New Expansion - Itemization and Rewards

Yes to most of this but realy: not beeing able to loot or get green adornments (craft them) was not such a good idea. Then for needing to craft food and drink some of the things where just so rare to find, like shreaking mushrooms. Some thins where just too much of a pain in the neck.

Get rid of fervor rune/buff carryovers from prior expansions.

1. Progress feels pretty good only problem was the fact older gear from bol was dwarfing some of the stats on the new gear so progression was kinda bad because you only wore the new stuff for resolve check until you got some high tier raid gear to finally replace it. EX: solo and heroic gear had way worse stats then the panda gear yet only reason it was replaced was merely for the resolve check. The Tier crates and them unlocking via meeting resolve checks was awesome i hope that stays. Maybe do a if you clear say all solos you unlock a alt tier crate if you clear all heroics or something you unlock a tier crate. Similar to raid crate. but biggest issue is there no class spell masters or ancient drops in raid or heroics that are plentiful and really makes progress suck ALOT and is a major issue when people complain about p2w. Perhaps do a system like ascensions where you can gather pages or fragments to make a master or ancient spell for class spells? or maybe a vendor unlock for completing zones? Like solo beat t1 raid it unlocks all master tier class spells t2 grandmaster you clear t4 or w/e you get ancient could even do a flawess req for maybe the raid part but clearing the raids to get masts-ancient would make it a good chase item and would make progress on some stuff outside of those willing to spend money have a way to get them reliably.

2. Unique proc and effect items and adorns felt the most amazing to acquire.other items everything else was kinda just boring stat sticks no real interesting things to them unless it had a huge jump in stats. Needs waaaay more unique interesting adorns effects procs etc to really make the effort worth the grind. Its kinda sad all these bosses etc have nothing really interesting to them or even special just maybe if lucky a bonus resolve piece of gear.

3. They are great but need to be heirloom for alts otherwise once one toon gets all items its just wasted coin n clutter for nothing that a alt could use.Maybe have a trade in system where you can exchange 2 for 1 for a heirloom alt friendly currency for the overflow or just make all those heirloom.

4. more alt friendly unlocks. Like brawl you go through this hassle to get the upgraded withering/tainted blade adorn and the 3 adorn set but then you gotta go redo that headache just for a alt instead of it being a reward that you beat this challenge and be able to buy it for your alts on a vendor. We need more account wide unlocks on a vendor for stuff that's a major hassle. The flawless POW and Sol ro the calling is a example of 2 raids that's annoying to gather enough people to do it just for a alt when it should be account wide accessible.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?

Yes, mission rewards and weekly rewards were the biggest bang for our buck on upgrades. Allowing previous tier and GU gear to be relevant, but not Best in Slot, and continuing to make the methods of attaining it accessible and feasible would improve the experience for both current and returning or new players alike.

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

The most rewarding were weekly rewards, which makes great sense. Having a monthly quest every month with a top-tier smart-loot drop or choice of item instead of pure RNG would be a welcome addition, with that reward choice being updated each month to include the most recently released tier of drop. Choice vs chance having a monetary only requirement is very constricting and can be very demotivating to those players who do not have the option of pulling out their CC every time they want a chance for something grandiose. The daily crates and monthly sub crates are definitely a good thing, as an aside, for the Jadeite coins, but that's a very, very long road to travel to reach the end of the rainbow.

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

Personally I would like to see currency-earned gear infusions/upgrade paths, with options for reforging and statistical personalization directly from the coins, with the coins being Heirloom and accessible, in varying quantities, by alternate characters through solo, heroic, raid and open world content. Instead of a huge hill to climb to get one reward, all hills you climb can then contribute in a smaller way toward each piece of gear, and your setup.

If you play, you get some semblance of character advancement, regardless of the play path you take, to include crafting and questing in general. No pay to unlock or purchase these coins, but focusing by the individual player to create the experience they want and still be relevant, over time, in higher content. We saw this in a certain way with Tithe, but it could be utilized in other methods, such as Heart-Bound gear pieces, which can have their resolve increased, through coins, and stats added/reforged to remain relevant to current content, from now until forever. This designation could only be applied to say, 1 armor piece, 1 weapon and 1 jewelry piece, the rest would be normal drops from varying sources. This gear could be signature, or Ethereal, or w/e designation, and would always be upgradable, without diminishing returns, and capped at current tier peak caps. In this model, even casual players would have the same access to 3 incredibly powerful items, when they infuse them, from all sources they can get. *just an idea*

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

Having random number generated stats on pieces, instead of static drops only, would add, just by itself, a TON of flavor to the itemization. Having content that is known to drop RNG items that could roll crazy combinations of stats is not only more fun to farm, but can be very rewarding. Having rewards be a choice instead of static is also nice, or with a tier-bag that you can do encounters of increasing difficulty to obtain and attain those rewards. Anything non-linear is always more fun, when it's an option and not required. just my 2cp friends

For those of you that read this whole post, please also feel free to reference any other past expansion in terms of things you liked or would want to see again

Set bonuses, procs, varying itemization flavoring is always welcome! Thanks for accepting suggestions and feedback, if nothing else, we get to vent our "amazing" ideas as a community!

