SF, what did we learn?

It's a bit of rant, but I wanted to highlight these issues in the hope that the new server Fallen Gate will benefit. Trying to be constructive in my criticism but i may ramble.

Experience - Low rates, that never changed as we moved through expansions, followed by nerfs to mob experience. Fallen Gate needs to have higher rates to remain accessible to new players to the server and retain players through encouraging alts.

Itemisation - Was a huge flaw initially on Stormhold. Improved a great deal as the server progressed through EoF but this was too late. My concern though remains that the work done is not part of a coordinated ideal, stat caps are still at the launch levels, familiars being used to break progression, drops from SF are at best minor improvements on items from 10 levels previously. For Fallen Gate we need to have a clear curve planned.

Gameplay - Vanilla and DoF, which had a huge population are not at all challenging. KoS launched and the difficulty hit the ceiling, players left in droves. This was adjusted later, but the delay and lack of communication on it essentially killed the population. EoF to SF I feel was actually pretty solid, if we could have offered 'catch up' baubles or veteran bonuses to players to draw them back I think the server could have been pretty healthy still.

Unfortunately with the recent release of SF the decision was made to implement nerfs to autoattack, again much like the errors of KoS without communication and with delays in obvious issues of balance, this has disenfranchised a great many of the remaining players. If Fallen Gate is to be successful then these changes have to be subtler and more consistent, or kill it as the other TLE servers have been.

I feel like experience rates, mainly well into the expansion list have to go up. It's such a barrier to entry for anyone who didn't play at the beginning of the server.

From my personal experience I played the first two releases, and then didn't have time to play. When RoK launched I wanted to play again. But by the time I got around to leveling, TSO was to be released before I'd be able to hit max level. Let alone Aas and completing everything

The experience rates as they were, were initially too fast. However, as the level cap was raised and the end game was moved further and further away from the beginning, the xp rates were never adjusted as they normally are to compensate for the longer distance to the level cap. What started out as too fast eventually became prohibitive. Ideally the xp curve is tweaked slightly every time the level cap is raised to make reaching the current end-game tier less prohibitive for new characters or returning players.

Then what would be the ideal /played to max level for each expansion then?

That's totally subjective, but for me I would think that when a new tier launched then it would have the steepest curve and the previous tiers would be readjusted so, that while they aren't rendered irrelevant, that it didn't take *quite* so long to get a character to where the majority of folks are playing. After all, if you make it overly time consuming to get to the point in a game where you can play with the majority of players then it's not conducive to the overall health of the player population.
When you add another new tier, the previous tiers leveling curve would then be recalculated into the curve to ensure that you have an overall consistent leveling time to reach the beginning of the current endgame tier. You should never create a situation where someone looks at joining the game, or looks at coming back to the game, and then looking at the amount of time that it would take to get to where the majority of the population is and decide it's not worth even trying it out.

Let's say that DoF has been out for awhile and KoS is looming:
1-50 = X
51-60 =Y

KoS Opens:
1-60 = X
61-70 = Y

RoK Opens:
1-70 = X
71-80 = Y

I don't know how much sense that makes, though there are as many opinions on how it should be as there are players in the game.

I think the main reason this server lost so much Population is that they are going much to fast with the add-ons. Funny thing was: all of the "Yes"-Voters in our guild on stormhold left after a few months, and the people who wanted to get slow were sitting there with a lot of Content they don't want to have yet. So they also stopped playing.

On the Fallen Gate Beta Server Players were already talking about AA's and Guild Halls and "well KoS was the best add-on, oh no wait it was Kunark", "we should go there fast". You could read those things every day in the open channel on stormhold. And now the Server is almost dead.

Unfortunatly they made the same decision with Fallen Gate. 12 weeks per add-on is much to fast, it's more like an Event Server for Players that wants to power-Level. And there is absolutly no difference to stormhold. I wish they would give the "No"-Voters a REAL time-locked Server, i bet this Server would last for a very Long time.

Personally I almost always voted No, No, Yes, simply because a 3rd no would mean a 90-day moratorium on voting and yeah, no. I like the idea of a set unlock schedule without the voting drama. However, some expansions are bigger than others. 12 weeks is fine for DoF. 12 weeks is not fine for RoK, not if RoK is properly implemented. RoK was not properly implemented on Stormhold sadly. "Let's dump tons of fabled crap at the bottom of Sebilis and make it faceroll to get there, screw loot progression and raiding."

