I am a caregiver and often need to take AFK's (sometimes for hours) with no warning and so for large parts of my playtime, I can't group up. It wouldn't be fair. I was wondering why, having forced us to get our exp in KA zones, there is no completion bonus for solos and advanced solos, but there is for heroics? I wouldn't expect it to be as much, but nothing? And there are relatively few mobs to kill in the zones as it is... Also, I wondered if anyone has any advice on where is best now..?
I'm pretty sure I did get the completion bonus of about 250k from the advanced solo quest for shrouded temple. I think the solos currently are not giving the bonus xp, however. Kander did mention something on discord that the advanced solos and solos were being looked at with the goal being easy ascension maintenance.
The 'older' advanced solo are still giving good xp. Yes, the encounter xp for killing the mobs is gone, but most of the xp in the (previous expac) AS zones has always come from the missions (the zone quests and the timed quests) and that hasn't been touched.
the problem is the current exp changes where not balanced for soloers they where balanced for top end people wit the best gear grinding tithe. They made the mistake many games have in the Past. Balancing things around the Extreme Top end of players and not the slightly above average player
Well you have to look at why things like higher end balancing happens. Who do you think a game company wants to keep the most happy? The people who put the most time, effort, and money into the game? Or the more casual playerbase who maybe puts money into the game and puts less time than the hardcore? The top end raid guilds are the ones with many people having maxed out ascension spells already, whereas most of the rest of us are working slowly. The top end guilds are the ones where many people have multiple accounts for heartbound ease. It's where the money is. Think of it this way. ONE ascension spell to grandmaster is more than the price of purchasing this expansion. So ONE person who gets all 8 useful ascension spells to GM is worth 8 casual players who only purchased the expansion. Add to that that the person potentially also purchased a second account and a second expansion. (but that number would be smaller, I think, than the number who put money toward ascension). I still don't see how this change hurts the casual crowd. If anything, it is a benefit to the more casual players, because now they will potentially be able to get tithe faster than before and potentially be able to get their ascension xp drained faster than before. And they already said the xp in solo and advanced solo will be increased. If you're a solo player, tithe grinding is not necessary. If you're a solo player, getting max ascension isn't necessary. What kind of balance are solo players looking for? None of the changes in this game have ever felt balanced for the casual crowd. Everything is always tuned to the top top players. While I find that frustrating at times, like when my guild got held back from some raid mobs because of the crit change that happened a month or so ago, I do understand why it happens. The elite guilds keep this game alive. If they all quit, the game would quickly die. All that being said, I do hope the experience gets a boost in solo and advanced solo zones. We should get a bit more per kill along with more as a bonus to allow for faster ascension experience draining.
I agree that exp needs to be way higher but to say that the game is balanced around top end players? Absolutely ridiculous. I said this 100 times and I'll say it again, raid gear and heroic gear have never been closer. You don't need "raid gear" (Which btw, in most cases, is not as good as heroic stuff) to grind tithe, nor will it make it faster. You think when new players read misinformation like that, you think they want to start playing eq?. Once more, just because you have less XYZ, it doesn't mean that the person with more had some sort of advantage and /or slighted you in any way. Tithe was an issue for a long time and it had nothing to do with gear. 1 shotting mobs to grind tithe for 8 hours a day was beyond dumb and I'm glad it was nerfed. Now we wait until they increase the curve on solo stuff. I'd love for them to leave ascension exp in contested zones and nerf tithe but, changes were already made. Be patient.
Huge insult to the "average" player. Players in twark gear can sit in contested zones one shotting mobs for 12 hours a day gaining a huge power level over someone who maximizes their toon and min maxes. That right there, is a huge issue. There is no conspiracy to hold you down. Calm down and let the devs do their job.
I think you have some of this backwards in one respect. Top end players with lots of time really don't need to spend a lot of extra money. Its the working casual player with a lot less free time and heck of lot more expendable income that, most likely, spends more to stay at level. IMO, anyway.
Well I definitely agree that there are whales in the middle section as well. These are the people who buy tons of krono and then buy the SLR stuff for millions of plat. So yeah, those people are definitely plentiful. But the top end raiders definitely want to compete, and currently in this expansion, the only way to be at the TOP right now is to have purchased ascension spell levels--at least some of the levels, if not the full 60 dollars worth that I mentioned. However, the top end players are the ones who push the game and need to be balanced towards. If the game is too easy for them, they will leave. So unfortunately, that often ends up hurting the rest of us. Things tend to work out in the long run, so it doesn't bother me too much, other than when it happens all of a sudden. But you have to just kind of roll with it and adapt. From what I have seen, the developers don't always make the right decisions, but they do try to take care of the players where it really matters. Though I don't think it happens fast enough sometimes, and I also think that many of these areas wouldn't ever exist if better testing took place.
