A Guide to Chaos Descending

I just don't understand why they aren't addressing this issue? Groups are a thing of the past.

Hmm, not sure about that (though the population isn't exactly "robust"), but the old "you MUST play in a group! Or else!" mentality seems to be rearing its ugly head again. :-/

And with a less-than-robust-population, that is indeed a silly attitude.

Uwk

The only reason I asked is because I have never grouped since 2004 until this past summer for the PoP heroics. I find I like to group for the older content, mentored way down of course or on alts.

Thanks for the clarification - I was confused, and so took a stab at an answer. Basically, while I personally am PUG averse, any MMO that places barriers to grouping is doomed, almost by definition of MMO. There are too many single player games that are really good, such as Skyrim, Whitcher, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc. that it bewilders me when an MMO adds barriers to grouping, like they are completely unaware that their competition then becomes the entire plethora of really wonderful single player games, not just other MMOs.

How can they be that stupid?

A perfect case in point is The Secret World, one of my favorite MMO's, that I started with two family members, with each of us playing trinity-style builds. There were no classes in TSW, you could pick whatever skill you wanted, provided you met the pre-requisites and had the appropriate weapons equipped.

Problem was that they made key quests, equivalent to EQ2's final Signature quests, solo only, i.e., they deliberately nerfed grouping in an MMO. Then, despite years of of fans telling them what the problem was, they finally decided that since console sales were good, the problem was that what us PC players really wanted was reticule aiming.

No doubt some clueless suit made the decision and had no clue that the the decline in population had nothing to do with difficult solo content, at a very early stage (think level 20 in EQ2), that only well-designed hybrid builds could succeed at, in a game that allowed you to pick whatever skill you wanted. Complete freedom in your build was great. Forcing you to solo with it in an MMO was dumb, when your friends were completely willing to "carry" your healer build through it.

If only the game allowed them to.

But I don't really believe the devs of any MMO can possibly be that stupid to make just getting into a group difficult, unless they've implemented automatic group formation, and so need some means of gate keeping.

So it must be the clueless suits making these dumb decisions.

Those are the people we need to have in mind when phrasing our criticisms. Even if I'm wrong, and smarter people than suits made these dumb decisions, we still need to point out the obvious:

"Making it difficult to group in an MMO is stupid. Your game then competes with every solo game out there, some of which are very good, in addition to every MMO that is better designed, by at least making it easy to group."

Thumbs up for Hurtsbad.

IF one is willing to spend a couple of hours over a week master crafting jewelry, then watch market demand and prices, there is platinum to be made. Yes, that means being the equivalent of a real world day trader. Did that last month, with a net profit of 250K plat in a week*. Blown the next day on infusing.

* Yes, made more than that overall. But I have multiple alts to feed, and it's never enough.

Crafting is very important. If your stable doesn't have the full range of crafters, you're SOL for this expansion.

There's also rummaging through previous expansion zones, and selling the fabled items on the broker. Not every EverQuest II player is running Chaos Descending. Those that haven't still use/need that gear. A few buy armor or weapons for appearance.

The profit is better, but the gathering part is labor intensive. Not everything that drops will fetch a decent price. On the bright side, you'll be gathering infusers. Lots of infusers. And stat crates.

But gosh darn yes, Krono is the fastest way for a single player to get platinum. And a million platinum for a single character is a conservative cost. Using the available solo gear drops, even that may not be enough for 'useful' infused stat increases. 'Useful' as in reaching the recommended 60K potency. More like a minimum 50K potency from solo drops; just barely enough for a heroic zone.

You can easily reach the recommended bare minimum 80M heroic health.

Yes, this release is harder than the previous release, for a solo player to be group ready. No more running every available solo zone to get the best gear, then hitting heroics.

Now it's a job. And very EA.

The reforger tells you that you will gain 35 potency for your 30k ability mod.
Reforging 30k ability mod from a dropped item will give that 35 potency.
Reforging 30k ability mod from a refined experimented infused mastercrafted piece of gear will give way more potency.

This is of course a bug. A bug everyone is intentionally and knowingly exploiting and freely sharing on the official forums. And apparently, it's one where the devs want us to exploit it, as the heroic content is designed for the potency this exploited MC gear gives.

This is a known exploit, it has been reported, and you can get in trouble for it... but double check that reforged gear and make sure that your Potency boost hasn't been swapped to Hate.

Thanks for the info, so I'll be sure to avoid it, if I can ever get motivated to play CD again [Cyrrena and Ukwete have made very good points about that the fact that old content is still fun, and so I have taken their advice, and they are right! It's a lot more fun playing old content than the new!] but it supports my view that this current crop of devs haven't a clue. They screwed it up, but since they can't fix it, we are punished for it?

And with reforging, that I paid extra to have, and still isn't included by buying the current expansion?

That seems to be a bit silly from their financial perspective.

Great! the Team finally got it right. /applauds

/chuckles

I love this game, but this thread makes me never ever want to participate in current expansion group content or raiding.

