Daybreak why did you destroyed this beautifull game !!!!!!??

I can't believe someone with so much to say missed the 3 emoji's that clearly show my comment to Tom was lighthearted teasing. I love seeing Devs too, doesn't mean I can't have fun with them.

There are a lot of choices that the game has made over the years that have led us to where we are. It'd be quite difficult to change them, but not impossible. Quite honestly, as much as we can like to complain about WoW, and as much as it sucks comparing the games, WoW introduced systems into the game early into the game's development that made things healthier for the game as a whole.

For example, nobody on WoW likes the idea that when you level up to the next highest tier, your character's stats all go down, but changing the stats to give a rating instead of a flat % chance solves the problem of needing to constantly introduce new and confusing stats to the game, like fabled/mythical crits, combat mitigation, fervor, strikethrough, stat overcap conversions, etc., because stats never reach insane problematic levels. WoW doesn't have to worry about what happens when you're at 400+% Crit or what happens when you've got 80+% uncontested avoidance. WoW also doesn't have a problem doing stat and level squishes, preventing us from getting to billions of dps (this in particular really gets to a lot of people. It sounds silly, but there is a point where higher numbers feel meaningless).

WoW also never had mechanics built into it that actively encouraged people to spend RL Money to cap, like Ascension classes or spell research, to worry about. When you start a character and level it on WoW, they have an extremely clear route of progression - level, run dungeons, get gear, do raids, get more gear. They've also done a LOT of work to make sure that the experience is very new player friendly, which, let's face it, EQ2 at this point just isn't. Couple all of this with the fact that WoW can run and run well on a smart refrigerator while EQ2, to this day, has issues on top of the line PCs, and it makes sense why EQ2, in comparison, has struggled with both new player engagement and player retention for a long time.

There's a lot to love about EQ2, but over the years, the way that the game has chosen to go about progression has left a lot of people not enjoying it. I fall into this category as well. As others have said, post level 90, EQ2 is an entirely different beast than what it was previously and overall (to me) isn't a very enjoyable experience. At least I've got TLEs, because the game until that point is one of the best and I always attempt to get my friends to give it a shot when a new one comes out. The ones that have always come back to me and say that they never realized EQ2 was this good.

'I didn't take it personally.

I get what you're saying, but my point is, I shouldn't HAVE to strip off all my gear, mentor down 20-30 levels and do all that for Familiars Wild daily. I did enough of that as a BL and a channeler. How tough can it be when you're building an xpac to factor in some beasties that will qualify for Familiars Wild quest and press on? Look at the myriad of wildlife in VoV. I should have to go to a previous xpac nekkid, with no weps just to do a daily? What we're talking about is actually thinking about integration of current quests into upcoming content and making it as seamless as possible. That's called "planning and implementation" in my book, haha. And for crying out loud, up the exp reward for converting the beasts. Unfortunately, I don't have 20 years doing daily questing to get a familiar up. Their life span is one xpac. Back to the previous comment about planning.

Familiar's Wild is definitely a long haul. The daily OS not so much. There's the daily heritage crate plus the other quests. I have been able to obtain enough leveling potions each year to level familiars for my most frequently played alts at expansion and again when the new season starts. Now of course this is very RNG driven, but I think it helps that I run the max OS allotment per day. (10 current season, 10+ charged)

And you don't have to do any of that. Catalogue Creature works fine at any level.

The leveling of everything has gotten way out of hand. It is constant and never ending. The experience needed is ridiculous. That is just one of the problems mentioned. Doing quest that requires killing lvl 125 plus heroic mobs and results in getting lvl 120 drops make them a waste of my time. They started the signature thing a few years ago and now most quest are only available if you complete that whereas, many players could do them without doing that if allowed. That limits what can be done since not everyone has the time or right class and ability to do these signature quest. Everything now is no trade or heirloom. That is ridiculous. VoV has the Crown Receptacle's you get using the coin you earn and what you end up with is less than what you currently have AND they are lore or lore AND no trade. At least in the prior expansion they were heirloom and we could pass them to an alt. Another waste of time. Many things are easily fixed but they won't be. They are busy creating another server that will take players from live for a short while. It is frustrating.

The game does need a great reset.

