RoR is harder for casuals/returning players than VoV, some fixes

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Tyrval, Jan 6, 2023.

  1. Notnasty Member


    Me, and friends that play, do not understand why the Daily and Weekly Missions in Renewal of Ro have been made so difficult. With all expert spells and the Celestial Familiar and Celestial Mercenary, I died over 12 times in the daily mission quest before I finally admitted defeat and realized I had no chance of completing it. I don't consider myself an average player, I've played almost since the beginning of Everquest, starting with EQ1. But, I have no chance of winning these solo missions by myself, so how can the developers justify this as a solo instance? It's frustrating and demoralizing. Yes, those that have raid gear can probably do it, and will jump on me for whining. But I'm dead after the second whack. None of my spells can kill him in two whacks. The mob hits too hard, and has way too much lif
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  2. Priority Well-Known Member

    It was a total gear reset. All that fancy "raid gear" youre talking about meant exactly nothing outside 400 CBOC and like 8 fervor.
    Link your profile and see if anybody can help you find some issues.

    Everybody started in nearly the same boat with maybe 3-5% difference in stats.
  3. Notnasty Member


    Well said. It is a game, meant for entertainment, not an exercise in frustration. With all expert spells and the Celestial Familiar and Mercenary, I still can't do the daily missions. There is no way these are solo instances. How can a mob kill me with two hits, yet I have nothing that will kill the mob with two hits. The mob has so much life it takes every spell I have plus my ascention spells and he still isn't dead. The odds of winning are not evenly stacked.
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  4. Athenia Well-Known Member

    Music box quests are a big help with gear for solos if you're struggling. If you're on Maj'dul I can also help you run through solos if you'd like.

    I respectfully disagree, although I see what you're trying to say. For dropped gear, yes. We're starting fresh.

    However there's gigantic differences in other areas since this game now has so many layers to it, and that's where the problem lies.

    For example, my SK is at 677 fervor and my necro sits at about 630. Those who ran VoV content before me have runes, including the monolithic gear, to bump stats like that higher.

    However this is my max for the time being which I have been made aware is not really enough for H1s.

    Also, if folks were playing in VoV and doing Overseer, they likely have a lot of potions stacked up to bump merc, mount, and familiar levels up to max right away, therefore getting stats like fervor higher.

    Us returning players don't have any of that.

    I've received amazing advice and I am following it, including where my missing stats will come from (runes, merc buffs etc). However a good chunk of it falls on merc/familiar/mount stats I do not have because I haven't been playing Overseer or running familiar dailies as long as everyone else. Plus I lack runes acquired in VoV.

    So what are new and returning players like myself supposed to do for basic stats for H1s? Did all the RoR solo content. Did music boxes. I run the daily solo quests. I do Overseer.

    Nothing has been helping me close the gap because I'm relying on very rare drops that haven't been happening.

    At least VoV had the daily gear crate to help. There's nothing like that for RoR.

    As an aside, on the necro I can parse almost 2T in solos, but get me in H1s and it's 100B (I'm just above min resolve). IMO that's way too big of a drop. I should be able to get a group to complete an entire H1. Easily? Nah. But complete it nonetheless. 100B for a DPS class is beyond terrible.

    Newcomers and returning players need some extra help here. This is too punishing for us, and if not for my commitment to my raid alliance I'd be considering quitting like others in the force are starting to. EQ2 has been my favourite game I've ever played and it's a huge bummer it's become such a frustration.
  5. Priority Well-Known Member

    Well, you jumped all over a post taken completely put of context. That player is complaining about solos. Not even remotely the same thing you're talking about. For what its worth, i did the solos graceless the first run through with all VoV gear on. Didnt swap a single adornment. I had around 900k Pot, 26k CB, and 300 fervor. Granted, my class has some advantages in solos, the folks that put on all the new RoR gear and blue adorns had an exponential advantage over how I ran the zones.

    They also stated theyre running celestial merc/familiar. They dont say theyre not at max level, so i have to assume they are. I didnt swap to a new mount until i had the RoR currency to buy the new upgraded celestial, so thats not the difference either.

    When i actually get to a pc and i can format this better, i may choose to respond to the rest of your Epic on why "its not fair". Til then, maybe you can learn about combat mit, mob health, mob armor, group make up, and studying your abilities more. Best advice I've got for you since you also refuse to link a profile and simply state youve "specced accordingly".

    The game has changed drastically. Especially if you played pre lvl 100. Everything we used to know and do is completely different. About the only thing that's remained are the class names.

    Last note, comparing solo parses to anything group related is silly. Again, not the same game it was.
  6. Athenia Well-Known Member

    No one asked me for a profile, lol. :p I was actually using your AA spec until last night when I discussed stats/gear/abilities with another SK on my server and am trying his now, along with some other consumables and such.

