Commentary: Are Epic 2.0 Quests Burying Players in Prerequisites?

Yeah they just forgot to put interesting loot in all those heroics. One possible upgrade in each zone doesnt really cut it. So basically what you get for running heroics is the occasional
Shiny, currency that you cant really buy anything of use for and infusers

There's lots of good loot In Shrouded Temple, the other zones can use a good look at effort to reward ratio. The Spectral Market and Reaver's Remnants, for example .

yea spectral could really use a closer look , nameds have 2-3 times the health of other zones and they all drop crap.
the only reason to go in there is to finish a weekly.

2-3x more health plus more script intensive for some. Golem guy with the insta-death circles says hello.

Epic quest line merely force you do a lot very old very very boring content and on top of it level 100 tradeskill WHY?!?!

It's not only old content, it includes new content too. And it doesn't diminish from the fact that they had to design and implement 4 extremely long quest lines (and if they stuck to their brief, at least one class-specific part). Just because they require some old content/factions to be completed doesn't mean it didn't take time and resources to implement.

I wonder if a dev created a new level 100 (boosted) character and ran thru the Epic 2.0 questline as a fresh character from scratch. At 2hrs of playtime a day, I wonder how long it would take from start to finish; six months, a year?

Current players and long term players is one thing but the above would be important to factor in; not only for new players, but returning players that may have missed/skipped a lot of the requirements. I don't want easy, free, or simple.. I'm sure we all want to retain the current player base, but possibly attract new players.. instead of repelling away.

We are fast approaching the breaking point of the game and I haven't seen any initiative yet to fix things for alts. The breaking point in my opinion will be when people get their epic weapons. At that point there will be no real incentive to log in apart from raiding time. Previously we would just work and play on alts, but that isn't going to happen this expansion. The epic Quest 2.0 pretty much killed altatis. Many guildies (including me) that had multiple alts, are not playing them anymore.This will cause a drastic drop on population as people start getting epics and stop logging in. This will make it almost impossible for the players that don't have much time to play and are further back on ascension level and epic Quest, almost impossible to get groups. I mean good luck getting a tank in a month or so.

My suggestion for fixing is this:

1. A token that will flag the neccasery objectives (faction, languages, timelines) that you can buy for alts after you finished your epic quest. Similar to the one for signature Quest for KA.

2. A token that will give alts max Ascension level, as long as you have done all 4 ascension levels once.

3. If you have time ( I doubt it) take some updates OFF old content zones that can be easily soloed, and put them in KA group instances, give people the incentive to group for current content,. It worked niceley for the shinies in barons and Ritual. I hadn't done those zones even once, and this week I run them almost daily.

4. Put something on token Merchant thats really needed so people have the incentive to still do zones for tokens. For example make the ancient spells buyble with lets say 20k tokens.

It is better to do something sooner than later. When people are still logging for their mains. When they stop it will be much much harder to get them back.

PS:

Almost forgot

5. Make the crafting update for the epic commisionable. Making people that don't like crafting, and have never crafted before, level 7-8 crafters to max level for this expansion, is pretty sadistic.

With no pre-reqs done, starting when they hit ascension level 5, I bet they could have each quest done by the time they hit the next ascension level with 2hrs play time per day. (Possible exception for mages, only because of the bastion of the tranquil repeatable taking so long to complete each run). The most time consuming thing the toon would run in to imo would be getting a group of people to do the current content fights, and waiting on the RNG to smile on them during the bodydrop/shiny stages - neither of which anyone appears to be complaining about.

The RNG in current content is far more time consuming than any old factions or questlines.

As someone who has probably completed these quests much, much more recently than the vast majority of the people responding here (since I play on Stormhold) let me assure you there there are parts of the Prismatics, Peacock, Claymore and SoD that are most definitely repetitive, boring (unless running all over the place clicking on things is exciting for you) and mind-numbingly farmtastic (setting up residence in Living Tombs or Sanctum of the Scaleborn).

As far as content being trivial, well that's up to you, isn't it? You have access to chronomages. You have your very own Dial-O-Difficulty where you can choose, something that those of us on Stormhold don't have access to. I just can't believe the amount of whinging in threads like these. The developers turn the dial past the "instant gratification" setting and many of you seem to be jumping about like your hair is on fire.

The old-school EQ players out there must read threads like this and just laugh.

Since u play on Stormhold u simply dont have the slightest clue now do you? Or have u played KA xpac? And yeah i can chrono down and strip naked and dismount to get somewhat of a challange, but really, that sound fun to you?

Old school eq players laugh at Stormhold if anything, where summoner pets tank the raids. You may not have a chronomage but why would u? The whole server feels chronoed

So if i wanted the whole "chrono down to old content" experience id play on stormhold, not buy KA

Have you actually tried Chrono-Mentoring recently? It achieves nothing. You still 1 shot everything.

This thread has 0 to do with TLE. So why even bother posting.

Oh, and I am an Old-School EQ Player, but yeah, everyone must be a recent starter and just wants it easy huh? I'll repeat it again;

Current epics = Long, Boring and Tedious.
How we wanted epics = Long, Challenging and Exciting.

Really? How about make an requirement to complete let say 25 HQ quests? will that add "content story line and hard work for developers"?

I am second on that -
Not a single X-pack EVER force ppl do trade skills. 2 of 3 my main chars goes back in time of EQ2 release. My coercer have 26 jeweler - I found it back in time extremely un-fun (for me!) and never came back to doing it and never had to! I have no problem that tradskills have own epic and can generate BiS cloak - this is not game defining object. But ever Epic 1.0 were so I'd expect Epic 2.0
Forcing None crafters level from 9 to 100 JUST FOR SINGLE COMBINE? how sadistic is it?

Sigh I saw the [DEV] tag and it turned out to be RadarX... there needs to be a [MOD] tag here as well.

I hate running heroics because of idiots needing for their alts,needing on shinies then selling them on the broker.No wonder there are so many bots.I don't expect anything from heroics but currency and exasperation.

Run with guildies who are relaxed about such things. In my guild, its need before greed and we all help each other as needed. We are not a huge guild, (as in active players) but the core members are very supportive of each other, and always welcoming any new members.

Nah, they fixed pet tanking ages ago now. Only took til about halfway through EoF. And to be honest, old school EQ players pretty much laugh at anyone playing EQ2 period. EQ2 is not, nor has it ever been, a terribly challenging experience. Nor has it ever truly punished players for failure, so there has never been a risk to anything. You can just derp yourself along anywhere whether you have any business being there or not. Bringing up old school EQ players is pointless.

"would you force people, ALL OF A SUDDEN to do your old content which takes them away from doing things with their friends and game buddies?"

hmm my buddies have always helped me catch up, and then technically u are doing things with them. why allow someone who is just getting into said MMO not have to do old content in order to recieve a really awesome and unique item? loyal fans who have stuck with said MMO had to do it, so what makes newer players exempt? i quit eq2 back in 05, just recently came back so 11 years later i EXPECT to do older content in order to catch up. Perfect example of some MMOS just leaving their older content for nothing. makes no sense reuse it, make it worthwhile. Not just oh ur new? well no one does that anymore.... kinda like when people tell me their first MMO was wow, im thinking to myself ahh one of those people. and it doesnt effect people who were born later nothing they can do about that but for those of us that have been there since the beginning. everyone wants things NOW. perfect example, friend of mine i tried to get him into eq1 of course the graphics were the first thing that was bitched about. then the transportation (well why cant i just port there) u can u need a druid or wizard to do it (well thats stupid). Modern mmos have SPOILED players and its really a shame

Oh i know, i was only replying to it.