New Expansion - Itemization and Rewards

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Mint, Aug 30, 2021.

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  1. Kittybock Well-Known Member

    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?

    • We loved Bol and CD. We explored all levels of content: Solo/ group/ raiding, as well as crafting. Getting folks geared for grouping was a bit tedious at the outset, but we got to the point that we could "carry" others, to help new and returning players get gear. In RoS, on the other hand, many in our guild struggled with the level of scripting in some of the solos/ group content.

    • Gear: Due to the aforementioned scripting, some did not run zones enough to get the gear which they needed to progress, and eventually stopped playing or turned to other areas of game play.
      • ie. I love to run groups w/ guildies, PuGs, whatever, but in RoS you really needed to have a stacked, well-rounded group for many things. This precludes some players from getting groups. So, in order to get the gear you need, you must group. In order to group, you must have gear.
    • I've suggested for years that the game needs to have some dungeons each expac that are a bit easier, so that new/ returning players have a chance to catch up. If the raiders do not want to run that content, so be it, but folks need to be able to group with their friends over coffee or a beer and get caught up, or feel like they are contributing.

    • On earning gear: I do like the various options for drops other than heroics or raids, such as the overland PQ's. They were brilliant at the outset, then the loot drops were scaled back.
    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 thought the return of PQ's was awesome early in the expac, until they nerfed the drop rate. It was fun, engaging, and brought people together.

    • Tradeskill: I was excited to see that we could experiment again, but then it turned out that the base stats on the gear did not allow an experimented piece to be truly worthwhile. More value needs to be there for end-game TS. a player should be able to craft some pretty sharp pieces, IMHO.
    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?

    • While I understand the coin grind mechanic, I think the number of coins per item should be reduced or not so much emphasis placed on said mechanic. I've loved and played the game for years, but I took a step back and went to Tarinax when it opened, as I was a tad tired of the grind on live, in order to keep my toon at a playable level. While grinding is a great way for folks to get items, IF they have the time and/ or want to spend that amount of time in the game. The issue I ran into, was that some did not have the time to get the rewards due to RL things, like work, and they'd get annoyed and stop playing. Note that this was not a random complaint. ie. I have far more game time than my husband, so I'd get the rewards and he'd be behind in many things.
    4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?
    • I've thought the way the achievement system was used the last 2 expacs--especially in BoL--was rewarding. Players could get some nice pieces of gear via gameplay, no matter what their schedule
    Input on prior expansions:
    • My fave expansions for grouping in EQ2 were probably Thalumbra and BoL. The reason was that while the content was challenging, players could get into groups and experience all levels of game play. I am not a fan of xpacs which are script heavy or require perfectly stacked groups. I like to include people, to be able to take them along...let them experience content.
    • My fave server: Isle of Refuge, due to its ruleset!! I think that the Free-Trade ruleset should be game wide and would truly help new and returning players. You could just hand them things, or they could by what they need on the Broker.
    • My fave xpac for just exploring was probably SF.
    • My least fave xpacs were ToV and PoP. While both had some great great content, both were xpacs wherein we lost a lot of players from our guild. ToV they'd switched gears on armor progression, in PoP we lost folks due to the faction based portion (which I enjoyed, but some did not), as well as the level of scripting in many zones).
    • That said, a good signature line goes a long way. My personal fave in the game was the CoE sig line. I thought it well-written and interesting.
    • Personally, I am really enjoying exploring the Sky, on Tarinax. I'd started playing during RoK, I think, and dabbled in the KoS zones, but they are really quite fun. There is a reason that folks which played on live for years dabble on TLE servers. It's not that we cannot do end-game content, it's that we choose not to do end-game content as the grind to get gear feels a bit like a job.
    I could go on, as I've made tons of suggestions over the years ;)That said, I don't want this to be TLDR.

    Overall, I really love EQ2. Thanks for asking for suggestions!
    Lateana, Raff and Chath like this.
  2. Hououin New Member

    Casual player here.

