Well i never thought after six years i would be saying this but at level 95 EQ" is dead. There is no sense of achievement left in the game. Plat is easy to get,amour is easy to get. Solo zones drop nearly em raid gear. Unless you raid nothing in the game can kill you. If you dont raid you can buy loot from raids with all the plat you have. What is left to strive for (nothing). This is not a rage quit post i will still play because of the friends i have made in game but the thrill of killing a hard name (instance not raid) and getting a rare piece has gone along with checking out someones gear drooling over a piece you would like to own (Raid and avatar gear excepted). Sony why oh why have you made the game so easy to play. Why have you taken out the danger and anticipation and why have you made it so most instances can be done with 3 player and not a full group. Is it perhaps you are killing this game ready for your new baby Dragons Prophet. I Hope not.
There is a great spot on Flames for this. Along with the last 6 years of posts on the same subject. Play or don't play, as simple as that. We all take "breaks" or change our time on but in the end it's not dead it's just not as good as it could be.
I find it funny that you make exceptions for all the things you enjoy. There is still gear you can drool over, but you say it doesn't count. There's still difficult encounters, but to you it doesn't mater because its in a raid. In the last few expansions, they have introduced much more challenging encounters in the second installation of updates. We have GU66 coming soon, and you might find the challenge you're looking for in Sirens Grotto. Wait a couple of weeks and you'll be able to see it on Test. I'm not apologizing for them, I agree the game has gotten easier, and thus, more boring. But more just wanted to point out that you say you want things that are already in the game, but say they don't count for whatever reason.
Isn't it funny that whenever a player gets bored with a game you have posts like this. On the contrary I actually have seen growth on antonia bayle over the last month and Freeport, well still tons of new people streaming in on the newbie zones. To the maxed out toons of the op, who only mainly plays end raid content, i guess it would seem boring. My advice..take a break. Go enjoy spring! come back in a few months and feel liek a newb alll over again. At this point for you to stay would bring down those around you.
the problem is that devs gave solo play better loot than group play. there's nothing wrong with making solo play an effective way to gear a character and actually it's a good thing but the problem is that solo play is BETTER than group play. now you can run all the solo instances for fabled/ethedral drops and make more coin and get more gear than you would if you ran group instances. its too late in the expac now to do anything and frankly it seems that no one wants to do anything about it but in future expacs balance should be maintained and grouping should at least have the same if not slightly better rewards. after all this is an mmo not a console game.
Davngr has a point. Solo zones dropping entry level raid gear isn't a great move. Dropping it as commonly as it does is even worse. Now placing it in regular chests and allowing it to be sold allows anyone to be full entry-level raid geared in an evening for 200p a piece on average. So yes, I can see why casual people become less motivated to keep playing, since that gear is probably the best they can aspire to without raiding. As far as plat being too easy to make, well that is SOE's fault for setting the plat chests to a per raid amount, instead of a per player amount. Perhaps the boat on that has already sailed, but this has been a major contributor to the inflation we have seen over recent years. I guess things will eventually level out when the 20p you get out of a PR chest is equivalent in purchasing power to that 10g you got off a corpse in RoK, but we aren't quite there yet - close though. I just hope SOE doesn't keep making this mistake, or even better, goes back and retroactively fixes it, even with the amount of damage that has already been done. As far as the other point is concerned, there is harder content out there, but sadly most of the game content these days is designed around the simple minded.
Oh well, yeah there friends which keep me stick to the game, but there is plenty to do, even it is getting easier to obtain. As Daray said, there is some hard stuff around, well sometimes to hard ^^ but another story. The game will keep up, not in the first place, but will be there, at least till next ^^ (perhaps someday after that ^^)
Agree. I have only done the solo zones once thru to get done with the darned access quest. And I got two of the fabled drops. Not a great sample size, sure, but still. Those drops should be raid-trash drops (as they are), or rare rare group drops. Not semi-common solo drops.