Bring back smart loot

I've always loved the progression in PoP, to me it was just about perfect, the tradeskill quest for the mount kept people farming in heroics. Able to buy runes like ruin, fire etc off vendors after you obtained them on one character was great. Never felt like we ran out of content either (Hate with multiple way to run it plus cow zone was awesome).

Would love to see a bit more longevity from PQ's I feel like these die out too fast, maybe keep trickling in new gear? The currency is almost always worthless, the items to buy with it are not really worth it.

I like how shines are done in the new VD, weekly pouch for no-trades then the rest you farm or buy/trade from other players.

Sorry for not replying in 1.2.3 etc format.

This was being discussed in Discord but also wanted to echo it here - the armor unlock system in BoL was great for gearing out alts and also enabled trying out/changing stat setups. The way it worked was a piece of armor would drop, didn't matter what class could use it, and whomever looted it would unlock generally 3 different types of armor for that specific resolve amount for that slot - a mit/hp piece, casting stats, melee stats. Tanks also had a 4th unlock that was block/hp. It wasn't only in raids - it was also present on armor drops from heroics and even solos (Diaku Corral in specific). Once you unlocked the armor you could then buy it in Seru for varying amounts of expansion currency (heroic or raid, depending on the resolve of the item) and plat/status.

I'd love to see something like that again. It made it much smoother to main swap, keep an alt up to speed for emergencies, etc.

Hey look, I'm caught up! I have read every post in this thread and took the best notes I can so I can review and present them internally. Already I can tell expansion itemization will benefit from all the added input.

As a disclaimer for the future: Please understand we will not be able to simply take each suggestion and implement them directly. If it's in this thread I can guarantee it has been read and considered and weighed against all other suggestions and the state of the game as a whole, but not everything is meant to be included. If you read closely you will see that a lot of different players have conflicting ideas about where the game should go, so naturally we will have to find a balance.

That being said, thank you for contributing! This is just an update post to show I'm here and paying attention, and I will continue to monitor for new posts and thoughts.

I started into RoS with end-game raid gear from BoL.

Yes.

• Best source were the PQs in the first days of RoS. The drop rate before the nerf was acceptable enough that I could even talk many guild mates into doing PQs often enough to get their desired drops. As soon as the raiding population of my server was decked out in PQ items, they didn't participate in PQs anymore, and PQ activity died because return on investment (time spent vs. drop rate) wasn't good enough anymore. Soon after that event, the drop rate was nerfed. This killed the last bit of motivation for players to engage in PQs.
• The second best source was the lottery crates from the merchant in bazaar (bought with RoS currency). This made players log in every 5 hours and test their luck, hoping to score an upgrade and get closer to raid resolve. While it was a good source of gear I don't really like the idea of these lottery crates. They (heroic and raid tiers) served their purpose only for very few weeks.

What didn't and still doesn't feel right? Red and green adornment drop rate in solo and heroics is way too low. Farming zones for these drops is not worth the time.

Quested items with superior stats than entry level raid drops. Specifically the signature off-hand, the 2 charms from PoI and dropped item quests, the cloak from killing all PQ mobs. I liked that while it took a bit of work to get the items, everyone was able to obtain them, regardless if you're a casual solo player or a raider.

Currency-earned gear is something that you can work for and that doesn't require any RNG luck. It's predictable. After doing X an amount of Y times, I can buy the item I want.
It's debatable if the currency should be no-trade or heirloom. My preference would be heirloom for solo/heroic currency and no-trade for raid currency while having all items you can purchase be heirloom.

• Mastercrafted equipment should have its place in the gear progression. Ideally both rares and recipes for mastercrafted gear should be obtainable only from tradeskill content. Tinkered items can be the exception, where advanced recipes are obtainable in either or only in adventuring content.
• Account-wide armor unlocks made alts viable. It let you start with 40% decent gear instead of 0%. You still had to obtain the equipment for all other slots but at least you could play the alt in groups without being a 100% carry (and thus not accepted into groups).
• I am missing the countless Najena's Tower runs for the ring and similar other zones for unique and best in slot items. It gave raiding players a reason to run heroics that they otherwise would avoid.
• All consumables where recipes have been introduced in previous expansions should remain craftable in succeeding content. Maybe not all tiers, but a decent version of e.g. powerlinks and painlinks.

Hard to gauge solo content when a majority of players immediately geared out in heroics. As a raider I would say most did not see any issues with the flow, but I do know that even really skilled players have some trouble on unappreciated alts with base gear. Solo content should not be troublesome to returning players making them feel they need to be carried through heroics to gear up to complete them. Heroic flow was appropriate but I will say having a few "cherry picked" loot drops does add excitement to doing our "chores". There definitely isn't enough of those items in heroics. As for Raids, meh... after everyone gets their preferred stat pieces is anyone even looking at the chest drops besides emperor? NO, they aren't, which is not really an acceptable thing if you really want player retention.

