Why is there still lockouts on group content? Originally they kinda made sense, you didn’t want people always doing the same mission so we ended up with lockouts and bam we had to do a variety of the content that was made for us. But now? When there’s 4 (or 2) missions in an expansion why can’t I just play with my friends? If I already did a mission this evening, and I see someone else LFG for the same mission I can’t even help them because the game doesn’t want me to repeat the content too much no we have to do it in the style of almost a login bonus. I know that doing the same mission multiple times in a day is a bit mindless but you know what’s more mindless? Grinding mobs or farming a named. And this year we were only blessed with two missions. Lock out the chest if you have to or diminishing returns on currency but let us group.
The game should be encouraging and promoting community, collaboration, and socialization, but constantly finds new ways to restrict it.
This was instituted in Plane of Smoke trials and the EQ community lost their mind. You could participate as much as you wanted and it just grew your "loot lockout" timer.
Probably because if there were no lockouts, some players would sub for a month and do all the content and then not sub for 11 months. Seems like lockouts artificially lengthen the time it takes people to accomplish some tasks, which results in revenue for DBG.
Exactly...it's awful design. They need to come up with something to actually encourage people to sub and play beyond making them run the same missions/raids ad nauseum for months.
This operates under the assumption that every player is only going to subscribe for defined completion goal, then unsubscribe. It clearly doesn’t work that way, and players come and go all throughout the year. Look at every other MMO, and none of them restrict their single group content the way that EQ does, and those games aren’t even “group focused”.
The hilarious part of your response is the fact that I said SOME players, and then you posted an assumption that EVERY player will. Please don't reply to people and completely change their words to fit your narrative. If there are 6k players on live and 100 players max out their character on January 1 running missions w/o lockouts and then unsubscribe the rest of the year... that is nearly $20k in lost revenue from those 100 players. And 100 players doesn't even represent 2% of the playerbase. But bet your bottom dollar DBG cares about $20k in revenue, and will do what it takes to make $20k. Such as having six hour lockouts on group content.
Settle down, I only skim your posts. I don’t think that matters to them, the studio has been in business too long to have $20k sway their decisions. You can tell they don’t try to maximize money because they have poor monetization and a pay to lose Overseer system. You can’t design a game to last a year, and when you do your players notice it and turn away. The intention is that community will be content and encourage retention with friendships. EQ seems to be mostly like FF14 and wants you to take a break and come back for expansion launches, anniversary and TLP launches.
How about they make more engaging ways instead of artificial ways doing nothing but restricting game play and fun? Seeks they can't design content to last or be engaging more than a couple months so they restrict players to try and lengthen out the little content they provided. That source of the problem is their design teams not putting enough content out, not the players. Don't make players suffer because of their shortcomings.
The answer is more content - something that the last few expansions have shown to be in the decline. If they are unable to develop new content, they should spend some time getting clever with reusing current content; Have a rogue-like mission where you earn loot / currency at a checkpoint and then choose to cash in or risk losing it all for more loot / currency. Have a raid like this where the guild takes part in defending / attacking a zone and then choosing when they have had enough and retreat with their ill-gotten gains Have the mobs get tougher the further into the battle to the point where it is almost unbeatable. Rather than killing mobs, have it so the group / raid has to protect mobs - put the onus on the healers to keep NPCs alive, chanters / bards to mez to keep the adds down, dps and tanks to offload the danger away from the NPCs. Breath life into the older zones by having higher level mobs move in (120+ orcs in CB, 120+ undead in Mistmoore). Have dynamic stories that drive these changes rather than the static hardcore events we have now for a set period with outdated loot. A virus in Mechamatic Guardian has seen dozens of out-of-control robots break free and roam the nearby countryside. A relative of Emperor Crush has his sights on making Crushbone the stronghold that it used to be. He has built up an army of his most powerful allies and is seeking to restore it back to it's previous power. A recent earthquake around Kedge Keep has awakened powerful denizens that have laid dormant for centuries. These titans have burst through the cracks and have made Kedge Keep and Dagnars Cauldron a dangerous place for any but the more hardened adventurers. Have this happen in conjunction with an expansion release so the player-base can choose to level in the new expansion or not (if you don't buy the new expansion, you zone into the lower-level versions of those zones). Give them loot on-par with the expansions so they are a true alternative.
They should just sell a perk or lockout key in the store. Those who really want it will pay for it and Daybreak loses nothing.
Worst idea possible. One of the wonderful things about the store in eq is that it DOES NOT sell power. This would introduce pay to play and pay to win.
They basically did that in EQ2 a few months ago. It caused an absolute riot amongst the players and they did away with it.
I have no doubt a huge stink would be raised but there is no need to pretend they have not already crossed the Rubicon on this exact thing. A server exists where purchasing just about any in game item with real money is possible. A mechanism exists to pay real money to skip "earning" 80% of a characters levels. An in game mechanism exists, most recommended method as well, to be carried to roughly 50% of a characters levels. An in game mechanism exists, highly recommended as well, free or pay, to attain the remainder of a character's experience not acquired via the aforementioned methods that merely requires one to disengage from any content having any hint of challenge. These are just basics that are legitimate parts of the game. How could it be worse to let someone pay even more real money to actually play the game? Is it now so bad that they acquired all of the experience and gear their character can use and this next run is for ***** and giggles and/or to be helpful?
