Need a 75-115 zone

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by quakedragon, Apr 19, 2021.

  1. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    EverQuest has always resisted creating any "solo-path" for levelling through the game despite it being difficult to get from 70 to max on a live server without being carried by higher level players. You can probably Molo as far as 70 on all classes with a bit of determination but after that it gets pretty rough.

    I think they've done that so the game stays "on brand" I think and keeps it different to the mainstream MMO, largely as the history of the game was always as the less-easy MMO's and it's core audience were players who preferred a challenge.

    If they cannot or will not create any solo-levelling path then I think they should look at creating a side-kicking system so that no matter what level you are you can play with people at max level to get XP.

    A solo-levelling path would be more familiar to players who are not formerly EverQuest players and would open up the game to a much broader audience, it could have lower quality rewards than found in group missions as the main focus of doing the solo path is just gaining levels, so long as you can obtain very basic level-appropriate gear that lets you tackle that solo path it would do. I don't think it would even need to take you all the way to max, within 5 levels of that would be plenty.

    The side-kicking system would be something that's been used in a few other MMO, and would retain the "must group to get anywhere" ethos but make getting into a group in the first place less of a nightmare for under-levelled players.

    Overseer at L85 is certainly a useful way to gain additional XP on a character but that's a mostly passive system, you aren't actively playing EQ once you have sent your agents off to their missions.
    Stymie likes this.
  2. Stymie Pendragon

    I agree. It really gets tough molo for me after the mobs in Splitpaw turn light blue and I have to move on. The mobs really increase in hit points and dps after that. It isn't a smooth transition that keeps getting progressively harder over the next 45 levels. It becomes a night and day difference in difficulty per mob killed.

    I wish they would make a tuning pass over the 70+ range.
    Dre. likes this.
  3. Vumad Cape Wearer


    The solution is much simpler than this... We need...

    The hot zone dude needs to be a magus just like the LDoN Magus. He needs to be a copy of himself in every hot zone. He needs to tell you the hot zones by level, port you to those zones and be in those zones to port you to a different hot zone or to the POK whenever you ask him to. This will quickly bunch of people who are leveling.

    We also need the hot zones listed somewhere, like a /hot command or on the LFG window, so I don't need to go to the dude to ask him (although it wouldn't matter that much if he could port us to each zone, but it'd still be nice to see it as a list).

    We also need better hot zones with more consideration for group size and leveling. I don't think it would be hard for the devs to setup a hot zone rotation that considers if you are a small party (2-3) or a large party (5-6). Given that the only difference is that the hot zone suggestion for a small party would just be the zone on the list 1-2 lower than the large party.
    Niskin and Stymie like this.
  4. Dre. Altoholic

    Alternatively he could be an instance gatekeeper and dropping the instance returns you to him.

    'Retro HA' might be a good idea here. Procedurally populate an instance of a nostalgic zone, port in player to complete a repeatable and straightforward kill task for exp with optional boss kill for extra loot.
  5. Vumad Cape Wearer


    The problem is that instances are isolative. What I suggested would be about getting people to the same places. Hot zone rotations would keep the game fresh, as players would end up in different level appropriate zones, but cause players of similar levels to bunch up in areas so they can bump into each other and form groups in the ways we used to do when all of the zones were more populated.

    I think your instanced suggestion is a good idea, but it needs to be executed in a way that people end up bumping into each other in the way the Heroes Journey does. (I have been playing an alt and am bumping into people while doing the heroes journey, at least at very low levels). What would be amazing is if they could do your instance idea but make it a cross-server zone allowing anyone who uses the hot zone guy to get to a hot zone to group even across servers.
  6. Dre. Altoholic

    The problem with this is it would only take one high lvl toon powerleveling to ruin the experience for everyone.

    I love the idea of a cross-server instance that facilitates what we might call traditional grouping but it seems to me that there just isn't the playerbase anymore to support it across 100 levels.

    Catch-up content needs to be as solo-enabled as possible.
  7. Celestinek New Member

    Too much thinking going on here. They have the solution. If you go into the tutorial zone there is a buffer there in the Mines of Glooming Deep. Just keep that guy and make his "buff" stronger for the higher levels (and scalable). Again balance it so the player is not super OP. Offer that up to level 100 or 105 and then a message. "You are too powerful for my buffs anymore, veteran" This way it's controlled and no "pler" or "camper" or some other exploit can take advantage of it. That could also be your hot zone porter after the teek acceptance if a player wants to go that route.

