Dead server... thanks to fabled solo loot

I have a feeling the numbers are down across all MMO's. The amount of available games is more than ever and the game butterflies just float from one to another. I also think the market as a whole is suffering from "Burn Out'.

When I first started playing computer games all those years ago, they were addictive and you couldn't stop yourself from playing and burned the midnight oil when you knew that you should be sleeping. Nowadays, I'll play for an hour or so and then log out. It's almost like I can't be bothered and want something new and exciting to do rather than play a computer game. I still log into EQ2 everyday, I'm just not as engrossed in the game as I used to be. I'm sure a lot of other seasoned gamers are getting the same way.

It will get worse in the coming months. EQ2 numbers traditionally drop dramatically over the summer time and pick up again in October.

I will admit the end game seems like a funnel, with 95/320 COE cloak being the small end for the casual player (I can't raid much). Once you are there, you have to be creative in your choices of what you are going to do when you log on.

Being a casual player and being unable (for whatever reason) to spend 20 minutes doing an easy heroic zone (DC often takes less time than this) are far from the same thing.

I did pickup raid on an alt yesterday which took approx 1hr to clear AoA raid zone. It had no entry requirements and I was playing a poorly geared toon that parsed less on a T1 DPS class than my raid toon parses as a healer. So it was totally "noob-friendly".

EQ2 is one of the best games on the market for casual players. There is lots to do even if you have limited time, so long as you're willing to put some kind of basic effort into your character and into interacting with others. I often run into people who say "omg, i don't have 60 hours a week to dedicate in order to be a raider". This an ANCIENT mentality that comes from games like EQ1 or older MMOs. EQ2 breaks up most of its content into very bite-size chunks than require no more commitment than a weekly soccer game IRL. You just have to choose to experience it.

Sure, there are people with families and jobs and babies and having to walk the dog. But most people have some kind of RL. Just like you choose to dedicate 3 hours a week to your soccer (or softball or poker or whatever) team, you can choose to dedicate 1-3 hours a couple of times a week to EQ2 and you'll find yourself able to take part in virtually every facet of the game. All without having to become "hardcore" or to dedicate your entire life to the game.

Examples of time (and casual) friendly non-solo content in CoE:

Dreadcutter (Heroic) - 10-30 minutes.
Temple (Heroic) - 20-45 minutes
Fear (Heroic) - 30- 60 minutes
HE (Heroic) - 30-90minutes
ST (old, heroic) - 30-90 minutes

EM AoA Pug Raid (without monkey) - 30 - 90 minutes
EM HE Pug Raid (first few mobs) 60 - 90 minutes

(Elite groups can certainly do most of these things faster, but these times indicate teh time that an average pug can do the stuff in).

Don't listen to the nay-sayers, spend your solo time fine-tuning your character and whn you have some extra time, jump into group or raid content. You might be surprised at just how casual-friendly EQ2 is.

And if some idiot tells you that your legendary gear is not good enough for heroic dreadcutter, keep in mind that it's probably because that person doesn't have enough skill to make up for your lack of gear. (Although this doesn't mean that you shouldn't strive to pull your own weight!) In general, people aren't upset if you don't have "elite" gear. People tend to get upset if you're not parsing well enough for the gear you DO have or if you've clearly not even put any effort into setting yourself up for success (i.e. your adorn slots are empty, your spells aren't upgraded, you have non-sensical AAs - all these things have nothing to do with being casual or not having enough time).

Good luck!

I"m not sure why your forcibly obtuse. Even in this case, reinforcement takes time to tick up, and if I were to blow my entire snap wad on the first mem shuffe, what about the next one.

Its just a matter of RNG, if all your tanks get floored too many times in one pull, you reach the deathcount and you get to start over.

The primary challenge now seems to be deathcounts, and the new memshuffle combined acts to make things less of a skill challenge and more of a RNG. There are pulls, that simply due to the RNG, your almost certainly going to wipe, regardless of the skill level of those on the raid. This wipe threshold is somewhat mitigated by how many warders you run and how fast you can kill, but regardless it is there, and with an unlucky streak you just get to start over again. Where some of the bugs that happen on Baleon are much more infuriating, where things can and do break in the script and he will memshuffle every ~10s until he's dead or the deathcount is reached.

