Why do we still have time sinks on TLP servers?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by YesIndeedy, Jul 22, 2019.

  1. Tierdal Augur

    What 2 wrists in velious give 10 attack or more that everyone will totally have by then?
  2. yerm Augur

    If you remove timesinks, what exactly is there to do during the time until next expansion unlock? If you finish everything meaningfully worth doing this game gets really stale really fast. Kunark was designed originally around a concept that only a small fraction of players would reach max level, and many of those who did would not be interested in heavy raiding commitments. As such the end game is rather shallow and the bulk of content is lower level.

    The better solution is to start with at least kunark unlocked so it gets utilized during the level grind and to open velious in very short order, since this is where raiding really kicks off and tlps are full of raiders.

    Swc, epics, etc wouldn't be so heavily clogged and bottlenecked if people had other meaningful/productive things they could be doing instead.
    Trox2010 likes this.
  3. Meredyth Augur

    Next we will have threads complaining that Frenzy respawn is too long and adults in today’s day and age don’t have time to camp FBSS anymore we have all done it six times before and making it a rare drop off a rare spawn does not = content.

    Thousands of EQ players flocking back to camp it again and again kind of refutes that argument though. If it isn’t content, then why do people play six TLPs in a row just so they can do it some more?
  4. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Comparing rare mobs that drop loot to rare mobs that drop items for that allow people to access a zone is like comparing apples to oranges.

    Rare mobs that drop guaranteed rare loot is a classic EverQuest mechanic that nobody is against. That paradigm has nothing to do with players being able to access a zone like Howling Stones, Veeshan's Peak, Sleeper's Tomb or Vex Thall.

    There is no legitimate reason that quests that give access to these zones should require people to camp rare mobs and in the vain hope that somehow they will spawn.

    A friend of mine camped the Ancient Jarsath for 17 hours in Firiona Vie zone and because of kill stealers (an odious and despicable practice that is condoned by Daybreak Games) he never got the Veeshan's Peak and medallion and now refuses to do the quest. He's a main tank in our guild and his absence in Veeshan's Peak will be felt all because of a terribly designed and thoughtlessly implemented quest.
  5. Meredyth Augur

    Why wasn’t your guild helping him get his AJ piece? Were you all in FV killing all the trash to get AJ to spawn faster? It makes a HUGE difference.
    Meridian likes this.
  6. Ishbu Augur

    If the kill requires a guild then the drop should come from a raid mob.

    The idea that a guild should hang out killing grays for hours so 1 person can get 1 part of a key quest is an absurd thought that no rational adult would honestly think is a healthy gameplay mechanic
    Krezzy likes this.
  7. Krezzy Augur

    I guarantee that the Wizard and Enchanter epics, VP key, and Spiritwracked Cord are not taking the majority of players' time as they wait for expansions. No need to raise the concern that EQ will become unplayable without those experiences.

    Also, players put up with Frenzy respawn time on most TLPs for a few months prior to Kunark release, and yet nobody complains. Different players on pretty much every TLP complain about the problem content - because it's problematic. When HS keys got fixed so a player couldn't keep them locked down to farm Kronos, a new gripe didn't magically appear in these forums. It seems reasonable enough to see that the same is true for other longtime issues.
  8. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    Sounds like the AJ is a raid mob.
  9. Meredyth Augur

    It doesn’t require it. If you want a whole guild in VP quickly though you should work together as a team to achieve that goal. Just because there isn’t a big red dragon standing in front of you doesn’t mean that it is not worth working together on something. If you want your guild to be raiding VP ASAP when Kunark launches, then it is in your best interest to help your guild key people. Instead of standing in PoK chatting or something, people can head to FV and chat while they kill trash and call out AJ. I have seen plenty of people do this, specifically on AJ. I have also seen two AJs spawn within 5 minutes of each other so don’t believe the BS on Zam about it being a timed spawn. Just bring friends and clear the zone trash in the middle of the zone and farm medallions. If a few get KSd more will be along the way, if you kill lots of trash he spawns often.
  10. Gremin Augur

    Stop trying to fundamentally change Everquest. Just because you are on a TLP and its 20 years later does not mean things require change. You are choosing to play on the TLP where it has KNOWN content, old content and you are still playing there.I dont see anyone who requires a red scale, white scale or green scale coming here complaining? Those mobs do not drop the item every time and require a time sink. If you want something put some time into it, for pete's sake so tired of the instant gratification crowd.
  11. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    MMORPG's bread and butter are timesinks designed to keep players subscribed and logging in weekly. If you don't like them then there are literally thousands of single player RPGs that don't care how fast you consume their content.
    Miss_Jackie likes this.
  12. yerm Augur

    Come consume some content with us bobby!
  13. Ruhi Augur

    EQ has changed since classic -> we have a tons of quality of life changes on the TLP's.

    We all know the VP key entails. We all know how each epic is different. We all know and understand RNG and PH's and a multitude of camps can take hours to farm.

    Your expectations are obviously way out of line roflmao.

