Sony needs to get with the times If this game is going to make it the next 2~5yrs+

If everyone wants the same level rewards, then itemization would be a whole lot easier. The problem is raiders want better rewards than everyone else gets, because they bring more friends to the party.

I'll certainly agree that the difficulty (and just plain interest/design) of content on all levels can be improved. PvP players want attention in a game that was never designed with PvP in mind. Developing new content for them pulls resources away from developing good and interesting content for the rest of the playerbase (solo, group, and raid).

Ultimately, PvP is self balancing: if a class sucks, people won't play it - same goes for builds (ie: AA trees, etc...) Once the players have figured out the 'optimal' class/build combinations, then that's what people will play and the game has become balanced.

Achieving and maintaining a group of people with toons in the right mix, and keeping the social structure intact deserves reward.
The content should also be appropriately difficult- coordinating the actions of 24 (or 52 or 72) people is harder than coordinating the actions of 6 or 3 or 1. But I will also allow that sometimes raiding is easier to do than grouping, because each person is expected to do fewer things more often as part of a larger group. This is a weakness in raiding.

That isnt balance. That is selective consumption of the superior portion.

Someone has already mentioned on here about players expectations regarding gear.

Of course everyone would love to have the best in slot items. But if that was available to all types of play, then people would just do the easiest route. Which is solo and/or crafting. If you disagree with me, you're wrong. If you think solo is just as hard as heroic or raid, then go try and solo a heroic or raid mob in relevant content. You can't, you need help, so it's more difficult to do.

EQ2 has so much to do. And the person who can do it all (craft, solo, group and raid) can expect to get all the best stuff.

If you can't do it all, or are not prepared to, then you need to lower your expectations of what you can get. Not whine and ask for SOE to make it so everyone gets the prize. That will kill this game.

Sony needs to get with the times If this game is going to make it the next 2~5yrs+ . Here are a few suggestions!

#1) Make raid content more difficult and significantly better than group / solo gear as it used to be.

#2) Raids should reward players better than groups, groups should reward players better than solo content.

#3) Nerf solo gear / MC and remove SLR so people can't get gear they don't deserve.

#4) Encourage players working together to earn things other than loot. (i.e. make fun raid / group content)

#5) Nerf old raids so they don't award as much plat if you're alone in the instance.

Oh what do you know we had different suggestions.

Everyone wanting the same level of reward doesn't make itemization any easier...even if it is still being run by itemizationbot2000.
People wanting rewards doesn't mean they should just be given those rewards.

In the original game it wasn't so easy to decide what was best for every slot. Several zones had unique items with unique appearances, and then everything had effects. The 8 different hits melee classes now have that are different animations at most also had secondary effects before GU13. Each expansion has a single signature line and end zone, so naturally everything there should be better than that from anywhere else, because there is no equivalent. It's too late to think this game will slow to flesh out things before moving to the next expansion, their business model requires an annual release for revenue.

I think the fabled gear around level 25 in Vault of the Fallen was my favorite, things like a druid-equippable scimitar with a poison proc. I used that longer than I should have, but the game also didn't demand that everyone be a min/max type to progress as it generally does now.

The OP sounds like one of the folks who WANTS to kill the game. Could be one of the old-timers who rage-quit their gold accounts and now has numerous silver accounts to post uber, epeen, poison messages.

And remember it is winter break for many schools. These type of messages tend to pop up during school breaks and when term projects are due.

Other games have similar threads going on now )

The population decline isn't exactly rocket surgery to figure out. Total number of active guilds on my server has lowered significantly over 3 years. Average players logging in the remaining guilds have lowered significantly over 3 years.

Playing the game, I don't see a massive amount of unguilded players to explain the drop off of literally 50% of the players that were there 3 years ago.

Not to mention in the past 3 years, we've had another server merge with ours, and even then, the number of active guilds is half what it was, and so many of them report fewer people logging in as time continues.

Yet mysteriously, Unrest remains 'High Utilization' on the server select screen, lol. I suspect its high as compared to how many people are logged in on other servers, not in reference to the server's actual capacity.

I wonder why raiders seem to think only they deserve good gear...

I work hard working my crafters up and that gear should also be good. I work hard on the solo quests, and alone they can be just as difficult as doing a 20 man raid...so why should the rewards be significantly less?

Sure you can work together if you want, but why should you have to, and why should it be encouraged? Is there is rule/law stating that all online games must be mostly group?

I never understood what was so hard about limiting gear to each category.

PvP gear (somewhat is now in pve) stats don't take affect unless in pvp combat or are halfed or something. Visa versa for pve gear in pvp combat.

Crafters can make good gear that boosts their crafting/gathering other then that average gear for adventurers etc.

Soloers get seperate content and gear that can only be used when not in a group or are halfed or something otherwise.

Groupers get seperate content and gear that can only be used in group or are halfed or something otherwise.

Raiders get seperate content and gear that can only be used in raids or are halfed or something otherwise.

Regardless of how it is done each type of player gets their OWN content (not just copy/pasted 3+ times) and the reward/gear is specified somehow for what they are particularly doing. Not sure why that is so difficult. Rewards based on input....real tough there. At no point should a solo person get raid equivilant gear for less input. Afterall for you "soloers" out there, if all you do is solo why do you need raid gear anyway?

