A Guide to Chaos Descending

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks, FAQs, and New Player Discussion' started by Hurtsbad, Jan 17, 2019.

  1. Tommara Active Member


    I believe you're right that the devs are starved for funding, but they made two major mistakes that would have reduced their development time (and therefore cost) considerably, from the perspective of a player who's returned with a bevy of 90-95 toons.

    The biggest one is that killing mobs rewards no exp, and hasn't for years, which is perplexing. They forced us to only do quests whether we liked them or not, and I can't figure out why. That problem started with my 90's toons who had done all the quests when 90 was max level and so had no means to access new content gated for level 92 except doing adventure writs, which got really boring really fast, and so I pretty much quit at that time.

    That was so dumb, it was breath taking. The most loyal of their fans were the most punished. It was much easier for me to play a toon who hadn't done any 90's content to get to 92, than to play toons who were already 90 and had done most of the quests.

    DBG, of course, was not to blame for that, but the end result of that is it made me move to WoW, where I got several toons to max level before returning to EQ2 when Stormhold, the first TLE server was opened. Which I played because I like EQ2 much better than WoW, but soloing max level toons was too tedious, given that I had already done all the quests, and exp from just killing mobs was not worthwhile.

    But yet I returned to EQ2 a couple of months ago, when the puppets PQs were going on, and it was a blast getting some low level toons leveled up.

    So I bought the CD expansion, although my highest toon was a level 95, who I had leveled up after the 90-92 leveling blockage occurred, and hence wasn't blocked by it.

    She made level 100 soon after reaching Phantom Sea, which made the majority of that zone, Terrors of Thalumbra, Zek the Scourge Wastes Timeline, and the Kunark Ascending Timeline, unnecessary.

    Yes, there are good reasons for doing them, but reaching 110 was not one of them. And so this was the second biggest mistake, and why I don't have any sympathy for the devs and their starved resources.

    They've pretty much wasted the resources that already exist.

    No doubt there is something weird in the code that makes it hard for them to raise the level caps, thus giving us this weird double resources existing between 100 and 110, plus the need to develop new resources which they can charge us for, rather than fixing old content to make it useful, but that's not really my problem.

    It's theirs, and I'm done with giving them a bye on it. They should be at level 140 or so, and they should have provided enough exp from just killing mobs to allow people to avoid quests who don't want to do them (of which I am not one, since doing quests when 90 was max level has only caused me a problem).

    Plus the original EQ got by with it just fine. And the reason it did, despite having the fewest quests despite its name, of any MMO I've ever played, is because it was profitable for people to group and just kill things, which EQ2 completely lacks these days, and which the devs could easily implement, relative to developing new content.

    i.e., any new dev should be required to play Project 1999 to understand why EQ is called Evercrack, and why the existing EQ and EQ2 don't compare.

    And the fact that autoattack, and all of its buffs, has been rendered useless (like I actively avoid having Haste on my gear) pretty much removed any challenge in playing this game vs. just getting gear, despite the fact my spouse and I have all crafters who have completed all of the CD crafting quests, and most of the POP signature tradeskill quests) and makes me think the devs haven't a clue about why EQ2 used to be so fun.
    Red Adder, Meneltel and Seefar like this.
  2. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    XP is an ever-steepening curve. Killing a single creature awards maybe a hundred XP, but you need millions for the next level when you're getting to the upper tiers. It's not that the mobs don't give XP, you're just up against a natural effect of the curve. Every level takes more XP than the previous level to get to the next, it's not linear.
    Breanna likes this.
  3. Tommara Active Member

    There is nothing natural about the curve. The devs designed it to require millions of exp to get to the next level, and they designed how much exp you get from each mob kill.



    i.e., the problem is artificial, completely under the control of the engineers who designed it.