My overall point being, the combination of excess mem-shuffle use combined with deathcounts is simply a tedium mechanic that minimizes the 'fun' in raiding, whereas fights like Eriak provided more challenge to players without mechanics that were just tedium and heavily RNG biased.

Still doesn't help vs Shuffles where you fall to the 22nd position. (Which PoW does not exhibit).
- 1 Auto-Attack may yeild you 1-2 positions when you are that low.
- Rescue: 8 Positions (.5 seconds)
- Reinforcement (.6 seconds to cast roughly)
* 3 CA's taking 1.5 seconds to case all 3: 3 Positions.

Total: 13-14 Positions in 3.1 Seconds which is more than enough time for the boss to have AE-Autoattacked and killed 4+ people. Enough time for him to now be rooted on the raid casting an AE that will kill 12+ people. If you manage to survive the boss now has 2/4 Death-Counter Buffs and 1 more bad luck wipe and you are done as a Raidforce for that pull.

Atan said it well, I just broke down the mechanics for viewing.

Honestly, I think having the death counter buffs set so low and combining that with lots of mobs with constant mem shuffle is what is the most frustrating part of CoE. There have been lots of challenging fights in previous expansions where you've lost entire groups 2 or 3 times during the fight (Roehn Theer for example) but still recovered. However it just seems like with CoE, there isn't much breathing room. It seems like we get 3 or 4 rough pulls where the wrong people get ported or the mem wipe boss picked the mage group healer to faceplant and AE'd the mage group down, etc, etc, and then you get the 1 pull that lines up right and you win.

The randomness of the mem shuffle just leads to frustration. All 3 of your tanks can end up in the bottom 6 forcing everyone to pop temps/saves to give them time to climb back up, and then 10 seconds later it happens again but everyone has blown all their emergencies/snaps. It really seems like dps has become the key to winning everything now. Kill it before you run out of oh crap stuff and go through too many cycles of the fight mechanic where randomness and lady luck screw you.

I understand wanting to prevent zerging mobs, but there just doesn't seem to be very much wiggle room in current content for bad luck. A single bad round in the first 10 to 15% ending in 2 death buffs and you might as well start over instead of fighting another 10 minutes just to see the mob power up at 30% from natural attrition of 1 to 2 players per event cycle.

Pretty much 95% of our wipes happen to reaching the death limit and powering up, not from the actual bosses abilities. I kind of miss fights where you could survive some rough starts or bad luck with some quick dirges ressing or using some miracles.

I did it all the time on my brawler, maybe its just because i never had such bad luck to go down to the 22nd position regardless, mantis leap rescue staggering blow and i have it. Staggering blow is on a 40 seconds timer and my guard has never had issue with mem-wipes so maybe im just crazy, you know lol.

Well I experience the same thing from time to time, sometimes I get it back with just Recapture/Rescue or Recapture/SA+CoTW but sometimes not even Rescue/Recapture/Sneering and Cry do anything (except get me to 68%). So it really is luck; which is a bad thing, some luck great it adds an unexpected element, but one that is as reliably bad-luck as a Memshuffle is... no, that's just annoying, workable, but annoying

I think its safe to say most people have burn out. Back in June of 1999 there were 20 of us playing Everquest. Fast forward to today and I am the ONLY one still playing mmorpgs and to be honest I am burned out myself. The only thing keeping me going is I made a guild and I have been leveling it the last 3 months.

I haven't been trying to kill the levels because I fear what's coming down the pipe. The guild is 66 now, I need to find something else to do in game before the guild hits 95. Or I doubt I will be playing much longer after the guild hits 95.

I think you just said it yourself....LUCK. I think that is what Atan and others have been trying to say.....too much RNG involved in these 'encounters'. Gone are the days of being able to squeak out a win in the face of a certain wipe. Now its all or nothing....you either smoke the mob or wipe due to some random combination of bad events. That is not fun or challenging IMO.

Also, I would hate to be a raid tank in CoE with the memshuffles......if the dice do not work in your favor.....no matter how good you are you can still end up looking bad.