    Here's the SK: https://u.eq2wire.com/soe/character_detail/468152526714

    Necro's stats are not accurate as she shares a mount with the SK (Titan Carpet of the Plundering Horde) and does not have it equipped atm, but here's her anyway. I'm using my scout pet: https://u.eq2wire.com/soe/character_detail/871881269545

    I know the game has changed drastically, and that's why I've been talking with other players to make sure I have a grasp of what's going on. By all means tell me what I'm doing wrong because that means I can help others who are struggling, too.
  7. Priority Well-Known Member


    For what it's worth, Soul Claim is currently broken and does next to nothing outside the power regen, Enhance Blasphemy adds all of 80 combat mit at Ancient and isnt worth the points, and Gallantry in Shadows has been useless for almost a decade. The rest of their current spec looks like it's a verbatim copy of mine outside those changes.

    I'm also available on discord, Basic#1007. I'm always open to answering questions and discussing the class.
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  8. Chath Well-Known Member


    I'd agree that it was mostly a gear reset in terms of worn items, but I think it's easy to forget the advantages that veteran players have over people who are returning to the game after a long break. Even things like ethereal merchant stuff that we've all had for like a year and a half or so are things that make a huge difference but people simply may not be aware of when they return. Then you add in things like red adorns, flawless buff, price paid, den-set, merc, familiar, mount - these things really add up. I know a lot of that is just p2w and they have to monetize somehow, but the sort of checklist of things someone needs to do before they can really perform at an adequate level is pretty long.
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  9. Priority Well-Known Member


    I'm not debating those items. I AM debating the actual gear: Armor, weapons, jewelry. They specifically mention "raid gear" after all.
  10. Notnasty Member

    IMO, Most of the players that post to this forum have been playing for a while and are returning or veteran players, versus newbies and casual. So, if the returning and veterans are complaining about the difficulty of doing the daily missions and the signature quest line, I can only imagine how many newbies and casual players there are that don't lurk or post on the forum but are having difficulty with this expansion. For every returning or veteran that complains, how many newbies and casual players are there that are frustrated and will eventually give up and go play WOW? Players are revenue and Daybreak's bread and butter. It would be good for them to pay attention to these frustrations and complaints. My hubby and I have paid to play for many, many years and we have both been frustrated with the difficulty in the signature line and the Missions for the last few expansions. And - I understand someone was trying to be creative, but the game in the daily mission is a complete fail in my opinion. I pay to play Everquest, not some cheesy app I can download for free. (The cornfield game) Just saying.
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  11. Snit New Member

    New player here -- I've been playing (subbed) for a week on a traditional server. This thread is pretty discouraging.

    Every MMO has complaint threads. They're just part of the landscape. The posts here, though, read as rational and well considered. So, again.. pretty discouraging.
    girney likes this.
  12. Chath Well-Known Member


    I wouldn't necessarily get completely discouraged. For a lot of us, part of the charm of EQ2 is that it's quirky as heck compared to other MMOs - you have a small dev team maintaining two decades worth of content and features, so it's an impossible task to address every edge case or balance things perfectly. There can be a real sense of discovery in finding out what's strong or not given the current content, or using incredibly obscure tools to make your character stronger in different encounters.

    The downside is that this can make the game really unapproachable for new players who don't have any idea that they're missing out on the scavenger hunt of things to make their character stronger. These aren't things that are secret and people will tell you if you ask, but they're not exactly spelled out in game either, so someone who is trying to just get going on their own and is unaware of what they're missing might hit a brick wall on content that other people can literally beat while AFK. That's mostly what this thread is about - trying to remove some of that burden of knowledge that drives more casual players to quit. They already have done some of it this expansion - adding more stuff to the 'Tishan' box of starter gear that emphasizes "you must have this in order to be combat effective". I just think they didn't go nearly far enough, so there's room for improvement.
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  13. Aethos Well-Known Member

    Pretty much in total agreement with the OP. I can't really add much to it. New/returning players mainly are in dire need - as they were in VoV, but it's even more extreme now - of some catch-up patchwork for the stuff a lot of us have already done.

    I returned in like April of 2021 and played RoS era pretty much exclusively solo with the exception of a few Toil and Trouble groups during the last pre-VoV patch. I got back into social content with VoV, and had zero idea that despite having played for half a year and maintaining my character to the best of my knowledge, I was missing tons and tons and tons of stuff. As an example, if I wanted to catch up on ethereal trackers? It was gonna take something like 38 weeks to do it solo. I *had* to be dragged through heroic content. Fortunately, tanks are fairly rare so there's that point of privilege, I'm a relatively decent tank and despite grouping with people doing roughly 20-30x+ my damage, I was good at timing snaps and force targets along with making use of ready up, etc, and I caught the eye of some cool people who then kind of gave me the low down on all the things I was missing that I needed, and had people happy to drag me through while I caught up. And it took about two months even with help to *truly* catch up to them.

    All of the above is an absolutely absurd burden to put on a new or returning player. And it's worse in RoR. The gearing slog for solo to h1 is also so abysmally burnout-prone (BOY I LOVE MERC GEAR GUYS, I LOVE IT TAKING UP AN ACTUAL GEAR SLOT ON THE LOOT TABLE SO THAT IT DROPS INSTEAD OF REAL GEAR) that I nearly called it quits. This despite seeing great success in VoV with officering for two raid forces that cleared the expansion's raid content, and were generally awesome and at the top of their game.

