Producer's Letter - April 2017

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Merriel, May 3, 2017.

  1. Merriel Well-Known Member

    So umm, I read this letter and all I can say is - Not interested.

    I am not interested in fighting over mobs with other characters for loot, nor am I interested in starting over on another server. I really would like to see an end to the attempt to get us to play your way instead of allowing me to play my way venues that have been going on for some time now. I appreciate all the work and effort being put into improving this game, but I don't see trying to get us to start over on new servers as an improvement. I don't see trying to get us to compete over mobs for loot as being an improvement either. If I wanted to pvp, I'd be playing a pvp game, not this game.

    Instead, I would like to see a lot of in-game bugs that have existed for quite some time now, fixed. I love new content and new quests and new world zones and such, and would like to see staff more focused in these areas, which is what this game is all about. I would like to see changes that decorators have been asking for a long time to be implemented, including a wardrobe depot for our homes (not the silly wardrobe that was added to our character screens that I find completely useless). I more than support changes that raiders have asked for, though I am a non-raider myself (see my sig :D ) I do not begrudge them their changes and improvements too. I would like to see changes and improvements asked for by solo players.

    Time and effort should be focused on those things that your player base wants to see. Not on attempting to derail our normal play style by trying to 'push' us in directions we don't want to go simply by offering us 'difficult to resist' rewards as 'encouragement' to change our play style or what server we play on. As tempting as those new heritage rewards sound, I think I will boycot this new TLE server, just as I have boycotted the IoR server, based on principle. I realize I probably stand alone or among the very few who will do the same, but that is just how strongly I feel about this and I stand by my principles. I simply will just have to live without those rewards. To this day I have not created a single character...not even a house touring character...on the IoR server, nor do I ever intend to do so.

    I realize that this post is coming across very strongly, but I just want DBG to know how important I feel these changes are and that I do not see them as being an improvement in any way, shape, or form and I feel DBG staff are wasting time and effort that could be better utilized elsewhere. As a paying customer (two paid subscriptions), I want my opinion known. I apologize in advance, if anyone including DBG staff takes offense to anything I have posted here. It's not my intent to offend, but simply to make the extent of my feelings on this topic known. "Rant ended"
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  2. Spextasy Well-Known Member

    I feel exactly the same way as you on the "gimmick" servers. TLE, Free Trade or otherwise. I know some people enjoy them, but I feel opening these other servers takes away resources that could be better spent on the content most of us actually pay for. I have characters on those servers, but they are strictly house touring characters, as I will never level or actually play them. If I wanted to be forcefully locked to a specific tier of content, I'd turn my xp off and just play in those zones / levels until I was ready to move on. Like I said, I know some people enjoy them, I just don't really see their point in existing. Seems to me all they do is thin out the already sparse population of some of the live servers.
    Just my 2c on the matter. :)
  3. Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr Well-Known Member

    I entirely agree.
    and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being pragmatic.
  4. Merriel Well-Known Member

    Just to make it easier for people to find the Producer's Letter mentioned above, here is a link to it.
  5. Vasciagio Well-Known Member

    <==== Confused. Did we not combine servers to better the communities of players? Or was that a plan to make room for new Pay to Play servers? Are we (or DGB rather) trying to tear servers apart again and spread everyone out more?

    I certainly hope everyone is getting a new character slot for free so I can get these "new heritage rewards". Otherwise, I will be struck down with that Pay to Play Illness again.

    Also, the AMA seemed a bit rigged. I asked the same question 3 times without a response. However, other players asked several questions (one is particular asked 7 questions with answers popping back for that person within seconds. Was this because they were favorites of the devs. or perhaps a Pre-planned plant to ask specific questions? Also, you can not ban people for saying offensive things in the game then turn around and say offensive things yourselves just because you are a dev.

    Sincerely Frustrated and Un-heard Paying Customer,

    Vasciagio Bladesong,
    Maj'dul Server (Formerly Known as Butcherblock before it was combined with 2 others to make room for Pay to Play servers?)
    Meneltel, Archon of Hate and Merriel like this.
  6. Gillymann Abusive Relationships Aren't Healthy. J S.

    I don't care about the server the month concepts or co-optetition (or what ever they are calling it) either, but after sitting on the sidelines after the expac came out, the producer's letter actually got me back in game, because I was pretty happy to see they are going to work on cleaning up all the character bloat and class homogenization.

