Exactly who was AOM designed for? (Instance Dfficulty)

I consider myself a highly experienced raider and player, but definitely have more to learn. I'm currently raiding in a guild that is ranked in the top 12 worldwide and have done many guild groups in the current content and must say the HP and fail conditions on a lot of the new zones is absolutely ridiculous, the gear and dps requirements to do these zones automatically = a fail in most PUG groups. This is a social game and even though I get great guild groups, I enjoy meeting new people and cranking out content, the problem is most people will not even consider a PUG because you SOE have designed all this content for highly skilled raiders as usual and to be honest the drops in the zones are so lame that most raiders that are actually killing content have no reason to do the zones, so who are the zones designed for?

From my experience as a primary heroic pugger on a single 100 it seems AoM's steep curve was a response to the new Prestige Abilities.

Since there is so much redundancy between the classes and they aren't allowed to make 4 player dungeons they had to make it about the players behind the keyboard and not the inflation.
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In an AoM PUG it seems we need 3 players to have a clue on scripts, a decent/decent tank/heal or an uber/marginal tank/heal or vice versa. As we're all aware some zones require mages, others require DPS that do more than just focus on the tank's target.
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1 player can no longer carry a PUG as was the case outside of VD in ToV. It takes 3 to carry a PUG in AoM outside of Caverns.
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If we count the ferrins needed to 4/4 out a single character in green it seems tuned for a player with a single main character with All Access that heroic groups as their primary activity ~15 hrs a week (not form up, actually running).

With the recent nerfs I think AoM is Puggable by mains but not random PL'd alt #6.

This is because many players you find in PUG's don't know how to read basic things like buffs on mobs, dets on themselves and other basic scripted elements (even red texts - had someone ask in channel the other day how to get Gra'Ta of the Mountain to be attackable in the adv solo...really), but why not teach them? Improve the overall quality of players playing the game and PUG's won't be so fail. Personally I am loving the heroic content because it's not boring turn and burn all the time. More casual players finally have to learn how to play the game/their class properly and learn all the tools they have to be able to kill encounters. Maybe raiders have the upper hand on this a little simply because it's what we do all the time, but why should heroic content always be boring turn and burn mechanics that any monkey can do. That doesn't utilise all that the game has to offer. If people don't want a challenge or to learn basics of the game like watching cast bars, dispelling buffs, keeping mobs interrupted and jousting stuff etc then perhaps they should stick to Solitaire. Many other MMO's have heavily scripted heroic content and I am glad to see SoE have done similar with AoM.

edit: And regarding gear - the content is early yet, maybe if their 20th alt hasn't got the gear yet they should play some other toon until they do...plenty gear gained from greed rolls/mission crate boxes and the Mastercrafted gear is another good way to go. There's really no excuse for poorly geared players to expect to be carried through zones this expansion.

...... and there you have it in two posts.

Raiders like it, good heroic players are saying WTF and mostly coping and casual players are quivering in the corner and wondering why they play this game at all.

The challenge is nice in my normal group, but I did stop doing PUGs since scripts were brought in for the zones. It's not that I am not willing to PUG, it's that I don't want to be forced to voice chat to do PUGs. I was surprised how heavy the scripts were in the entry levels zones. It is nice to have some zones that aren't so harsh on fails for PUGs.

So in short, I agree. I used to group with lots of different people, but my main is a tank and I'm not even thinking of trying to PUG these as a tank, I might try if I level up a mage and can be more passive in the group. But other than that, nah not even wanting to touch them in a PUG.

Next expac is only 10 months and change away, just bear down and make money in the meantime.

It won't be a level cap expac, and the pattern tends to be Fail-Win-Fail-Win on expacs...so grin and bear it, max out levels and AA's, and stock up plenty of rares and cash for the likely Good Expac that will follow.

like i wrote in another topic they should make some kind of school for players

i do PuG on my tank but i'm trying to be a bit picky, after all you can carry 1-2 undergeared players but you can't carry 3 even more with the blue stuff i'm still using.
But i do like to explain zones and get a group trough the zone.

Some sort of how to play class X questline with sertain milestones (500 k dps / 1 milj / 2 milj / 5 milj for conji for example) or HPS for the healers or combo for the fury
There could be books with information, training dummy's, gear checks (like with all yellow you should be able to do X amount of damage with adept spells if your not doing that your doing somthing wrong). I now somthing like this will never be in the game sadly enough becouse it would take so much work to actualy make.

Didn't they remove all the Instant Fail Conditions in Heroic zones last week anyway?

All the zones apart from Inner Sanctum and maybe Temple are a walk in the park now. I did them all this week on a Paladin wearing 0/3 Potent Green armour, and handcrafted gear I upgraded to legendary as it dropped.
None of the rest of the group were raid geared. 2 Healers, bard/chanter/scout.

Handcrafted Jewelery is more than enough to get resists for zones. The issue is people see handcrafted and refuse to use it as it's not Fabled tagged.

See Errrorr you probably went with your guild group which I have found you can do the zones you talk about. But pugs cannot for the most part do these, without significant gear changes from ToV. Heroic Zones that are included in Signature quest should be able to be done by a group doing the Sig quest at the point they are needed. Not after the whole sig quest is done because you went through the solo zone to get it done

Even before the nerf zones were quite doable, but too many people refused to use the new gear with high resistances, mitigation and much more Hps.

