Producer's Letter - April 2017

I didn't know public quests were supposed to work like that. Some people seem to be casting as much as I do but their parse is nowhere near mine. I know there are a lot people AFK but if it's supposed to be evened out there should be people with low gear parsing in the higher end. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In other words...

Thank you for posting what I was trying to say, but couldn't find a way to do it without sounding inflammatory!

No one has to play TLE, it is an OPTION...I like options, please do not limit my options for the sake of of someone else's game play style.

I am very much looking forward to the FG server, and it looks like many others are too! This means they ARE doing things their player base wants.

The co-opetition is not a bad idea, really - it's just a race to clear a zone before the other paired group does. I an see how RTT types would enjoy this. Although, peeps may be sitting there a while waiting for the instance to fill. When I came back, I knew I would have to choose one toon to focus on, so I asked arouind, "Pally or Brig?". The feedback I got back was, "We need more tanks on the server!"

OK, so I worked my tank through the sig lines, hit lfg (hardly anyone from my guild (and it is a large one) logs in anymore except to raid, and even of those, there are only about 8 or 9 regulars showing up - the rest aren't even logging in at all anymore). Well, over two days I spent 3 hours in the lfg channel before I got a full group together. I only have a couple of hours a day to play these days, and (1) I just don't have that kind of time to hang out lfg, and (2) I would rather spend that time doing something else. I'm certainly not the best tank on the server, but I'm a decent one who has never had a problem getting a group together in the past, so that's not it.

Anyhoo, I started looking at the epic stuff, and while I'm thankful the dev team responded by removing a LOT of that faction nonsense, I still need:

(1) Q timeline.
(2) ToV timeline.
(3) JW timeline
(4) CoE timeline
(5) Claymore

Lot of busywork still left there.

Q timeline: was fine the first time i ran it (different toon). The second time, not interesting.
TOV: run that one on several other toons - meh.
JW: Well, we are in Kunark, so I can accept this one.
CoE: I absolutely LOATHED this sig line. Dunno why, but I just did. Not at all excited about this one.
Claymore: I actually like this story, and it's very tanky, so this one is ok.

And the last piece of the puzzle, ascension leveling. Well, I'm sitting there in my first heroic with my mc gear, and even with amends, I'm having a hell of a time grabbing aggro at the beginning of the fight because everyone is asking for 12 seconds because they are launching their ascension nukes on the pull. Now, normally, this wouldn't really put me off, I would just grind like crazy to get my own abilities and and gear up to snuff. But........time locks on ascension leveling, and time wasted in lfg.

So, after getting back in game, running a heroic, looking at the time I have and the time the game now requires, and considering the level of current grouping activity (even for epic updates) - I'm thinking, this isn't gonna work, and I'm just not feeling like there is an incentive to log into play.

That's the bottom line for me: I have a couple of hours to log in and have fun, and as things sit now (due to game design and population issues), it won't work for me

Not saying the development team isn't trying to create fun, and I recognize there are only about 6 of em left so there is only so much they can do with the time they have, but of the ideas they are bringing out over the summer, the only I see as having any real chance of stirring up inactive players and incentivizing them to come back is the work on cleaning up the classes, and that has to be weighed against everything else being offered right now.

IDK, i usually can't wait to log in and start getting stuff done, but these days, i don't feel that.

We felt the same in RoK regarding epics, we just don't remember it now because it's what...10 years later?

You had to do a lot of faction grinding, several heritage quests that we hadn't thought to do before, and we had to do relatively hard for the time heroic content that we can only solo today because of the gracious power of Mercenaries.

Every time we have a grand ol' item to quest for, it's going to feel like this.

Well, I did the ROK epic, and I remember it. One of the big differences is that a much, much larger percent of the epic content was level and gear relevant. Still, that's not the only reason, and I can still deal with it. I'm looking at everything in it's entirety and trying to reason out why, not just myself, but a large number of players are not feeling motivated to log in and play this game.

I may still chip in and work the epic time line some and just hope for a group to come together while doing it. Not a whole lot I can do to catch up ascension-wise, and not much I can do about the pop issues, though, It is what it is.

Edit: Also recall, that sig lines where not really a thing back in the days of ROK. There was the pirate hat guy, but that was more just for fun, not a requirement to unlock content.

@Gninja

First of all thank you for taking time for answering on my subjective feeling regard changes that happened last 3 x-packs I am very appreciate your guys time and efforts here on forums and during AMA

I am very old returning player who took break from about 2005 to 2015 hence I am looking only on time since my comeback (and that would be honest approach)
AoM - 2 on-land zones
ToT - 1 on-land zone + 1 city zone
KA - single on-land zone
This is where feeling comes (2 zones > 1.5 zone > 1 zone) may be subjective
ToT - 1 contested zone (full scale normal type of dungeon really) vs. 3 contested zones in AoM (or least 3 most used) vs none contested in KA
TOT did not utilize other location but new one for dungeon - KP/ST and group of zones from within Maldura
KA looks smaller and feels smaller because it use single hub for dungeons (unlike TOT and even more so AoM)
It is perfectly understandable with limited resources you, guys, doing best you could.
Number of zones is not THAT much matter but rather complexity. I am most certainly giving you credit for creating much more diverse (size and architecture wise) raid environment in KA (big kudos!)