    "I offer my advice to them for free because the cant afford me." That needs to be my sig lol
  8. Fred_Bear Lorekeeper

    The Monster Shroud idea during Depths of Darkhollow (Or whenever on Live) was an attempt at this, the FAILURE was that you couldn't just Shroud down to a lower level version of yourself.

    I believe at level 70 in Demi/COA gear I was around 15k unbuffed (my recollection for the time period)

    It would be a relatively straight forward calculation by looking at gear at lvl 65 vs 70 we see that the top gear from 65 (Gates) was about 250 hp on average. And the best gear at 70 is about 350hp on average.

    So, you cut all stats down by 25% every 5 levels.

    lvl 70 @ 15k > Shroud down to 65 = 11.25k > Shroud down to 60 = 8.4k hp > 55 = 6.3khp > 50 = 4.7k Hp > 45 = 3.5khp > 40 = 2.6k > 35 = 2k > 30=1.5k > 25 = 1.1k > 20 = 850hp > 15 = 640hp >10 = 475hp


    Now let's look at higher levels... currently on Ragefire we're lvl 90 and I have about 60k hp unbuffed.

    90 = 60k > 85 = 45k > 80 = 33k > 75 = 25k > 70 = 18.9k

    As you can see, this method of "Shrouding down" to reduce all your HP/AC gear stats by 25% per every 5 levels keeps the game in balance. You're not becoming "OMG OP" by being 18-19k hp at 70 vs in-era 15-17k And this would allow players who are higher level in raid gear to just "Shroud Down" their level and group with others. You just make them choose a specific level and then apply a % debuff that is multiplicative.

    Now, what about the weapons?

    HoT weaps are about 4.55 ratio. I'm going to use the Dreamblade at 109/24 (dmg / delay)

    LVL 90 @ 109 dmg > 85(UF) = 82dmg > 80(SOD) = 61dmg > 75 (TSS) = 45 dmg > 70 (DoDH) = 34 dmg > 65 (GOD) = 26 > 60 = 19 > 55 = 15dmg > 50 = 11 > 45 = 8 > 40 = 6 > 35 = 5 > 30 = 4dmg > 25 = 3 > 20 = 2dmg

    If we look at equivalent Raid gear from those levels:

    For an approximate 24 delay weapon

    House of Thule: 109 dmg
    Underfoot: 93 dmg (vs 82 calc)
    SoD: 69 dmg (vs 61)
    TSS: 48 dmg (vs 45)
    DoDH: 38 dmg (vs 34 calc)
    GoD: 29 dmg (vs 26 calc'd down)

    Obviously below these numbers, the dmg starts to fall off compared to gear you can acquire... at level 20 a 2dmg / 24 delay weapon is god-awful .... BUT I want to state that in my plan, we don't mess with AA's.... if you have an AA ability or Disc, you still have it... no reason to screw with that stuff.... Why do we really care if you can click your Sham epic and do a grp HoT at level 35, yes it's "OP" for a level 35, but it's just for fun, leave it in.... Leave your swarm pets too, you have to have a 2 damage weapon after all of the "Shroud" penalties, but dang you've got a 800 dd proc on it, that bangs out some hits.

    Lets just make a simple solution that doesn't get all complex, doesn't mess with any of the AA/ Discs / Spells you have at your use, BUT does affect your Gear stats / dmg....

    Shroud down your raid geared 90 to level 10... Enjoy 1dmg weapons and 500-750 hp. and have some fun with your friends in Field of Bone without having to Monster shroud to some naked crap goblin.

    (Buffs should still count as level capped so you can't cast UNITY on a level 10, you'd have to mem the lower Focus of Soul etc)

    Anyway, I thought that was a cool idea where we just leave Focus effects, AA's alone, simple calc hp/ac/dmg on weaps.

    Shroud to a low level. Earn normal XP / AAXP and maybe make a "flag" on your character that only allows a Shrouded toon to gain XP with chars within 10 levels MAX.... that way you can't get a 115 char shrouded down to 80 and then XP boosted / PL'd by the 115 again...

    Anyway, That's my thoughts on it.... Pass it to someone who can do something about it.
  9. Zarkdon Augur

    A solo/molo oriented large zone(s) to get people to 100 would be nice along with an increase in the defiant gear line.

    Lots of people I talk to and help really enjoy the game, even with the solo/molo emphasis, until they hit 70-75 when it starts to become very difficult to do anything and higher level characters can't help. Bridging the gap a little would be good for long term game health.