People gave too much importance to blue stats and proc, and many ignored mitigation values.
Many time i have been with people with around 500 k hp that that died on the very first tick.

If only there were some way for the devs to communicate with the players, to let them know that the old method of DPSers looking for DPS stats and tanks looking for tank stats had changed, and instead everyone should be a low-DPS/high-HP/high-resist/100%-attention-to-scripts Fortress of Solitude in this expansion.

Like maybe if there was a way, in-game, for devs to send a message to players out-of-character and lay it out plainly, in a place where they all would see it, like their chat windows.

This "Message", could be sent out..."Daily".

Or maybe a system whereby important mechanics changes could be emailed to people in game or something.

I'll speak solely for myself: rather than quivering in the corner, I've simply branched off into caring far more about crafting than adventuring. I strongly suspect that if this expac had been more like DoV & a lot less like CoE, it would be vastly superior for everyone, casuals & hardcores alike.

Somewhat disappointed, but I'm gonna tough it out till 100/maxAA and heroic gear. Bad thing is the learning curve. Feels like I jumped into the deep end after being away from the game for 2 years.

To me it was not so much the mit/resist/Hps. But that you could not do the heroics that the Sig quest sent you to in the quested gear that you are forced to do. Because while using all that, there was still DPS checks in the zones. These zones were tuned to players with well established guild groups that at least 3 had the gear needed. And looking at your Health it is over a million. which none of my group has reached yet with a mix of handcrafted and blue armor

The most common response is failure is a sign that you're doing it all wrong. Well, with so many players complaining that failure feels like the only option, maybe it's not entirely them at fault. Advanced solos feel like too much effort and risk for marginal rewards. If casual player's are too discouraged, then it's just more wasted content.

I consider myself to know what I am doing. That being said, I have to say the advanced solo zones should be renamed to dou zones, as I not finished one advanced solo zone with just me and my merc. The only way I have finished them is if I run with my wife on her inq. We both raided all the way up until current content. I not done but one advanced solo zone and finished it. The heroic zones well I am just going to wait until I can get better resist gear, got tired of being one shotted on my coercer. Not sure who the designed the zones for but they are not fun as they are, even though they been toned down. Also whats the deal we don't get any coin dropped of the bosses in the zone until the very end, not like previous xpac zones.

Asolo may take as long as heroic, and required gameplay is not lower ... So yes better stuff should drop there.

The new areas are very brutal. Hard to move around in without mobs spawning like crazy, easy to die in. So different than every other zone I have done in this game.

Went into the first area with my level 95 inquisitor, in all the quested ToV gear and Mr. Born of Dragons. And after dieing in less than 5 minutes realized this was a very nasty zone. Went in with my froggy beserker, who is better geared with weapons bought at broker that are better than quested, with the new inquisitor merc. (Flew over carefully to hire him.) It took so long to defeat one undead ranger that I realized I could never survive a group of mobs.

Sigh...

When ToV came out, I did all the overland quests right away on my two then maxed characters, that inquisitor and beserker. I really enjoyed it, as the areas were very well designed, and the quests were fun. The npcs had great character development. And I could move about all the floating islands, with sense of course, and not die from being overwhelmed by fast respawning dense mobs.

This new expansion, well, I am glad I have a lot of low levels to bring up. As I have no desire to try and struggle through it and die over and over. Plus I can't afford the rehire fees on my mercs since they also will die over and over. I remember when my son was playing the beta. At a certain point, he stopped using his merc, said it was no point since it kept dying. (Side note: He also has no interest in playing through these new zones, and he really loves difficult challenges. After playing a lot of the beta, he told us to buy him the EQ expansion instead, and has been playing that heavily. He prefers the EQ grind to the AoM expansion.)

So yeah, I am one of those casuals who quivers in the corner and doesn't want to do any of the new expansion content, as I fear it will be too hard for me to handle, even on my froggy beserker with the new inquisitor merc.

The real problem that I see as a "casual" player is with a Signature line that leaves me in the dust after completing it. I finished the line the first time on my Ranger and got him to level 100 doing other stuff since it left him at 98.5. That said, I have the gear upgrades, some master crafted upgrades and spells at expert level. The Advanced Solo still is a grueling and unpleasant experience. That leaves me stuck between a "can do" signature line and "can barely do the easiest Advanced Solo content".

Instead of advancing further (as a casual player) into more of the expansion beyond the signature line, I'm focused instead on crafting which is less frustrating. That's discouraging me from taking my other alternates through the signature quests since I have a feeling they will also be left in the dust when they complete it.

Oh, and the travel. It was fun...well...not so bad the first time. After the first time around doing the signature line I find myself pondering while I need to keep returning to The Isle of Refuge only to be sent back out three islands away to do the next part. Then of course there is the "stretch the content" quests of kill 12, now I need 20 dead, now I could use artifacts for them, now I need the guy leading them dead, now you can rescue my friend there, by the way, could you setup some traps and when you come back grab some bones?

I felt like in ToV you had me running around doing a lot of different things in a lot of places and I could even accomplish Advanced Solo content once I was prepared by doing most the overland content. It was fun and something to look forward too. This feels like playing Word's with Friends against a dictionary.