omg go play WoW if you want EASY mode .. EQ is already easy .. do I think HC need an upgrade sure but only to lvl 95 or 100 max .. if you think its hard to find a group now , Having a 110 HC would not change you being able to find a group.. And some of us Dont care about Raiding .. !!!
Sorry that is not "fact" that is opinion and you are welcome to it, but none of those are facts unless you have some secret sources to share with us??? Some data to back up those claims? Who decides what is minimal ? Who says Eq has to be a long term investment or even if it truly is? If someone plays for 1 month was it a long term investment for them???
Business wise, I think raising the heroic level optionally in a very simple way for current content access makes a lot of sense. Current content player population can currently only slowly drop through attrition. The only way to skip the wasteland of 85-100 in a game which should be played with multiple people but there are no groups in that level range, is to go to a progression server. When adding the heroic level increase in the following way, you have a way to re-fill the number of players that are at the active content level and thus increase the health of the game: Keep the current heroic intact but Once they complete a certain quest (for example the no heroism without fear) they get a requester: do you want to increase to 100 now? If you click yes, you get only the levels but nothing else. The AA is gained through autogrant. This makes the current heroics attractive, makes the game healthy and has a minimal dev effort required.
this would be fine but there is no extra money in it for DB .. for it to be worthwhile for DB they would need to charge for the upgraded HC .. so either keep the current 85 HC for 35 ducks and offer a new 100 HC for 50 or 60 ducks .. or replace the now current HC with a new one that is lvl 100 ducks and make it the new norm .. they could even run a poll to see who would be interested in it .. also give everyone a free 100 HC for a limited time like they did before you can delete and remake it as many times as you want for 2 weeks after that if you delete it , it goes poof .. easy peesy macncheesy
They take it as seriously as any venture to date. Just because they don't take the time to respond to a popular thread doesn't mean they aren't reading and considering suggestions. Often times, decision makers lurk so they don't muddy the waters of past responses on the topic until a consensus change has been decided.
If you watch the Dev Stream for The Burning Lands, Prathun clearly stated why they haven't increased the level on Heroic Characters. I'm paraphrasing but the time commitment from one dev would mean one less zone for an expansion. This is due to EQ not being a game that is built for Heroic Characters the way EQ 2 is. The most important point Prathun made was that they know their playerbase and selling power at the loss of content would not be a popular decision, given the circumstances. I've repeatedly advocated for updates to Heroic Characters, but knowing this information it's a lot more understandable why we won't be seeing an update in the near future. I hope they can do it at some point because quite frankly, Daybreak would make a lot of money doing it and that's good for players and the company, alike. PS: I'm not reading 7 pages and if someone posted this already, good for them
I imagine the reason they have not replied to this thread is because they responded to https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...0-heroic-character.252302/page-3#post-3716137 which has fallen down the forum list but was created recently as well. This will detail some of the issues from a developer perspective with raising the HC level and some responses to some possible solutions.
personally i dont want 110 or 100 HCs, I want them to stay as they are, make people put in some actual work instead of just buying everything
I mentioned it already But people still insist on complaining about why they don't do it so I'm enjoying the forumquest
86 HC would be fine with me. If I could zoom to 110, I wouldn't learn anything about the upper part of the game.
1. Actually they are. 2. Those returning typically know that leveling is not that hard to do if you put in a few weeks time and know your class. 3. Level 85 characters can group with up to level 115 and still get XP. There is no justification as far as grouping goes for increasing the HC level or adding a new higher level version yet. 4. No, you are not. The current players who would consider this already have those alts and boxes. They typically can level up one from scratch for free almost as fast as they can a HC of any level. 5. It is incredibly disruptive. You obviously did not play when the original HC came out. There were numerous people with no idea how to play the class of HC they made as well as completely new players with no idea how to play the game at all as well. Between the two there was a large number of people who quit the game because either it appeared to them that people playing then we're incompetent or that everyone was too hard on them for not knowing anything when they were playing at the high level game. The smallest sub period is one month, so no that is not long term. The developers decide what is minimal. The core of EQ has always been about the long term time investment not instant returns. There was numbers taken back when the original HC came out the only reason why the HC at the time really were successful in the face of the downsides was the fact people created boxes, but a new set of HC would not benefit from a bump from that group as they all already have them if they are going to get them.
Just raising the level without any other changes should not be a lot of effort. I think the assumption that it would come to a cost of a quest or a zone is based on making new hotbuttons, new equipment and new quest zones - but that is not needed. Just keep the current heroics and give the option to boost the level only, simple that's it! Shouldn't cost more than half a day. By adding it to the current heroics as an option, there is already a sales channel. No new items need to be added to the marketplace. What it does is giving the current heroics more value for money, i.e. making it more attractive to people - especially those who don't want to resort to buying a pl. The idea is not disruptive: what is the difference with someone who gets a powerlevel after the current heroic? Nothing What is the difference to a returnee or new interest? A great deal of frustration and repetitivity skipped. Most people stop at the wall of xp between 85 and 100, where they are not wanted and not useful and not current and not groupable. This idea would get rid of that. It gives people the option to skip the boring part. Of course they still need to get some items and the AA's after the autogrant so it does not make anything trivial. Basically it's like fast forwarding them through many gribbles. Hey you could even make it so that they need to complete at least one gribbles before you can click the option as a heroic, then you learn enough to do it once you wouldn't learn much by doing it 100 times.
Let’s just face it: the playerbase on LIVE is probably not increasing but consists of hardcore high levels, and slowly dwindles from attrition over the years. To attract fresh blood to these LIVE servers from new or returning people, the hurdle of going through out of date content where no one plays because level distribution is top heavy is huge. That is probably one of the reasons why TLP is a popular alternative. Currently many skip this 85-100 range effectively by ftp boxing or pl’ing. Increasing heroic level actually gives them a choice: either go through the free content on their own OR pay DBG (a heroic) and skip the ftp part and get right to the brink of the paid part of the game. This will bring in revenue to DBG (direct and indirectly) instead of the PL crews and revitalize the financial long term future of the game on live servers, and that should be in anyones interest. With EOK opening to ftp, I think the heroics should be upped to 105 instead of 100 though.
I'd prefer they stick with 85, tbh. It lands you right in the middle of the 75-100 game. Now, people can blast through those levels if they want with geared toons on a hard PL, but that's up to them. Simply giving people 100 with gear to match, seems foolish and ignores how the game is currently structured.
I could see them increase to level 90 they could still start in HOT. Just a 5 level change. this will allow them to solo HOT zones better. If they cant find a group.
