EverQuest II Developer "Ask Me Anything" Chat Logs Now Available

Jrox, they'll be very rare when the xpac launches, and then a couple months later we'll get a non-commital dev promise to the tune of 'we'll look into the rarity of spell drops, we must've put a comma wrong lolz' after all the rich kids already spent their bucks upgrading their spells through the researcher. Call me a cynic but I don't see any other way how this is going to play out.

+10500
Lets take a look on illegible scrolls drop rate by my count on average you get 1 scroll per 100 dungeon runs
You get 1 adept/master page per 100 or so heroic/experts runs

That is a distinct possibility based on the recent past events. I would like to think with the activity lately we've seen from he Dev's here in the "official Forums" that they have honestly been trying to find ways to address concerns the player base has brought to light here. So for now I prefer to be the optimist and hope for the best, while planning for the worst. However, until that dooms day arrives, and it's actually the way it all goes down, I see no need for the Debbie-downers to cry from the rooftops. Unless of course they are just wanting to be able to say "I told you so" later, in which case [Troll alert!]

They already said the drop rate would be the same as the spells from lvl 1-100. Not the same as the Ascension spells. Seriously?

well i'm thinking about it this way...i see quite a few master spell books drop when doing my heroic runs in ToT and my advanced solo runs in KA. In solo ToT content, I see a good number of adept spells. However, how many spells are going to need an increase? All of them? Every spell that is on my hot bar right now will need journeyman, adept, expert, and master level? Well, while I see many master level and adept level spells drop, I do not see many of my own class... which means I will be selling them in order to broker purchase my own. And I also don't see journeyman or expert spells dropping, which means they will either need to start dropping from somewhere or will need to be researched or crafted by someone else, since I was thinking at the start of KA that I would easily be able to maintain my sage as well as my main who is a jeweler--who makes spells for scouts. Oops on my part, but now i'll be suffering for it as I beg for people to make my spells. Not to mention, if I ever did want to make my own spells, I would need to buy the apprentice feature in order to have access to all of them.

Even if I never used the words pay to win, this whole process, if all of the tiers are needed, over the course of all of my hotbar spells, is enough to make me want to just throw in the towel. Add to that the fact that when we do start killing things in this content, we will be in the same spot we are in right now with ascension where if I choose not to pay for my spells but get them the grindy way, I will be behind someone who paid for his/her spells for the duration of the expansion, regardless of whether we have the same gear. Even now, I only have 3 expert abilities for ascension, and that's with spending some RL money to speed some of it up.

So. Since they are making it so you have to get each tier to get the next one, and there are so many spells potentially that we are talking about, the whole idea of upgrading spells on the way to 110 does smell of a cash grab and a tedious, frustrating grind. Neither of which is desirable. Sorry if that sounds like crying. I would say it is clear criticism of something that is pushing more and more people away from the game.

/sarcasm
as it stands in KA (and TOT) I did not seen single Adept spells drop ... do you?
Now which zone/x-pack you going to take for a baseline for adept drops (Most basic spell book from my memory) - Darkling wood?, Kurnak?, AoM? may be Agnostics? - each zone actually have very different drop rate trust me - you won't be happy if that be on darkling wood level
About Masters - its same some are very common some are extreme rare - from my memory one of the rarest masters was flames of velious
/sarcasm off
Well I am not a psychic but I am good analytic (that's my job ) - my analysis telling me next
journeymen spells will have gateway in getting crafting books - hence those who got them early in game will profit mighty
adepts drops would very low next to none exist so it create another gateway and will basically force folks to pay for it
experts - same thing as journeymen crafting books will be gateway
masters - I would expect those to be semi-common why? to have a carrot. You got master? you WILL pay for all missing tiers of the spell
GM - same thing as an experts gateway books and very rare harvest material
Ancient spells - my guess would be same drop rate like we have in KA

Look Capt., I think you have a valid point and reason to be skeptical. I don't deny that it's been ugly recently in the light of all the ascension crap. I spent money I really didn't want to so I could compete, only to find out the class I chose does ZERO dmg to a T4 mob. But Journeymen can be crafted, if I was on Maj'dul I'd make them for you. Adepts drop off trash and experts can be crafted again with harvestables. Masters drop pretty frequently and yes there may be a bit of bartering in the process to get what you need when you will be looting what others need. But that is how EQ2 has been since the begining. Only difference, they are eliminating the instant gratification of being able to jump straight to "best in slot" spells and making you earn it. Nothing wrong with that. If some unskilled, trust fund baby wants to spend his money on something he can probably earn with a little grind then fine, as long as I can get mine in a few weeks working at it.

