Dungeon Maker Changes Coming Dec. 16

At least we crafters can purchase that bauble "return to highhold"....muwahahaha .

Just a note,

I enjoyed collecting the mobs for the dungeons, and intended to make my own eventually. Isn't there any way to keep
them viable? Just AA at the end or some loot? Why wipe this out altogether and make it storage? I don't get it? It's like taking a sledge hammer..... WHAM. Sounds like people drove the devs crazy over the issue, but like at my job, I hate when the entire work force is penalized over one issue they had nothing to do with. /sigh.

How about just loot or marks? Wouldn't that make most everyone have * some * reason to do dungeons now?

Silk.

To save the DM from getting removed completely, can we make a couple changes to it? Make it accessible from in houses and guild halls, and allow portals to be placed in houses to our specific dungeons (the same way prestige houses use their portals). This way we can make carnivals with the portal to a mini game, or build a video game arcade (using the portals as the monitor) and a game in the DM to play. It would even make it possible to make "levels" to DMs by putting a portal to the next DM at the end of the first DM. Not like we have to worry about not getting rewards now by not leaving via the red portal now, is it? -.-
Without any incentive to enter them, we need to make it easier to find specific ones, and make it more fun and connected to housing, since that's all it is now. ... Unless it really is SOE's goal to claim low traffic as an excuse to completely remove DMs from the game...

There are some amazingly creative dungeons that folks have put together, and many have gotten lost in all the XP/Mark grinding dungeons. It seems that the goal is to encourage creativity and make it easier to be showcased, so I agree with folks who are asking to leave the Dungeon Marks in the game...appealing to people's sense of self interest will get them running through the dungeons.

The catch in keeping Marks around is that it would lead to the grinding dungeons still being made, so the current Mark-crazy system would need tweaked. People in this thread have already suggested lots of ways it could happen: cap the number of Marks you can get per run, disallow stacking of mobs, or even change the Mark merchandise to be only Dungeon Maker related [so little or no consumables or armour...it would still greatly cut down on people who use the dungeons, but at least that non-SC avenue would still be open for the decorators and creative types who want additional items for their dungeons].

I know that the developers and the teams have a limited amount of time, attention, and energy, but I hope you can consider allowing some sort of reward for running through the dungeons. There are some incredibly creative people who have made some impressive dungeons, and they deserve to be seen...and let's face it, bribery [er, rewarding people] works.

Can someone please explain the difference between power leveling and buying a heroic toon. Thank you.

I'd also like to know why instead of getting rid of this feature, that a lot of people have paid for, you couldn't nerf experience <95 as you did for 95+

I'd rather not give any more money, to a company that treats its customers like idiots.

You get a cool pegasus mount and some gear when you buy a heroic toon.

Power Leveling:

Paying Sony to Level:

Power leveling:
...no challenge in the game because they leveled up to max in DM, and then received no challenge at all from the rest of the new content.

Paying Sony to Level^H^H^H^H^H Skip the Early Game:
...start at level 85 with a full complement of gear, Alternative Advancement Abilities, and a unique mount. Then, finish getting the other 15 levels any other way you have to, including playing the new content without powerleveling in DM, since it's now been removed*.

*Italics indicate my thoughts there.

There really is a clear difference, and the way they (SOE) worded their post made it clear they think and know there is a difference. I wrote an elaborate response to this on a topic over in general (and I've replied about 20 times earlier in this thread), so I'm not going any more in depth than I just did above here. The quick version really does sum it up, though.

Except that... there are STILL ways of bypassing AoM content if you want. For instance, I bought the new expansion, but haven't had the time to play because of work being crazy this time of year. Now that Frostfell is out, I'm going to concentrate on that. Guess what? It's entirely likely that my 95s will get closer to 100 before I start AoM. One or more of them might even hit 100, if I do Icy Keep often enough. Does this mean they should nerf exp in Icy Keep? Well, if they do, they're going to have even more players coming out of the woodwork with pitchforks.