I will mention what I have been pandering about for years now... Risk/Work vs Reward has to make sense. Skipping entire raid bosses bc the challenge isn't worth the reward really shouldn't be a thing should it? Personally, I enjoy a more challenging fight but not when it's going to be trivialized with lackluster loot drops NO ONE wants.

Another thing to mention is the dungeon nerfs.... I am all for the dumbing down of harder dungeons after a period of time. As someone who spent over 100 hours in Daiku before the nerfs and first grp to finish on server it's maddening to see dungeons trivialized without any commendation except for our own toting that we were first to clear. I haven't even stepped into VT3 because I know in time it will be dumbed down enough to breeze through it eventually. So why torture myself and my groupmates when I know eventually it will be handed over with much less effort. Toss those of us who don't mind spending countless hours into these harder zones (pre-nerf) an extended loot drop or guaranteed reward that can be removed once the zones are nerfed.... otherwise forget it, many of us are done striving to be better just for the sake of practice and ****** length alone.

Best system to date was in BoL.... RoS seemed patched together and the random purchase crate rewards was a joke. If I'm going to be spending any earned currency, I should know what I am getting period. The weekly rewards were on par for those of us with a decent RNG, but some folks struggled for those BIS items while others have extras sitting on alts we never play. It's ok to do random rewards but when players are looking for several specific rewards on chance it also trivializes efforts to a "chore" status. Need to minimize the BIS items from the Random reward loot table. I think most players will agree that the Unlock/currency system of BOL was perfect and there is no need to rethink that wheel.

Ethereal- Adorns are ok, the Fam buff is fantastic but the AA adjustment is a terrible idea. Love that we can get highly sought after stats that we weren't getting on itemization (but should be) but I'm thinking long term for returning players. How do you compromise both the AA and ethereal systems like this? It's already been announced that this years Eths are permanent.... We really need to stop this "fragmentation" of checklist chores for returning players. So we are either going to give everyone these AA's in the future which negates all Ethereal efforts for this cycle or you are going to force returning players to run more old content to be competitive. I know so many players that would love to come back, but when I explain to them all the things they will have to do in order to catch back up, most are dissuaded or just play without key runes/adorns/items. Personally, I'm ok with Eths being more highly regarded rewards that are restricted if you miss out. However, you have to add something comparable in current content or crafted to take their place when no longer available.
Cabal- System is a good system but most items were not even worth considering... especially now that VD is out. I think many of the items were overpriced and not well thought out in a purchasable timeline. If the items were of better quality and cheaper I would say specifically that the Cabal system is actually viable. But after people get their 2-3 items I don't think anyone is shopping there. The coins should also be heirloom.

The PQ rewards were a nice touch but way overdone. I was lucky enough to get every piece I wanted except for 1, but again trivialized my raiding efforts every time I compared those pieces to raid drops. I can understand how it would great for a more casual player but seeing how infusing works in RoS, perhaps the tag should have stopped at Mythical for those rewards.

My biggest concern is how we are achieving rewards for required items now and into the future. With an inevitable stat crunch and AA revamps looming you need to make catching up for alts and returning players more accessible. I'm all for Mystery/Embers Runes being achievement based, but it should also be flagging us account wide at the least for purchase by current heirloom currency always and moving forward.

BoL unlock system was fantastic. I am certain I am not alone in my great disappointment when we reverted to this gambling reward crate scenario we have in RoS.

Thanks for asking for feedback ahead of time; I hope it makes a difference. Some of the following comments I put in feedback during BOL beta and they are still an issue (surprise).

1. Absolutely not. My biggest beef is that the gear does NOT follow a progression. This applies especially to the side quest items. There are side quests that cannot be completed before completing parts of the signature quest (they can't even be picked up in some cases until the final quest in the sig line is done), and the gear given was WORSE than what the signature line gave. One example is the side quests in Wracklands. The levels were lower (111 from the side quest versus 116 from the sig line), yet the sig line piece had been given already. This happened all during the signature line. In ROS, several items were basically duplicates. An example of this is the helmets you get when completing the Akhevan side quests in Shadeweavers' Thicket. The stats are identical. So what's the point?

The stats are also too generic. Casters get very little casting stats (casting speed, reuse etc.) for example. The amounts given were horrendous as well. After completing the line and all the side quests in many cases the casting speed is less than 100%. Yet the gear from the panda and/or lockbox give casting speeds in the 200-300s. It's virtually impossible to get it over 100% without good luck in the dungeon drops and there are no high-level adornments that address that to my knowledge. I haven't tried heroics so I can't answer if it would help there. I was able to do all the solo instances with no problem once the line and side quests were completed.