    1. Completing Solo dungeons gave better items, but it felt a bit like a gamble as half of the items were unusable by my class and the other ones were boosting auto-attack, which has been pointless in this expansion. Best source of loot for me were those crates added to the quest rewards in recent patch. I absolutely loved getting decent gear from quests and I actually felt motivated to complete Signature quest line I completely ignored before. Second best would probably be missions from quest items that dropped from mobs. Gamble too, but somehow felt rewarding. Somehow I still don't know where currency vendors are and will probably end up just hoarding all those currency coins instead. I think I'd appreciate them more if I could say convert drops for other classes or play-styles to mine with them.

    2. Tradeskills were fun. Recently added bonus quest rewards were great.

    3. Didn't really pay much attention to it. Still just hoarding coins.

    4. A lot of the time I felt like it's difficult for me to compare different pieces of gear due to unclear bonuses. I ended up basing this decision mostly on Fervor, but it would be great to do some sort of stat squish or level squish or make it clear which bonuses work which way. For instance I still don't understand what 20 max hp on gear really means and how it compares to say 0.1 ability double cast.
  3. Standard Member

    I think you guys dropped the ball on Vex2 Challenge raid and Vex3. For the proportion of the xpac they comprise, and the itemisation within, they are far too exclusive given the composition of your player base. Yes, the top 5 or 6 guilds love this stuff, but the very vast majority of guilds, even pretty decent ones, have to pad their ranks with less skilled players because it's just impossible to recruit 24 top quality players these days. Because of that, you're banging your head against a brick wall with encounters where absolutely zero mistakes are allowed. It doesn't result in a fun experience. The same goes for Vex3. It's a great zone, and the encounters are well designed. But looking at the progression table, even the top guilds only have one group plus maybe one or two other players who run it, because again, you can only run these zones with your A team. One mistake and it's over.
    99% of your players will never get past the first boss in Vex3. They probably won't even be able to do it during the next xpac. I'd wager that a good 95% will, if they manage to kill the first boss in Vex2 Challenge Raid, never get past any of the others in that zone.
    Raff and Obano like this.
  4. Obano Well-Known Member

    The problem with Vex3 (heroic) is it punishes people not playing the right classes. Vex3 is all about meta gaming. The tank imbalance becomes too much of an issue in that zone. So if your tank isn't a Zerker or Monk don't go.
  5. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Not sure why some posts are just focusing on the vex 3 challenge zone. It is intended to challenge players who have the skill and stats and understanding of their class and is not targeted at the majority. The few gripes i have with this zone design is the steep combat mit check that requires very high stats - not saying it cannot be done w/o p2w buffs but stats really simplify the fights and reduce the tedium related to the pull time per fight. Second, some tank classes will find it a lot harder to do some of the fights in there and that is an entirely different topic which needs to be addressed in the Tank Balance thread for which we are still waiting for an official dev response.

    I digress, loot wise Brawl Challenge (although a well done zone) was a disaster with risk vs reward thrown out of the window and the only reason you wanted to do it was for the ring and the white adornments. Vex 3 has improved upon it but when you look at the overall picture of RoS loot and itemisation it is a tiny improvement.

    Some posts here so far have come up with very valuable feedback. I am hoping "Mint" is going to go through all of those.
    Priority likes this.
  6. Arakk01 New Member

    1. I feel like gear progression could have been improved with a more personally-grindable deterministic approach. With the exception of Vasty Deep Heroic content, I haven't personally equipped much of the gear that has dropped from a daily/weekly mission crate and mostly just grind that content for Ethereals.

    I feel like a good fix to this would be to expand the Pattern system to use Heirloom components that may be salvaged from all item drops in dungeons, which can be crafted into a full set of gear which is 'Best in Slot' in the context of that content. Each tier of content drops five components - three of which represent the three armor weights, one for weapons, and one for accessories. To craft Solo tier gear, you a specific component from drops in solo content. Heroic tiered gear requires 'Any solo component(s)', plus a specific Heroic component. For Raid tier gear, you need a blueprint, a specific Raid component, plus any Heroic and Solo component. This way all content offers cumulative rewards that incentivizes even players progressing their raid tier equipment to continue doing Heroic content - without needing to have Heroic drops leapfrog raid drops like Vasty Deep 2 does.

