Dungeon Maker Changes Coming Dec. 16

I won't miss it too much. Its not that I didn't like it, or run them a lot, its that I am such a stickler for drops to transmute!

Besides, I think it boils down to the fact that no one needed to have purchased dungeon maker to get the experience and SOE sees that as $$$ lost. So take out the experience and maybe they will sell more heroic characters? The new direction is the "bottom line" despite what they may claim it is.

I noticed and commented on there lack of response. In response my post was removed and I recieved a personal message instead. Basically don't post unless its constructive advice is what I was told.

This makes me really angry. I just recently bought this feature, now it's going to be free - not to mention useless. Like many others in this thread, I want a refund.

I find it very funny that SOE doesn't want people power leveling using the DM, but they're okay with someone spending $35 to get a level 85. This combined with my disappointment about the expansion really makes me want to go F2P.

In 8 years of playing, this is my very first reply on any of the forums. I regularly read the forums to stay informed, but nothing has ever prompted me to reply like the wording of this letter has. There are a lot of changes SOE has made that I like (ie, the upcoming changes to the AA) and a lot I don't like. Either way I usually just roll with whatever the change is and play on. The berating tone of parts of this letter has really struck a cord with me though.


I really don't care about the changes being made to the Dungeon maker. I don't use it enough for it to personally affect me. Besides, I think we all knew it could be used as a way too overpowered way of leveling. I am a little shocked at the way SOE is going about this however. I am having some trouble understanding why experience gained in other zones can be adjusted, but not in the dungeon maker. (I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't understand that. I hope someone can explain it.) . Regardless, players are always going to find a way to PL. If not in the DM, then it's going to be in another zone... one that probably takes away mobs from players who might actually need them for something. (I've always hated fighting for mobs with 2 other groups in the same zone as you trying to grind out levels. DM was a nice change from that actually.) SOE is going overboard here.


For those of you who don't like PL'ing, you don't have to do it. If you don't like that other people do it, I don't really care. A typical day in the life of me goes a little something like this... Wake up at 5 am. Get ready for work. Get kids ready. Take kids to daycare/school. Go to work. Get off work. Get kids. Start dinner for family. Do dishes. Straighten up house. Throw in grocery store trips and laundry on various days. Get kids ready for bed. And FINALLY, I get time for myself. I think I'm like a lot of other people in the sense that we are busy. What I choose to do with the time I do get for myself is play this game. My husband and I do it together a lot of the time. Oddly it keeps us bonded.


That being said. I hate questing with a passion. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! I want to spend my precious free time doing the things I enjoy. Most of that is endgame stuff. I love the new heroic zones (they've been very challenging and entertaining... poor, poor Littlefoot), raiding, events like moonlight enchantments and of course Frostfell But if I have to be forced to level all my toons through questing, well... I don't think I can do it. That would be more like work than fun for me.


I think it's been said before, we all enjoy different aspects of this game, so why does the way you choose to level and play have any bearing on anyone else? What did the letter from Holly Windstalker say? "Additionally, players that level through the content instead of DM were feeling cheated for not taking advantage of the experience exploit while their friends were already at max level, thus diminishing their enjoyment of the content." Do you know what this reminds me of? The other day, my daughter was crying because her brother had more ice cream than she did in her bowl. (He didn't really, but you know how kids are.) She cried and refused to eat and enjoy her ice cream until I finally just took it away... which of course made her cry more. Thats what that reminds me of.... children crying over something stupid that is all in their head. If those people enjoyed the questing, why complain? If not, why not join a DM group or another grind group to get to the "fun" stuff faster? Additionally, this is completely hypocritical as people could pay to level faster than other people in a sense. (Wasn't there two different launch dates for the expansion after all?) If the bronze / silver members had said, "My enjoyment of the content is diminished because the all access members have been playing the expansion already and are all leveled up" we would all just say "Well, you could have paid to be an all access member". (By the way, I am in no way saying you should take questing out of the game because it dimishes my enjoyment of the game. Other people do love it and I'm not petty enough to want something taken out because I don't like it.) It's about the choices.

The other line in this letter that "annoys" me is this: 'We fully understand that this might annoy some of you that have grown accustomed to having this easy button to push for experience, but that’s not the game we desire to create nor the entertainment experience that a good MMORPG tries to provide.' You can't rebuke people for using 'easy buttons' when you sell 85 heroic toons, experience potions, grandmaster spells and all kinds of other goodies in the marketplace without sounding hypocritical. Power leveling is not an easy button. It's a way to get to the part of the game you enjoy without wanting to quit the game of boredom.


That was a bit longer than I thought it was going to be =/ .
If any of you stuck around to read the whole thing... thanks for letting me get that out!

