since EQ2 is a PVE game, why do you care how i get my gear so much?

so i saw a conversation in game, talking about solo content in the next expansion. with one person saying they hope there is better progression and more solo/small group content. only to have another person say solo content should not have as good of progression, if you want better stats/progression start raiding/grouping (paraphrasing).

to me this is backwards thinking, especially in a PVE game like EQ2. A solo player is not competing against a raider, there is no direct competition so why does a raider care about the progression of a solo player? And since i know the usually comeback is "because i have to do more work as a raider to get my gear". I say if you consider raiding work, maybe you should not be a raider. I have been a raider, was one of the first swashbucklers on my server to get my mythical weapon, was in the second best raid guild on the server ... and i never saw raiding as work. sure the gear was an incentive, but i what i truely enjoyed about raiding was playing together with a group and taking down large tough mobs, that was fun and that's what made me play the game.

you want this game to keep living you need to embrace the solo players or small group players. give them incentive to play the game and progress their character. Even the epic 2.0, there should be a way to complete it completely solo (without having to outlevel it). should it take longer? sure but there should be a way for a solo player to do it. the same thing should work with gear, when running a solo dungeon progression shouldn't end, solo dungeons should not be a start to grouping. And before you tell me "well it is a MMORPG", yes it says multiplayer but there is no where in that acronym that says I have to be grouped with other players.

I get where you're coming from on many of these points, and i feel Kunark Ascending has had some outstanding easily soloable gear. Exp14 should continue these opportunities to cater to the solo/casual playerbase.

Going so far as making epic 2.0 soloable, i am not so sure. I feel this could be considered for Test Server, but that is about it, and here is why:

-Test seems to have the fewest number of players logged in, don't matter what time of day, the most you tend to see is maybe 10 or 12 toons, and it's rare at that, and who knows how many of those are the same rl person. Thus, forming a group to complete the more challenging aspects of 2.0, it's just not feasible.
-Having Epic 2.0 would greatly increase the possibility of clearing more challenging group content on this server, such as the Obulus HQ, pq's in fens, jw, kp, etc, which are currently unclearable on this server.
-Having an easier or soloable path to this weapon on this server only, may spark interest in this server. More may be willing to play and test in this permanent testing environment, thus making things run more smoothly when released to live server.
-It could increase the number of accounts purchasing the expac/s, it could also, upon obtaining a weapon of great power, allow soloists and casuals to see this weapon is worth the effort of doing it in its full form on live servers.
-Test server has no transfers to or from there. Nor should there be, nor should anyone have reason for it. It is a permanent test environment, and that's it. People could argue and whine that it should be easier to obtain on live servers, but their arguments would hold no weight. Everyone would know it is only easier to obtain due to a)lack of participation needed to clear certain encounters on that server + b)incentive to test more content faster and easier + c)no transfers to or from...come test things more easily, but realize it is much harder to obtain on live servers.

why should it only be on the test server? MMO players really need to stop the whole "solo players are bad and they shouldn't be in my game" type of attitude. as i said a solo route to the epic 2.0 should take longer and maybe like some mount quests you have a daily limit on how many steps of the quest you can complete. but a solo route should be available, if a solo player wants to put in the time and effort.

I never said solo players are bad. I am not sure they require/deserve the best weapon in the game for two years, by soloing. They already get a good greenmist weapon solo, and 16 resolve stone sword via the jw pq. The main purpose of epic 2.0 is it's unbreakable in t4 raids. True solo players would not be in t4 KA raids.

Although soloable now, in it's day, even epic 1.0 fabled version had multiple steps requiring a group.

I think part of the problem is that most people don't dedicate themselves to raiding. Just like most people don't dedicate themselves to PvP. I don't mean they don't raid or PvP at all, but that from what I've experiences in the last almost 2 decades of these games the majority of players do not raid or PvP as a primary focus of their play experience. Few people play to be a raider or a PvPer. Those people that do, I think, do deserve something for that dedication.

Where the disconnect seems to come in is that most people have no problems expecting PvP players to go get special gear for the style of play they enjoy. Raiders basically just get better PvE gear most of the time. While it seems fair from the raider's perspective, they earned it and they need it to continue raiding, to a lot of non-raiding players it seems very unfair.

So, PvE players look at raiders and ask 'why', and eventually people are being called scrubs, welfare babies, entitled, etc on a forum somewhere. Why is a good question, but maybe it needs to be directed a different way. I think a better question to ask is "Why do the raiders get the specific gear that they do instead of gear catered to them?". It makes more sense to me than asking why don't all the players get a version of the gear that the raiders earn.

Now, I already pretty much know the answer to my question. It's a combination things. Companies try to make games to please as many people as possible (which they almost always fail at on some level) in order to pull in a bigger audience and end up making a massive, bland mess. It's easier and cheaper to make one set of gear and stats than two. General archaic game design, or, tradition is a motherf'er. So I don't ever expect it to change in most of these games, but I think it should.

or somethin'

Games tend to put 'time' limits on thing where eventually everyone can get the gear, but its also strictly controlled. For example you will never be able to get 'current' raid/top end gear just by soloing no matter how much of it you do, and rightly so. But after a few additional tiers of content they'll either offer an alternative or casual gear players can easily go back and kill older, previously top end, content.