    2. My favorite part of Reign of Shadows itemization was the Phantastic weapon. I feel that most itemization should be similar to this, albeit without the specific blueprint requirement for lower tiers of equipment. It would be a much more engaging and rewarding way to pursue itemization if there were a deterministic 'progress bar' to getting that piece of gear you desperately want.

    3. Ethereals feel too group-dependent for someone who doesn't have time to focus on more than 2 characters. I've missed a couple weeklies just because I couldn't find a group, even when I'm already trying to catch up from behind. Catchup mechanic is cool, but it would be more helpful if there was more content my main could earn coins from.

    4. Next expansion, I would like to see more class-specialization procs/gear effects that let me differentiate my Mystic playstyle from some set of others. Barring that, procs and special effects on gear definitely appeal to me more than bigger numbers - I'd rather strip 1000 combat mit than gain 10000 potency.
    Priority and Melt like this.
  7. Darwiin Active Member

    Ok everyone seems very long winded but it pretty simple on Gear. Remove Resolve and Remove all restrictions on Gear that only work in certain zones. (Heart of Luclin is one of them)

    Silly, and no other game i can think of does this. If i want to wear a cloak from 6 expansion back to get some certain buff, let me without putting any added retrains on the gear other then stats suck. Resolve prevents this and force you every SINGLE expansion to put on worse gear at beginning of expansion then you earned last expansion just to meet silly resolve requirement to walk into the dungeon.
  8. Rivald New Member

    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?
    Unfortunately, I feel like the loot from the "Solo" dungeons and solo content overall did not by itself allow you to challenge the next Tier of content (From solo to Heroic). While it would be good enough to meet the "Resolve" requirements, the gear did not provide enough damage overall to be able to handle the easiest of Heroic content. (A fully geared group with nothing but 220/215 Resolve gear from the solo content in RoS would not do enough damage to handle Echo Caverns - Quarry Quandry)

    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?
    Achievements that reward gear was rewarding. I like that it encourages exploration and completing as many quests as you can for a tangible benefit.

    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?
    I feel like using the currency system to buy the different red adornments would of been better then rewarding equipment.

    4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?
    Risk vs Reward in this game has been off for as long as I can remember. The Heroic Instances, if you were not raiding in the previous Tier, were difficult and thats fine, but the rewards from those instances were very subpar. Most of the gear that people have obtained has come from other sources, be it achievements or from the currency vendor. Currency vendors overall lock important items to that expac. For example, to be able to be somewhat viable in the Heroics, you needed to get Fervor Adornments earned by getting currency from raiding the previous Expac's content. Also, their are so many different currencies, it devalues the Plat which should be the games main and only real currency. Most of these currencies lose their value after about 2-3 expacs, and just end up being more bloat.

    Resolve is a terrible stat. Resolve is nothing more then a "gear score" stat that just gates content unnecessarily. Content should be gated by your ability to tank, heal, DPS, and support your group, not by some "gear score". Resolve should be removed from the game.

    The signature questline reward, if its going to remain soloable, needs to be toned down. In RoS, the reward was basically a BiS item. Meanwhile, doing a heroic dungeons that was much harder would never get you such a reward. This is apart of the reason why risk vs reward is so messed up. Also, it made ALL other cloaks in the game worthless, as the Signature Questline was soloable/duoable without too much effort. If at all possible, if the signature quest should give a piece of loot thats maybe on the level of Tier 1 raid loot and should require Heroic dungeons to complete. Maybe even consider removing solo dungeons as a whole, but lowering the bar to entry for your the first/easiest Heroic dungeons.

    The introduction of zones such as the Vex Thal solo and Toil and trouble made the normal RoS heroics even more worthless as they were not as hard as the Heroics, but dropped far superior gear then the Heroics for RoS. Understanding that Toil and Trouble is supposed to be a "catch up / get ready for next expac" kind of zone, I'd be careful of releasing mid expac content that invalidates gear from the Heroic zones of the same expac. Vex Thall solo gear should not of outclassed the Heroic gear.
  9. Clintsat Well-Known Member


    Not to derail but we have SKs doing great things in there.
  10. Bludd Well-Known Member

    only way to make him happy is having your monk betray
  11. Standard Member

    The group we're doing it with is far from the meta.

