Dungeon Maker Changes Coming Dec. 16

Instead of making the dungeon marks worthless, or getting rid of them, they could make them convertable. They have done this with other forms of obsolete in-game currency, such as those from events. I don't see why these should be any different.

If I can convert it to Etyma at a 2:1 ratio, my Mystic alt would be ever so happy

The only problem with this is the amount of these marks that the people who have powerleveled or offered powerleveling services have stockpiled versus what would be considered the nominal amount a typical player who ran DM dungeons to earn marks is expected to have.

Currently, the only way to redeem marks is to buy stuff from the section of the marketplace where they are offered. This has an effect only on the very few items that are craftable that have similar effects to mark reward consumables. One such example being repair kits... a lot of people don't even know there are player crafted repair kits in the first place. There's usually none on the broker because it's not profitable to make them and sell them because of the ones available in the marketplace.

If you allow those stockpiled marks to now turn into some alternate form of currency, especially if it's plat or exchanges for plat - you now have no control over the damage to the economy that is going to cause. Eventually the stockpiles would dry up - but it would have a long-lasting impact on all of the players, not just the ones with stashed marks.

The other thing to take into account, is that even if you found some way to come up with a safe exchange - what's a fair exchange rate? You have to make it worth it for people that have "normal" amounts of marks, or they will feel slighted and won't bother. You can't make it too large, or the people with hundreds of thousands of marks will still profit too greatly at the expense of others.

Fair enough. I was just throwing out possible ideas. Myself I have used the DM tool in the past to help equip new characters and get the pegasus mount but havent spent alot of time in them. I still think its only fair those of us that spent money on this should receive some form of reimbursement. It's not our fault that three years after the fact they now decide its an exploit.

Repair kits?! Is that really the reason you feel that SOE has stolen our SC via taking away an advertised feature? Most players that even use repair kits are most likely in a guild and have a bank full of them, just like bags and other crafted items. I personally have several guildie made repair kits in my mains inv and seldom am in a position where my gear is 50% or > damaged which is required to use them, and there is no other means to repair. If the broker is hurting over crafted items from the DM store repair kits is most deff not the reason we are being short changed.

Nor is this the only way to redeem marks. The DM gear is sub-standard when compared to master crafted / researched gear. No that is not the reason. The reason is more based on a childish decision... " They do not want to lvl on the new content then lets take something away from them that they do enjoy and force them to purchase more expansions."
I would love to be a fly on the wall of these board meetings when this was a point of order, then was seconded and voted on.

No rational thought could have gone into such a foolish decision as this. Perhaps EQ2 is insured and SOE needs the insurance claim when the game is closed due to player outrage. As silly as this sounds it is more believable. I am not knocking your opinion which we are all entitled to, however I do not feel that broker repair kit sales is the reason for this humbug season.

You missed the point of the post. The small amount of impact the controlled amount of overlapping items currently has is not an issue. Allowing all of the existing marks to be traded in for currency, especially if it were plat or convertible to plat - is what would be the issue as then the wider market and economy as a whole are suddenly and widely impacted. That's what I was saying.

The money is definitely a factor - as I've said in at least one of my previous posts. Mark items are also available for station cash. It's not the sole factor, not by a long shot. It's not an effort to try to get everyone to buy Heroic characters either. See the announcement about AA's if you have not - it's a major change and also a huge phase shift in the way early game content all the way to 90 will work if you are an all-access member and can adjust your slider. Paired together, these changes make sense. I also do not think they are the last of the changes in store, not by a long shot.

I understand how everyone feels about this - and you'll notice, while I am asking for calm and explaining my positions - I did ask for a refund too and stated very plainly why I feel it is warranted. Please bear in mind that they are always iterating and not every major change is announced at once. Once they clear up the DM issue and make the AA changes - there's certainly other things coming down the line.

A valid point and well stated. This whole thing is a real mess and has me thinking I am spending my money on a dead horse. .... I digress

Problem is, some negative issues can't be said very nicely, especially when there is reallife money involved and borderline scam from SOE part. That being said, I agree with removing of this feature. It was balance breaking, and should had been removed long ago. Even if I took advantage of it after leveling my first one traditionally. However, SOE fails to look at this issue more closely, and bypasses some of the balanceissues here.

DM powerleveling was only possible with certain classes, even if before it was more widespread still these certain classes were dominant. Your problem lies there, not in dungeon maker. There should not be any that single character can solo 300 (up arrowed!) mobs at same time while player is having a lunch.

I kind of like the idea of pushing DMs towards "roleplaying" ends, but I disagree with your way of doing it. Dms are ugly and rude to create anything spectacular. I mean, few generic dungeons with huge rooms and zero athmosphere. You shouldn't make DM free, you should make it better. Improve the graphics, make better dungeons, better storytelling properties and more tools to create amazing dungeons. Then, perhaps, take best of them to playable category with experience, with developer judgement involved. That way we could see some very nice new content.

