No fun seeing what you did wrong all the time. So I wanted to start a thread on what you did right. Just in-case the devs look. There is one thing that comes to mind that Everquest 2 has done better than any other game that I have played. It may sound really stupid, but it is the reason I stop playing other games and it is also the reason that I have a hard time going back to Everquest 1, even though I love EQ1. The feature (give yourselves a bonus check) is character control. Being able to zoom and out and move the character in one direction as you look in another is super awesome. Everquest 1 tried to mimic that feature, but doesn't get it right. There is something off with it and it is very irritating. I've tried other mmos that do no have that feature and it is so annoying that I stop playing after a few minutes. So Kudos to Everquest 2 !! I'm so spoiled on Everquest 2 that I can't play anything else. Anyone else notice things that Everquest 2 has that is upsetting to not have in another MMO?
Appearance armor slots >>>>> any other game's appearance system, especially now with wardrobe. Not having to resummon mounts constantly. Also CoV = best idea ever. Also, being able to control yourself while falling, while not "realistic" in any way, is something I have gotten so attached to I really miss it in other games. Also character models and zone art - completely subjective but the one thing I've consistently enjoyed most throughout the game's lifetime.
Hqs are nice even if i think that the items should scale somewhat with the player, they should not be the best possible but they shoudl remain medium legendary or something like that. Ability to gain status for your guild and yourself is nice too. Mentoring is great but mentor should have hard cap on about anything (Hps, casting speed, mitigation, parry etc ...), currently a level 80 mentor is a god in any zone below 68. Defining the hard cap should be easy : take the best gear of a tier, add 20% and you get the mentor cap; mentors will still be powerful and helpful but not godlike creatures. The collection idea is nice but i completed less than 2-3% of them, instead i would like less collections but collections that can actually be completed without spending the price of veral masters on them. Tradeskill are fine, but mastercrafted should only be beaten by gear from instances or by end of solo questline rewards, it should rather close to tier 1 shard armor and should allow peopl to run easy instances. Also all crafter should be able to craft a best in slot item -- requiring instance drop ? -- Currently in the TLE the crafted gear is horrible in tier 7 and tier 8. The raid currency was great during SF, i wonder why it was not used later. Decorator and apperance items and all teh fluff, i m totally found of baby dragons illusions and i wonder if the special babies are still on sale, it seems that it was a special sale.
the best feature of all is the ui and how you can click all your combats with the mouse, that is my favorite and one of the biggest reasons i can never play another mmo. ive tried so many other mmo's non have the same ui or custom click combat like EQ2, The only 1 that came remotely close was Rift.
PvP combat.... and they just stumbled into it. Once they started messing with it, they ruined it. I could go in detail why, but I won't bother.
Things EQ2 did right: --Not require 72+ hours of almost-continuous gameplay to feel like you actually accomplished something. --Exp Debt rather than moonlight runs through Kithicor to pray to god you died somewhere easily accessed without dying again. --Channeler. Shame it doesn't completely work as intended right now, but it's on the right track. --Current crafting system compared to either EQ1s or it's earlier form. Still on a bit of a rampage from people not getting that a game should not be almost unplayable due to not being a middle-age retiree with a massive inheritance they live off of the interest of. So excuse the specificness of these choices lol.
A few things come to mind: 1) Character models (non soga) 2) Crafting System (particularly pre nerfs) 3) Character stat complexity, required skill and a plan to min/max each class The biggest issues with the game was just how rough the balance was pre LU13 when launched against a wildly popular blizzard title. That with the terribad gating mechanics the game had at launch, the citizenship quests, the class, subclass gates, etc. That really killed the game for so many people from the get go. You'd be out having fun, but oh damn, stop, can't go further till you check all these boxes, and run around and do a bunch of solo activity in zones that at the time were horribly lagged beyond imagination. Again, never really got over that lost opportunity cost of a rough launch. After that it was always a niche product for a niche crowd. They're management over time did their best to drive that niche away. Honestly, it is amazing the game has lasted as far as it has.
I love the many categories of quests. I have fun working on lore and legend, signature, and heritage quests, along with the regular zone quests. I like how they mix in different types of quests so that you are doing different things as you go along. I love the house items and housing system, its practically a game in itself. I love the looks of the towns and landscapes. I love the humor in many quests and NPC names. I love how there is so much to do. I've been playing since 2009 and I still haven't done every single quest in the game.