    1. Thinking back to the early days of the xpac, I remember the loot being very uninspiring from day 1. Perhaps it was the stat revamp making every piece of gear pretty bland as it quickly became clear most of the stats were practically useless now? I do remember, probably because of the PQ debacle, we were giving raid loot to alts very very early in the xpac.

    2. Echoing a few others here, the achievement awards have been pretty decent this xpac, especially the most recent stuff. The early solo achievement rewards were a bit of a nothingness, but yeah, the high end achievement rewards have felt much better. The rune from the first boss in VT2CM and the rewards for clearing VD2 for example.

    3. Personally I think Ethereals are a detriment to the game. I appreciate something is needed to keep players interested in the summer months, but if Ethereals are to be worth doing, then once the event ends, there's a mountain to climb for anyone returning to the game or starting fresh at that point, should they wish to raid the endgame. There has to be another way to keep everyone logging in and playing. As for coins of the cabal, yeah, that was ok whilst it was relevant. I did think the cost of the 270 resolve armor pieces was a tad high, but that's not the end of the world. The heroic currency merchant was a mess from day 1. Dreadful RNG misery with very few worthwhile rewards. The raid currency merchant was a bit better, but still, buying a spin of the RNG didn't really inspire. It'd be better to be able to accumulate currency and spend them on a reward you have chosen for your toon. This side of the game has so much potential and there are great suggestions in this thread.

    4. Let's please narrow the gap between those who buy the crates and those who don't. The current situation is extremely unhealthy for the future of the game. It only makes everyone unhappy. Those who don't get the pay-to-win items are demoralized because they can't keep up, and those who strike lucky and get them are embarrassed that they are now outstripping guild mates who they know always used to beat them and are probably better players. And then everyone just constantly worries that their friends will just get fed up with it and quit. I'd like to say that the best items in the game should always be attainable through skill, teamwork and persistence, but perhaps the market doesn't allow that. But if we have to have these premium items, then we should be able to bridge the gap either fully or very nearly, with items earned by playing.


    I've been saying the same for years. It's gating, plain and simple. It stops you from attempting stupid things in even stupider gear, but shouldn't a game like EQ2 be able to be played how you choose?.. Hang on, there's a tag line in there somewhere.. Frankly, resolve is the designers saying "you will play the game this way only". It funnels everyone into the latest content. I'm sure that's business-related, but it's not how it should be. Yeah, Resolve is and always was an unpleasant idea and needs to be killed with fire.
  12. Scrappyz Well-Known Member

    One thing as far as loot goes that could be better implemented are master+ spells. I've seen a few folks post about this already, but I have a proposition that I wonder what others might think as well.

    Instead of a random spell dropping from a chest, what about a spell crate like the ones we get with collector's/premium expansions? Mob drops spell crate and not only do you get to choose the class you want a master for, but you can choose what spell you get. This way no matter what someone's doing: solo, group, raid, there's always a chance at getting a master that one could actually use.

    Of course there's also the drop rate issue that I would hope would get resolved in the upcoming expansion as well =/
    Sigrdrifa likes this.
  13. Coriel Active Member


    Extremely well worded. I second this paragraph.
  14. Celestia Well-Known Member


    This might be the single greatest paragraph in the entire discussion. Why can’t we prove ourselves with skill?! Exactly! Thank you so much for saying this
  15. Felmerian New Member

    Class based gear - remember the Kingdom of Sky helmets? Epic weapons: Why cant there be a new questline every xpac that improves your epic - it's a class defining item.
    Gear drops: Why not a boot crate you can choose which boots you want instead of a pair of leather ones that you wont use.
    heroic/raid coins - why can't we buy what we want like Cabal coins instead of a random item that you already got 5 times or even worse a 2hander that nobody uses.
    Sigrdrifa likes this.
  16. Rivald New Member

    Actually I was wrong, deleting this
  17. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Just to reiterate what some others have said.