    That should really tell you something, and I'm not particularly unique in this experience. I don't feel like my tolerance for this type of thing is uniquely low, but maybe it is.

    I hate Florafang too and pretty much agree with all that's been said on that particular fight.

    However, I wanted to point out something for Taweret that might help: Belt runes will not help you, because her effect is not a stifle/stun. It's a no hostiles (what I like to call a not-stifle stifle) that pretty much gives the middle finger to any immunity you can come up with. Even worse, it's incurable if it hits you, and lasts around 5 seconds. Even worse, it's on about a 10 second reuse.

    What you're meant to do is basically joust when you see her using Tail Slash. It's a short joust, only 11 meters, and she doesn't move while casting it. There is an emote text for it you can watch for, which if you use ACT you can set up a trigger sound for, and you can also watch for the cast bar. However, it casts fast. Your tank should also joust, but should be mindful of the mob's position, because she does eventually reset if dragged too far. Just make sure you don't move her too far from her area.

    Rogues are especially useful in this expansion for Torporous Strike and Traumatic Swipe. Anything that decreases the target's casting speed and decreases the target's reuse speed is a huge boon, and this is an example of a fight in particular where it's a huge boon, because you have a short casting, short-recast ability that you really should joust. Rogues that are spec'd in this way are extremely useful and I love having them. As a monk, when I don't have a rogue (which is most of the time), I try to time Dragonfire (decreases casting speed) to coincide with a soon-incoming Tail Slash to make it easier to avoid.

    What a nice healthy bubble you live in. :p
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  14. The-Plethora Active Member

    I've pretty much reverted to playing solo in this game these days due to the requirements and time. IMO no new expansion should have to rely on any items from an old expansion, how on earth are new players (and I suspect there are a few) ever expected to catch up. Combine that with so many stats, extra spells through quests, mercenaries, familiars, runes that you need a guide to help you? I find myself just preferring to have a blast on Team Fortress 2 these days. If I could take this game back to the kingdom of sky days then it would be perfect. Spells, gear and AAs, it seemed to work well enough?
    Aethos likes this.
  15. Drona Well-Known Member

    Some of us like the fact that things we do in game matter and have real value over long time span. I don't like the fact some other games have complete reset every 6 months or between expansions hence why I don't play them. However I also understand this can make new players life harder and finding the right balance is very tricky.

    Having said that, catch up in EQ2 has been lot easier in VoV and RoR than any of the 3 or 4 previous expansions.
  16. Tanto Done, finished, gone.

    We played at the peak. KoS/EoF/RoK. If you played EQ2 then, you played a genuinely great MMO and you will have enjoyed the experience. The game how it is now is hugely unbalanced in terms of time, energy and money invested vs reward. I, like you, find it's far easier to find reward elsewhere these days. It's just not worth trying to be a part of this anymore. If the game was to be massively overhauled and brought back to basics however....

    But that'll never happen, the time, energy and money invested vs reward on the part of the company just isn't there. Hmm...
    rutro, Aethos and Daelini like this.
  17. Dead Alt Account Well-Known Member

    DBG purchasing EQ2 from SOE was the deathknell for this game. Kander wrecked the game mechanics and it gets worse every expansion. There is very little accomplishment and reward in this game since it's been reduced to 3 basic steps:
    1) Repetitively grind until you reach a statistic requirement.
    2) Memorize the encounter script.
    3) Roll your face on the keyboard since only a basic understanding of your class is required.
    For the most part, all that is left to this game is a mind-numbing grind, and very little skill is needed to play this game successfully in its current state. Fortunately, other MMOs are out later this year.
    Daelini and girney like this.
  18. Drona Well-Known Member


    When did you start playing EQ2? Since grind back in 2004 was insane!
  19. Miauler Active Member

    Been out of the game for a while (dratted Real Life). And one thing that caught me when first hopping to EQ2 (and will likely catch me again) is:

    • There is no authoritative documentation on how stats work. When they change, authoritative documentation should change to give a rough guide to how. The characters are supposed to have spent a lifetime training and honing their skills to a fine edge; some of the stat changes seem more like having a hero slay a deity one day, and the very next, they have trouble working out which end of a spoon to hold, let alone a sword. Chatter and player published is very nice, but it's incredibly easy to pick up outdated info and mess things up a treat (and wonder why you're beating your head against a wall).
    • There seems to be very little math modelling on how things are going to gradually increase (either you can't touch something, or you stomp it into the ground; very little middle ground). This cuts out all the really nice nuance that EQ1 is full of (and is much loved; some of the fights there are supremely hard fought just because you spend quite some time on a razor's edge of enough health to survive while everyone frantically heals where they can and burns the emergency skills).
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  20. Abbati New Member

    I thought the VoV Flawless buff came from the Master of Vetrovia achievement which included completing the Jungle raid zone for the Messing with the Nest achievement. Did that change?