Get it back to a point before you had to start looting a box of gear just to start the next expansion.
Get back to the point where stats and damage and numbers weren't in the quadrillions.
Get back where the game was simpler by removing leveling requirements on mercs mounts and other items.

Jeez if you don't like the endgame go play at the lower levels. There's tons of sub-100 content. No-one's forced to level to 125.

what is wrong with wanting properly developed and measured gameplay at all levels? Prior to pop the expansions were fairly well done. The crap storm started with loot boxes, because the devs couldn't get things done right.

You already don't have to loot a box of gear to start the next expac if you actively played the prior expac. The box of gear is to start you in the current expac if you *didn't* gear up in the previous expansion, or if you're starting a new character. It's a BONUS, not a REQUIREMENT.

No player has any stat, number, or damage amount in the quadrillions. NPCs have hitpoints in the quadrillions, that's about it - but exaggerating to this degree simply makes people disregard you entirely.

There is no leveling 'requirement' on mercs, mounts, or familiars. They get *better* if you level them. You are not *required* to level them.

There is plenty to complain about, but picking stupid things and whining about them in ways that make it clear that you don't actively play the game in the tiers you're actually complaining about just make you look ridiculous.

I accept the game is forever old and its not feasible to expect unique content each year when copy/paste is easier/cheaper. However, the game is fundamentally broken on progression. Trying to get my healers equipped to do heroic content has been tedious, frustrating, and most importantly, not fun. I am never in danger of dying yet I'm forced to sit at my keyboard and spam buttons for 5 minutes to take down an encounter. The box gear gives me survivability but does nothing to enhance my offensive skills. The only hope is to wait for the next expansion when people are more likely to help you out because their characters suck too and they need gear.

I usually find your posts very insightful, but we'll agree to disagree on your statement "there is no leveling 'requirement' on mercs, mounts, or familiars. Not required? It's no more "required" than getting better gear. Have you overlooked the potions/tomes/coins that jump your stats when your mount/merc/familiar is maxed out? It's not an insignificant amount. In a game devoted to stat inflation and high requirements for potency, fervor, etc., saying mount/merc/familiar leveling is not required simply makes no sense. Especially when you look at what a celestial merc crate/familiar is selling for in the marketplace. Hell, if it's not worth it to level any of those, then why aren't people using their max horse, merc and familiar from three xpacs ago?

Yeah, if you're a casual player that logs in once a week or every couple of weeks and doesn't care about progression or doing anything, than your statement is valid. Otherwise, as I stated, we'll agree to disagree for everyone else playing the game who wants to progress in the game.

So do I. But reliance on the current broken RNG concept in this game is a fallacy. But that's a whole different discussion. I too run max OSers and if I see a familiar potion drop (or a research potion), it's a rarity. I have 8 or 10 toons I'm running and I might see one of those once a month, maybe twice. Pretty hard to level multiple familiars with that drop rate among all your characters. Glad your seeing a better drop rate, but the rest of us mortals aren't, haha.

Don't get me wrong - I fully agree that you're *better off* with it leveled. Just like some players ARE better off with that starter gear at expac launch, etc. (Not a fair equivalency, but, still)

It is not, however, a *requirement* to level them - You can fully play the game without HAVING to level any of the three. You'd be at a definite disadvantage, for sure, but you CAN do it. It wouldn't be the smart move, and you'd be an idiot to not do ANY leveling for your merc/mount, at the least, since they can be leveled for free over time - but you don't HAVE to level them, and the insinuation that the game is worse off because it's a cash grab requirement is simply an insult to lob up.

While I disagree about the amount of time it takes to level the mount and merc, and the amount of exp it takes for the familiar given that there is no real equivalent 'free' way to do it - Yes, I know, Familiars Wild, but when 90% of the rewards are 100 exp, that doesn't REALLY count in my book, comparing it to the merc/mount leveling process - I don't agree with the way people go about complaining over it.

I do understand it, especially given how heavy-handed combat mit was this expansion, though. The combat mit this expac was blatantly too high at every step and if you didn't have everything maxed on launch and through progression you couldn't progress until things got nerfed. THAT is where the complaints should be, not with the leveling of mercs/mounts/familiars, imo.

Noted. I laugh as a sweat told me i should be ignored.