One of the reasons that you had people voting yes (particularly raiders, although we're pretty much at near-extinction levels on Stormhold at this point) was to get out of the tiers that had completely broken itemization. They tried to address the most important items (prismatics, peacock, claymore, etc.) but overall gear progression across the board really didn't start to get fully sorted out until late 2016 when Fyreflyte took over TLE itemization.

If you want to look at what decimated the population on Stormhold, it wasn't the speed at which expansions were unlocked. It was a combination of issues with itemization (long ignored because lower tier content was irrelevant for years) and the massive increase in difficulty with the KoS content. Raiders were faced with content that could initially only be cleared using gimmicks (and the rewards for killing bosses didn't actually give them the gear they'd need to progress further) and casuals were getting owned by solo mobs. It didn't take long for things to go downhill from there, fast.

Hopefully those are all under the "lessons learned" category for the developers with regards to Fallen Gate.

I agree with both of those last 2 points actually. I think it was actually a combination of 3 elements. (Note: I didn't actually play SH all the way through, there was a point where I stopped and that was around late EoF.)
At least to me it appears that experience curve, expansion unlocks, and itemization failure lead to the downfall of the TLE server. It's good to see the itemization issue is being cleared out of the way, because that was a big one. Level 50 raid mobs dropping level 40 gear with +4 agility just isn't right. So we can scratch that off the board.
However, experience and expansion unlocks DO worry me. I'm sure they are taking care of experience, as that is something we have all tested and gave our two cents on. Yet the expansion unlocks... 3 months just isn't good enough for everything. 3 months should be A MINIMUM for expansions, but not guaranteed for ALL of them. EoF and RoK are MASSIVE expansions, and to feel satisfied with the course through those would need more like 4-6 months. 3 is just too small. I feel the voting idea was okay, but not as successful as planned. But a static unlock that will NEVER shift is an even worse idea. There has to be another way to fix this.

This one worries me, as well. After beta, I think the overall rate needs just a bit of a boost, and I really think they need to consider boosting exp for previous levels when the cap raises. New people need to feel like they can join in even after the server has several expansions open, without worrying that they're going to be doing a lot of solo grinding at a very slow pace, which is an issue I know some people had with SH. People are going to leave the server/game, it happens, so it needs to be a bit easier for new people to jump in, as well.

I disagree this is everquest, it is supossed to take a long time to level up. Leveling too fast makes upgrades and grouping at lower levels pointless. The fun is not only at the max level but in getting to it. The game is already easy enough. If it is a chore to level you probably shouldn't be playing.

Too small for what, though? To clear specific raid content? To level x number alts? We're a fairly casual raiding guild and we started clearing RoK raids less than two weeks after the expansion unlocked. We were in Veeshan's peak with in 2.5 weeks, and there were other guilds that were before us. All of the guilds that killed Trakanon had him dead within 2 months. Disturbance killed Trak within the first month.

You set it so that it's 6 months, and I guarantee you will lose more players than you'll potentially keep. If you raid, then your only further progression is through raiding (and once you have the raids on farm, you start losing people because there's no more gear for them to get until the next expansion). If you don't raid, then you're left leveling up an army of alts to try and stave off the boredom.

Tell that to the new or returning player when they join during say Ruins of Kunark.

Let them know that its all about the 'joruney' as they slog from level 1 to 70 all alone, without being able to even use a Merc because its a TLP server. *hint: they will most likely quit from the grind*

How do I know this? because this is exactly what me and my friend experienced on SH. We joined midway through RoK and made a tank/healer combo. We would accept anyone who was willing to group with us, and that ended up being 1 guy, midway 30s that joined us for a night or two. That was it.

So yea, the slow grindy exp might be fun at the beginning for you, but dont expect to be holding any fresh blood after that.

So frustrating that this is the response people still throw at any discussion over exp rates on TLE. You haven't considered the difference that nerfs to mob exp are going to have, you won't accept that adjusted exp would improve ongoing health of the server - as proven with Stormhold. Please, be more constructive and not just throw out 'It's Everquest' or just quit.

Not to open a new TLE with gimmicky awards before the current TLE has finally been "sorted out"?

To allow people from a dying server to transfer off it to LIVE servers? - After they spent 2 years working on the characters.

Produce quality content instead of opening gimmicky servers for a quick cash flow?

Thats what I learned.

