Why ToL's Group Gear Level 120 Requirement Sabotages EQ's Core Gameplay Loop

In classic, maybe.

What?? People do it all the time... You think everyone that plays past 75 is in raidgear? You ACTUALLY think max as group geared toons can't survive a 4-5 yrold expansion? Do you even play?

I returned in RoS, in lvl 95 raid gear. We weren't even beating RoF raids iirc when cotf launched and I hated cotf beta and never played after launch, until 2018 sometime. At that point, I wore my VoA raid gear(worse than TBM group stuff) with my max-RoF aas(got maybe 500 autogrants, if that) and got to 106. Made conflagrant. Went to 110. Quit again after a few weeks for other reasons, and came back 11/2020. In my conflagrant and a couple slots of to t1 a buddy tossed me, I struggled in ToV, until CoV launched, and Bam EoK aas were autogranted and I took that same 106-110 tradeable gear, and my 4 poorly-now AAd toons, and a couple mercs, and hopped right into CoV farming bricks.

Even now, because I left again for unrelated reasons until last month, I'm sitting at maybe 40% of my AAs, and nearly 4k of those are tradeskill, that gear I farmed in conflagrant and snowbound...this is my main mind you the alts mostly ran to get rots from ooc instead of the good stuff and they have worse AA counts...the first thing I actually did in ToL was go to a camp my buddy liked so I could drop our campfire and give it to him when I got tired, and started killing. My EQbrain is barely past RoF still since I keep taking longer breaks than I play and my memory sucks these days, but I didn't go there and die repeatedly. Didn't even die on the first named I got. I did quickly remember how much I don't remember about stuff that's been added in the last 9 years lol, and left when I did finally kill myself, to go work on stuff I never finished and remember how to play. I'd only gone there to see what the difficulty was and hope to grab some tradeskill stuff, and I got my answer and not a single drop lol.

Where was this camp exactly? T2 ToL. In CoV group gear and 40% AA at best, with a bad memory and many old augs not up-to-date still either (on the tank, the other few were MUCH worse off in either fear, augs, AAs, skill, or all of the above).

Either you don't know what you're doing, you don't actually try to, or the first sign of needing to try makes you give up, but you are most certainly wrong in every way on this statement.

Not many are going be maxed level without beating the missions. So it might as well be that way for the group content.

Everything I said is accurate and can be replicated by anyone else if they want to actually put the time in. I'd suggest they don't, because it isn't worth it, but if they want to see for themselves, the path is clear.

What? How? Replicate failing by trying harder? How does any of that make sense? You said appropriate group gear (as in the prior expansion) even with Max AAs isn't good enough to play the game since level 75, lol?. You said CoV group gear and aas would still create struggle in RoS. How? This isn't a proveable statement, it's flat out bonkers.

The only possible way that is true is when you wear all prestige gear then your subscription/gold time ends, thus you are naked, in which case it's still wrong. The gear isn't the issue but the player's choice to use it without going gold, or trying to understand basic rules of the game. Prestige is for pay. Free gets nonprestige, or zero stats.

Do you even understand the words you said in the first place? Did you reread yours and then my post before this second ridiculous statement?

What is accurate? That ROS mobs will give 116+ trouble? Well, let's see, I literally just walked into Skyfire on my severely undergeared 116 sham and absolutely blasted a mob with no issues whatsoever completely solo with no merc. Figured maybe that's too easy so went to VP. Face rolled 2 mobs at once solo.

If you have issues in TOL gear with ROS mobs with a full group you're either half awake, actually silver and not wearing TOL gear, or just so bad at this game that you may want to think of re-evaluating yourself because I'm killing these mobs in 30 seconds solo on a sham. There's no way my sham should be outperforming the group you referenced unless the people playing those chars were typing with their noses.

For reference, my sham is a hodge podge of gear ranging from TOV T1 to TOV raid t1 with a combo of TBL to TOV slot 5 augs. I used him with my warrior and had zero issues doing 5 zones worth of progression by myself.

Okay so this guy only groups, a lot of people only group. Make the changes he and other people have requested and the T2 can be worn earlier and T3 is 120 only. Now what? He's 120 with max group gear and no raid with nothing to do. What's the end goal there?

My opinion on what EQ developers could do to sustain subs throughout the year is to fit the bimodal distribution of the playerbase with a bifurcated difficulty of missions (aka, make the hard missions like The Crusaders easier and add a hard mode to make all the easy missions hard) and to lean on the Hardcore Heritage system ( https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...versary-of-eq-march-2024.280150/#post-4094962 ).

Personally, I have no problem dropshipping into EQ every expansion or two and moving on in January. It's less of a problem for me than it is for Darkpaw's revenue stream.

This post is and entire thread is seriously tone deaf. It's like Jeff Bezos pretending to know what factory workers need or want.

None of what you were/are complaining about effects you one bit. You're assuming how other people play and what they have difficulty in. You are just making assumptions all over the place as someone that plays 60 days a year.

There is always something to do. Maxing out gear is the least of everything.

I assume someone who plays 60 days a year will be behind, and accepts that and is doing content at their own pace.

Just level up.

There are plenty of casual players who have not played 60 days in the new expansion that are already max level and enjoying the new gear.

You’re replying to someone that only posts on that account after a suspension wave.

Would be nice if it was not a suspension wave but rather a ban wave.

Yeah I’m sure your life would be much better. How do those people effect you? Do they steal your mobs and kick sand in your face? Eq population is very low, ban the real cheaters/exploiters, that’s fine, like the afk bot people. You obviously play one character and are happy with it, so enjoy your game . Maybe some people like to box, without alt tabbing 100 times and being stressed out, just enjoy playing a game, which is all eq is, a game for fun. As long as someone isn’t hurting someone else by their game play, is it a big deal?

It's a pretty big visual carrot though.

Gear and AAs (in that order) are supposed to help you progress. If you can progress without either then they are not needed and a waste developer's time. Hunters, collects, etc. are just window dressing and the least of everything.

How many RPGs out there make you beat the story arc and wear basic gear? It's not logical design and makes gear pointless.

The tier 2 upgrade over tier 3 CoV, is like nothing X2. Besides some focus upgrades, it's pretty much unnoticeable. So it's really not like it would make any difference. But it's kinda weird to beat the hardest part, then get upgrades lol. Tier 1 and 2 should be recommended 116 and tier 3 120.

Just make T2 the new T2 and wearable at 115. Get rid of T1. Problem solved.

I didn't know EQ devs were holding a gun to your head and forcing you to beat the expansion.

No one is going to choose pure grind for levels with the huge discrepancy in experience gained from the missions + overseers. So yes, I have beat the content in order to level. That was the whole in change of design philosophy.