2. Quest rewards are good if they are actually specific for a class. When all the items for all four types are basically the same stats with the only difference being armor type, it's pretty pointless. Tradeskill rewards are good if they are tradeskill. This lunacy (pun intended) with the advanced books being stuck behind a hugely random overseer system is ridiculous. This is the only expansion I have not yet been able to get all the advanced class books and I'm certainly not paying the insane broker prices (none of my characters has that anyway). They books need to be available from an NPC after doing certain tasks, like in the prior systems (Kunark Ascending springs to mind with the factions).

3. Ethereals and Coin of the Cabal are apparently targeted for a different type than I play. I don't even try though I do have some of each. The Bazaar currency is pretty good for basic stuff as long as there are multiple ways of getting them (as currently).

4. I do tradeskilling and adventuring heavily, and don't care to have rewards muddled. To reiterate, tradeskill quests need to be where tradeskill rewards are attainable. The adventuring gear rewards need to be better thought out and not just a one-size-fits-nobody approach.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?
To start, my context is that of an end-game raider. I liked that end-game heroic/raid gear from BoL carried you through into heroics in RoS. I felt rewarded for my prior work/effort and instantly was able to complete the heroics from Day 1. That said, the heroic gear from this expac felt completely useless when compared with what dropped from the PQs. While it ensured we ran PQs, it was a miserable experience and made it extremely hard to motivate folks to continue the content.

Raid and heroic drops were rendered mostly meaningless this expac because of the multitude of quest reward items (weekly/daily/etc) that we were flooded with. These rewards were very random so you could have two players with vastly different stats after a couple of weeks completely dependent on their "luck." The quest rewards were often better than the rewards we saw in mob chests and made gear progress more about finishing the weeklies than getting excited about mob drops. I would 1,000% be behind seeing more drops in chests and eliminating the raid weeklies as it would allow guilds to better allocate gear via their own loot systems.

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

I enjoyed the upgraded adorns unlocking based on challenge achievements (wish they were account-wide though). As stated above, mission rewards tend to clog up the works and reduce the "wow" factor of loot in chests. I would love to see the weekly raid quest removed and loot re-allocated to the mobs we kill.

I liked having challenging heroic mobs out there (bounty mobs) but didn't like that the bounty system as it was too inventory intensive and somewhat non-intuitive at the start.

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

The Cabal coins seemed redundant to me. In their initial implementation, we had access to better gear/same gear by the time we had the coins/faction to buy them. Those systems are ok but they need to be paced a bit better with the content.

The ethereal coin-earning process was another huge step in the right direction, though I would have excluded solos from the options just to further incentivize group content. Account unlock rewards are always appreciated and help provide guilds flexibility when they have to play alt tanks, etc. for their friends.

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?
Rare items were far too rare this expac. Green adorns, red adorns, etc. were nearly impossible to get your hands on in a reasonable time-frame at expac launch. The loot at the end of heroics was also extremely disappointing as near afk solo folks with no effort were getting best-in-slot gear. The way challenge heroic loot was done was really cool and I'd like to see that form of reward system. Challenging content but you KNOW you will get something useful at the end of the zone and that it will be different depending on the end-boss.

Raid loot was really, really lackluster this expac. It just wasn't exciting and it suffers from the problem that it is nearly ALWAYS in a raid's best interest to pile the best stuff onto a dps toon. This leads to a serious lack of engagement from our priests/utility folks. We want exciting gear that it MAKES SENSE for non-dps players to get over a dps player. Things like the raid rez charm are good examples of the type of gear that appeals to us and that our dps friends want us to have. Give us heal procs, procs that buff our group, effects that improve our health buffs, etc.

I kinda liked the KA pattern drops that had random slots for different classes as those weren't invalidated when a universal BIS item is added to a character slow (like the current quested cloak). Basically, anytime there is a clear BIS item obtainable from minimal effort (or last year carryover), that slot shouldn't be a common raid drop. Weapons were worthless this entire expac, cloaks, etc.

For those of you that read this whole post, please also feel free to reference any other past expansion in terms of things you liked or would want to see again


I thought KA expac itemization was pretty good. Raid stuff was mostly BIS but there were a couple of quested/heroic items that were super strong and "interesting." One or two solo pieces were worth leveraging due to high potency.

For any expansion (if using resolve) - Pick a base number (Base).
Box at start of Expac = Base
Solo and reg crafted gear at start of expac = Base + 5
Mastercrafted Gear = Base + 10
Heroic gear = Base + 10 to 20
Challenge Heroic Gear = Base +20 to 30
Raid 1 = Base +20 to 30
Raid 2 = Base +25 to 35
Raid 3 = Base +30 to 40
Raid 4 = Base +35 to 45

Whatever the exact number are are moot so long as there is a logical progression.