People will always take the easiest route to get gear. Solo an instance for a small chance for a raid equivilant drop and a bigger chance for a group equivilant drop OR look for a group for 20-30 minutes, deal with bad players/people in general, watch people get irritated and leave, etc. to get the exact same loot that takes 2-4x as long to get. Seriously which developer on the team came up with this?

Raiding is hard, so it gives the best gear. In the words of Jimmy Dugan:


"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."

I would say top 20 most popular is giving it too much credit.........

Are you mad?

Hard does not equal time consuming. Tradeskilling isn't hard and relies on just you. One person who you have complete control over. Same with solo.

As soon as you have to rely on others to do something, it becomes harder. It may seem easy when it all goes to plan, but it can easily not go to plan and if you personally have done everything right, then there's nothing you can do to stop it as you can't control it. That's what makes grouping and raiding harder.

Moving a granite top table that weighs 250 lbs is hard. I can't do it on my own (not without breaking my back anyway), so I get help. Four of us can move it around without any problem. Oh wait, more people made it easier... Moving a 100 lb box by myself would be harder than moving that table with four people.

The only reason raid content has historically been "harder" than group or solo content is the devs didn't put the time into making group and solo content challenging (and challenging is different, and ultimately better, than hard). In the beginning they didn't know how (we'll just give the dragon 100k hp and a whomping attack). Then came scripts and the game advanced. It's time to bring some of that knowledge into the grouping and solo game.

I do have to give some credit to SOE for attempting to make crafting challenging at launch. It didn't last too long, and was flawed, but it was a decent effort while it lasted.

And you do run into problems designing solo instances for multiple classes, but now with mercenaries, some of that is mitigated. Otherwise you have multiple instances, some are meant to be doable with some class archtypes, others for another archtype. But I do think these problems are surmountable, and would further help EQ 2 keeps it place in the MMO landscape: right now its biggest selling point is the housing and decorating system - everything else you can pretty much find in at least two or three other major MMO's.

The new solo sig line, the loot tables (which may need adjusting at the heroic level), are all moves toward getting that balance back, putting some challenge and difficulty into solo play, and give everyone the chance to be rewarded for their efforts (yeah, a few lucky people will get a super drop on their first run, but what's typical is what matters).

The flip side of that is when you do screw up in a group, you have other people there who can move in and cover for you. The more people, the larger a margin of error you can have. By that measure solo is harder than grouping, which is harder than raiding.

Challenge is not something that can be rated simply by counting numbers.

ie: Tossing a football in the air versus facing the Broncos with a team you put together. LoL.

The challenge however just isn't in what you're facing (mobs/scripts/etc) but also in the time, etc to put groups/raids together versus soloing. As I stated in my post above. For a solo instance even if it had the same "challenge" as a raid solo...you could just enter it, do it on your own time, never worry about anyone else. Where as grouping/raiding you have to form the group with certain classes, deal with others and how they play/etc, lead them if they don't know the fights, and so on and so forth. It's not just about the mob you're facing lol. So if you were to offer the same loot for solo/group/raid as they are now and even if solo was hard/challenging as the raid/group...people will still do the solo.

I foresaw this when they added mercs and dreaded it. Players should never be 'forced' to have a merc along to do solo content, but it is clear that much of the sig line was designed with the assumption that players would be running around with a merc. (and, yes, I have AoD and bought it when it came out, I just dislike using mercs and shouldn't have to molo content that is supposed to be solo)

Using your metaphor:

Not everyone can move a 250lbs table by themselves, just like not every eq character can solo a particular mob. Raid geared have an easier time, like a stronger person would have an easier time lifting the table.

And yes, using 4 people makes it easier, but you have to coordinate it, and if one person slacks off and drops their corner when you're least expecting it, the table falls over and potentially squashes someone. You can bet if you were doing it yourself, you'd be aware of your limitations and there would be less chance of injury because you're not putting your trust in others.

BUT, you're using a very simple metaphor, which is imo similar to crafting an item, not following a script with 24 others. I would use a metaphor of demolishing a building or moving a house or massive structure 100T plus to compare to a raid. The coordination required and timing and tactics are needed AS WELL as a large quantity of people. One person just could not do it, you need cranes, drivers, spotters, etc etc.

"Moving a granite top table that weighs 250 lbs is hard. I can't do it on my own (not without breaking my back anyway), so I get help. Four of us can move it around without any problem. Oh wait, more people made it easier... Moving a 100 lb box by myself would be harder than moving that table with four people."

Wait a minute, is this guy serious? Yes I think he is because this is not the first time he has made this kind of irrelevant comparison. This guy is why casual players have a bad name.

This "game" has some of the worst PvE ever these days. If Sony would want to fix it, it would require a huge amount of time, effort, and money. The mechanics are stale, unimaginative (add spawn POWER DRAAAAAAAAIN), and sometimes downright annoying (WING BUFFET WING BUFFET WING BUFFET). No diminishing returns on npc control effects is also annoying.