Glad to see you there, you were one of the rare competent player that was not arrogant ;-) and led a large (and probably cool) guild. I left too after raiding a bit in the expansion in which each class got a new spell, it was mainly we got again inflation and even more clickies, stats to check and so on; but also because my mystique became insane and i was sure i would again be forced to play her, and last because those raids were just boring. In the meanwhile it seems it got even worst with epic 2.0 and a new epic class that your toon can get, i don t even want to hear about it. On top my french server got merged, most of my friend do neither speak nor understand English, so i m sure they all left. Welcome back, let us know if it is not half as bad as the forums suggest, i may give a try, but restarting with medium gear from 1 or 2 expansion back is not very attractive.
@Atan, in addition to the barrier to entry, you have to consider how comfortable you are with a pay wall for raid advancement. The top dps are the top in part because they bought their ascension skills (in addition to all of the other factors that make players the best). At least one raid mob is a bottle neck that requires the raid force to have bought a certain number of grandmaster ascension skills to kill it.
I feel it's worth pointing out that current heroic content was cleared without epic 2.0 and without more than ascension level 1/2. So while yes, you'll need those things to do expert heroics, you can certainly jump in without them and do the normal heroics.
There's been a huge emphasis on having a main character you focus all your attention on, while throwing significant roadblocks up for players with lots of alts. If you like to keep several different characters up and running and in the latest content, expect resistance.
The only player style that will have some difficulty enjoying themselves is casual group player because the game now lack linear content for them. Hardcore or casual, Soloers are fine, Raiders are fine, but if one to do solely heroic content, a lot of investment in time is needed. I myself is this style, but this game is named Everquest. Days like CoE/Tov that I can login get a group do some quick run plus chat with random ppl and then get to Battleground to have some quick fun is gone.
I'm a power gamer by heart. I want to have the best stuff possible. This xpacs roadblocks, together with changing life circumstances (new job, baby, etc), has resulted in me caring less and less about logging on and developing my characters and last week I cancelled my accounts. The carrot just seems too far away for me to care about it anymore and I don't like the current vision for the game. Still got a month or so time to go, but I'm not paying anymore unless things change. I still have so much pre-reqs to do that can be done as a free player if I do log on...so what's the point in paying if you're running around level 75-80 zones where any old gear is enough. Whether I'll continue to log on as a free player i don't know. I probably manage a couple of hours a week right now anyway so probably not.
you don't need epic 2 for anything in the game outside of the T4 raids. it's apower jump, to be sure, and it's great to have, but not something that if you don't have it content becuase impossible. (outside of the highest raiding). but yes, if your returning after 2 years, you got a bit of a grind to do. though I imagine Atan prolly has all the prereqs for Epic 2 already, so for him it'll just be grinding tithe/ascention and doing the KA sig line. not overly hard to get 'caught up' with I think.
Till i left i had like 3-5 toons able to do easy mode raid (warden, mystic, necro, paladin, fury and the free heroic inqui i got). I also had a coercer that i disliked because 95% of the time he was just doing damage. The paladin was a serious albeit a bit slow to pull, tank but i always discovered content with one my healers. Most of my friends had several toons able to run any heroic content and we would often switch according to the group make needs. Enforcing people to have only a single toon to play with is just a considerable mistake.
I played with IC with you quite a while back (EOF raiding!) and I agree with Dellmon on live servers. Getting from level 100 to 140 (which is what Ascension really is) is locked to PLers due to enforced xp caps and heavy, heavy nerfing on xp point gain. I would suggest trying out Stormhold instead, as it is currently in the best of the raid xpac and your knowledge and experience in content might bring you some return fun.
I came here to find the answer to the OP's topic and this one small sentence answered it for me. I was also hoping when I left that someone at Daybreak would recognize how huge of an obstacle Tithe was going to become when it came not only to returning players but to those who have limited play time. I miss the game and would come back if it were the same game it was when we downed 4 rune Theer, All 3 wings of Underdepths, Statue HM, Rallos and many others but I fear that game will never exist again. Yes, many of you have remained with the game through the last couple of years and have earned the advantage you have over players that didn't devote the effort, but the empty spots in all of those X2.5 and X3 raids you're running with right now are a direct result of these types of hurdles.
i agree that people who only research for free will be held back a bit, like players coming back to the game have an uphill battle to gear up. i haven't spent a cent on upgrading ascension abilities and i never will, even now i'm within a week of mastering glacial freeze so i can research it upto GM, it's a PITA the only reason why we are pulling T4s now is because we got lucky with some scrolls and a couple of people bought the GM. it's annoying and over the top cash grab IMHO. no other expac has been harder on new or returning players. that said if you can get past the requirements and earn plat through selling keys from timed quests you can counter the buy to upgrade ascensions a little bit by buying illegible scrolls off the broker and have them made into journeyman and expert scrolls to scribe. eventually new players will be able to research for free all their primary ascension abilites to GM, but it's still a long time to catch up to the money grab tactics.
Lets agree on disagree Presence or absence of Epic 2.9 - 2 different classes in game really thus w/o E2 you hardly can meet reqs for experts and basically E2 indicator of Ascending level 10 (which again for heroics with short type of fights is make or break deal) in a sense If person do not have E2 likely person low on Ascending and with this 2 factors person low on resolve and thus you need to "carry" such person through even T1 herpoics
Well I've cleared all the T1 and T2 heroics with group members all with level 1-2 Ascension, 10k pot and resolve just enough for the zone. Takes longer than smashing through with a 25k pot superman but it's not even an unreasonable time. Everyone does between 100-300m consistently and the trash dies quick and the bosses die in 3-6 mins.
LOL you need SC items to run instances ? It remind me Rune of Magic which was a pporly designed F2P but P2Win game.
I left the game about 2 years ago and came back about 2 months ago. I'm finding it very fun to play, and enjoy the fact that they have tied in the old content- since I did all the content at the time, I don't need to do cleanup faction runs or old signature quests. Now that I'm geared I'm enjoying the heroics and experts. The biggest shock to me was the plat inflation. I had a ton of plat when I left and when I came back it could buy a couple rares. Waiting for ascension scrolls is a pain. All I need for my epic 2.0 is ascension xp at this point. Another week and a half or so. That's annoying, and there's really no mechanism for catching up at the moment. But as a tank I'm not needing the ascension abilities or the epic to get through all of the regular heroics. Resolve is an annoyance, since it artificially slows you down from getting back into the game. When you don't have it, you drop dead and nothing can save you, and even the solo instances are slow and difficult. When you have it, everything is normal again, and the limit on solos is how fast you can run and whether you bother harvesting shinies. It is a little too binary in that regard for my tastes. So there is a time gate even for a determined player, of about a month to a month and a half before you start to feel like your old self. I think they got this idea from other games which limited the progression rate to keep people interested longer. I can see the point; there have been expansions where people went from zero to god in seven days. So I'm ok with some pacing to things, I just wish there were more of a catchup option for people coming back to the game, because I want this game to endure long term, which isn't going to happen if people bounce every time they try to come back.