The issue with the last few expacs - was
1. mastercrafter gear was worth making or too hard to get the patterns to make it
2. A zone (group or raid) would be introduce that would break the progression. For example in RoS - VD2 Heroic gear is better than Vex 2 raid gear and very close to Vex2 raid challenge gear. We broke our raid into 4 groups and did the VD2 heroic for better gear than do a Vex2 raid one night. VD2 Heroic gear also made Cabel gear not really worth trying to get.
3. Last expac it was Sol Ro Raid - gear was better than the other raid zones available at the time.

The point I think I am trying to make is have a plan for all the gear for the entire expac like the list given above.

If you are a solo player you won't ever be able to do the heroic zones. The demand by raiders and those who are able to get that quality of gear cuts solo players out due to not having the uber stats required. So I have no suggestions to offer. You all will do what your going to do regardless of what the players say. Not everyone wants to raid and many of us prefer solo and we take what we get. Not complaining, just explaining.

Background info: I started eq2 in May of this year. I am new to this game. I've played quite a few other games.

The first thing I need to explain is, the adorns in the Tishan's Lockbox gear were not on the crate gear I received. And, I had no indication whatsoever of how to get adorns or runes until another player explained to me they were in the Tishan's Lockbox gear. Then, I had to sort through that gear and try to put adorns in the box gear I had received as part of the base RoS version that had Chumba. I found that part confusing. That's the gear I started with.

1. The gear from solos provided a substantive upgrade from the RoS pack gear. I felt the solos were worth doing. When I first went into Quarry Quandary with <Companions> on their struggle bus, the first item I saw drop in the heroic really was a good upgrade over the solo gear, particularly from the perspective of someone who did not know how to properly itemize to build up the requisite stats for the RoS game update and timeline expansion. As I continued to do heroics, however, I ran into an issue: I had done the quest lines, I had picked up quite a few of the collection items like the charms and the ranged slot item. At that point, the gear in heroics compared to how difficult it was to get a group and get the group through - bearing in mind I was trying to gear up and learn as a noob sk - was unimpressive. But, the first two kills in Echo Caverns Expedition Precarious were phenomenal from the standpoint of what I needed so I didn't just flat out die on the next two bosses on the pull.

There is a curve there in the perspective of whether the gear was good or garbage, based upon effort and other means besides just doing a daily double to get loot. The best sources of loot, in my opinion, should always be from an achievable Hallmark series which leads up into the final non-challenge raid area, where the gear is substantially better than the quest reward loots. The reason for this, from my personal perspective is - it literally says "EverQuest" in the name of the title and the raid quests leave a lot to be desired in terms of being able to get in there and get them done during the time of the expansion.

2. The most rewarding piece of loot I have is the Prismatic Longsword from Nagafen. The second most rewarding loot I have is the Thurgadin armor I made myself. But, the only piece of loot I was ecstatic over was the cloak from Avatar of Bristlebane in ToV. Getting the blue adorns was absolutely a relief from the perspective of, "Now I don't suck so bad," But you guys already really ironed that out with the RoS expansion and I love the fact that it wholly replaces all the old content like the Kunark raid buff and such. It's a very good modernization for future play.

3. The currency earned gear is GREAT. It really motivates you to get on and do a daily or do a weekly. It partially sucked because getting in and doing Moon Platoon 2 every week isn't easy. Most of the reason I was able to get that done is because <Darkside> (amazing and very friendly guild, I love listening to Jamm tell stories and shoot the @$%! about using old party line telephone systems and stuff needed more lashings to progress. While their need for lashings REALLY helped me out and gave me the opportunity to meet these totally cool cats, I cannot believe you had that stupid "forge the weapons to kill the Emperor in VT lulz" stuff AGAIN. It was terrible the first time!

At least the FIRST TIME, the raid zones were an endless candy land of really cool and useful items. These raid zones suck with uninteresting loot we have to go reforge. It's nice to see that has been addressed. Still. Forging the stupid weapons to kill them in VT again didn't make any of us giggle or NOT need to call up Roman for a dose in order to get ready to play it. Nobody liked that unless they NEED to feel better than everyone else. You can accommodate those people with like, I don't know, Attack Gnomes From the Ether crates or something they'll buy ludicrous amounts of. These weapons suck.

But, the token system is really great.

4. Rewards-related: Yeah. Make an app that tracks your steps for your phone or smartwatch, please. Use that data to give you achievements in-game. Sure. It's a Wii Fit ripoff in some ways. I climbed The Great Pyramid of Giza, walked around all of France, that sort of thing, all with Wii Fit. We're out and about, a lot!

And, when we pull out our phones to check our step progress for the EQ2 achievement...

...other people look at it and say, "What's that? Is it cool? I can try it for free?!"

throwing this here as a possible thing for itemization

So i don't know if this is even doable but I think a reasonable balance for class adorns that many want along with some of the old/new ascension adorns would be to make them temporary adorns. This would allow more use of these adorns as many atm don't even waste a slot for them as they aren't as good as other adorns or they are too weak. A vendor or as a rare drop could give these temp adorns and they would be priced accordingly to time/power scale.