    Sadly, after clearing the adventure and trade skilling sig lines, I asked myself, "OK, what's next?"

    And you know what, after running my first heroic since coming back, I just wasn't feeling it. What I see is a very small playing environment (OF) and an absolute mountain of busy work.

    You know, with all the grinding of various forms, I kinda get this sense the dev team is trying to morph the eq2 playing experience into the EQ playing experience.

    The problem is, the people that want the eq experience, are playing eq. I have played eq2 precisely because I DON"T want to play eq. I have a friend who loves eq1, and every time I see him playing, I think to myself, I would rather rip my toe nails out than play that slow, grindy, tedious game.

    The point is, EQ2 kinda feels that way to me now, and I may not log back in. Might change my mind in a few days, but, idk.....maybe not.
    Merriel, Mizgamer62 and Feldon like this.
  7. Fleshdecay Well-Known Member

    You and your characters can stay in your safe spaces. PvP no longer exists and to confuse a pve race with pvp is insanely naive.
  8. Merriel Well-Known Member

    Fleshdecay, the way this race is being presented is very close to being pvp...all they would need to do is flag everyone for pvp and let them have a heyday at each other. If that's what other players want, then by all means give it to them, but competing for mobs over loot rights is not my idea of fun and is too close to pvp for my liking.

    It's bad enough that people go into high level zones and auction off heirloom items at exorbitant prices for loot rights. To have this done in a single, public location...all it is doing is encouraging greed and selfishness. Is this really the direction they want to take the game in?

    Have they considered the amount of lag such an event will cause? PQ's are bad enough with all the lag, but at least PQ's encourage people to work together and socialize, as opposed to fighting over loot rights. I actually enjoy PQ's, despite all the lag, for this reason. Those who think fighting over loot rights is fun can keep the loots. I don't need them that badly to participate in this sort of selfish behavior.
    Iglu and Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr like this.
  9. Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr Well-Known Member

    As long as those proposed cesspools would be set aside, having no involvement in the story-line progression of the game, then those who choose to can wallow in that refuse all they like; *I* will most assuredly be avoiding the stench by not participating.
    Merriel likes this.
  10. captainbeatty451 Well-Known Member

    I will hold my judgement for when it comes out...But one thing that is curious. Who are people going to be competing against? When I play, one dude is constantly trying to fill his group. Then there are obviously guild groups running, but how many? One per guild at any given time where the guild isn't raiding? 2 at max?

    So is this going to be set up that you HAVE to do the dungeon while another group is queued up into it? If so, there are going to be some LONG wait times. If not, then it's just another dungeon to do. I can see this as a situation where in my guild, we might get 2 groups competing against each other for some fun, healthy competition to take away from the grind or to give something to do on non raid nights. It might be fun.

    But the point is, as it stands, there's no way to truly tell how it works. All we know is it is some kind of competitive dungeon where you are doing things to potentially slow the other group/groups down.

    I will say, though, that it does nothing to make me excited for it. I would much prefer a few new dungeons to loot in the normal way, rather than whatever this will be. Perhaps even with a solo version that contains a few high experience timed quests or whatever. But, that's not what we're getting. Here's to hoping the epilogue quest and the familiars are entertaining.
    DoomDrake and Merriel like this.
  11. Beee Well-Known Member

    Kander: This May we’ll be releasing two new cooperative competition zones that allow groups of up to six to compete against each other in timed races to see who can complete the zones’ challenges first. The fastest times for each round, currently set for seven days, are recorded on a leader board for everyone.

    IMO no a good idea, but who cares. We need not play this Cooperative Competition ;)
    Scrappyz, Iglu, Merriel and 1 other person like this.
  12. Merriel Well-Known Member

    From sound of things, it's not going to be quest related. It's going to be something where everyone just shows up and goes after the mobs. Someone in top level raid gear can kill a mob in a matter of seconds, a person in standard KA gear will take much longer to kill same said mob. My guess from that write-up is that a mob doesn't get locked into the encounter with an individual which means that ALL damage from players within range will hit the mob, and your gear really won't matter so long as you can survive the fight, which is why they can safely say that anyone in regular KA gear will have as much an opportunity to participate as someone in full top level raid gear. It will just be whoever loots the fastest gets the loot. It's just a massive free-for-all fight over loot. They can keep it. :/
    Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr likes this.
  13. captainbeatty451 Well-Known Member

