End game unfriendly to returning player

Then it's time to let it go and be okay with people catching up. That's what's healthiest for the game. Are you able to be carried (or at best semi-carried) without all that extra stuff? Yes. Do most old school players want to come back and get dumpstered for months before they can be great players again? Hard no. There were a couple times over the years where I didn't come back because I didn't feel like spending $500 to catch up and if I can't be top tier (no disadvantages at all) at whatever class I'm playing then I'm not interested. I know I'm not alone in that as I've had friends not come back for the exact same reason.

When coming back to EQ2 right now you're faced with 3 options and must pick 1:
1) Buy only the expansion and be okay with getting dumpstered because you will be behind and there's nothing you can do to get fully caught up aside from spending money.
2) Spend a lot of money and time (the time I'm 100% okay with) to get caught up completely.
3) Come to the conclusion that neither of these options are acceptable to you at that time and go play a different game instead.

I want a larger player base and fair competition. You can't look at the lunatics at the top who are willing to spend the level of time and money I did to stay caught up or to catch back up. Things also have to be obtainable in reasonable time frames for people that are just above average players that try their little hearts out. Boxing everybody else out provides no benefit other than allowing the people that never quit to feel like they're better at the game because they have things that other people don't.

I wont disagree with the options, currently. Those are spot on.

However, the zones can still be done by ftp players. Theyre not quick or glorious, but the content can and will die.

If DPG wants to give mount/merc/familiar reducers, crate buffs, and adorns to folks, cool. That means i can play more alts and not feel like a carry in my peer group because just like you, i want to min/max the character and im unwilling to EVER give them thousands of dollars again and ill get by with whats achievable in game at this point because as you said, the competitions not there now. Nobody cares anymore

Right, the competition for ridiculous contested camping and stuff isn't there. However, there are still players that don't care if they can complete heroics. That's setting the bar too low. There are players that want to be #1. If they're playing a T1 dps, they want to win every parse. THAT level of competition and desire is and always will be there. That's why players need the ability to catch up, so people with a mentality like mine are willing to come back without having to throw money at everything. I fortunately have a lot of disposable income, but that's not always the case for potential comeback players.

Yes, it would. I literally just faced this situation 6 months ago...

Catching up is cool. Being handed the items without effort is out of line. Im not saying an 8 month grind is acceptable. I feel like 2 months or less, depending on the item would be ideal. And absolutely nothing in the cash shop should be unattainable through normal gameplay. The Eth crate buffs are a step in the right direction, but still not fully good enough.

If they could do that, i think theyd see a lot more returning players.

I agree 100%. I didn't think we'd get there, but we did!

I'm an old player and i barely understand this game anymore....
Or its players no matter the server

I don't like complete reset of everything at the start if next expansion. That makes last 3 months or so of the previous expansion pointless etc. We are playing a MMO after all and persistence should mean something. However I still think EQ2 can make returning player experience more user friendly still even though they have made many changes in the right direction with VoV.

I think the biggest problem with EQ2 is how critical mitigation works and how it affect player power. Once you reach a certain potency threshold, you power grows exponentially rather than say linearly. Existing player should have an advantage over new player, say something like 20% or 30% more dps but what we have is 200% or even 300% over new players due to how critical mitigation works. This needs to be fixed and content properly balanced. This will go long way in solving many issues new and returning players will have.

I think many new players will accept being behind veterans in terms of power provided they are making meaningful contribution but right now, they feel useless and this is very demoralising so they leave the game and I think critical mitigation is to blame for this.

I never knew about Arabella until this post of yours. That's why I try to read every one of your posts. This is 3-4 times you've brought something to my attention that I previously had no knowledge of. THANK YOU Sigrdrifa!

Seriously, I would be lost without Sigrdrifa guides and posts. I am very grateful for their posts and help.

If you want to attract and retain returning players, that needs to be something attainable with reasonable effort within a short timeframe and should be a straightforward process. Generally speaking, the more people that play the game, the better it is for everyone involved.

If people come in and immediately get the impression that they can't get caught up entirely, or that it's going to take an excessive amount of time, effort, and frustration, they're going to say screw it and leave, because they aren't invested yet. They need to be presented with a path to get caught up quickly so they can become invested again. When it comes to returning player retention, impression is everything.

If you want to push away your loyal long term players and keep them from returning, you need to ensure that their hard work and loyalty is worth as little as possible, as anyone at all can just turn up when they feel like it and catch up to the veterans in a heartbeat, so nobody is left out, right? Generally speaking, the more you appeal to the lowest common denominator, the worse it would be for a game like this.

