DBG..half your eq2 population are not ready for experts.

Which has nothing to do with the ethereal event at all. If you can't see the difference, I can't help you.

*edit* And I just reread the OP, no where did they say they wanted another event, only the one we were given to be changed.

Yes, he/she is not happy with the current one. I suggested to keep calm and wait for another event that suits him/her. What's wrong with it I wonder? Please don't answer if you can

Your argument is disingenuous and strawman... the event(s) you mentioned do not reward you gear for doing groups. Period.

Summer eth isn't like tinkerfest or Frostfell, it's a significant part of the game. Just skipping it for another event = "stop paying until next xpac" in which you might find yourself screwed again if it was like last year's summer eth event.

Isn't it a bonus event?

I am really not understanding your thought process.

What's a Bonus Event?

Although you probably wouldn't know from my original post I'm actually in a t4 capable raid guild. The OP has no complaint about this event not being useful to her because she is actually more than expert capable. It's the other 3-4 ppl that joined her in a random group to do said expert that weren't which made the run be about as much fun as a hot poker in the eye. But considering its summer and there aren't enough people to fuel an event such as this without those people... its a catch 22. I made this post to try and clue the people making decisions in to the realities of their playerbase.

If the argument is that the quality of the gear is so strong that the added difficulty is expected...I'd argue that point too. Yes its BiS gear but not so much so. The stats on the cloak are comparable to the quested tradeskill cloak...and the class specific effects are just recycled from the previous xpac (which, while sporting a relic tag at the time, were available in plain old heroics). Its simply a reintroduction of old effects to a current gearset. That really doesn't warrant gating the items behind expert hardness zones imho.

Can I swear off pick up groups in order to take part in this event..sure. It's an option but even in a guild such as mine it's unrealistic to think the stars will align perfectly and every person will be able to complete 3x expert zones everyday while staying within our little guild bubble where we know the players are expert ready. And at the end of the day taking that tact does nothing to foster health of the summer gameplay..where skilled and casual players alike are looking for reasons to login and do things in game. I just see no reason why they would choose to create an event where those two groups couldn't do that together during the slow season.

If event can help you reach your goal faster then it is a "bonus" event in my opinion.

This is absurd.

You have 21 Armor Slots. Solo Gear can drop 7-9Resolve Armor. Heroics Drop 9-11. PG gives you 20 hands/legs and a 22 ring. Mount gives you 10. Self Buff gives you 10. Mount gives you 8. Eth offhand gives you 20

So with the 4 pieces/buffs you have 100 resolve.

With the remaining 17 slots you only need 190 more resolve. There are mythical drops from key chests that give 20 resolve (2). There are ascension rewards. There are fabled drops from key chests. There is the crafter cloak that gives 20. There is the grachinist earring that gives 16 resolve http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Shrunken_Goblin_Skull_Earring

While the word expert does seem scary, don't think of them as difficult, think of them being properly difficult for the power level people can achieve. Heroics would have been WAAAAAY too easy for this event.

Regular heroics were just fine last summer and gave 3 BiS jewelry pieces and access to 3 very hard to get BiS class runes for most classes. I didn't hear any complaints except maybe from raiders who honestly have a lot to complain about regarding itemization.

Meeting resolve isn't the only hurdle preventing these players from completing expert heroics..it's also button pushing skills sadly.

I don't understand why this event would be for expert only if the intention was to entertain players and get them grouping then there needs to be rewards in regular heroics as well...I see a few players who don't believe people who can't run experts don't deserve the ethereal rewards but they are grind based rewards it is not like casuals would get to log in once a day solo a regular heroic and get a best in slot item, they will have to put the work in and grind the same as everyone else a lot of casual players even pay a subscription and spend money on the market place the same as everyone they need to be able to participate in an event just like everyone else too...can we really afford to lose more players from this game because they got excluded from an event?

As has been said- if you've done the other content (PG, Epic) you should be able to start the expert zones.

