It may be the end for me in EQ2

I feel Jealyn's pain. I came back in Aug. after being gone 2+ years. Was overseas finishing up a degree doing field work and no time. Real life. I used to raid at the top level. now I have time to play again. I raid again, killed all t2 so far, but only because I am playing a dirge and they seem in short supply. I still cant "catch up" with the eternals and such. Now there is all the sig quests and factions I missed in previous Xpacts that I will need to do for my epic.
MY point is, I really am thinking of walking away forever also. and it is sad, I do enjoy playing. However as a new or returning player, it is becoming increasingly impossible to ever catch up without making it a full time job + overtime. In the past a new Xpact was a fresh start. this one is just another layer.
For those who say just leave, you want it easy and other things. careful what you wish for. I suspect with the current state of the game, how it is really affecting new and returning players, and pushing them away; is going to have an long term negative affect on the size of the community. which will mean less money for development of the game.
Me personally, as I told my guild while expressing my frustrations, I don't know yet, ill give it a couple more weeks because I am on vacation for the holydays, but when I start work again my time to play goes way down. but if I had to choose today or had to advise someone thinking of returning I hate to say it, Id say walk away.

To OP. Don't leave yet. Put all your deity points in potency. You will see how quickly it will go up. Don't give up yet. Find good casual guild to join. People in such are very helpful and friendly. Good luck!

There are many more gates in epic 2 quest line folks. For mage one we have to have at least two 50K factions to obtain items. Endless grinding. So please don't get upset. Just start learning crafting, get factions up.

Epic 2 is going to be a long ride for all. We heard rumors that each quest in series would require the next ascension level. So buckle up all, thank all those nice folks who share findings and clues and get going.

The problem with this cycle is when the players cease to return, while more and more mainstayers leave - which is where EQ2 is at right now.

And that is why every player that leaves should be a concern, there is less and less to bring them back.

People should care. For every person who quits publicly, how many do you think quit privately? You can't have an MMO without people. Look around son, do you see massive swarms of people all over the place?

Exactly this. Forums are always a very low percentage of how many are in game playing. Majority of people who leave the game, will never post saying so or the reasons why. And with the population, a lot of them never come back.

If no one cares if people leave, they will no longer have a game to play. All MMOs do eventually end, even WoW will fade away at some point, but extending the future is always nice. People need to post reasons for leaving, maybe get the developers to start listening to what players want.

I've seen 3 long-term people that have stuck through changes they hated in the past simply stop logging in and a lot of other friends are cancelling their 2nd/3rd accounts because it's just not fun or feasible to do all of this across multiple characters. I'm not really sure what the developers are thinking - it's like they don't understand the player-base, they're alienating both long-term and new players alike through some of these requirements.

I can think of several people that log in only to raid/group because they love that aspect (and only that aspect) of the game, I know that the second they reach T4 mobs that require epic 2.0 and find out that crafting is a requirement for the epic 2.0, they'll just stop playing. One of them has already. Will he be back? I dunno.

It hasn't affected me too much as I'm a weirdo that makes sure he's done every L&L, all the major sig and HQ lines because I love this game and the content whether new or old, I'm not particularly enthralled with the idea of having to level another crafter (and god help me if I have to level muting or adorning yet again) but what DOES affect me is the already small playerbase shrinking further.

I fully get people walking out on this one. I chose to sit this expac out. I haven't quite thrown in the towel just yet because I do like the game and want to see more ideas tested. Up until ToT, even though the staff had seen losses, it still gave advances to mechanics and itemization. I am not sure what happen beyond that. I bought ToT thinking it was going to continue in the same direction and sadly it did not. I finished what I could of it, but that expansion was the first time I ever in my 11.5 years of playing the game I wasn't quite sure if they had lost their way. I waited until a month into KA make my decision that I was going to wait in hopes they would pick it back up with the next one (Hopefully a TSO revamp). I believe that they will learn a lot from the ToT-KA transition. There is no shame in taking a break or stopping for good. Everyone has a different play style and has so much time they can dedicate to the game. You will never release the "perfect expansion."

I do believe they are listening to the players though if you think about it. They had to constantly add more and more content during ToT just to keep people busy (including an event server with current content loot). People claimed it was too easy. Well they got what they wanted. From what I read in the forums/discord/guild chat, KA is quite the opposite. Maybe a middle of the road expansion will do the population some good. But like I said they will learn a lot from the feedback.

As I have stated elsewhere, I am burned out on questing. I am SLOWLY progressing in KA, but maybe one or two quests a week, if that often. I do have fun working with my guild heroic groups or other groups and I enjoy RPing at times, but solo play? I would play Sacred for that (if I could get it to run on this computer). That was more fun for me and I loved the storyline. Occasionally I will just farm for fun and profit, but casually and at my pace, but not often. So for me, the only thing I like is the heroic runs with my guild, but not happy at the 2 hours runs for one instance, but that will improve as we get better gear (including me).