Did you run the FG beta? Do you play on SH? If you're coming in several expansions in, and you actually want to group with people, you need to play catch up - and a whole lot of people get turned off by that grind, because there really aren't that many lower level groups at that point. There are some, but for the most part the population is just not there anymore. This means the server has a hard time attracting new people that will stick around, but people are going to leave, that's just the nature of a game. This is certainly not the only reason SH's population is struggling, but it is one reason, and one that could easily be addressed.

Now add in the fact that on the FG beta, the exp per mob kill was already less than it is on SH. (Which is far less than it is on a live server.) Quest exp is the same as SH. So there's already a knock against dungeon grinding, or, in other words, already less of a reason to group at low levels. You might run a dungeon once or twice to get a quest done, but the return value is diminished from what it is on SH - and again, this is looking at it from a little while down the road, not necessarily at launch. (Although I do think they need to bring launch exp in line with SH at the very least.)

I think there's some misconception when people ask for the exp to be adjusted. We're not necessarily talking about bringing it to the levels they are on live. Or, as some seem to think, it's certainly not about making it faster than it is on live, either. But after expansions start popping out every 12 weeks, the curve needs to be adjusted to help the server population stay healthy. That doesn't mean making it so people can hit whatever the cap is in a day, but there is absolutely a middle group between that and what it is now.

For me It was KoS that killedStormhold for me. When it released on stormhold it was fine, but then all the hardcores whined " OMG it to EZ " So daybreak turns everything up to appease these people. Stuff I could kill one day I could not kill the following day after the changes. I am hoping they do not make that mistake again. I know many people left because of that alone ( and no I am not saying everyone left for that reason but I know many in my guild did).

I have recently returned however to Stormhold to see it is at least better, however being level 70 atm I am kind of behind.

Again it's everquest. What is the fun of being max level if it was terribly easy and fast to achieve? Leveling fast makes upgrades and grouping at lower levels pointless. Why look for a good weapon at level 20 when you can hit level 25-30 in a few hours? Why get a group when it's just as easy to solo xp fast? If you keep xp slow then people just joining the server will have a chance to level with others just joining or with other players leveling their alts. To me it is more important to keep the game challenging. Everquest is supposed to be challenging. If you want it to be quick and easy your playing the wrong game.
I have been playing this game since release and eq1 before it. So don't come at me like I don't know what I'm talking about, and to the person who told me to be constructive, your the one who presents little examples...

You're the only one talking about "terribly fast and each to achieve," though. Again, a boost doesn't mean making things instant. And people worry about getting to the cap because, you know, some people play MMOs to actually play with other people. And on SH, which already has a lower population overall, most of the players are no longer at those levels. You say keeping exp slow means people will be able to level up with other new people, or alts, but I am telling you that is not realistic for what actually happened on SH. Yes, you can get a low lvl group going once in a while, but most of the people are playing closer to the cap. There's a big difference between challenging and boring. Long hours of solo grind is not a challenge.

That's nice. Same here. But that didn't answer my question about whether you've played on SH or not. Because what you're describing, and what others who have played on the server are describing, they sound pretty different. SH has population issues, and unless steps are taken FG is going to end up the same way. I believe they have taken some steps with, say, itemization, but there's more that needs to be considered. Like it or not the exp grind combined with low populations at lower levels keeps a lot of new people from joining the server. Some might join, many more will try and leave. So then, what exactly do you propose be done about it? Saying keep it a challenge, it's Everquest, that didn't work for SH. How are you going to make it work for FG?

Yes, I did play on stormhold, I got to level 20 in about 3 hours maybe 4. I am not the only one talking about terribly fast and easy to achieve. Most the posts in this thread are about making leveling faster which it is already way faster than eq1 was or how it was at launch, There is also at least one post complaining about how they attempted to make Stormhold more challenging around kos...I currently play project 1999 because it encourages grouping and getting upgrades at all levels not just at the max level. It is also more satisfying to get to max level if you have to work for it. If your giving up just because of a slow xp rate, well than you must not really enjoy the game. The slow xp rate challenges you to be a better player, to make your character better so you can kill more stuff or higher level stuff so you can level faster. That's half the fun of the game.. This time locked expansion should aim to make the game take as long to level as it did around launch and also make it as difficult as it was at that time. And you keep mentioning how stormhold now has a lower population, There are many more variables besides the xp rate for that decline. I think the number one reason the population is dropping is because it isn't permanently locked. Once the server passed a given players favorite expansion they stop playing. Once fallen gate gets passed ROK or maybe the expansion after, you will see it's population decline as well. I wish they would permanently lock a server at one of eq2 better expansions like EOF.