I am a returning player that took 4 years off. In that time MUCH!!!! has changed. A move from SOE to Daybreak. Revamp of many AA / click items etc. I understand things change over time so I understand that coming back the game would not be the same. I have given it a couple of months now and I am left to wonder what happen to the "Group Game"? To my understanding content when close to this with some exceptions. Questing ( Solo - 3 people ) Epic quest ( solo - Raid force ) Missions ( 3-6 people ) I not sure but getting the perfect group has always been a problem unless you Box and have every class. So my understanding was Mercs were added to fill the gap letting groups of 3 people be enabled do group missions. Now each exp has Tiers it was between 1-3. Now the tiers were so you would start in Tier 1 and progress farming gear / spells / aa that would then enable you to move onto tier 2 and so on. Having returned I had to farm gear and we I started LC was a challenge but I was able to after a month get to were was able to do all of EoK quests. how ever the Missions I had to get some Raid gear / High AA people to do them for me as they were impossible for my small group of returning friends and I to complete. I not talking about the Mission achievements as I know those are meant to be for the Ideal group. but being able to do group mission was something I enjoyed and it seams now you have to be a RAIDER with 30K aa to complete them and then the gear is rotting most the time because it not need or being feed to an up and coming alt. Don't get me wrong I like a challenge but I don't like to be PLed and feed gear. I want to earn it and currently group mission are NOT do able by people who would use the gear. To me that just wrong. If you want to make 12 man hard great . if you want to make raid a challenge great. if you want to make Achievement a challenge to get great. But PLEASE TUNE the Group Missions to when people in group gear can do them. If anyone believes that a Group and complete the current ROS T1 group missions in EOK NON raid gear please post a video. I would love to see it done. Currently I group with a Rog 18k aa / Bst 18k aa / Druid 30k aa / Chanter 16k aa. We are often looking for a tank but most the are not able to find one and use a merc and or pet to tank we are geared with some T1 Eok raid gear and some Ros group gear. we should be able to complete T1 group missions yet we are not able too. We did after many wipe found a way to do OT mission and than it was revamp. As for skyfire we tried with a live tank, sham, druid, rog, bst, and merc cleric and was not able to get past the 3rd phase. Come on Daybreak This is T1 group what do you expect people to be gear like to do T1? please tell me we don't have to be max aa and raided gear to farm group missions...
Till this expac Ive been able to box (3) accounts most content, HAs Missions, and Quests. NOW well now cant hardly do anything at all even older content for the achievements. So between my husband and I we have 6 gold accounts and talking about quitting a game we have long loved because we cant really accomplish much. We do not raid and do not intend to begin. We are just groupers sometimes with each other and sometimes just our bots with mercs. So sad that you have taken a game that was good for all lvls and making them impossible except for Raid geared people. And I'm guilded with lots of just group playing people that feel the same way as we do. Such a shame that your turning EQ into an elitest game and not keeping it playable for everyone. Ill give it one more pay cycle to see if you fix this or if its time to quit playing EQ.
Thank you both for your feed back. Back in the day I used to be heavy into EQ. I stopped because I had twins and wanted to spend time with them. I came back because I loved the game and missed the group content. I enjoy raids but at this point in my life I will never be a 100% raider Family just means more to me. I want to just log in play and progress. But from the sound of it I going be LFG > more then anything if I not able to progress then I have to consider finding a different game. It sad I hate WOW because it to easy and they hand you everything but EQ seams to going to the other way where you can't do anything unless your the best of the best.
it would be very easy tix too . make tier one be be aimed at **weaker** players who want to play their way , either with a tank merc ( they can't anymore in ROS ) {or being way too hard }. I am an elite player raiding with a weak guild { we just beat our 1st T3 raid in EOK ) 2 days ago. but I do care about the one who struggle in ROS . when I log in it doesn't take a long time for me to get a tell, , being asked if I can help with my strong boxing crew ( this is new this year with the launch of ROS ). and don't like what I see, I sure help them, but that come from players who were able to do things in previous expansions. I don't care what selfish players in elite guilds saying that it is already too easy,, guess what, they wont leave the game if tier one zone is too easy. but * weaker * group can leave EQ if tier one zones is too hard for them. this is not a rocket science.
They're not tuning things towards raiders either. They're barely tuning or testing anything. Raiders are just able to deal with buggy messes easier than group players.
I've never understood why it is anathema for the devs to provide challenging, enjoyable, and equally rewarding solo and group content for this game. If I choose to solo, I should still be able to have a *path* to upper end gear and content. I understand my path may be far longer than a raiders path, but there still should be a way. Group content should also have a path with content, that as was said previously, is actually doable by group and is again, far longer than the raiders path. For instance, on the old epic quests, the Dragon killed by the raid party is the shortest path. The support structure of the Dragon that is methodically ambushed, subverted and destroyed is the group's longer path, and the solo'ers path could have involved working with allies by building faction and doing many more subquests and possibly could have required group fights. Point is, a game that's 20 years old can cater to all of their player base, not just raiders. I finally was able to raid, thanks to the progression servers - and I can honestly say that is was excruciatingly boring. Hours of crawling through a zone to finally get to loot dkp decisions, burned out raid leaders, 3 and 4 night commitments, farming the same zones night after night after night... not fun at all. I have more fun doing a quest by far.