    I suspect that the devs have more fun writing new code and it probably does look better on a resume than fixing old code. Fixing code that somebody else wrote is hard. The fact that both SOE and DBG lost programmers experienced in the game made this so, regardless of the reason. I really miss Domino, although not sure if she was the victim of downsizing, Landmark folding, or for having good reason to believe that leaving the US and returning to her home in Canada was a good idea.

    The devs then sell the bean counters with "make new expansion = more $", instead of "remove the level 92 gate to get into Eidolon Jungle" and fixing the problem of killing mobs having no effect on leveling, both of which I'm absolutely positive would get them more $ from subscriptions, based on the number of returning players complaining (and I also suggest removing all level based gates for solo quests - why not just let me die if I can't handle it?).

    Although the problems with buying CD are far greater, as discussed before. Primarily that despite the fact my spouse and I have all crafting classes who have completed the CD crafting quests, it's no fun to use them to do all the work to make our adventure toons viable for grouping. I can't even imagine how awful it is for adventure toons who don't have all the crafters we do.

    I've spent more time complaining on these forums for the past two months instead of playing, yet my subscription is still active. I haven't given up hope on it, and so am taking the advice of Ukwete and others to instead of playing any of my five level 110 toons, I plan to play a toon who didn't complete all the level 90 solo content when 90 was max level to see if its more fun.

    When I first started playing EQ2 in 2006, I thought it was the best MMO out there, and I had played EQ since its beta, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, SWG, Dark Age of Camelot, Earth and Beyond, City of Heroes, and WoW at their releases, and my opinion remains unchanged despite playing most of the major MMO's released since then. From the very beginning, I've felt that EQ2 had given a wonderful, lavish party that few had attended, although arguably, that's may be true of any game that messed it up on release.

    So I do mean well by my comments.
    Red Adder and Lateana like this.
  4. Tommara Active Member

    While Final Fantasy X14 is the exception, they pulled the previous version off the market for a year or more to fix it, and having played both, I can attest that that the original and its replacement are not the same except for the use of Final Fantasy lore.
  5. yerbo Member

  6. yerbo Member

    How can simply reforging ab mod to pot get you from 3850 to 4500? I reforged and got a tiny fraction of that. :(
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  7. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author


    Because at the beginning of the expansion there was a POT Reforging Exploit that has since been fixed.
    Evguenil62, Cyrrena and Breanna like this.
  8. kerry Member

    Same here. What has made a huge difference for me are the unlockers in raid. Started raiding again only two weeks ago.
  9. Kittybock Well-Known Member

    I was able to pick up a couple raid unlockers for my tank via SLR, which helped immensely. We don't see much SLR these days though, tbh. I finally got the other guildies that returned with us on board with doing MC/Refined/ Visionary. They did not want to Experiment, they wanted to wait for drops in Heroics. The thing that finally swayed them, was the drops in the Heroics we can run were not an upgrade for me, vs. my MC/ Refined/ Visionary....even when fully infused. Just like that, they started to Experiment.
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  10. Tommara Active Member

    As I've said before, between my spouse and I, we had all crafters at max level.

    It's just not any fun. So I returned to Anarchy Online and FF14, where crafting is both more useful AND more fun.
    Kawoosh likes this.
  11. KingDragon Active Member

    I run with a normal group of friends, none of us have raided in PoP at all. Fully infused with even tradeskilled CD infusers I have 2 characters with the Tome and can't get it much over 4k potency. Can you explain how it's getting all the way to 4,700, before reforge and you can't experiment on it.

    A necro has the potency up to 4,800, but he has no idea how he did it, the pally has 4,300 and he also can't figure out how he got his that high and claims he hasn't done any reforge on it. The Tome on my defiler is sitting at 3,971.7, my monk is at 4,008.6 (Reforged to. Infusion won't take any more infusers of any type. I don't have any Bonus infusers to use and Pally/Necro are sure they never used bonus infusion on the tome.

    All four of us have the refined tag on the tome - we don't need to remake it, we used purified materials the first time. We all are missing the T1-T4 raid unlocks on the Tome.