Maybe just me.... but i don´t care who run´s around in full fab drops.... as it did not touch my playstyle.... normaly i get some decent loot out of raid and some fun with groups around the instances (some extra things to obtain yello and red adorns). It´s not like that SoE have to take care how should i play or not ^^ it´s up to us ^^.... what does count more, loot or fun in group oO
In the eyes of your developer ..the solo player is the goose that lays the golden egg. They have realized the Market Place thrives by empowering the solo player. It is a morally corrupt practice to take advantage of human nature because we instinctively take the path of least resistance. And now we have the repair button ... another sinister physiological attack on our human nature by placing a button in plain view. "oh but you don't have to use it" ...but yet it sits there and tempts us. I have found more compassion with members of the illegal profession who prey on our addictions.
No offense, but I disagree. Fabled items are a nice surprise. Perhaps they don't need to drop very often, but honestly, I've only received a few fabled items across all of my alts, so with the RNG that I have, the drop rate (to me) is just right. It just seems high when you watch the auction channel and constantly see people selling the loot rights. When they changed the way the chests worked so that people could sell loot rights, it made me sad. I was happy to get fabled items for my alts, and when I helped my friends with their instances, it was cool for each of us to get our own chest rewards. I always hoped that my friend would get a fabled drop that he or his alts could use. I run the solo instances (not back-to-back-to back though), and very, very rarely do I get a fabled drop. After the change, I have Never auctioned the loot rights. I have alts, and even if my alt didn't need it, I also need the transmute materials. Play as you will, I don't have time to do the heroic instances very often and the solo instances are short and don't require waiting to fill the group. I'm hoping that my other friend's char will soon level up enough so that IF I get another fabled drop that I can't use, that I'll be able to pass it to him, since he's an ultra-casual player and just enjoys fiddling around in the game and plays a tank class, he hasn't done any groups except with friends and family. We'd like him to enjoy playing and continue to fiddle around in the game
I'm quite on the opposite end of the spectrum, after months of farming all of these zones (takes me anywhere from 5mins-15 mins depending on the zone), I finally got 1 piece I could use one of my 3 characters, coercer, monk, inquisitor. I was actually starting to question that it was coded to not allow a drop you could use . The only way to get all of your slots with this gear is to SLR what you cant use and buy what you can. There are also plenty of things I still want to do and just haven't had the time to get to it yet. As a casual non-raider (but I do play a lot), I found the some of the new content to be plenty challenging and died more than a few times trying to figure things out with my less than stellar gear. As a raider in EQ1, I learned that gear made all the difference in making the group/solo game easy, if you raid and want to keep the group game at least a little challenging, play an alt that you didn't hand top end gear down to.
I know what the OP is talking about. I wouldn't say the game is dead, but the designers seem to have lost sight of group instance progression. A group wearing non-raid gear that has just done the solo questline can walk into all of the new group instances and clear them. That's not how I remember the game working prior to Skyshrine. You used to go into the eaiser group instances, gear up, then work on the harder ones. Now you can clear them all right off the bat. What am I working towards as a group instance player? I went into the solo Dreadcutter zone last night and got a fabled chest piece that's better than the gear from Drinal's Steward. I replaced an item that cost me 10 obol and a greater spirit from the group instances with an item that dropped from a solo instance. So not only are there no instances to work towards (since you can clear them all without any of the gear from any of them), but I can get better upgrades from the solo instances than the group instances.
Well you could form in game relationships with people through grouping and if you get something that they need drop and they are on get them in there and let them loot it, in exchange for them doing the same for you. Of course that is something that one would do in an MMO and they are driving hard at removing that aspect from the game.
The problem with the solo zones is being able to sell the loot rights, not the drops themselves. If solo zones were a very slow way to get fabled gear for yourself it would be ok. It's the rampant selling of the loot rights that makes them into a joke. You shouldn't be able to gear yourself with EM raid gear in an aftternoon by buying loot rights but if you had to farm it yourself it would take most people weeks and therefore not be such an attractive alternative to other content.