    Doesn't need to be a full expansion, but two zones with a few quests and some gear would be an investment well worth it in the long run.
  10. Dre. Altoholic

    Honestly I'd rather just have the game yellow out my gear. Gives me a reason to grab the 2.0/Swiftcleave or Fabled stuff off of my wall and go party. I could fill in the gaps with defiant and bazaar junk. Or... heaven forbid... equip loot from the mobs I kill.

    Still be weaker than a J1 merc probably :D
  11. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    There are usually two ways to solve an issue with EQ:

    1 - Some new content created to solve said issue
    2 - Sharing information to work around said issue

    #1 is always difficult, due to the extreme limit on what new content can be developed these days in EQ. There's nothing wrong with discussing ideas and passing them along, but we have to be realistic that probably none of them will developed any time soon.

    As to #2.... this is primarily a newbie/lowbie/scrub-bie (new term, LOL!) issue. It would make sense for the vets to start a thread (or wiki) which we can point people to, which would help them work through many of these issues of catching up.

    Things like, good places to hunt, good places for solo/molo (broken down by class would be good), good places to duo with a friend, good places for particular class combos, good quests you don't want to miss, efficient use of XP bonuses (getting more than one Franklin Teek quests, doing two Gribbles on one Lesson, etc), good/efficient gearing paths, etc. If we could put an organized set of hints and recommendations together, we could go a long way towards helping people in this situation.

    It's not perfect, but it's something which can be done NOW, under our control. New zone ideas are great, but it's not gonna happen any time soon.
  12. Dre. Altoholic

    The 75 Paragon set is pretty nice. Attempting it at 70-75 in defiant gear, not so much. Also the foraging bits. Ugh.

    Take a person in Heroic gear and watch them get owned in The Grounds. I'm not saying it's impossible, but expecting catchup players to progress through the gear path without help is a recipe for failure.

    They could literally fix half of this with a merchant. Go find Iason Yureska over by the CR stone in PoK and look at the price/quality of Extravagant gear. This is what's wrong with EQ.
    Niskin likes this.
  13. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Not sure what you are talking about not having the player base. Teak would make an instance of HoT as the L85 hot zone. Anyone on any server who wants to go to the L85 hot zone hails teak and goes to the hot zone. No one over L100 or under L70 can go into the L85 HOT hot zone which eliminates power leveling. Trade is disable while in the zone and so is dropping items. Loot still drops and can be looted by anyone but once the item is looted no one can give it to another person, until they zone out of the instance, which forces everything to be server bound.

    There may be some issues with questing as groups would be locked to the single zone but people could still collect the items they need while in the zone. They'd just have to finish any quests that cross out of the zone on their own server.
  14. Dre. Altoholic

    Do you literally mean "House of Thule - Lower Floors" Because a lvl 100 can absolutely destroy that place.
  15. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    This is example #456 of how they implement content, and then never update anything as time moves on.

    There was a time (10+ years ago) when I would buy some of those items to fill in slots needing upgrades on some of my alts. And, it highlights what I'm talking about two ways:

    1 - Defiant gear exists for every slot, but some of the slots (6 slots? 7 slots?) can ONLY be gotten from this vendor. Question: since we're talking about newbies/lowbies/scrub-bies, do they even know this vendor exists? I don't know of any in-game way to know about this vendor. Again, highlighting that this stage of EQ has an INFORMATION problem.

    2 - Yes, this gear on Yureska clearly sucks, even if it were offered at a much lower price. However, there are MUCH better items available for every one of these slots, at every level range, which can be player made for relatively little plat (compartmented trio items). Again, do the target players KNOW THIS? Unlikely. EQ has an INFORMATION problem.
    Niskin likes this.
  16. Dre. Altoholic

    Considering his location - it's kinda hard to miss the guy. Certainly easier than knowing about UFD jewelry. Also worth note that HoT mote gear predated Extravagant.

    A loading screen or level ding email that says "Check out these guys in PoK" or "Buy level 80 gear in Feerrott with Dream motes!" would be welcome. The info only goes so far however if the gear blows or you basically need a carry to earn the motes.
  17. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    If you're looking for him.

    There are 10s of 1000s of NPCs easy to find in the game. You have to know why you'd want to find them to begin with.
  18. Dre. Altoholic

    not sure why anyone would :D
  19. Vumad Cape Wearer


    You're nit picking the idea to shoot holes in it for no reason which is why it is so hard to ever discuss change. I am explaining an idea not the specific tuning. The hot zone can be 80-85 and allow 75-90, or strictly 80-85, or 5-5,000. The tuning is quite irrelevant to the idea of making hot zones cross-server instances.
  20. Dre. Altoholic

    Thanks for clarifying. As I said above, I love the idea of cross-server instancing.