    I can vouch there was some nerf to the AB reforge into Potency as well, as it caps at 6,507.0 AB convert to potency at max and only gives 36 freaking potency on the tome, totally not worth it.

    I'm going to try and see what results I get with my other characters but I play the monk/defiler most.

    Seriously confused on the potency discrepancy here.
    Kawoosh likes this.
  12. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    That's not a nerf. There was a bug that allowed people to get way more POT by reforging than they should have, which was shamelessly exploited.
    Breanna likes this.
  13. Oradim Well-Known Member

    Probably not much value in what I am going to say, but I suppose it is semi-related...

    A month or so ago I decided to drop a thousand DBC on purchasing the reforging feature on my account. I went through the process of reforging everything where it made sense. Huge disappointment ensued as I saw minimal increase in potency. Major letdown.

    After this I was poking around for the reason and only then discovered that there was a bug as referenced above by Sigrdrifa which had been fixed before I did my reforging mini-project. Ah, well, mea culpa perhaps in that I should have done more research before getting all excited about reforging being a potency panacea rather than the bug it was.

    I do wish I had not spent the DBC in the end.

    Cheers,
    Oradim
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  14. Kawoosh Well-Known Member

  15. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Reforging will still be very useful to you. It allows you to shift stats around on gear, which is a huge help.

    Look yourself up on Dragon's Armory, and hover over the various stats. It will show you the caps and tell you some about what those stats do.

    Reforging won't help you with the stats you most need (Fervor > Crit Bonus > Potency > AB Mod) but as an example, my casters reforge melee stats into casting speed.

    Your gear this expansion typically has too much Reuse Speed, while you have zero Recovery Speed (you want about 100% in both). Reforging will help you fix this.

    If a stat is over the hard cap, you may want to reforge some of that extra stat into something more useful. And so on.
    Breanna likes this.
  16. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    Did another 2000 harvests today, so 12,000 in total (or 4,000 nodes) and obtained TWO in total. Thats 0,001% drop rate in the best possible gathering gear. I have no idea if my account is flagged to get the worst possible RNG but

    I'm so done. That's 8 hours ill never get back. I understand why my guildies told me the research tab is how you upgrade your ascensions now. Awesome buisness strategy by DBG, but it really does ruin the immersion when raiding the top end content requires you to swipe your credit card to do it in any sort of reasonable time.
  17. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Sell the materials and rares you got while harvesting on the broker and BUY the Planar Energies, also on the broker.
    Breanna likes this.
  18. kingmob23 Well-Known Member

    So, after the sigline in CD, if I understand, the game just basically becomes a grind to get gear to go to the next tier to get more gear and so on, correct? No more siglines or main storylines to follow and just the joys of going through dungeons over and over while half drunk(optional?)
    Reason I ask is I largely solo, and that's on me. I don't complain about not being able to do group content, but is there much a soloist can do at this point? The gear I have is pretty much topped out at what I can get from the solo content.

    I play an SK but hate tanking, and am really bad at it. Do groups take SK's as an off tank or just A DPS role or for comic relief?
  19. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    If you hunt through the Library, there are books in assorted places that give you soloable quests, as do some dropped items from overland mobs, and Dr. Arcanna. But otherwise, yes, once you have done the CD timeline you have the storyline done.
    kingmob23 and Breanna like this.
  20. Obano Well-Known Member

    The best EXP for leveling from 80 to 100 is to mentor down and mass pull old zones like Sanctum of Scaleborn, Sebilis, and Chardok solo and with no mercenary. The mobs give over 1000exp per kill. More with pots and vitality. The mobs die within second and if you are efficient you can get 1 level per hour doing that which is MUCH faster than questing. This is probably why things changed in PoP. They don't want people mass pulling old zones to get to level 110.

    I do have a question about reforging though. My main account has access to reforging from buying the AoD expansion back in the day. My alt accounts don't have it and I can't figure out how to purchase the feature.
    Soara2 likes this.