    It's everquest - when has the game not been a time sink? You going argue next, that during classic era everyone should have insta-click rez sticks cause whipes take 30-45 min for recovery??????

    bottom line advice to all the players griping about the time-sinks ==== play the game and accept some mechanics and parts of eq are what they are as they have always been OR simply play something more in line with your game time expectations and allowance.
  14. BlueberryWerewolf Augur


    Surely it could be the case that this is true, but also those timesinks were originally designed for a much longer time period with a much larger population competing over the same resources, and so it is entirely reasonable to suggest they could perhaps be lessened to better reflect the game as it is now on these servers that unlock content more quickly and have fewer players than they would have 20 years ago.
  15. Ishbu Augur

    The argument that all time sinks should remain because that's what drives the game only holds weight if all pick zones and AoCs are removed. Those instanced directly remove the item/named mob scarcity time sinks allowing many more people/guilds to not have to sit in line til their turn.

    Since those exist and are not removed, clearly outdated anamolies should also be corrected such as with the Enchanter Epic.

    Any argument sighting how things were in a different era of life are irrelevant. The game has grown and changed
    Ajjantis likes this.
  16. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Fine. Then to be consistent let's do the following: let's get rid of picks, expeditions and Krono. Then let's bring back corpse runs too. Let's bring back the original clumsy and tiny EQ interface. Let's bring back every bug and horrible mechanic despised by the players.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Ajjantis likes this.
  17. Meredyth Augur

    Yes you can still have picks and AoCs and still have time sinks. They are not mutually exclusive. If you argue that the existence of picks means it is no longer justifiable to have time sinks, then you can argue that nearly every mechanic in this game that takes effort should be changed. I don’t want sweeping changes like that made to this game as it would cease being the game it is, by degrees. It absolutely has to be handled on a case by case basis without sweeping generalizations and without false equivalences being made. In each case you should expect to deal with skeptics who will quite reasonably ask why something that has functioned for many years needs to be changed.
  18. Doodle New Member

    Dragon scales can be obtained in a DZ, so you can control when mobs spawn and organize people being online. I think most enchanters and wizards would be fine if they had a chance every week for their mobs to spawn in a DZ. Those mobs not spawning every week, would in essence be same as a dragon not dropping a scale every week.

    Just from reading threads, it seems like a lot of people's complaints revolve around having to sit and watch grass grow for days at a time(which isn't feasible for the general demographic of eq players) and then in the event said mob spawns, hoping its not 3 in the morning so your friends/guild can mobilize to help you. If you put those parameters and on all the dragons for scales, I can almost assure you that those need scales would be up in arms about having to sit in a zone for days waiting for a dragon spawn, and then still hoping you can mobilize before another guild to kill the dragon.
    Ajjantis and Amadismangler like this.
  19. Krezzy Augur

    If players only had to wait, and could reasonably expect other players to play nice and wait their turn, we'd have a classic experience.

    As things stand, we have a contest to see who can click first, or else a DPS race. Neither of these are classic experiences; Play Nice Policy meant all the difference. This policy is certainly untenable now, but it's entirely reasonable to change content to adapt to the new reality. Just as DBG has been doing with the Shadowknight epic, the Coldain Ring quests, and the HS key.
  20. Brontus EQ Player Activist

    Timesinks that include rare quest mobs that are designed to delay players from experiencing content are indefensible and inexcusable in MMORPGs.Timesinks were created in EQ to buy time for the developers to create, test and polish content in locked zones. Ex-EQ devs have admitted as much.

    Timesinks are not content. Imagine if you went to an amusement park and the owners of the park purposely made you wait 2 hours to get on a ride, despite the fact that there was nobody ahead of you in line and the ride cars were empty. That would be unacceptable, outrageous and customers would complain.

    There is no skill required from the player as they participate in an arbitrary and artificial timesink. Hoping that a NPC spawns to drop an item for a quest that unlocks other content is bad game design. There is no sense of accomplishment in this just as there is no sense of accomplishment in buying a winning lottery ticket or inheriting a fortune from your rich uncle.

    In contrast, the mechanic of rare mobs spawning that drop loot for players is not an unreasonable timesink (if you can even call it one) as it is one of the pillars of EverQuest because loot can be obtained by many diverse ways, drops, quests, other players trading and tradeskills. But access to locked zones is only obtainable via a quest. That's a big and important difference.

    EverQuest has already ceased to be the MMO it once was. It's been fundamentally changed not just because of expansions but because of the addition of features and the law of unintended consequences. The current EverQuest of 2019 is not the EverQuest of 1999 by any stretch of the imagination. And that is precisely why the TLP servers are so popular. People vote with their feet.

    On a personal note, every time I do the Veeshan's Peek quest I have encountered so much frustration and player toxicity that it has caused me to consider quitting EQ. Almost all of my guildmates have shared with me similar frustration about this quest. I suspect if every EQ dev were required to do the Veeshan's Peak quest on Mangler and waste hours upon hours of their precious lives only to have their quest mob stolen from them continually, this quest would be changed in a heartbeat. The old saying: walk a mile in a man's shoes applies here.

    No one is asking for sweeping changes to EverQuest to dumb down the gameplay. All we are asking is for the handful of special key quests that have needless timesinks be re-evaluated and fixed. As you said, this should evaluated on a case by case basis. The DB devs have already modified various aspects of the Veeshan's Peak key quest, they should continue to do so as they are constantly doing with EQ to make it a better MMORPG.

    As long as these mindless timesinks exist the players have every right to complain to the devs to get them fixed. I hope the devs do the right thing.
    Ajjantis likes this.