GU100: The (Good?), the Bad, and the Ugly

Only if I can sell them back to daybreak for cash toward my sub. Otherwise hell no I rather see heartbound removed altogether than another wasted mechanic on XP. Might as well shut this down because it's becoming idiotic. Low priced vials on broker, XP potions galore, mentoring, vitality, vitality potions. Really more XP is flat stupid.

I really appreciate how everyone is framing this as 'raiders dont want casuals having this buff' when literally no one has said anything of the sort. I guess just because the main person making the argument is Neiloch, a very vocal raider. But he's not saying anything of the sort. If I'm reading his posts correctly, he'd be happier if the buff ONLY applied to solo/heroic content.

Guys, in the history of EQ2 there has never been a buff this powerful. It's absurd. And if you don't think encounters are going to be designed around players have this buff, you're crazy. A 30% boost in DPS is enough to trivialize content.

Scout agility buffs way back before they changed how agility and avoidance worked. A predator was immune to damage and could solo x2's. Stun lock in DoF. DPS tsunami of KoS. Class armor of EoF. So yeah it isn't the most powerful in the history of eq2. I agree the buff is overpowered but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the tsunami of potency and crit we have seen lately. If they wanted to really be dicks they would make you prove you were a couple.

How soon we forget the power adjustment that came with KoS that damn neared killed the game when people quit in droves. Keep this mewing up and we may see it again.

Yep - it's not raiders trying to get casuals nerfed. It's people... some of them who also happen to be raiders... who understand the combat mechanics and itemization in the game, who are arguing that a free global 30% DPS boost probably isn't a good thing for healthy balance for ANY playstyle. Between Heartbound buff and crazy stat inflation, this one little GU content pack trivialized almost the entirety of TOT content in one fell swoop. Think there's enough content in Zek to keep everyone interested until next winter's Xpac? Heh.

See, there we go. A nice helpful benefit that could be among the other nice helpful benefits of being heartbound, without being wildly powerful in combat. Brilliant!

You are right. However: You, and a lot of other people, are forgetting one key aspect of bringing a metric ****-ton of stats into the game in the middle of an expansion. Every. SINGLE. MOB. Before this game update became trivial, because we introduced upwards of 50-60% more dps, healing, and outgoing threat on mobs. Before this update, most guilds were struggling to kill certain mobs. Now, they are steamrolling without having to gear up any more, or put any more effort into improving anything but clicking a house item every 30 minutes, and in some cases, not even that (my heartbound buff has a very useful knack of rekindling itself without my authority)(not complaining). Vanlith, the Mysterious One; only one or two guilds worldwide could kill. Now, everyone and their brother can kill it, if they can get there first.

I appreciate the thought, dev team.. I really do. I like seeing my dps as a bard push 450m.
But the amount of unbalancing that has been produced in prior content because of lack of foresight and testing is astronomical.
And that's just the fervor and potency side of things. Don't get me started on resolve.

except it's pointless. we got no need for yet ANOTHER xp bonus. seriously. I got a bag full of port items. my CoV barely gets used. there's no place in the game world I can't get to in 5 minutes, tops. you can level fro 1-90 in an hour, tops. 90-100 in MAYBE another hour.

the only meaningful thing they got left to give us is DPS buffs. they got nothing else to give that means a damn thing anymore. we don't need more xp gains. I'll never use vials becuase they are pointless with how fast I can get xp as it is. I need no new port abilities, I got mountains of port items and clickies.

if it doesn't give dps, it isn't worth adding at this point. and again, I don't see any big 'omg if your not in a riad were everyone is heartbound you all just have to quit cause you suck' mobs. I don't think it'll be 'balanced' around unless they want to make the game go completely back to 'if you don't pay monthly, you don't play at all' model, because FTP don't get a 15% bonus. they get 5% and with your complaining about how super godly powerful 15% is, you can't balance a mob to that and just tell the FTP people to get lost, now can you.

it's a bonus for the Heartbound. just becuase YOU will balance YOUR groups and raids around everyone having it doesn't mean anyone else will. YOU paying for a dummy account to keep it 'rekindled' constantly doesn't mean anyone else can or will pay for another account to do so. just cause YOU will stop what your doing every 30 min to rekindle doesn't mean anyone else will.

this is a great bonus for people who play together all the time. that's what it's for. it's so a duo might be able to take on a weaker heroic zone. it's so a group might be able to do MC without needing 2-3 evils with god bombs. quit trying to get it destroyed into being completely worthless.

how about you do everyone a solid and write a post about how to level from 1 to 100 in less than two hours.

I like the idea of the buff for soloing hard stuff, but don't want it tied to romance or another player, I don't want it to feel dependent, That is why I said allow npcs as a option, for a altaholic with many purchased character slots, that plays ''both genders'' dependent on what gender I like for the class/race character, this is odd as a cod for me. It makes me a bit....uncomfortable and confused from a rp stand point. And coldly getting the buff ignoring the romance mechanic would make my characters feel cheap.

Rainmare you are completely wrong. New content will be tuned around everyone having the 30% fervor buff, it has to be otherwise the content will be trivialized as soon as its released. The only way around it would be if the new content made it easy to max out fervor therefor trivializing the buff.