I don't get why people wear the worst items. Just focus on getting items with as high potency as you can. Buy mastercrafted jewelry for example with decent amounts of potency and you will break 10k easily. The "only the raiders can kill stuff" bull is getting annoying. People who expect to easily do heroics with garbage gear that complain here makes no sense to me. Progress on your character, all high end players have done it already and that is not because of our previous xpac gear. We also start off with solo items, then progress to heroic stuff, maybe we just know how to build our characters because we use our brains. Try to maximize your own output. Go hit a training dummy for a couple hours, doing 5 minute fights trying out different casting orders or just read your abilities to discover the optimal order and don't start crying on the forums because this expansion is a little bit more difficult than the previous expansion. Original EQ2 was a hundred times as hard and the game has been made too easy at solo content now, yet people are stuck... perhaps take the time to learn the game... no offense, just truth.

Jachin, because often the better resolve gear (over MC) which is needed for heroics has worse potency. So you have to get both, and then min/max so that your resolve is at the minimum (or very close to it with group buffs) without making your potency level hit rock bottom. Better resolve gear does not have better potency, after all.

/sigh

OK, here we go:

Original EQ2 was not hard. In original EQ2 you could put 6 people together and as long as one of them could kinda heal and one of them could kinda taunt, you were golden in almost any heroic content. Tank, spank, loot, win.

Kunark Ascending is not hard. Kunark Ascending is tedious and requires excessive time and commitment for minimal reward.

No one expects to "easily do heroics." People expect to be able to do entry level heroic content with what they came to the expac with from the previous, as has always been the case. Solo gear from the end of the last expac should get you started on the solo content of the new expac. Heroic gear from the previous expac should be enough to get you started in the earliest tier heroic content of the new expac. Again, as has always been the case.

Basic solo and bottom tier heroic content should be accessible to even the most casual player. The work to make yourself exceptional begins after that. If you want to progress to top tier heroic content or you want to raid, then yes, get your *** to the training dummy and min/max every last bit of power from your gear.

If you want to log in for a few hours a few nights a week and kill crap with your friends, you should be able to do that; you always have in the past. No one here is saying that crap has to be top tier stuff. No one. Tier one heroic crap zones are not something you should have to work at getting into, the work should begin once you're there. This expansion, in fact every expansion, has been a cake walk compared to The Shadow Odyssey and even then you could go straight from Sebilis to Scion of Ice and Deep Forge without having to plow your way through Moors of Ykesha and completely regear.

No offense, just the truth...

T2 heroic requirement is 180 resolve solo. Using a full set of 7 resolve (solo) gear gives you 147 resolve. This is without the 20 resolve crafting cloak, the 17 resolve PQ charm/weap and while wearing a full SOLO set. Within the pieces that have 7 resolve + you need to find the ones with HIGHER resolve than other items. Be clever and use Feldons amazing eq2u website for example, you can even do a search query for all items that match the description you give to it (for example by putting a minimum potency of 700).

My biggest issue after having skipped several of the level 100 expansions is the catch up.

• Plat for the new purple and green adornments, by selling shineys or doing 13,000 daily quests (times the amount you need).
• Grind for the etheral adornments. Get zek heroic cyan adornment and possible the raid one if possible at all.
• Level tradeskill to 100 and do old tradeskill lines for BiS cloak and Epic 2.0.
• Get enough plat to keep up a stockpile of arrows and food/drinks.
• Do the old epic 1.0 quests and RE quest for my buff. Do the greenmist HQ questline.
• Learn several boring language quests and do a shiney quest for a language that can take you a ton of time, my record was 1½ just picking up shinies.
• Spamming LFG for hours during off peak hours and 30-45 minutes during peak if you are a DPS. Or be lucky some guild group needs a random dps/chanter
• Sooo many consumeables to remove detriment, buff, and other stuff you almost need a manual to figure it out.

Yes there are guilds out there that will help you with most of these steps, but most expect new trial players to show their ability to support themselves. And yes, if you want to be able to join any group content right now, your only options are

A) A friendly guild that will supply you with adornments and arrows/consumeables
B) Buy krono and undercut on the broker.

The plat inflation is just extremely brutal for anyone just joining the game or someone who cant afford krono. When I quit during ToV I was so rich and everyone in my guild were so jealous that I could buy whatever I wanted. When I returned for KA I had to buy krono on my EU server character. On NA I was lucky enough to meet a friendly player in overland that just handed me the stuff and for that I am grateful.

Raiders like me could start the easier heroics right after KA launch. Only the resolve check is what kept it from being very easy at the start. Back during the RoK to TSO progression, stats didn't inflate as much, especially not with a stat with a big importance like resolve. Your argument is invalid.

Dude. You're statement there COMPLETELY validated my argument.

Why do people attribute to me things I never said?

We have enjoyed the expansion - until we finished all the quests. No we are stuck, with no way to do heroic content at all. I guess we are finished? Last few days we have been playing alts instead of grinding Ascension xp. Starting to look for another game once again....

Eq2 seems to be going down the wrong path to me the changes have killed alts which are needed for grping even then I look at heroics and the resolve given and it's not worth my time I can't use the gear for the higher tiers of raiding or my resolve will be to low . The only reason to do them is for the shiny collection .

Stuff used to be gated by ways other then resolve it's just a turn off for players and is a game killer. Pantheon looks really good it will hurt eq2 esp if they can't get there act together.

Resolve is a big problem. I honestly feel they'd be better off if the removed resolve and fervor entirely and nerfed the ever living crap out of potency, then rebalanced content.