I don't really want to give a very strong criticism here, but that's definitely a problem that Everquest 2 has, maybe the own dev team should play the game again, i.e. test their design themselves.Beta server or not, what good is a beta server if criticism and change requests are expressed there, but these are not transmitted to the live server.Then a beta server doesn't help us either, to be honest the real beta server is actually the live server.

The other point is class balance and game mechanic how often it's talked about but nothing happened.The game mechanic, that is, the values behind it, are simply too much for the game, so there was more loss and confusion that it can no longer be compensated.You should maybe work a little on bringing back the basics of Healer Tank Support DD, as of right now many are playing some sort of Hyprid class just missing one or two options.The tank is currently simply missing that their taunts would need a higher damage output so that the aggro management would also be easier to manage.

Point three is makes group play friendlier again, the group play in EQ2 i.e. pick up is dead i.e. hardly available.The Pay to Win should and must be reduced as well. Better to have better opportunities in the game, to learn platinum or things, and this possibility is too small.


We have to look at it like this: Daybreak gives you respect, you get respect from the player base.It's like life is give and take, but the goal must be to meet in the middle where both sides are satisfied.

A other Point is pls make on Server is better for fixes, and would bring fewer problems and headaches a pure 64bit client alone will not be enough.



Happy Hunting im Game, and stay healthy....

I think it comes down to how you're defining "required." There's zero requirements in game for the most part except for level and/or enough resolve to live. Granted, there are some requirements to fly or participant in some content (completion of sig line for example). Outside of that, no requirements exist if we're using your definition of "required". There's a lot of "Catch 22s" built into recent content and reflected quite well in this xpac. Used to be, when you raided, you got boxes with plenty of loot to go around and you could equip your raid toon and even some alts. Now it's crates and the progression rate is completely built around resolve on gear--the bulk of which is only available through crates. Unfortunately, as usual, the crate system wasn't well thought through as far as accessibility. Guess what, devs...most of us are sick and tired of getting the same pair of shoulders 8 times in a row. Gear, for all intents and purposes, is virtually nonexistent in raids. You see about 3-5 pieces dropping per raid boss. Spread across 24 people with a full raid, times approximately 19 slots to fill per raider, well...do the math. In other words, the same amount of loot drops for doing an H1 as it does for a raid. Color me confused, but when you need 4 times the amount of players for a raid than you do for a group and the same amount of loot drops in both, what does that suggest to you. I need about 100 more points of resolve to hit L13 crate. It's tough to get to the next level when you're seeing the same item time after time from the crates and little enough drops in raid. Raid mounts used to drop somewhat frequently. We've been raiding a couple of times a week since launch and have seen 4 raid mounts drop since launch. Four. This is now working on 5 months after launch.
Sorry for the long winded trail here. While I realize not everyone raids or may even be running H2s, the pressure is on given the current loot and crate mechanics. If you're interested in TSing alone or doing the occasional PQ or even H1, then no, leveling your merc, familiar or horse probably doesn't matter a bit. If you fit into the other categories, then yes, whether we like it or not, it becomes a requirement to meet the gaps imposed by the current loot system paired with resolve, potency, etc requirements for doing content.

Resolve is a requirement to accomplish content. Potency above a certain amount is a requirement to overcome combat mitigation.

A familiar being L10 is not a requirement. A mount being level 10 is not a requirement. A mercenary being level 20, or having 100% contribution is not a requirement.

Is it much more difficult to get to the potency level needed to overcome combat mit without those? Sure. But it isn't *required* to do that.

I agree that there are issues in plenty of the ways you're saying, but they're ways to overcome shortcomings in other areas, to spread out the gains to make you less reliant on just one area, more than a solid requirement.

We'll agree to disagree. When you are required to achieve certain levels of something to get into higher content, and these items contribute to achieving that level, absent any thing else being available, then they become required to get there. You're focusing on an element of the game and saying it's not required. I'm focusing on what that element contributes to the requirement. When a merc, horse, or familiar no longer add potency, resolve, etc., then you can say they aren't required. Heck if you can put enough gear on to make resolve and totally skip armor in the process, you can say armor ain't required either.
Put another way, you want potato salad. You ain't eating potato salad without them. Now, you can spell it potato or you can spell it potatoe, but the darn thing has to be in the salad in order to make and eat it.