Before this discussion becomes hardcore vs casual yet again. Let me state that an extremely well geared raider (AKA the devil/the 1%/elite/snobs) logging in for JUST raids and occasional groups and playing maybe 10 hours a week with extensive knowledge of the class(10 diety) will get slammed into the ground by someone with 60 tithe deity points and heroic gear with 30 hours a week to play. If you don't think that is a problem then I don't know what to tell you. The debates should be logical and coherent. So far, the only logical discussions have been on discord. If it wasn't for these "elite snobs" the game would have died long ago. Not everything is about housing sales. Eq1 has a stronger player base than eq2. Do you know why?. Go visit their boards. Its a cardinal sin to whine about difficulty. Eq1 (20ish?) years old now is doing better player base wise than a game with updated graphics and far more advanced combat/mechanics. I promise you, Eq1 is 10000x more grueling than eq2. Set goals and try to meet them. If something is bugged point it out and we will stand behind you if it is indeed broken. Claiming the game is just "broken" is not useful discussion
well u need a lot of tithe to be able to solo those zones and OS them. true solo is ok, but with my mage if I try to get all the mobs of the room in ossuary, I end up licking the floor before they are all dead. sometimes even before I cast etherflash let devs do their job ... but it's devs who allowed that I did level 4 toons to lvl 100 .. to get ascended, I am playing actively 3 ... the worth .. I was just looging him in to burn xp. a midnight, was going to ossuary, maybe some people running there, getting grouped and we were burning xp and it was was. sure they want us to "burn" xp more actively. but it's getting hard with alts, even harder when u reach 2nd class, and impossible to catch up with 3rd and 4th. but we need more xp ways to burn it. I don't want to do the adv solo zones on my 4 toons every day. ok it's only 30 minutes, but it's repetitive and boring. .. and since I haven't finished epic ... there is still some old zones to run and i won't get any more xp from that .. bugger DBG has earned the alt destroyer title
Prior to this expansion, keeping alts on par with mains amounted to playing your main and passing down gear to your alts. Lock Out Timer on your main? Hey, no problem. Let me camp this Defiler and go grab my Mystic and we'll set up another group. ToT was a blast for this kind of play. We ran daily pugs and LFG was alive. KA ruined all that. Next expansion...lets just drop all the ascension and potency crap and go back to playing a fun game? Assuming I'm still here, of course.
You looking for answer in wrong place. Yes EQ1 have more players no its not 20 years old its more like 18 or so EQ1 have a lot more content (and its always been that way). EQ1 have 2x-3x longer lifespawn for x-pack compare to EQ2 to elaborate Plans of Power remain relevant for next adventure pack and next x-pack. EQ2 always rend previous x-pack useless. Now back to EQ2 problem it been always geared more toward casual (while EQ1 toward more hardcore) and that's how they share same market. In the current stage EQ2 turning slowing into something where you can't progress either w/o spending horrible amount of play time (which is not hard core by any sane mean of it) or w/o leveraging Pay to Win tactic (and I am content with it as long as it stay within reasonable for me limits and game still fun)
There are tons of Casuals in game that simply don't want to raid anymore or would rather enjoy Heroics with their friends. To them, Norrath is about the people...not the loot. Many of these players drop a lot of $$ in game on various items, to support the game. It's fine if the game wants to focus content on end-game raiders. It is also fine if Casuals that feel slighted, keep their wallets in their pocket.
TBH,I don't want to run heroics because pugs blow.They are full of greedy asshats,or can't kill anything.In my guild I'm not the highest dps so I don't get a guild group until the higher dps get tired.I could level up just fine in contested which are now dead.I wish they would have reduced xp needed to level acsension instead of heaping scrolls on me that i can't burn fast enough.You might think the new way is great,I do not,but that's okay.I would simply like to see more leveling options not less.Onev other thing ,not long ago there were more decorators in this game than raiders.
My friend you been lazy! There are few spots (may be many) where you still can burn fast exp. Maximum (post nerf) I achieved around 7-8M/hour - which is not as spectacular as it use to be Ossuary but still decent PLUS I am going to check few more "spots" that likely to be not touched. I am pretty sure with some inventive mind one can push well over 10M/hours w/o even stopping by in KA ..err Odus