Example

• Fighter Class Rune 2mil plat (1hr) / 7mil (4hr) / 12.5mil (8hr)
• Trained for Battle 25k (1hr) 20k (4hr) 15k(8hr)

Just as a rough example of how it could be priced or work. I think this would reduce major issue of balance being around class adorns being overpowered when they have a time limit and limited use without a huge plat sinks associated with it. This would stop people from being reckless with always using them nonstop but also give a wanted buff to have.

This idea can also work for various gear or item procs maybe as a temp adorn maybe even as some other ethereal purple adorn effects or old orange adorn effects. Would definitely make a great plat sink as the infusion is going away with xpac18 and would make a good replacement

For reference, my perspective in answering these questions is someone who doesn't raid, but only does small groups with friends, typically doing heroics with 3-4 people.

1) Initially no, I didn't feel that we could gear appropriately to tackle heroic content until mid-expansion/GU content came in. There were a few factors in this expansion that made it markedly more difficult for us to progress than previous. The new season of Overseers weren't really comparable to the previous in terms of quality, where you could get up to resolve 180 gear from the highest tier of bonus chests and could get hard-to-get adorns. New overseer seasons don't get the same sort of hard-to-obtain boosts that provided another progression avenue. Another large factor was the lack of unlocks. I saw dev posts before that mentioned that system was retired for several reasons, but it's incredibly, incredibly frustrating to get items that you can't use which would have been an upgrade in the previous system. Particularly given that stats were reworked and now maintaining certain stats were significant, getting armor that no one can use or that has stat mixes that are bad (tank stats on cloth armor, for example) was extremely discouraging.

Another avenue that the previous expansion had that this one was missing was meaningful heroic outdoor names as another way to complete a weekly. We initially completed the outdoor weekly, but eventually the outdoor nameds became so camped that proved impossible. There needs to be easier/more outdoor names for that heroic to be viable - the previous expansion handled that really well with 3 easy ones in Aurelian Coast, 2 easy ones in the Blinding, and 3 challenging ones in the Wracklands.

I know I'm probably in the minority about it, but I really disliked how few items were infusable. Being able to infuse things provided another meaningful progression path when getting incremental upgrades. Lack of need for infusions also made salvage feel worthless, which emphasized how pointless it feels to transmute legendary items without distillations, since the bottleneck for any transmuting is fragments. Powders/infusions being basically worthless feels really, really bad.

Dropped red adorns were a total miss for me in the expansion. Red adorns that dropped almost felt insulting given that completing their sets felt impossible since the recipes weren't available via overseer. They really needed to be on overseer so that they could be completed. Having a way to grind to get Ascension of Destruction wouldn't have been a bad idea giving its absurd importance.

2.) By far the most rewarding ones were the celestial/infusable signature quest rewards. Completing collects also felt rewarding. Getting a celestial as a rare drop in a heroic felt good, and then Vasty Deep being highly rewarding for its difficulty, at least when the gear was usable (had right stat mixes, right classes, etc). Some of the consumables from overseer felt good, and others would have if they had been tweaked/buffed (for example, if you put high DPS mod on temp adorns that were intended to help with melee damage, such as accuracy/strikethrough/weapon damage). Getting better mount recipes was nice. Fashion is always a nice reward, like new formal-wear looks in Vasty Deep. Getting a broom mount was cool.


3. More variety in what you can buy. With reforging being essentially removed it was very difficult to get proper stat mixes, so having the only items being sold with poor stat mixes was frustrating. I really, really liked the unlock system in the previous expansion and I hated not having that available. I also was disappointed with how shallow the pool was for the 'gambling' options of buying random 225 resolve gear with coins and stopped early on, well before even going into heroic zones. Getting cabal coins would have been nice, and would have felt like a meaningful progression path, but scarcity of outdoor names stopped us from doing the heroic outdoor weekly, which was pretty disappointing. I would have preferred if the ethereal weekly would have gone off from a solo quest - I missed a few weeks when my small group of friends couldn't get together to do enough zones. In the previous expansion, we *never* missed a week due to the ease of finding outdoor names, and it was upsetting to not be able to replicate that. I did like it going account-wide, but disliked the first adorn being incompatible with the previous belt, which meant that completing the first ethereal reward didn't feel like an upgrade. Intentional or not, it felt pretty bad. It's not a great feeling when friends ask your advice for whether they should use something which is supposed to theoretically be an upgrade and you can't tell them if they should.

4. I do overseer a lot. A *lot*. Please stop giving us consumables that are heirloom/no-trade, especially non-stacking variations of the same thing. Few things are as irritating as bags slowly filling up with consumables that you would love to put in a potion bin, but are heirloom. Give us ways to get rid of things that don't feel like you're just deleting them, since that always gives a nagging sensation that you wasted your time. I would very, very much like ways to turn things into fragments, or slowly churn these things away for progress. I actually really *liked* leveling weapons, and infusing gear - it felt like I was making progress. Without things like that, I started to feel stuck with no real way to progress at all, so I simply stopped playing until new content updates got me to check out if it'd be possible to get gear to progress again. If I had missed the announcements or the new zones hadn't offered upgrades, I don't think me or my friends would have come back at all.