The ascension spells only bother me because of the drop rate and amount of time it takes to research if you don't want to spend the cash. The fact that they openly admitted they are expanding upon them is disheartening to me. But, at least I have warning and can save some of my DBC between now and next xpack to not have to come all out of pocket then.

Jrox, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, however just seeing how they handled the upgrading of ascension spells makes me lose all faith. I mean not only were they super rare but they flat out had a couple of tiers inaccessible in game for months and made them either p2w or wait to win.

Your right. I can't argue this. But, if I may, can ask if you have seen an increase of activity by the Dev's here and the answering to lots of questions as well as some of the things they are working on directly correlate to what we asked for? If your answer is yes you have seen some of that, then would you not feel it is possible all things are open to debate? Flat out accusing the team of doing something that hasn't happened yet may be unwarranted, no?

I'm really hoping we can keep this thread from being locked over the next 2 days so I have someplace to post the updated logs.

It would be unwarranted if they had a relatively good track record when it came to things of this nature. However, their track has been anything but. Almost everything they have added has some type of p2w component. Example spells never needed previous tiers to be upgraded and were never as rare as they are now, Example 2 the epic abilities from the first epic were on the weapon itself and did not have to be upgraded then they put out er which rewarded you with the ancient spell upon completion. That has now changed to, needing to mindlessly run pq's for extremely rare components, or p2w. Example 3 making tithe extremely overpowered so people would spend money on tithe vials in order to level up tithe faster, then claim they are changing it because it put an unforseen gap between players ( they know the gap it was putting on players, and if they didn't I made a thread about it like 2 weeks after expansion launch pointing it out ). So going by there recent track record I think my assumption is pretty well warranted.

I'm guessing you feel that Bristlebane is the one true god then, because you'd need a rogue's luck to get that to happen.

It bothers me how they are denying it. Mention it to them in private and they will also ignore it.

I'll make you spells BB

Shhhhh! The first rule of Reaper Club is we don't talk about Reaper Club! I haven't started on my epic 2.0 yet (I HATE crafting!) but I don't want to get it finally just to have it nerfed! *shrugs* We all know that things happen despite our protests... just that some times it is in our favor... sometimes...

Look on this from economical stand point of view
DB need generate some cash flow to support servers unkeep and to pay for game development PLUS stay profitable
Let see what been done
The only way to generate notable amount of plat for casual/semi hard-core gamer is buy Krono - at this moment exchange rate is $17=1.4-1.5M Plat - inflation notably slowed in April (does this mean DB reached comfortable level of Kronos sales? - may be)
Adepts and Masters for Ascending is all but have to be bought to progress
With rarity of GMs - those who raiding T4 likely to have to buy certain spells to make T4 account doable (same goes for those who want to run way ahead of train)
Epic 2.0 - while it IS possible to level it from apprentice to GM just from droppable components its never the less highly unlikely - in a 2 months of grind none stop PQs I got 2 greater fragments (give or take 200+ PQs) - oddly got both in same day (Bristleban smiled upon his follower I guess) I also got during same time frame 4 lesser fragment and 1 superior. So what I did? yeah you right naturally I bought my Epic to GM level and used those 2 greater fragments to get ancient level
Naturally you have to be sub to have be able equip prestige items
Saying things above I want to ask question to believers - why someone would think that P2W concept will sudden goes away with new 10 levels and abilities attached to it?

Epic 2 spells was not that for me , i got em done in 2 weeks doing every pq i could find/alot of heroics and every daily
I did have 5 days where i did not get anything
Since then ive only done like 7 pqs since i was bored and got 2 greater for doing that , also i have 8 superiors in my bags and some lesser ones
Its certainly viable to get these spells without paying a single $
Compared to ascension spells , i have seen 3 experts in a ton of heroics and 2 from solos since the start of expansion , not to mention the incoomplete scrolls which are not viable to get unless your a bot ( 10 pages are a joke )

Sorry Feldon, it was not my intent to derail the thread.

Much ado about nothing

Could we at least get an official developer comment about this so far ignored issue?