This was the first time I've ever bought an expansion for any MMO, logged in to a max level character (there's wasn't even a level cap change!), applied the offered catch up mechanic (Trishan's box in Myrist) and went to kill the first mob of the first quest...and got absolutely destroyed. And out of the 9000 inflated stats, it comes down to basically 3 (potency, resolve, health) that require various avenues of micro-managing or grind to raise in small amounts. Not a very well thought out user experience.

^ this in 2019? Just one barrier like this to experiencing content is enough to make me skip it. Which sucks, because I think EQ2 still has a lot to offer. I come back every expansion, run through the new signature and tradeskill stuff and then hit the wall of insane grind (time or money) required to be effective in group content and walk away.

I disagree in many points with the given guide.

My alternative guide. I have done it, so it works.

0) Don't waste time and plat on crafted gear, infusing & experementing. !!!!!!
1) Upgrade runes and gear from Lockbox.
2) Signature
3) Do Outdoor Arcana and dropped quests.
4) Do Outdoor shiny and meta shiny (some nice rewards).
5) Do some harvesting. Rares are important.
6) Do PQs
7) Get your mytical offhand or 2H. Make lvl 10. Offhand is R135 and 2H is R270.
THis is the place where you put in your rares. Make weapons, and break them.

Doing this you will get some R55-70 grear. Remember R1060 is around R51 per slot.
At this point you can infuse your 60+ gear.
Break items for crafted infusers.

Max your HP and restiance (yes resistance!).

Reforge into THE important stats this expansion:
Tank special:
Reuse at least 260%!!! for your Bulwark (there are some nasyt debuffs)
Hate 100%
Recovery 100%
Casting Speed max it

Melee special:
100 AOE Auto
100 Accuracy (not so important)
100 Strikethru
300-400 Multiattack (not so important)

PetCaster
DPS at hardcap (if i remember right)

Max SDC and ADC.

Rule of thumb to survive (Your not uber, but you can participate)
Resolve
Solo Outdoor: 0
Solo Zones: 0
Heroic Tier 1: 1060
Heroic Tier 2: 1334
Raid Tier 1: 1512
Raid Tier 2: 1672

Solo Outdoor: 40+
Solo Zones: 45+
Heroic Tier 1: 55+
Heroic Tier 2: 70+
Raid Tier 1: 75+
Raid Tier 2: 85+

Don't waste time and plat on crafted gear, infusing & experementing. !!!!!!
Guess i missed something

QFT

Despite the fact that my spouse and I have all crafters at max level and all have completed the CD signature quest, the hurdle to grouping is too boring and tedious, and not any fun in the least.

Very silly gate for an MMO. I'm used to high gating for raid level content, and some basic requirements for group content, but beware making the basic group gating too high.

That's a luxury EQ2 cannot afford.

Yeah, units.

For example:

Solo Outdoor: 40+
Solo Zones: 45+
Heroic Tier 1: 55+
Heroic Tier 2: 70+
Raid Tier 1: 75+
Raid Tier 2: 85

Like the point of CD is getting players to buy Kronos to do upgrades. JUST to do heroics, without FAiLing the boss death count.

Loads more fun gearing with Dr Arcana and CD's PQs.

There's no need to buy Krono, if you'll just harvest.

Eight harvesters. Or is that harvestiis?

When thread begins, start with 1,000,000 plat, 'few ways there are' to get that much in a short time.

You need many fewer plat if you harvest for yourself. If you need a cash influx, you sell rares.

For MMO's in 2019, this model is itself a problem. Requiring players to spend time just collecting a resource in order to exchange that resource for another which is then spent for a random chance at upgrading an item (in this case say plat infusing) as only one of many paths required to begin to qualify for group content is absolutely insane.

Whether you go Hurtsbad's route of cash-fueled upgrades or Dolgrin's PQ and weapon salvaging method is pretty much irrelevant, the fact remains your playtime is spent focused on micromanaging your gear's stats instead of enjoying the content...if you want to do group or raid stuff that is.

What content?
This whole expansion has less quests than Darklight Wood.

Grind is prop. 1/Content^2
So if content is going to 0 Grind goes to infinity.

People complained bitterly about all the questing they had to do in PoP to get to the Coliseum of Valor instances. CD is the result. I expect next expansion there will be lots and lots of quests that people will also gripe about.

The reality with an MMO is that they have to make the content last for pretty much a year. So whether we, as players, much like it, they're gonna continue throwing roadbumps into the path to slow us down. Because once they've run through all the content, people start whining about there being nothing to do. That's why "Crit Mit" is back, masquerading under the name "Resolve" as an artificial gating system. That's why dropped gear doesn't have enough Potency on it to be effective unless you bend over backwards to do the imbuing. Those things aren't there to make the experience better, just to slow us down.

DBG has been forced to cut staff and is working with what I expect is a much smaller team than what was available when DLW came out. /shrug It is what it is, and unless more players are willing to spend more money, I don't see the "lean team" approach changing.