As a final note, the stat checks and resolve checks were steep. In previous expansions, we would be able to invite along very casual friends to dungeons that we could comfortably 3-man, and while they wouldn't perform well, they'd be able to be close enough to resolve numbers that they wouldn't get one-shot. Here, someone returning to the game and hitting Tishan's Lockbox is nowhere even close to what they'd need to tag along in VD1. This is, yet again, a place where the lack of available outdoor heroic names hurts - in the last expansion, we could grab ultra-casual friends for a quick sweep through them. That avenue wasn't available here, so they got left out in the cold.

Im just gonna skip to the number 4 question: Is there anything else we should know about (i think alot of other stuff has been covered)

Gear: Stats are a JOKE (and not funny haha more like *cry*), since when do Mages need block/mit, scouts block/mit, healers block/mit I mean really come on actually pay attn to what stats you are putting on gear for classes

Overseer Rewards: How many barding unlocks do u think we need? I have 14 toons on one acct and with ones ive already unlocked for my max toons, I still have enough to not only do all the others but enough to cover next expac mounts already
Temporary Adorns...you give us 2 different ones from the overseers but they are EXACTLY the same ie :
[Level 120] Extended Aptitude 1 and [Level 120] Minion's Extended Aptitude 1, both are 150 potency, both are 4hrs and both go on Wrist plus both are Heirloom No Value...I mean how dumb do you guys think we are that we wouldn't notice all these different temps you're giving us all have same stats and dont even get me started on stacking
Appearance Armor: Can we NOT get that every single crate, you can only equip so many toons (and thats even if you like the looks of it), all I use it for these days is throwing in shared bank for my baby transmuters to use to lvl up thats how worthless it all is

Masters/Grandmasters: Where the heck have all the spell books disappeared to, last few expacs have been the worst ever for obtaining these, I dont mind researching but give us a boost here and there, having to research every single one from expert up (unless someone is selling one on broker that they got lucky enough to get, if you dont mind paying and can afford the prices)

Tradeskill books: STOP JUST STOP putting these in raid chests, tradeskill stuff should NEVER have to be obtained through raid means UNLESS it actually pertains to a raid item itself
Tradeskill gear should also go back to where it used to be, with being able to get player made stuff to progress, not have it so its just made so we can break it down for certain fuels to make other stuff, all this heirloom no trade stuff youve added to the tradeskill items just makes us wanna pull YOUR hair out and poke your eyes with a stick (to put it politely)

Red Adorns this expac have been hard to obtain, most of my raid force are still using last expacs sets cause they ahve not been able to complete full sets (I got lucky on my 2 mains and Ive handed a few off but I have extras in my shared bank and they are all incomplete sets), not sure why you didnt let the tradeskillers make these like you did last expac except for the Destruction one, at least you were only really chasing the Destruction one last expac not the whole friggin lot

Green Adorns : For the love of god make these Heirloom PLZ, the new rewards of the Shadow Strongbox (or wateva its called I forget atm lol) the one where it has 3 green adorns and 3 Acrylia Adorns, now this had my hopes up till I realised while the acrylia adorns are heirloom sadly the green adorns arent and since the box itself is no trade this has become a worthless reward, just something to be thrown out with the trash, ive unpacked a few of the acrylia adorns for my alts but since those alts are also running zones well you can see the loop happening lol

Im sure Ive missed other things that have been slowly bugging me more than normal but i'll leave it there for now...I love this game and I want to continue playing and no im not one of those that is gonna say im gonna quit etc, for the most part i think you guys are doing a great job, ive been happy with alot of the other stuff, Ive had no problems really with progression, I dont actually mind the no fly till end of zone mechanic with the timeline, makes you actually have to learn each zone first instead of just fly from one spot to next......Bulwark i would be happy if was just removed, its an annoying mechanic (maybe wouldnt be so bad if every new expac didnt have to make new triggers for it all the time and if it worked correctly lol)

THIS. ALL OF IT. Especially since I am a crafter, and it frustrates me to no end that the mastercrafted gear can't really even be used for the first solo dungeon in the sig line. I could BARELY kill the first two bosses for the sig line and I couldn't kill the Bogling dude at all without help. (And yes, before anyone asks, I killed every single one of the boglings, and the ones who popped after.) I think the only reason I could do it on my fury and Channeler was because they are basically healers with decent dps. I have so many char I haven't done the sig line on because of how ridiculous you guys made the content for returning players



Why even bother letting us make tailors, armorers, etc if the gear isn't even useful for STARTING ZONES???