About RTT - why I think about it as a failure. Idea may be originally been not bad at all - give something that bring ye'old good memories of the past and create competition in that but linking RTT rewards to live servers? Also as metric its nice to use average population at prime time nothing else really matter on the group level its aren't that pretty. Again the sole criteria is population at prime time - compare how many groups were running TOT environment and how many groups running KA environment. I think this is good metrics. I most certainly giving you big credit for creation "public raids" (which is what in sense are PQs)

From what I see game changed - from what use to be mix of solo/group/raid with emphasis on "group" environment game shifted toward solo or raid and those who not raid are pretty much cut off like 50% (or more). Don't get me wrong I am part of vigorously raiding guild that doing T1-T3 and few experts and about to start T4 - thus raiding content is important to me but its not what creating feeling of "size' of environment - on-land zones are

The original epic 1.0 had a lot of faction grinds with a lot of quests involved and some older HQs that were required, as well as some eccentric languages being required (Uruvian etc. for dirge), but this is where the disconnect is for me:
1. Epic 1.0 had some crafting components, but they could be commissioned. You weren't forced to level crafting.
2. Working on epic 1.0 was not time gated. Thanks to ascension gating, there is a set # of days you have to grind ascension before you can even start the quest. The only requirement to starting 1.0 was to be level 80 and killing the mobs that dropped your quest starter or clicking on the right thing.

I've done my epic 2.0 on my main, and I am really struggling to pick who to do my epic on next. It is no stretch to assume that future content is going to be balanced assuming you have at least the spells (like ER buffs). But I really hate crafting. In my opinion having a character at max adventure and max tradeskill should definitely give a bonus, like the cloak, but to require it for the adventure epic is really blah.

It's kind of silly to only use part of the information to dictate overall impression of size of expansions and fit your argument better. I'm sure we could say Age of Discovery was a large expansion if we only compared certain mechanics and left all zones or lack thereof from the list. The reason those things change from expansion to expansion is based on overall zone usage. If a type of zone has minimal numbers then that type of zone isn't as popular as say heroic/solo zones which have awesome numbers. So, those things will always fluctuate from expansion to expansion. That does not in any way reflect the amount of content available it just means the content has shifted elsewhere.

Nowhere in any of my posts above, did I say they are trying to FORCE us to play on the TLE servers. I said they are trying to coerce people away from their regular servers to play on the new TLE server by offering tempting rewards that can ONLY be obtained by playing on that server, thereby again splitting the player base up across multiple servers that they normally would not even bother to play on. The ONLY reason they would play there is to unlock those rewards. This totally and completely undermines the whole reason for the server merges to begin with. If people really truly want to play on that server, they will do so, without the coercion. The ONLY reason for the coercion is so they can use false numbers to show how popular these TLE servers are and justify continuing to create them. I am quite willing to bet that not so many people would play on that server if these 'unique' rewards that can only be obtained by playing on that server were not offered, or were offered across ALL servers without the requirement that you unlock them on that particular server.

I am not asking that they completely do away with TLE servers, if the players want them. I am asking them to stop coercing people to leave their regular servers to go play elsewhere by offering tempting rewards that can only be obtained via that new server. Let people decide for themselves, without that coercion, if they want to play on the new server or not and let the numbers speak for themselves. At least then it's being honest.

Krono availability on the TLE servers absolutely dwarfs the regular servers. Coupled with the need to be all access to play on them, it is fair to suggest that incremental revenue to Daybreak due to TLE servers exceeds the cost of running them and is in fact subsidizing the regular servers in both EQ and EQ2.

My bet is that the incentive is actually being put in place to induce TLE players to come back to playing the regular servers so that Daybreak can sell more expansions. EQ2 has lost far more players than it has retained and many of those players will come back to try a TLE server in case it has been done right this time. The finance people at Daybreak don't care about how "popular" the TLE server is. They only care about how it will affect the bottom line, and it will dramatically affect the bottom line. That is why they're doing another one.

I reiterate again, that's fine, let them open another TLE server if it is what people want, but let the numbers speak for themselves. Don't use coercion to falsify those numbers. This isn't going to help the game survive...it's only going to speed up it's demise.

Not sure I would have used the word "coerce". Coercion means you can force people to do things, and DBG isn't forcing anyone to play an event server. Incentivize seems more appropriate, and they are providing people with highly rewarding reasons to go and play them.

You're right though, bleeding people off of existing servers to play event servers seems counter productive.

Coerce: to compel by force, intimidation, or authority, especially without regard for individual desire or volition

To coerce is to employ force...

I will reiterate. They aren't seeking to coerce you to play on TLE. They are seeking to incentivize the TLE players to play on the regular servers and buy the expansion this fall.

I have been using my soapbox quite frequently to get AB back into a purely roleplay server. We need the naming conventions put back in place and the original server rules for Lucan and AB back. But, I was chastised during the AMA that it was not the time to discuss the roleplay server.

The problem with a forced roleplay server is how do we enforce it?

wait,.. what?! "not the time"?!
upholding principles is ever present.
the "not the time" statements are usually given by those who know of the problem, but are unwilling to address it,....

have a review process in place for the various names?
have on initial character creation screen include a biography field for explanation/history of said chosen name/character.
have a more active/usable report system in place for those obvious violations then seen in the world
(thinking right-click, report name violation, for example?)

just a few ideas off the top of my head.
I expect there are many other means of pulling weeds from the manicured garden,...

Actually, the roleplay question was probably given the "not the time" answer because its a rather in depth topic/discussion and it would have distracted from the questions being asked. As you can see we don't mind discussing it.