    What you describe here is not at all how it sounded to me. Especially if you read the post above yours that quotes Kander.
    Merriel likes this.
  14. Merriel Well-Known Member

    I had actually not seen Kander's post, which is why I still think these forums should be used to communicate to players any changes that are to take place in the game. With all these different staff members posting in all these different media sites, you tend only to see a few of those posts and it's not my job to go around sifting through all those different sites that are not even related to this game to find all that information. Whether they post this information elsewhere or not, any and all announcements should also be posted in the Announcement forums so that there is absolutely no confusion or misunderstanding about how things will work with upcoming changes. That is a whole other issue though, and one I still think needs addressed.

    Kander's post does make the competitions sound a little more interesting, but still not my cup of tea. I can see others who like to compete enjoying that sort of venue though, and I don't begrudge them of it. If it's something players want to see, then I have no objection to staff putting time and effort into it. I just can't see them wasting time on something like I envisioned these competitions to be, based on the Director's newsletter.
  15. Gninja Developer

    The co-opetition zones are two groups of players killing base population and boss fights like a normal heroic dungeon. The big difference is that somewhere else (physically separated from your group) another group will be killing the same creatures you are. If that group is faster at killing than your group then they win the match. These zones use the same basic code that public quests do in which everyone is brought to a more even playing field regardless of what gear they are wearing. Loot is token based and you get more tokens for completing more of the zone (regardless if you win or not) as well you get a bonus for winning.The only time you get little to no reward is if you do nothing in the zones.

    In regards to the AMAs and some questions not being answered we did not purposefully avoid any questions being asked. If you asked a question and it wasn't answered we either missed it completely or it had already been answered so we chose to answer a question that hadnt been asked yet. You can review the questions and answers from all the AMAs on EQ2Wire (which is awesome)

    If you feel your question was not answered at all we encouraged anyone that did not have their questions answered to send us a private message on the forums and we would try to get an answer to them. We haven't received many questions via private message so it seems some where not overly concerned with getting their questions answered. We are stepping up our communication with these sort of things and we will continue to do so going into the future. Also, just to squash the rumors, none of the questions/answers were staged before hand.

    Hope that clears up the majority of concerns/complaints in this thread. As always if you are confused please send me/us a private message and we can discuss it more in depth.
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  16. DoomDrake Well-Known Member

    Lets separate terms
    a) competing race b) PvP
    I do not give a damn about PvP in EQ2 it never been design for that nor should have to begin with - should I want to play PvP game I'd go play DAoC. Balancing classes in PvP throwing PvE balance out of whack period.
    Competing for mobs is different story - providing enough content we would end up like EQ1 light - aka zone in, /shout CAMP CHECK :)
    RTT type of server was a failure - DBG returning to this idea with persistence that could be used for something else. So they saying ... yeah RTT failed BUT we STILL going to force you play our game now instead of server DBG trying "COOP" dungeons with same approach.
    I don't know who to deliver this message to current owners - we do not looking for new ACTIVITES within game - for Christ sake we are happy with ye'old dungeon crawl - we looking for more CONTENT to consume. No, re-using old quest line not cut it (Epic 2.0 good example quest itself may be take 1 play day to complete BUT pre-reqs what it make long tedious and boring journey and what are pre-reqs? - Old questline that most of us never bothered to touch (for a good reason I'd say), faction grind (again one that no one bother to do because was no practical reason to do it so).
    Re-utilization old dungeon is find (somewhere in the middle of the x-pack) to bring back some nostalgic memories but re-using same content over and over again not cut it in.
    Look compare AoM - ToT - KA x-pack content wise and you clear can see degradation environment suitable for grouping
    Prissetta likes this.
  17. Merriel Well-Known Member

    Sorry in advance for any typos in this post, but I am typing one-handed with a sleeping baby in my lap. Gninja, thank you for taking note of this thread and clearing up a few things.