Coming from the Blood of Luclin expansion all end game geared up, the solo gear provided little to no upgrades at first and the solo content felt like an obligation as opposed to something I felt i wanted to do. The box gear given as free entry into the expansion is nowhere near good enough for any new/returning player to have fun doing the solo content let alone think about doing heroics. The stat checks are outrageous and have been for years and this cycle continues with RoS. Never was a big fan of solo zones and still preferred large overland zones with quests that gave gear good enough to get into heroics. This was done well in the past, e.g. destiny of velius, where solo overland quests was centred around faction gaining and then you could buy adornments from faction merchants. There was an element of progression, with each quest, you felt you are building towards something and not hoping to be lucky on RNG. With solo zones, this balance has completely gone in my view as not only the repetitive nature of RNG loot from these zones dulls the whole experience, it also does not address a clear cut progression from solo to heroic content. The heroic loot drops in BoL/RoS were/are all over the place, the only thing you now focus on is meeting resolve checks and overcome hidden combat mitigation checks through crit bonus and potency - there is no "wow" factor in getting an item like it used to be years ago where each item selection mattered as it augmented your AAs and playstyle. These days its just about getting +5 on stats on a new item and the whole loot grind has lost all its meaning. One of the most baffling experience in this expansion has been the brawl challenge zone. All nameds except the last boss drop resolve 235 gear which is just ridiculous as no one in their right mind will find it fun or even possible to do these encounters with that level of gear. You needed at least tier 1 raid loot to be able to do this zone and i get it, it is targeted at raiders for extra challenge but if you are coming into the zone needing gear that is much better then what exactly is the point of a 235 loot drop from encounters that require more effort/skill than a T1 raid encounter?

Now coming on to raids, the same pattern continues, the risk vs reward is all but gone. T1-T2 loot again was about resolve upgrade with the underlying novelty of working hard to get items that are unique is not there and the loot is outdone by items that anybody can get from PQs that still to this very day even at end game are still better. Going from Vex Beyond the veil 1 to 2 should have kept up with the resolve increase but for the first month or two we still were getting items that were 255 with a rare drop of 260+ gear that was on some obscure RNG call that favored some guilds over the others. It took you months to get them right and when you did you completely destroyed any sort of semblance of raiding by introducing heroic Toil and Trouble zones -- i just do not believe devs play their own game or know what players find fun. There is really no point to even doing the Vex 2 raid zone anymore. Your end game/end expansion grind is do the heroic zone to get gear and then go into challenge raid zone. You have essentially shoved aside everything else in the expansion.

So in short, solo content loots needs to be balanced so they prepare a player to do heroic content, heroic content should also see that progression where farming heroic loot is needed to get into tier 1 raiding. PQs i thought were only well done back in DoV expansion, after that it has become a filler content with items that are way too good or just outright rubbish. One or may be 2 items that can remain in best in slot but not more than that and not on RNG drop system -- for years you have under utilised the expansion currency, use it! Put items on a merchant where every PQ takes you closer to your reward. You can scale the grind here so people are not able to get those items straight away but it will be weeks/months of grinding to be able to get them.

Ethereal items from BoL were a disaster for a number reasons, they are so powerful that to this very day, most if not all end game raiders are using them. I simply can never understand that a game that has a dwindling population can have items that are only accessible for a short time and gives no other way for a new/returning player to catch up as the game generally has developed into a stat check where these items are a must to be able to perform at the top level. If you really wanted to keep players during summer then ok give them these items but have a clean slate every expansion where every player gets a complete reset and all start on the same page. You have missed this mark for years now. The current ethereal system perhaps may be a step in the right direction but why make upgrades that could possible be massive down the line in the AA systems? This system should be treated/revamped separately and not tied to something that you have limited time to grind for. You may run into this problem in the next expansion as players who did not get the ethereal flags are again playing catch up.

The adornments/ascension celestial upgrades -- you do not have the luxury of having lots of players available and the older content being fun and accessible for people to go back and get these as they are an absolute must to have these days. Why must anybody need to have to run older content to get items that are needed in the current expansion? There should be multiple ways to get them, so if a player wants a lesser challenge they can beg/borrow players to run older content to get them or you put them on a merchant where live expansion currency after a short grind can give them the option to buy them so they can quickly catch up to the rest of the pack.

The gambling/RNG loot crate items are an abomination and should be removed from the game. Nothing has damaged this game more than this. I know that this is your main revenue stream but all the feedback on loot/items here mean nothing when you simply are not willing to give players a "realistic" chance of attaining these items in game through hard work in a timely manner. A recent slap in the face was the introduction of the lesser variation of these items on the jadellite coin merchant which again requires you to spend money or do a solitary quest daily that will take you about 20 years to get enough coins for you to be able to buy them.

In summary, look at the previous expansions (everything pre Terrors of Thalumbra) and see how a lot of these things were done very good. Bring back risk vs reward component on loot and have a clear progression where a player can do solo content to get into heroic and then heroic to get into raids. Do not reward overpowered items for free (i.e. PQs RNG). Make players earn them through in game currency/faction system that requires time and effort.