On another note I find it very disappointing how this content update made mostly all tot jewelry useless. Legendary collection rewards, heroic jewelry, and contested jewelry, are all better than the stuff you can get in tot. The the new raid zone drops situational weapons and the rest is garbage loot. It's almost like go get easy to obtain jewelry from the new content update so you can steamroll tot in order to get higher resolve lower stat loot in order to kill new raid content that drops situational weapons in order to kill kraletus and mushroom, kind of a dumb merry go round.

So, then ... the Heartbound buff only works when both people are online & grouped together, & is automatically cancelled if they add any other players to their group.

That way they get their reward for always playing together, but it's not necessarily unbalanced for Heroic groups much less raids, & perhaps doesn't necessarily mean all future content will be designed around it.

However, to be honest, I'm just not seeing where a casual duoing couple needs this buff in the first place, especially if they both do the GU100 exploration quest & get the Warpriest merc.

I don't understand the mindset that wants to take it away from everyone because they feel it will unbalance "their" gameplay (re: raids).

Don't agree with it? Then don't use it. It is a totally voluntary buff.

A lot of people solo/multi box in this game these days. Whether they are guilded or not. Adults with less time due to RL or someone who just wants to chill a after work w/ out carrying on a conversation. Its a nice buff that might allow them to see more content by themselves that otherwise might be gated cause they play alone. Especially since many of them pay for their subscription too.

And what they are doing has no effect on anyone else's game.

except they can't. you can't tune content for a buff people may, or may not have, or on the idea that everyone will drop what they are doing and send someone to the guild hall every 30 minutes to rekindle it, or expect everyone to be paying for 2 accounts to keep it at 30%.

I could see it if EVERYONE got the same buff, AND if there was a bag clicky to rekindle it with. but we don't get or have either of those. the FTP people get 5 and 15 if it's kindled. so you can't balance stuff to 30 or you just lost all your FTP players. you can't balance to 15 becuase you can't assume the FTP players will just stop what they are up to and rekindle at the hall. maybe you can try to balance it to 5, the base non kindled FTP amount.

but expecting it so be balance to 30 is ludicrous because of the FTP differences and the idea that you can't rekindle without going back to the guild hall...unless they want to make entire raid zones you can start and complete in 30 minutes or less. mobs can't be tuned to a buff you may not have, or may not have in the same amount, as the guy standing next to you.

it's the same thing you guys are screaming about now with the resolve buffs. SO the fix is lowering the mobs resolve. I imagine the only 'tuning' this might get will be a health boost, so the 'uber optimizing group with heartbound **** retentivness' will kill the mob in 10 minutes, and the regular folks kill it in 15.

But I doubt even that will happen.

The ugly.... Six hour lockout for a solo zone...
The Bad .... Resolve mechanic but they tweaking it so hopefully it will not punish understaffed raids ESP since Summer is coming
The Good .... MoAr potency and heart-bound....fun times to be had by all....

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Agree, good for the token (void shard) collecting of 80 twinks. Just disable it in end game raids. In warcraft some guilds selected not to use the game braking icc buff, some used it for fun. It matters not.

Edit:
Ixian love the name, Ixian, I xian. Cute haha.

Not forgetting this at all; obviously something like this causes a lot of systemic issues that would take too long/too much effort to detail in a forum post I make in my downtime from other, funner things.

To be completely honest the players who have a full x4 raid every night will obviously not understand the purpose of the Heartbound. The number of guilds who cannot fill a x4 due to ego, failed alliances, and attendance is far larger than most realize. I want to even go as far to say the majority of raiding guilds cannot fill out, thus struggle to clear content. The player base will keep dwindling because every time they release some new stuff (Resolve) a portion of the player base complains and some quit. I bet you that the devs have known this for quite a while because this is nothing new. So what, you kill things faster than usual and the rest of the player who want to see the content might just have a shot to down a some more names. Strats are still in place to keep top tier guilds in the lead since their members have raided together longer.

Uhm, I beg to differ. Those guilds, especially, will understand the benefit of 15-30 extra fervor on every toon in the raid. Those are the hardest core, most min/maxing folks. They understand just how powerful that much extra fervor is.

I haven't been hardcore in years and I understand what the buff does. Believe me they are not the only ones who know what it does. The comment was directed at its purpose not how it affects your dps. They don't see a need for it because they have already cleared most of the content with a full x4 and probably some players on standby. Not everyone who raids in this game is fortunate enough to fit that many experienced players with the same play schedule in one guild. There are far more players who are raiding with X amount of players short and are training new players to raid. This buff is for the understaffed and solo/duo. Why this is such a problem I don't quite get it. Stats were all nearly capped before this GU came out which would have happened in the next expac anyhow so I don't see the concern for that.

I would be completely in favor of this. Have Heartbound only work if the pair is duoing together. Heck, make it 50 fervor then, I don't care. Just don't screw with raid (or lesser extent heroic) balance. .

There you go, whiners, a raider just asked for an ability to be nerfed specifically for raids. Please stop making ludicrous claims about the agenda of raiders in this game. In every single post we have screamed out in favor of NOT TRIVIALIZING our content. I have no idea how this gets so blatantly misinterpreted.