    One thing I would still like to see addressed is the thing where we are being 'encouraged' to start playing on new servers we wouldn't even consider if it weren't for coercion through rewards that are offered only by playing on that server. Why did we ever have server merges in the first place? Please stop trying to pull the population apart again. This is counter-productive to why merges were done in the first place. :/

    Edit: I should at least take time out to thank the team for the good things that come from their work on this game. I have to say that for all the complaints I have seen about recent expansions, I have actually enjoyed the expansions very much. I realize this last expansion did use a lot of old content, yet it also had a lot of new content too. I really enjoy the questing in all these expansions, and I really appreciate the attention that has been given to the solo player content and decorators, though I think in some cases advanced solo's have been dumbed down too much. I don't mind a challenge...I just don't want to have to perform raid tactics to succeed.

    While I want the staff to know what I don't appreciate about the changes that are being made, I also want them to know the things I do appreciate as well.
    Prissetta likes this.
  18. Gninja Developer



    I'm curious what metrics are you using to say that RTT failed? We've addressed epic 2.0 requiring past content in other threads so lets leave those conversations there please, considering epic quests have always used old content as requirements to the stories they tell as they touch zones all over Norrath. Where has old content been reused over and over again to make dungeons? Are you referring to the new unique zones in the expansions being used for multiple playstyles? That's not really zone reuse over and over its making sure all playstyles can see the awesome art our art team slaved to make. Outside of that the only recycled zones we've put out were fabled versions of zones which you mentioned were fine.

    In regards to your final comment about comparing AoM, ToT, and KA:

    CoE: 21 zones (Threw this one in for comparison purposes)
    1 Overland of small - medium size
    Bixie Hive (3 heroic/solo)
    High Keep (3 heroic/solo, 1 contested, 1 raid)
    Nexus (3 heroic/solo, 1 raid)
    Shissar (3 heroic/solo, 1 raid)
    ToV (3 heroic/solo, 1 raid)

    AoM: 33 zones
    2 Overlands of medium size
    Brokenskull Bay (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 contested, 1 raid)
    Zavith'loa (3 unique heroic/solo and 1 raid)
    Ssraeshza (3 unique heroic/solo and 1 raid)
    High Hold (3 unique heroic/solo, 1 contested, and 1 raid)
    Ossuary (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 contested, 2 raids)

    ToT: 19 zones
    1 Overland of Large size (yes its bigger than both AoM zones combined in turms of playspace)
    Maldura (4 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 quest zone, 1 city zone, 2 raids)
    Stygian Threshold (3 unique heroic/solo zones and 1 raid)
    Penumbra (4 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 contested, and 1 large raid)

    KA: 23 zones
    1 Overland of Medium - Large size
    Torsis (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 raid)
    Kaesora (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 raid)
    Dalnir (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 1 raid)
    Arcanna'se Spire (3 unique heroic/solo zones, 2 quest zones, 1 raid)
    Vaedenmoor (2 unique raids, 1 quest zone)
    Unknown Zone (Raid only unique zone, yet to be discovered)

    I think if you compare the expansions there hasn't been a decline in zones delivered. AoM was a bit bigger expansion than the rest but its not a downward trend as COE had 21 zones and KA (most recent) had 23.
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  19. Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr Well-Known Member

    In the venue of upcoming potential game changes, I personally would be interested in, and would certainly volunteer to move to a server that highly encourages and enforced ROLEPLAY.
    EverQuest has always been a Roleplaying game, yet it somehow, due to a lack of curation, is itself becoming a cesspool of guilds named similar to the offensive "We Zoned Your Mommy" and unimaginative player names similar to Powderedfood & and Mehitsyouin#zz.
    Either the new server, or answering Support petitions yourselves, instead of outsourcing to Zendesk, who themselves do not seem to know what a "Rolepaying" environment is.
  20. Kurei Hitaka Well-Known Member

    I always find the accusation that Devs are trying to force us onto new servers and into new gameplay modes we wouldn't normally play relatively amusing.

    Most of these servers are tailored more to certain playstyles, and incentivize taking a break from the current content grind which, some of us nonwithstanding, we really tend to need. We literally consume what the Devs expect to be at least 6 months worth of content at a rate of 3 months on average, if you listen solely to the forum crying.

    As to Gninja's post above, wow. I actually felt like CoE was the smallest of the last four expansions. My Swash was running heroic content within a few weeks, and I arrived relatively late for that one -- on the other hand, despite getting AoM only a couple days after release, I've done nearly nothing on the Heroic end there, because I was too busy trying to gear up to enter heroics.

    Interesting to see the side-by-side comparisons and it really puts into perspective how time-consuming AoM had been due to sheer size for a fresh, no-knowledge run.
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