House decorating, by far. It's simply amazing what you can do with things in this game not designed to be walls/floors/cabinets, etc. Need a door handle? Use a mug! Want to make a stove? Use upside down chess pieces. The creativity of the players is astounding and that it is encouraged - even with the server space it likely takes - is awesome. Appearance gear, petamorph wands, chrono and mentoring, and the rich storytelling (and a lot of humor) in the quests if you bother to read it all get a thousand thank yous.
i like the number of classes and the difference they have. Yeah the balance is screwed up right now and the class diversity is garbage (tank + shaman (pref mystic) plus troub + 3 pet classes). There's a class for every playstyle. I just love coercer and how they charm their way through things or brawlers and their combat style or druids, that can do quite good dps and among classes the way they do the same work but differently, like paladins and their threat siphon compared to zerk or bruisers. But they all manage to do their job. and the number of spells and complexity. Same I played the game from launch or almost and most spells were usefull back then . bards complexity, debuffs, buffs, temps ... rotations. CDs .. all the little things that can make u better. I didn't like games like ESO or GW2 .. too little spells that u could put on HB. Game designed to play with hotkeys and on home consoles. But with so little spells to click .. it's not as fun. And games like wow are so easy to figure out. and the look of the game. loved Tenebrous tangle with the light passing near or sinking sands. the woods near dalnir are great too. Great art. the mmo I played the most and the one I like the most. just too sad they made bad choices.
customer support! Over the years when ive had issues where i needed support ive always had help and answers! I know this game has had this cut off a bit after daybreak took over but i think they do amazing.
People will trash talk older games like this for having too many race and class choices, and far too many skills. I for one, like this system. I haven't found another game like this one that can satisfy those requirements. Also getting into crafting and house/GH decorating makes it feel like you're in another world inside of the game. I remember once years ago just logging on some nights to just craft or clean up/decorate my guild hall and the entire session I never once zoned into an adventure area or swung my sword at an enemy, but managed to still have fun.
Some things that amazed me in 2004 (and still do): Complex life-like animations, articulating fingers that can point, hands that grab your sword instead of round sockets (EQ1) Ambient sound effects in jungles, cities, forests, waterfalls The original horse mounts Shafts of sunlight through the branches in Oakmyst forest, woodland animals that turn their heads and watch as you pass by Lamplit windows and flickering streetlights as night approaches in Qeynos The original filthy gray, but deeply detailed, slums of Freeport Gripping sense of danger, spirit of exploration, and amazing vistas in the overland zones
Housing, decorating, furniture and house items such as pets and plushies. But the best by far was the original crafting system we had at launch. There are so many fantastic systems that have been brought in and left to languish, never seeing any further love like the apprentices, its a shame.
Lots of things the staff has done a good job wiith: (1) Character animations and zone artwork are always good. (2) Crafting system is pretty good (3) Housing (4) NPC interactions are great - who doesn't like talking to goblins, snarky faie, or aloof high elvess? (5) Major encounters are always pretty creative and fun to figure out. The achilles heal has mostly boiled down to marketing processes (hearing what their customers want and responding to it, adapting to changes in the category as it matured and became more crowded, advertising strategies) and secondly, failure to control bloat by dropping new system on top of new system without cleaning things up as they went. In regards to the latter, I understand that making new things is more interesting, and probably more fun to develop than cleaning up old ones, but.....well, a happy customers is a paying customer. In any case, it is still a fun game in a lot of respects, and they still do some things really well. If they get their hands around some of the other things, I think the game do just fine
I think this is one of its faults. Then again, I am arguing from a position that games like this should not have a 3rd person toggle and should be forced first person perspective. You lose so much game play with a 3rd person view. It allows you to look around corners, see everything around you. This takes away numerous elements of game play difficulty and design. If people want to get a feeling of what I mean, zoom in to first person view (which EQ2 does a nice first person feel and perspective) and then play for a while. You won't be able to tell when something is nearing you from behind or to the side. This requires you to be careful and constantly check your blind spots. It makes adds more dangerous as you won't be able to see panthers and adds easily which gives the feeling paranoia, danger, etc.. and it makes people take more care in where they and the mob is positioned.
Holy trinity - I love that classes have defined roles and that with hard content you are stronger with a tank, healer and dps. I like the flexibility that when you gear up you can bypass the holy trinity, but then go back to it when you hit new content. I also like the way they designed utility classes, and how mez and charm used to work in the early years of the game. Shiny collecting is awesome and addictive.