If people play day in, day out, learn strats, attend raids over years to make their toon powerful, only to find that noob_01 can catch up to them with a quest line and a couple of bits off the marketplace, well, they're going to say screw it and leave, because there is no point being invested. They need to be presented with long term goals to aim for to give a return on their investment in the form of the feeling of accomplishment with having a notably more powerful character than others. When it comes to existing player retention, impression is everything.

No matter how hardcore or veteran you are, you will eventually leave the game, as you will get old, have real life committment, or burn out. You might come back or you might not.

But let's look at the status of the game, do you see how its player base has been shrinking? How many players does it have now? If the game cannot attract new players or returning players like you when someday you leave the game and come back, the game will die. Do you want to see the game die because you want to retain veteran advantages?

I came back. I am not enjoying it much as the catchup is a dumpster fire but im trying.

The 4 people I used to play with came back and promptly left because of hte require work to do. There is a fine line between starting fresh each expansion and retaining some things from previous. Its the number one reason people flock back to FF14 and wow each expansion, you don't have to grind months in old content to play. You do for achievments and appearance stuff but its not required. This game it is. Obviously im trying to get caught up but I've decided if I can I can, if not. I'll move on once and for all.

Games should be fun, solo grinding month of old stuff isnt fun. It's also not fun for elitsts vets to say "nay nay you wasn't here and I was get over it". Talk about a toxic veteran community.

No so much that I dont want you to catch up. More that I think completing the hardest challenges in an RPG should mean something rather than just frivolously being handed to a player a month later because they decided to play solo. Put them behind all heroic instance clears, t1 raids, w/e. But to expect them un a free loot box on the expansion starter isle kind of negates any reason to bother playing those last 1-3 months. Thats not good for the game either when 20% of your population stops playing because lets say 200 players would feel left out.

I agree, however, I think some of the blame could be on the dev's designing the expansion around having those awards.

I feel those rewards should be more aligned for raid content and not group, by that I mean in order to do h1 weeklies, I shouldn't be reliant on free box adornments that match what you guys worked for last expansion. Group content should be tiered more than it is for people like you vs people like me, not a cookie cutter aspect. However, I also understand the devs work with limited stuff and I'm doing what I can to enjoy it.

I feel a game this old is ready for a reset of sorts, and a huge stat/level squash. I am just not sure the code will allow such a thing.

There is a difference between patches and entire new expansion. All games except EQ2 have fresh start in a new expansion. Nobody is asking for handouts in a patch. I guess the developers have been cocooned with veteran players like you. Look at the status of this game.

I personally dont care what other games do. I dont play them because i dont enjoy them. I guess id rather you not make the game i do play like games i dont play because i enjoy this game.

Maybe you could go play those games instead of trying to make this game WoW or FF14 or ESO or w/e.

If you enjoy those systems so much, why are you here?

There isn't even 12000 player's that have a max character yet, I'm just hoping darkpaw is getting enough cash flow to build an Everquest 3 not just keep the light's on.

There is a very solid business reason for not handing out all the rewards every year. It's quite possibly the reason that EQ1 brings in more money than EQ2 by a significant margin; people like to build things up and invest effort to reap rewards (well that's how the majority seem to work).
The veteran players who've built up their characters over years, and have the tricky to obtain stuff (giving a boost over what a newcomer will have) and keep playing the game are a core and fairly dependable resource stream (i.e. Repeat Customer; in any business, they're well known as being "Your best kind of customer".).
Having that investment in a character and account invokes the sunk cost effect (which predisposes people to keep going with something they've invested time and effort in, rather than simply hopping to the next new thing that comes along).

The Everquest line has pretty much _always_ been built around the "yes, you can come in at almost any point, but you have a lot of questing and learning to do to catch up. The fun is in the journey, not just the end point.".
There are a _lot_ of games that cater to the "We'll rush you to end content", so pushing too far down that path is a risky move. You stand the chance of trivialising the effort put in by the veterans over years, to the point they become disenchanted and do leave. Losing your persistent repeat customers is a heavy blow to business.
This would be, from what I'm seeing in this thread, to placate "new, come to try" players who may or may not persist and become repeat customers (but often stay as short term members and vanish to something else pretty quickly).
If they like the actual game and moreover the community around it, they'll stay (no game modification required). And they'll sink time and effort into it and reap the rewards (and in turn become a 'veteran' player, and engaging in end game content). If they don't like the game, then changing a good revenue stream to appeal to their desire for instant gratification (which often means 'I've had my dopamine hit, time to go and look elsewhere so I can have it again') is a phenomenally bad idea (unless you're absolutely desperate for funds, in which case it's just a gamble; can you sustain a high turnover and reinvent the game and communities to cater to the new demographic, or do you just hasten the end of the business).