I have NEVER heard anyone in chat on my server complaining that other people got to 100 using DM. The people I know who knew about it, shrugged and said, "So what?" It doesn't affect them, and they don't care, even though they've done AoM and didn't hit 100 by the end. Btw, I don't think those runs through DM with level 95-100 characters were PLing. You can't PL someone who is within 5 levels of you, as those players were. So the argument tying PLing to people not doing AoM was spurious and only vaguely connected.

I think it was only SOE that was upset about people not running AoM, not other players. It really sounded like a child pouting that not enough people were doing the new content they spent so much time creating, so they wanted to take away the other children's toys so they would play with them. Along with the berating tone that one poster so aptly described, that is exactly what it sounded like.

I personally do NOT do DM much. But I've done it for the tokens, and that is what I'm upset about losing. I don't CARE about the exp, I am just angry that they felt the need to punish us, because that's exactly what it feels like.

There have been many really good suggestions in this thread about how they could have fixed it. Limiting the number of mobs per square inch and/or per dungeon is an excellent one. I always hate stepping into a dungeon and getting immediately squashed by 100 or so mobs. I'm not uber geared; I don't raid, and rarely group. That means if there are that many mobs right next to the door in such a huge group, I'm guaranteed to die. I much prefer DM dungeons where I take on only one or two mobs at a time, and go through the entire dungeon that way. I get 10-20 marks from those, and I usually see some nice furnishing setups, and that makes me happy. But I do it for the marks, I will be honest, and if those go away, I won't do them anymore.

never once used an avatar in one, is forcing that maybe an option?

another thing, you gave players the ability to make dungeons for people to use as experience instances (very cool), but that wasnt your intention? no, the 'EXPLOIT' wasnt your intention..do your job and fix it...bit my toungue for days on this, because i agree that it was totatly out of hand compared to normal exp....but how many toons should people 'quest' up (not old to me yet, but ya..pretty close)? give them this option (and yes nerf the exp down the line, but the dungeon marks should be left alone)...

• Turning off experience in Dungeon Maker

I always felt that the experience I earned with my one character in the dungeons I created was an interesting change of pace for leveling up a character. Once you have done so many of the existing content lines (even going good / evil) it gets stale if you have more than two characters. I do the main content from expansions and things with my main still. With others I tried to create unique ways of leveling them -like just doing holiday events, doing exploration, doing all the quests per map, doing collections and yes, Dungeon Maker. I liked that way of doing things and Dungeon Maker suited me just fine. To me it offered a creative way to play EQ2. Anyone that checks out my characters will know that I am definitely not one of those players that zipped through the content within hours just to reach max level- my main is not even max level and I have played for years because I prefer to just explore and go at my own pace. I also never complained there was nothing to do - there is often too much for me to do.

So with all that said - is it possible to limit the experience gained from the Dungeon Maker feature instead of removing it entirely? For instance - a plan might be to have the first dungeon count but any ones done after that won't count at all for experience. That might eliminate the problem without penalizing players that are using them legitimately in the way they were intended to be used.

OR

I haven't created a new dungeon in some time, is there a cap on how many mobs can be put into any dungeon? If not then perhaps there should be and if there is, perhaps that should be lowered.

• Dungeon Mark rewards will be removed

This is not fair. The problem from the topic of this thread is that players are exploiting the DM system to gain experience. From my knowledge of that system though there were no items to give a character extra experience that could be purchased with the marks earned. If I have overlooked something that does however, would a better plan not be to simply remove that item and allow it to be gained some other way - if not removed entirely from EQ2?

• All Dungeon Maker dungeons will be unpublished so that decorating-focused dungeons can be republished (vs. the dungeons created for maximum experience gain.)

This is a good idea actually for people just getting into it. I would go one step further though and make it so that all dungeons created will be cleared after so much time (say a year or six months) to allow new creators to have a chance at earning ranks for the creativity they put into it.

• The Dungeon Maker category in the store will remain for the time being for players to spend leftover Dungeon Marks

Thank you.

