adhering to the original timeline, which is a laughably bad reason
I will admit, some things they have fine tuned ended up great, and I have always recognized those things throughout my posting history. But in this instance, adding yet more rules to the Mangler rule set that were neither announced nor asked for is not one of them, and is not supported by an overwhelming need that has ever been demonstrated before on any prior TLP. Seventh and Armor are not game breaking. You can win raids without them and, conversely, you aren't going to win raids with them if you bring 72 naked warriors with those rewards. They are not, and never have been, magic iWin buttons. No doubt they are powerful. They are not a GM kill command. Additionally, this false perception that they are magic iWin buttons isn't even addressed by delaying their release, so I'm not going to assume that this was their purpose. And! Even if it was their purpose, they did not need to change the entire release schedule for all Veteran rewards to accomplish that purpose. I'm sorry, I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than a short sighted insult to a huge cross-section of Daybreak's player base.
Well, if it's any consolation if we seem to be saying that they are neither game-breaking nor that big of a deal, then it's not a big deal to just wait a bit longer to unlock them.
They're (mostly) convenience. Something nice for the players who've supported DBG for so long. If your saying its to reduce player power, how about removing that melee boost AA they JUST ADDED, or reverting all the spell power changes? or going back to the original combat tables? ... there's dozens, if not hundreds of other changes that would directly reduce power overall for TLP players. NONE of which they seem to be doing. This is pure spite. There is no other reason to remove these. They spent their very limited dev time to make TLP players lives worse, for no gain other then spite. (and yes, I'm actually angry they're doing this) Frankly, I blame Holly. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find out this was her idea. Remember, she hates TLP servers in their current incarnation. Casuals shouldn't get to kill Naggy.
If I were trying to cash grab potions, spite my player base, or were listening to people advocating for changes that make these servers less fun and devalue loyal players, I too would probably find a more palpable explanation.
Think about what you are saying here. That there is some huge conspiracy that the people who love and work on this game, not to mention make a living a doing it, are secretly working to destroy it and drive their customer base away? As much as you may not like the team are you really serious here?
DBG is a business not a conservation society. They shouldn’t make changes that will hurt their business just for the sake of “classic experience”. Where are corpse runs and the book blocking your view for meditating then? Why do we get extended target early or bandolier? Why is there a marketplace at all? Why can we claim things? Why are we allowed to have key rings on TLP? People care a lot about their veteran AAs. Removing my ability to summon a permutation peddler or a bank or a tribute master on Ragefire is what this is going to do, which does not promote the classic experience. Ragefire has had these abilities since gates, that’s something like six expansions and suddenly only the vendors will be taken away by this change. There is no reason to implement this on existing TLPs. Implement it for new TLPs only or postpone it until all existing TLPs are progressed far enough to have them fully unlocked when the change is implemented. This is a negative change that removes fun from the game for no appreciable benefit. I challenge a dev to provide a justification for why it is beneficial to remove these from existing TLPs and I especially want a justification for why servers like Ragefire will just arbitrarily lose access to only vendor summoning AAs and the reuse time reduction AA. Until a dev provides such a justification I for one will not be giving DBG any more of my money. Clearly there are others who will have a similar reaction. Prove you care about your most loyal customers DBG and CANCEL the veteran AA change on TLPs. Last time this was announced you listened to the outcry and did the right thing. I’m still here because of it. Do the right thing.
I'm sure they can't single out your snowflake server for special vet reward unlocks. They are being tied to expansions, which effect every server, live and TLP.
Again, why do we have an x-target window? something they just added quite recently. WAY out of era Maps? out of era for some of the servers still Shared bank slots? same Melee power AA? also way out of era AA changes/consolidation needs un-done to provide a classic experience Marketplace needs removed claim needs removed spell changes need un-done combat tables need reverted coin needs weight nothing stacks past 20 ... I could just keep going. There are so many "not classic" things done in the name of QoL or convenience. This is 100% spite. They can bs all they want about why they did it, but its pretty clear that there are far, far better ways to address their stated intent then this. So ya, its just BS because they don't want to own up to just not liking us and wanting to make our gameplay worse and worse hoping to drive us to live.. the thing is, and I can only speak for me, I won't ever go back to live. I didn't like it. I'd play wow still if I wanted to button mash that much.