The reason they don't allow soloers to match raider gear when its current because that severely devalues raiding/grouping. I've even heard nonsense such as 'raiding and grouping is its own reward' which is simply wrong. What else could you possibly exclusively add to raiding that others wouldn't demand? Better encounters? More story? Art? Production value?
"isn't it enough you are playing with friends?" The collective excitement and joy of playing with friends is proportionally heightened by the effort they put in against otherwise insurmountable odds and the rewards from success. It might be 'nice' playing with friends getting the same exact rewards you would get from soloing, but its freaking amazing when those rewards are rare and otherwise impossible to get.

More powerful items are the only ones people are willing to accept as varying rewards for more effort. This 'modest proposal' of raid gear via soloing would kill multiplayer gameplay in an MMO almost entirely and therefore all people who enjoy typical grouping and raiding would leave along with their wallets.

A good example is the PGs... most people do PGs for the tokens.. not for the PGs themselvs.
As soon as the solo PGs came out, the participation in the group PGs took a nose dive.
Why work harder and spend more time in group/raid for a CHANCE at the same gear you're guaranteed to get faster and easier solo?

If you were a raider back in RoK then you understand the gap between quest/solo gear to heroic gear to raid gear. You knew in order to get quest/solo gear, you had to do overland stuff and questlines. Heroic gear you had to do dungeons for. For raid gear you had to step foot into a raid zone and actually kill the raid mobs.

Now-a-days, there is still somewhat of a gap between the armor tiers but you can get LOTS of T1-T2 raid quality gear by doing the overland key quests (1 of which requires 0 gear because all you do is avoid NPCs). You can get really nice ring/pants/gloves cheap through the proving grounds all solo through a couple runs in the UD solo that takes 10 minutes to run each.

So I 100% disagree that the epic 2.0 should be soloable and that "solo players" should be given easy mode to do more things (unless you are talking about making more exciting and longer questlines, then I will agree with you there). There is plenty to do to progress your character solo. Until you have (at the very least) every piece of 7 resolve armor pieces (fully maxed out infused in all teirs + plat), have the Greenmist weapon OR Iskar Hero weapon, Ethereal off-hand, all the 1k+ potency jewelry.....I wouldn't complain about solo progression then.

Eh, not so true anymore.....key quests....PGs....Burnt Key (meh, luck factor but still solo)

not rightly so, again there is no big problem with solo/small group players getting the same rewards as a raider.

if your only reason to raid is the loot then sorry you are raiding for the wrong reason. yes gear is an incentive but it shouldn't be the only reason you are raiding. the problem is that games and players are brainwashed into thinking that raiding should be the only way to get good gear. and yes you might lose some hardcore raiders if soloing became an option, but then again those players aren't "raiders" they are loot collectors. advancing/progressing through raiding should be quicker than soloing that's it.

and again if thats the case then those people aren't raiders/groupers. if all you are playing a game for is the pixels then maybe you should re-examine why you play MMOs in the first place. this is a PVE game there is no direct competition, so there is no reason why a soloer who pays the same and puts the same amount of effort should be restricted as the pixel collector

I tend to agree with the OP from a gear perspective for the most part.

There is no difference in the color or amount of money a soloer/grouper pays over a raider - the only real difference is what each player chooses to spend their time on in game.

If it were me (and I know it's not), I would have made the tiers function differently.

What I mean is - Raid gear, being better than Heroic should have stats that only function in Raids and not in normal skirmishes or heroic and less dungeons.

I believe that's how PvP gear used to function (I could be wrong since I've never PvP'd in EQ 2 but it is what I was told during a PvP discussion in game).

That way - raiders can get their raid gear, groups and soloers can get the same level gear as the dungeons provide and the raiders are not over powered in every single thing they do outside of raids.

You are just saying 'nuh uh'. There is definitely a problem, if raiding and grouping didn't offer better or exclusive rewards over soloing, no one would do them. I suppose if it became an online solo game they could do this, though. Until then, for grouping and raiding to be both fun and relevant, they need to have superior rewards exclusive to them.

If soloing gave the same rewards what reason do people have to play (and pay, mind you) group and raid content outside of being some sort of social catalyst? This isn't IMVU or Second Life.

You didn't read what I said, its MULTIPLE reasons. Better, exclusive items(1) gained through overcoming more difficult obstacles(2) with friends.(3) And FYI, telling people are playing for the 'wrong reasons' or the only reason people do it is because they are 'brainwashed' is one of the more condescending things I have read on a forum in a while.

Not only that, the reason why you need raid loot is of course to raid harder raid mobs. Why would you need raid items for soloing when you are already soloing? If they added an entire 'solo' progression it would NEVER need to give raid equivalent loot, only loot that allows you to solo harder solo content. Everyone getting everything will have ONE outcome which is people taking the quickest, easiest path to more power.