    It may be too late but get rid of resolve and make player skill central to game again. It was like that up until Altar of Malice and the only time SoE experimented with resolve was back in The Shadow Odyssey when they used critical mitigation on gear, no one liked it and SoE promised to not do it again but here were are again. Since Terrors of Thalumbra you have been adding resolve to gear and the small incremental increases in stats with each step up in resolve as you progress. Not sure who thinks in the company that this is a great idea and is fun because its not. We simply do not get attached to any gear we earn through hard work because somewhere down the line there will be an item replacing it with +5% increase in resolve and stats.

    The uniqueness of loot has all but gone, the ethereal, celestial, fabled tags mean nothing and it is not specific to loot only as years ago we had to make choices on what we could use in gear as it augmented our AA setup and the right upgrade on an item mattered. These days its all about the next stat check with no bearing whatsoever on how we, as players, want to play.

    I still remember vividly that way back in Rise of Kunark I left the game early in the new expansion and came back months later and mostly grinded to get heroic gear from heroic zones and a few items from Protectors Realm and then applied to a raiding guild and my first day on trial was to tank Avatar of Tribunal, I successfully tanked it with little issues on aggro or survivability and was praised for my class knowledge and all this was done without raid gear. As I progressed with the guild and geared up, I could clearly see my dps and survivability become better and better but it never felt like it was a requirement for me to meet checks, sure it was difficult at first but nothing that came in the way of getting into the end game content quickly.

    What we have now is pretty much everyone on the same track with almost exactly the same gear as resolve and stats rule the progression. Player choice and fun really is not there anymore.
    tasnee, CSP84 and Sigrdrifa like this.
  18. Cusashorn Well-Known Member

    I thought the armor unlock merchant from Blood of Luclin was the right way to go. It let players go to an armor merchant and synchronize their armor sets with the stats they actually *NEED*, and not have to rely completely on random chance that a higher resolve item they find has completely useless stats (Block, DPS, Multi Attack, Flurry, mitigation increase on mage gear, etc). I'll be the first to admit I don't pay attention to the particulars of the meta game, but I know that if a gear doesn't have Ability Double Cast, Casting Speed, Reuse Speed, and for tanks Block and HP increase, then the stat is pretty much useless.

    I felt the progression from solo to heroic to raid was well enough, but as people have already mentioned: Most raid gear was completely made useless by Toil & Trouble. Even the addition of Diaku Corral in BOL didn't make gear from the raid zones in the Wracklands completely useless. My guild rarely finds upgrades from Vex 1 anymore, but we're currently in the process of getting the weapons needed to tackle Emperor. I have coins of the Cabal that I should be using, but not yet the faction to buy anything useful.

    There is one thing that Toil and Trouble did right. I made a thread about it a few weeks ago: No more no trade shinies should ever be placed in any zones. Save them as rewards for weekly mission completions. I have over 200 collections from Fabled Runnyeye, Fabled Kael Drakkel, Planes of Prophecy, Chaos Descending, Shard of Hate, Fabled Guk, Blood of Luclin, and Reign of Shadows that I will probably never be able to complete because every last one of them requires a no trade. This doesn't even account for how you have to complete a meta collection that lets you see blue shinies, which may or may not spawn and may also contain no trade shinies. Those blue shinies are needed for yet another meta collection, and there are separate ones for solo and heroics.

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...is-how-no-trade-collections-should-be.600567/

    Please try to find the effort to remove the no trade tags from all those past expansions. I know it might take a while, but at this point there should be no reason to not be able to complete these collections which may reward house furniture for decorators or outdated gear.


    I would imagine a diminished development team over the years means that sacrifices have to be made where we just can't have those things anymore. At least, not on a yearly basis.
    Carynn likes this.
  19. MightyMeaghan Well-Known Member

    The Shadow Odyssey. Do it that way.
  20. DENSER Well-Known Member

    Dear team,

    1) Are you going to read what the players have to offer, suggest?

    2) What are the points you will be working on for the next expansion that caught your attention?

    3) What are the most complicated points for you to implement, and the most feasible?

    4) Could we have a preliminary list of the changes that will be made before the launch of a new extension?

    Ty
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