• The Dungeon Maker feature will be included free for all players as part of the Free to Play experience.

This is a good idea.

In closing, I always thought the Dungeon Maker feature had real potential to be used in between expansions for content. I do understand that people exploit it. But many people didn't as well. I was very happy with earning rewards for my character with it. I think I used it the right way but somehow - again - legitimate players are being penalized for someone else's actions. I'm sorry that that is how I feel.

In fact, the thought occurs to me that perhaps leveling in general for EQ2 should be looked at. I remember the days when new classes would come out - it wouldn't be long (sometimes the same day as the class was released!) before I would see players with max levels of those new classes in general chat asking for groups. Something is definitely wrong there and this was before Heroic Characters came out. I don't think it could all be linked to Dungeon Maker either.

Well, I'm glad someone pointed out this topic to me so I could spend my tokens in time. Removing all of the rewards is confusing, why not let people use up their tokens?

I have few question (i don't have read all 22 page.. early apologies if are redundant):

• Why remove the token?

Most of the player do content only for the reward... Even a little cookie will be appreciated! Is not hard to remove the actual system (1 token for mob), and put a X token for run.

• Why put all DM unpublished?

Sadly, eq2 have a little population problem.. We have lost many friend in the years (not dead.. they just quit the game). On this way, we will lost many wonderful DM.. Lost in eq2 server void.

I have farmed DM for the achievement of 100,000 marks and bought all the Spawners and maps and furniture and farmed all the Spawners in game to have the complete set of everything that is dungeon maker. All that time spent is now wasted due to making this free to all. This out of all the changes is what chaps my hide the most. My time is now worth nothing as all can get them with 0 effort

The use of DM as a leveling tool from 1-95 is a joke I wouldn't bother. its 1 level per run period. 95-100 it was helpful but not fun in the least so that path is not open to me as I don't care for doing it. The only thing in my opinion DM was good for xp wise was to get the AA. I have other avenues to get AA it was just much nicer and easier to do from anywhere in dungeon maker and allowed me to visit a lot of cool dungeons. now it will be not worth my time to go to any dungeon.

Why make this change after all the people who would exploit it have already done so?

This still really upsets me, and it seems unnecessary to take it this far.
We all care about the content in this game, obviously the Devs care about what
they created. Thing is, everytime I see a dungeon activator reward in Frostfell
this year, now I'm totally depressed. I wanted to make a cookie dungeon, now
what is the point of a "chocolate chanter activator"? To stand a guard old furniture?

Silk.......

so what your saying is the extra cash i had and turned into SC as a non-member is now "poof" i haven't even been playing long and i mostly play when i can and now so the trophies and the items i spent so much time on now are perdy much is worthless now. WOW and to think i was enjoying myself playing. now im just going to take my 4 hall of fames off and not put them back on.... its not worth the hole line i made. yes theres stories in my new one ive been working on for a few months now... and now i dont even feel like posting it.... THANX EQ2 for messing up yet again.

depending on how i like the new way depends on if im going else where

I'm a returning player. Renewed my All Access November 11, 2014 (just over a month ago). Shortly after that I bought the AoM CE. Maybe I misunderstood the fine print but the merc I received from the CE and the merc I got from my 10 year vet reward required me to purchase a merc feature. Okay, so looking at what was available in the store I found the 4000 SC adventure feature pack which also included the DM. I purchased that feature pack maybe 3 weeks ago. Now I find one of the features I just paid for will now be available free. Not a good player experience to have your money literally taken from you like that.

I can understand the decision to remove the exp and other reward aspects of the DM. Having seen similar introduced in another game I played years ago and saw how it ruined the game (game was closed a year or so after their DM equivalent was introduced) I think this is a good move on SOE's part. But having paid for a feature that is then made free a couple weeks later leaves a very sour taste. I'll be very careful and critical of any future SC purchases.

I really feel you owe a refund or compensation to those of us who recently purchased the DM either individually or as part of one of the feature packs. I really feel the rug was pulled out from under me on the purchase aspect.