This is a classic case of be careful what you ask for. People complained and they nerfed the Totem people were using to go into the Dungeons. No one was happy with this and people kept complaining and now they are going to just totally break it for good. Now the same people who were unhappy with the exp grind people who were using it for PLing are upset that they are going to totally nerf it. If I were Sony I would do the same due to the headache. You have to many people complaining either way and it becomes a time sink to try to balance it out. I do not agree with it personally but as a business perspective I understand. Furthermore I am a consumer and would love to get my money back for the purchase of the DM since Sony is going back on what I wanted it for. I think Sony needs to think this one out as in MMO's I have never seen a case where you can satisfy everyone. I agree with a lot of the points here though. I see you are addressing the AA's with levels. This should of been done a long time ago. Now to look at the xp per kill on mobs and a possible refund for the DM purchases.

Thanks!

Looks like the need to grind 280 AA's just evaporated. See the other thread about Improvements to the AA System.

(Edit: Feldon beat me to it )

And my two cents for heroic characters versus DM powerplay: it's not same thing even by a longshot.

Heroic characters are rarely used, how many times we have heard how this or that would never buy one? This doesn't break the balance for whole game, making xp-making trivial nonsense. Like it or not, money stays barrier here, and it's good to have *some* mean for people to catch up quickly with the guild, for example. SOE needs to make their money somehow, and I would like to see everquest 2 alive in coming years also. There seems to be many who thinks the game is run somehow without any budget.

meh..I only just bought the DM so I could get marks for the DM items now I'm going to lose them? I was just getting to like being able to buy repair kits on the fly when my repair bot's down, and stack totem of quickness with the deadly sabertooth for a lil extra speed...if they're just going to be completely removed from the (DM)market...can we get this stuff put in with Loyalty Points? only make the stuff stackable (higher than stacks of 5 and 1), and give a little more quantity per purchase with points? Including all the appearance and mount stuff + Reforging Decorations.
Edit: 1 Month free membership would be enough comp for me to pay back the waste of money too *wink*

So, I guess the face value point of this change is to stop DM from being used for power leveling and in doing so, bypassing content. However, nerfing DM like this is a nuclear option and a pointless one at that. Nerfing DM to uselessness is not going to stop power leveling and therefore bypassing content. All this is going to do is force people that want to power level alts/friends (or for hire) back into the lower level dungeons and power level there at newer players' expense. Sebilis, for example, can be pretty much kept cleared by three people power leveling. I'm sure many of the pre-DoV zones can be.

As for there being no risk involved, there is no real risk in this game and there never has been. I've played EQ2 from beta to today. There has never been corpse runs, experience lose that takes hours of grinding to replace, running back from your bind point in a city a continent a way because you you died (oh and by the way, you had to do that naked as your gear is still on your body). It has never taken 100 players to take down one raid mob in this game. No trains to zone that wipe out 20 lowbies fighting zone in trash, or kill stealers or ninja looters. And you know what, that is ok. That was the "vision" for EQ2. It was designed to be much more casual gamer friendly than EQ or other games of that time period. But for experienced or hard core gamers, that also means easy.

Honestly, I've died more than a few times in my own dungeons, and the same thing happens that happens when I die in a SOE dungeon. I get sent back to the zone in and have a trivial amount experience debt, no real risk there. The two main differences are when I die in DM, I die more often and I am not getting any rewards for running the dungeon, other than xp. There is no treasure to sell/use, and there is only some much you can use the tokens for. You can't even use them if you don't own DM.

If you want to see the EQ2 easy button, look no further than your character select screen. Heroic characters bypass 84 levels of content, give you very adequate gear to get to level 90 and there is literally a button to click. Not to mention, if you need some plat, you can buy 75 pp for 5 loyalty tokens, pretty easy too.

I've leveled alts both in old dungeons and in DM. From my experience, I actually felt like DM leveling was a bit slower, with the 1.99 levels a run adventure xp limit. I can get a character (with full vitality and vitality orb) in the 70s five levels in the time it takes a single one hour veteran reward xp potion to run out. I would only get about four levels out of DM in the same amount of time. The only thing DM is (soon to be was) better than a regular dungeon was for AA points in my experience. DM is no more an easy button than the rest of the game and takes the at least same amount of work to level in than anywhere else (least pre-AoM). And for context, my highest level characters are a 95 berserker and paladin with tier 1 battlegrounds ToV era gear and I have never set a digital foot in ToV.