Soloers don't put in the same effort as raiders. Not even close. Same time and payment? Maybe, but raiding takes much more effort in that same amount of time and subscription. If it didn't you could solve your problem by raiding just as easily as soloing and getting raid loot.

This ''You are playing the game wrong if you like raiding for loot" attitude is just shockingly intolerant.to other playstyles. Statements like these baffle me when people say raiders are the toxic and intolerant ones when you got others saying the entire playstyle of swaths of people is wrong because they said so.

Wow this again?

Yes Heroic and Raid players should have better gear than soloers. It is the nature of a MMORPG to reward the time (and I do know some soloers who spend more time in game than some raiders) and more importantly the effort spent playing with better gear.

And if you truly are only doing solo content the gear you receive is more than enough to do the content you like and more than likely enough to get you started on tier one heroics as well.

You want to know the most ironic part about wanting the Epic 2.0 to be solo'd?

--> Most people won't even do the "old and boring gray quests" to even start Epic 2.0

the reason would group and raid is that they would enjoy playing with others. giving solo players more progression and better gear won't turn this into second life ... i like how you say I am intolerant but everything you state is "the sky is falling" "omg the game will die and people will quit if you give soloers better gear" or "no one will ever raid again the game will become another second life."

but i'm the intolerant one right?

if you are raiding for pixels but you hate it to the extent that you feel its a job then yes you are raiding for the wrong reason. its like buying a game that you know you will absolutely hate because you want to see the ending. the enjoyment should come from the experience and the gameplay not the pixels you get from a loot chest ... that should be a bonus.

and if they do take the quickest easiest path ... good for them if they never step inside of a raid zone because they already have the loot, then they weren't raiders. i just took my wife, nieces and nephews through the level 70 version of laboratory of lord Vymm, know why? not because of loots but because of the fun.

and you were saying about intolerance?

your whole post is nothing but intolerance and toxic.

No Yannos its not.

And kudos for you doing level 70 raid content "for fun" but that has nothing to do with current content now does it? Implying that it does is about the worst straw-man argument I've seen here.

It's not about competing, and it's not really about work. It's not even about what's fair or who deserves what. Spelling it out kind of spoils the fun because it's "metagame" / "over the table" stuff, but here's what it really comes down to...

To make raid content compelling, you need players to struggle with each mob a bit... but then ultimately prevail. Players want the sense that they've somehow progressed through a series of increasingly difficult challenges, getting better with each victory. The problem though, is that this is basically a simple game with a relatively low skill threshold (no aiming, minimal reflexes required) and lets face it: after over a decade, players are basically as "skilled" as they're going to get. Since player competence/skill isn't likely to increase significantly over the course of each expansion, developers have to create an artificial sense of growth through item progression. This way they can tune each raid encounter with a slightly higher target for gear/attributes than the one before, which slows the rate at which players can progress through the raid content to the rate at which they can obtain the necessary gear. This creates the gratifying illusion of gradual but constant power growth we lovingly refer to as "raid progression."

If you put raid-equivalent best-in-slot gear in solo content, it forces raiders to solo for gear upgrades in addition to raiding; they gain a competitive advantage on raid progression by doing so, and if they choose not to then they're holding their team back. That means raiders end up saddled with extra-curricular solo play requirements on top of the considerable time it takes to raid. Overall, it is a design decision that has proven again and again to be a plague on the raid community and that's the big problem with solo/small group players getting the same rewards as a raider.

On a further note... solo content is brain-dead easy by design. Not all classes are equally effective for soloing, and honestly I don't see a way they could be made equal even if you convinced me they should be. Solo content has to be possible for all classes, and caters to literally the lowest common denominator for that reason. So on that reasoning alone, I see no argument that solo content would benefit from a complex gear-gated progression curve, and therefore no justification for raid-equivalent rewards.

I think I should point something out. There's a difference between people who try to solo all of the content of a game and people who just play through the solo content of a game. I don't think either deserves the same gear as someone who raids, but I explained that already. I do think there's a huge difference between the two, though.

Hmmmm, maybe the janitors IRL should make as much as the Boss/CEOs they work for. I don't see why that would be a problem either....maybe even give the fry cooks at McDonalds the same pay as their CEO and chairman.

to me it's easy .. solo content shouldn't give great gear .. at least not better than heroic or raid for one reason.

GROUP

if u can get the best gear in solo content (quests or PG or else) then many won't bother grouping.

it's not about not wanting solo players to get great gear .. it's more about .. working together to get the best.

look at PG .. people stopped doing the group ones because it was easier to do the solo ones. U log i, 8 - 10 min and u swap toon.

group PG .. u first need to get a group, u may wipe a few times, may be faster or slower ... but it's not always a win. but group should always be a win gear wise.

so there can bgreat gear u can get solo .. but should be limited.

and also .. if u only do solo .. u don't need the best gear. everybody wants the best ... but for solo content 16k pot was already way too much