Than you Sadee, very well written. I seem to be having a lot of my posts deleted lately when i voice actual management style positions so I appreciate the time you put into yours. You stuck to the gaming issues and were very concise. As an "older" player with a career that is very involved in customer service (on all levels, customers, vendors and staff) I find it hard to remove that side from my thought processes and here it tends to get me into trouble. I tend to have high expectations in that area. Thank you for posting what I wanted to say, while leaving out the items that are too controversial.

Long time player here (since EQ1 launch) - "new" account for posting. I'm usually pretty quiet about the changes that get dropped on us - after all it is a game and I do have a life. But dangit - I love this game and I've gotta speak up when part of what I love is being damaged. I don't use DM to level - I use it to get fluff and quick mounts for my crafting toons. Occasionally I'll do a real quick 25/8 run for loyalty tokens when I am pressed for time. I've only created about 10 DMs, but have visited 100's for something "different" from the normal grind. I've run a few very boring "stacked" Dungeons to finish off a level (81 to 82/91 to 92) so I could upgrade armor quicker, but I find those grinds tedious and boring so won't do them any more than a couple times - It's just not my personal preference. I will say though that my only HoF Dungeons are "stacked" DMs so I understand some peeps like that play-style.

My own personal opinion - If people want to rush through to end-game without enjoying the vast content out there - fine by me. It get's them out of my way when I'm trying to enjoy the sights and find my quest mobs. Without DM - those same PL players are going to be "in my way" farming as many kills (that I need for progression) as they can take in each go. Those players aren't going to go away when they get kicked out of DM - they're gonna be in your face and inconsiderate because they need those kills more than you so they can level up quicker. They need a place to level quickly without ****ing others off. /end opinion.

If SOE wanted to "fix" DM, it would be an easy enough process without nerfing everything.

Some suggestions:
1. Make creators unable to stack mobs. That alone would fix 90% of their issue. Less Mobs = Less EXP/Marks.

2. Cap XP and DM per Player Made Dungeon Run. Again - Less XP and Marks. For this one it'd be nice to have a random reward chest upon completion (scaled to difficulty of course)...

3. Set timers on DM Dungeons. 18/6/2 hour lockout timers would stop endless PL Runs and encourage people to visit other people's Dungeons.

Other people have posted other fixes that would work just as well - all of them better than SOE's sledgehammer approach.

To the Dev's: Listen to what the peeps here are saying - let's fix this thing - not throw it away.

Yes when I bought it less than a month ago, there should have been a warning that this feature was going away. You can't tell me they didn't know it then and should have warned new purchasers that it was pointless to waste their money. But then again SOE never shows any real love or respect for the FTP players.

I'm sorry to inform all the ppl who have given truly wonderful ideas about fixing the DM feature, but sadly you must have missed the part where they said they didn't WANT to take the time needed to make such changes. So they are going for the easy fix and to hell with ppl who paid good money to buy the feature

Exactly this. I know the OP said they don't intend to fix/update the DM, but it seems that many would like for this to happen, and I would like to ask Holly and whoever else is involved with this decision at SOE to please reconsider their position on the matter. It seems that more people care about DM than SOE initially thought.

I got a survey about this expansion a bit ago from Sony, this is what I told them...I logged into a secondary account to do it because I have no idea what happens when you make them mad on the forums because I don't post. Pardon the run on paragraph, it was a copy/paste from the comment section and that left no real room for paragraphs and I hadn't had coffee yet. Oh and I do pay on my other account, paid up for a year so I stick around until at least when my year is up. (I am guessing the survey means they want opinions, just probably not out here as to rile the minions)

Your game drove me away because you had to have a group to play in 2005, I came back last year for a more serious effort after I discovered how easy it was to molo, decorate and boy I sure missed the crafting. I brought back a few strong gamers I played with over the years in Wow that were both EQ2 vets. I bought your Collectors ED to support the game because it was really expensive but I know this game needs support, but every post that takes something away that I enjoyed to help progress my million alts *expletive* me off and makes me regret the decision to support a game when the game isn't supporting its fan base. I have never rushed to a level cap in DM but once you have done areas a million and a half times and the areas have such nerfed exp to begin with (look at my account, I have so many alts), its nice to have options for a level or 2 here and there such as that stupid Dungeon Maker I paid money to be able to use. Granted, people are abusing it but so what, cutting it off at 95 seems fair but pre 95? Your base paying fan base seems very loyal (what little you have left) and MMORPGs seem to be a dying breed. Its very sad to see, I played wow for 9 years steady and their community has declined and drove me back to EQ2 and you have a WONDERFUL community of helpful people, a pretty game that works for what you have left, the most awesome crafting system and everybody loves your house decoration system but somebody keeps messing with the little things. 90 bucks for a CE? I SOOOO regret that decision. I really felt helpful and supportive at the time but after thinking about it and seeing all the ways somebody higher up keeps poking the supporters with nerfs, I see that this game will eventually die as people get angry and move on. You do realize that there are so many other gaming outlets nowadays, most notably tablet aps and they require such little money and time investment. MMORPGs aren't the thing anymore, these people stick around for something specific your game is offering them.