For this to be called an exploit carries with it the implication that everyone that has used DM for experience are exploiters. Frankly, this is a bit insulting and Windstalker really should apologize for that, whether it was her intention or not. When the developers allowed players to make their own instances with mobs that could be killed for xp, what did they think was going to happen? Were people really supposed to use DM to make a dungeon just so they can decorate it? And for that matter, were players expected to run a dungeon that essentially is just for show?

DM is no more an exploit than mentoring down or buying a heroic character/AA bauble. The difference is, there is absolutely no risk in buying a heroic character and virtually no risk in mentoring. At least in DM, the mobs are a bit of a challenge. Bypassing old content is just part of a game that is 10 years old. There are only so many times you can kill ten rats to get that new pair of level 3 boots, or kill ten orcs in Velious for that new level 85 earring. If the concern is DM being used to bypass AoM content (I thought the xp nerf was supposed to be the solution for that), then the move should have been to make AoM content more attractive, or cap the level that can use DM (like LADs). Nuking an entire feature, and apparently one that quite a few people just recently bought, is too heavy handed.

Power levelers are going to power level, there is nothing that will stop them. Short of removing mentoring, heroic characters, AA baubles, xp potions and vitality anyway. To utilize any amount of the limited developer resources that there are to make these changes that essentially accomplish nothing is a waste. I do not own AoM, so I cannot comment on the design of content there, but from reading threads on the forum, it seems that developer resources would be better spent there. Nerfing DM power leveling which can easily be done with a level 85 heroic in old word zones, which is not considered an exploit, is a waste of very limited resouces. Not to mention, getting rid of something of actual value on the Marketplace. From my point of view, this just seems like an attempt to get players to buy more heroic characters. The lost of DM won't do that for me through.

Apologies for the long post, but this move by SOE makes utterly no sense. For the people that are actually applauding this, please share why this is a needed "improvement" for the game, so I can try to apply some logic to SOE's move in my head. Because right now, the only logic would be that this is a heroic character money grab.

Thanks,
Kraye

I have a question for the developers. If the DM items are going to be removed then how does that effect the items we currently have. Boxes, Pegasus, weapons and or gear being used for appearance and the like? Will those remain? Should we pre-purchase gear for alts leveling up with the tokens we currently have or will those be dissappearing?

I spent a lot of time getting the LoN card for the Rat spawner. I wish I had a chance to make a dungeon using this tool. That being said, I really hope they change their mind about marks so that it will still be used when I do decide to make my dungeon. So much potential wasted because a few people abused it. Now with marks going obsolete, nobody will ever be using this again and any dungeons players could have made will just go by the wayside. This makes me sad.

Hmm, I must have been playing a different EQ2 to you at launch then (and no, I'm not remembering EQ - never played the original before EQ2 came out) - I remember a LOT of corpse runs as a naked ghost and having to give up depressingly often. I remember groups spending most of their time going back to get everyone's corpses. Particularly in Fallen Gate for some reason. Death was a real annoyance. I remember getting massive experience debt, so much that they ended up giving a 'Wand of Forgiveness' as a Vet award which was precious. I remember being scared to venture to a new zone in case I got my posterior handed to me and running up a huge debt and repair bill. I remember huge open fights on overland ^^^ mobs like Ladon and Gustfeather. I also remember when crafting required mountains of sub-combines - I still have my handwritten notebook of recipes and how many of each type of sub-combine each piece of furniture needed, and how many raw materials each sub-combine needed. Back then crafting was hardcore too - even us carpenters could make money cos so few had the patience lol. This game used to be hard - it has become easier and easier over the years.

I would suggest instead of damning players who use the dungeon maker, you boost the experience gained by higher level mobs. Those of us in our 80s to level 100 should not be forced to go to Sebilis to earn decent solo experience.

Why should people that didn't use DM to race to 100, suffer for the ones that did?
Why not reset the tokens to a decent number.

Ever since I've played EQ2 I have cringed at power level services. They honestly irk me, but, they've been allowed and players have used them and will continue to find a way to do so. Would it be better if these players, that don't want to see anything but max level, simply did not play? Can EQ2 afford to lose players?

Or should these players only use SoE power leveling service in the form of a heroic toon?

To the players saying how wonderful this change is, I ask you, if they decided that all heroic toons were being reset to 1 so they could play the game as intended, how do you think that would go down? But yes we know that would never happen, it's far too profitable.

Brilliant. Perfect solution. To bad it makes to much sense for it to every happen.

Killing DM xp will kill the feature completely. I've made over a dozen "Story" dungeons, and a few "packed" dungeons, and the packed were always the most popular. Note that, popular. "Play your way" is taking a whole new slide into a pool of mediocrity. SOE don't kill your cash cow before you have a replacement.

HR