Speaking to groups which may be reluctant to go into an expert:
Spire event expert is pretty fast and easy. You need a tank/heal combo that can handle all the golems at the start, the second mob is a joke (just have the group on the stairs and the tank does the strat) , and the 3rd mob isn't too bad as long as you save nukes for after 50%- until 50% just tank it in the little room pressed up against the walls. Dispel when she gets tall.

Spire sanctum is also possible to do with a relatively weak group. Just pull small batches, clear trash carefully if you need to, and have power feed of some sort for the second name. Repository is also easy if you pull in small batches.

Sure top geared groups will rip through stuff faster, but all of this can be done especially if everyone has epics and ascension nukes. If they don't, maybe you shouldn't be complaining about experts.

And once you run the experts, you will end up with much nicer gear each time.

For me the heroic vs. expert debate is more about the further segregation of already low pop servers. With FG open then expert only for ethereals it becomes very hard to fill multiple groups or any groups. And I noticed on AB, the later in the evening it gets the harder this becomes.

I help run a small guild we had 15-20 members on every day/night now only 4-5. Those that wanted their epics have stalled out. The Eth event was going to be a way for them to get rolling again. Yes I'm aware we could change servers but we like AB. Leaving a guild we all worked on together is not an option.

While having tokens in both heroic and expert may not be a popular choice, I feel that it is the best choice for those servers who are being hurt by FG/summer vacation low population.

I agree with you guys a tiny bit, but not much. Sure it sucks to not get the Ethereal stuff by doing normal Heroic zones. There is no need to wine and cry about it. I think everyone should already have the crafting cloak which is very powerful so you can't complain too much about being left behind. (If you don't have it you should be left behind until you do)
From the looks of the orange adorns available from ethereal merchant one of them is the same effect/proc as your class's class cloak from last expansion. Those class cloaks weren't easy to come by. You had to grind hard to be lucky enough for one to drop. It looks like this will still be the case except they removed the luck part of that equation. You just gotta grind the zones hard to get the coins to buy the ethereal items.
Everyone please, try not to be a snowflake. Just work harder and get to the level to make it happen.

We have core players in our guild which can run Experts. Are they all on at same time? Nope. When they are, we do experts or maybe knock out a couple raid bosses for the weekly.. If not, we run regular heroics

In guild, we promote trying to mix newer folks in on heroic runs, so that they can get upgrades. I was excited about the Summer Promo, as it promotes return and grouping. The limitation of Expert zones this time really saddened me, as I like to help folks. I don't, however, like to help folks enough to be in an Expert for 2 hours because only a couple of us in that group are properly geared

IF you aren't geared to start experts, you won't get a magic boost from getting coins because they won't do anything more for you than just getting some expert gear would. In fact, odds are, the belt/ring/wrist from shrouded temple would do more for you than upgrading your cloak anyway.

What I'm really hearing smacks of lazy or underconfident. If you are lazy, then why do you even want ethereals? So you can run even more regular heroics, to what end? If you are underconfident, don't be, just jump in, and you'll find that gear snowballs- the more you get the easier it gets to get better and so on.

As to segregation of the population- it SELF-SEGREGATES. Those people with the uber gear and high parses have uber gear and high parses because they take the game waaaaaay too seriously. And the people with **** gear and/or low parses... you know why.

If eq2 is to remain viable moving forward it has to be inclusive of the remaining paying customers not exclusive, i really have no idea why people would argue its a good thing to add another gate to fellow players but i suspect its an Epeen issue sadly.

I agree tokens for heroics, more tokens for experts and better chance of loot dropping.

Day 1 and there is very little PUG activity on Skyfire.

The perfect balance is somewhere in the middle. Giving everyone possibility to earn top gear in a couple of evenings sounds like a refreshing argument but in fact it will undermine efforts of players that prefer to spent months of hard "work" to earn top gear. So you get more casual players but you lose "elite" hard core players. Going to the opposite direction is going to attract more hard-core players and drive away casual players.

Where is the perfect balance?Ask people who managed to keep well-known MMO alive for more than 10 year with thousands of active players