I don't think we missed it so much as we are just pushing back against SOE pushing their easy button. Our standards for them should be the same as their standards for us.

As far as fixes, the first thing would be address the mob density. As it is now, a DM layout can hold 2,000 items, all of which can be mobs. The devs should know, or be able to to calculate appropriate caps for placed mobs based upon their designs of the parent dungeons. If, for example, the average mob density of a room in Mistmoore is 20 mobs, then a Mistmoore layout should not allow more than 20 mobs in a single room. If you have a 9 room layout, this would put the total mob cap for that layout at 180 mobs. This would require mobs and decorative items to be split up, but that should be possible. They already split items/mobs from building blocks.

By limiting the number of mobs in the zone, amount of rewards would limited automatically. Killing a level 95 solo mob in DM or a SOE zone yields the same amount of xp, so I really do not see how the current per mob xp gain is an issue. The issue might be that characters at the lower end of DM get the same amount as higher level characters. I thought I read somewhere that LAD dungeons already adjust xp based upon character level. This could be adapted to DM as well. Lock out timers could employed, though I'm not sure that they are needed.

Being able to zone into a DM zone from anywhere might be a bit imbalanced. Maybe have the zone in for DM instance outside the parent dungeon, something similar to prestige homes in Qeynos and Freeport.

Yes, this would tied up some of valuable dev resources. However, their change to DM will ultimately change nothing. It does not change the fact that players felt that DM was the best way to do it to begin with, rather than AoM content. As mentioned before, players will often take the path of least resistance. That's really just human nature and applies to RL as much as any game. It also does not address the fact that players are going to reach the end of dev made content faster than devs can turn it out. That is the nature of the beast that is MMORPG. Below is an interesting link to a blog post by Smedley on the subject. I say interesting, because it is contradictory to SOE's move with DM.

Just some thoughts /shrug. By already making DM free and allowing everyone to cash out their tokens this weekend, they pretty much made their decision irreversible.

http://smedsblog.com/2014/02/11/the-sandbox-mmo/

Does "Standard decorating items" include ALL of the decorating items from the marketplace? I'm wondering if I need to buy any before they are removed, or just spend my leftover marks on other things.

Yeah, I hate to say this, but your original hate-filled post regarding players that "exploited" the features of DM sounds like a huge misdirection. You're upset that players decided to use the DM "easy button", rather than pay a large sum for your own "easy button". Let's call it what it is please, and not insult your customers - the dwindling amount you have left.

Considering that players have used DM as an "easy mode" for a few years now, it really isn't anything new. They've known about it for quite some time. Again, they're likely angry because fewer people are BUYING their way to the top-end level tier because they're using DMs to do it instead.

+1 to the above
I for one actually welcomed DM's , not because i used them much (other than for the odd item from the tokens) , but because they took all the PL- ing bottom feeders into nether-nether land away from the real content. You've just forced them back into the real world tagging behind a high level SK again, and destroying what little resemblance of normality we were clinging onto in normal content. The few levelling players that tried to make an effort have just been given the elbow from instances, or run the gauntlet of entering a room and suddenly 30 mobs reappear at once in their face.

Amen sister. Well said.

Those are good suggestions, but a portion of Holly's post below indicates they are thinking otherwise:

The few DMs I went through were mainly for how creative people got on them, though I enjoyed the tokens as well. But I never did just run them to get xp or AA. In fact, one of the reasons I quit trying them is that so many of them were the same--lots of mobs to kill, no creativity at all---in other words, boring! Now that they're resetting them so the creative people can re-publish, I can go to the leaderboard and pick one to enjoy. I hope they find a way to reward the tokens again so we can buy the cool mounts or house items. One of my favorite DMs I used to go through was one with a Donkey Kong and other games theme to it; it was fun to go through and I got a few tokens for my time.
But I would rather level up doing content and exploring the game than running through the same boring DMs day after day until I am capped again. I'm already 98 through just doing the content and I am only starting on the Kithicor Island quests. People need to experience the content and enjoy all the work that went into, notice the little pieces of lore from Norrath of 500 years ago, and play the game.

<gets off her soapbox>

Maybe after the expansion has been out a for while they will make the aom signature quest-line rewards available to be purchased with loyalty points (as we were able to purchase gear from tov quest-line).

I know how you feel with regard to alts. I have several alts myself and so far I have completed the signature quest line with 2 of them and am doing it with the other 7 in various stages. I really like the signature quest line, but it is really long as you said and that can get a bit rough after doing it several times. Maybe they will do as you suggested and after you complete it one time, then alts can claim mount, port, etc. I can't wait for the druid ring myself. I am guessing they will have an event to construct the druid ring like they have in the past. I always enjoyed those myself.