General gameplay, transparency and rng madness!

There have been lots of vocal pleas across discord to change some recent decisions or desperately for more information around introduced or changed features and mechanics. This thread aims to bring all of those key themes into one spot and I invite my fellow adventurers to add/expand here, but please keep it constructive! Please don't shoot down each other's ideas or suggestions, but add to them, the more ideas the merrier

• PQ's - Need to be reconsidered with the reward system. The pot-luck approach of BiS items is beyond frustrating. If PQ's are a desired feature (personally find them boring but do them out of necessity, they require no skill, no team work i'd rather see the PQ loot in heroics) please put the loot table onto a PQ merchant and allow us to grind X amount of coins/tokens to purchase those all important BiS items. The loot table is not of equal value, so it would make sense that lesser/standard rewards are a nominal amount and a higher (but achievable!) price tag for the celestial items. Whilst I have absolutely no doubt that some players received a wealthy amount of celestials during the 'higher' (LOL-btw) drop rate for 2 months... this was not for everyone. I dread to quantify the amount of PQ's I've ran since launch, at least a couple everyday and weekends much much more to receive 1... yes 1 in 100's (if not 1000's) of PQ's. I shall hold my CHAIN shoulders (I'm a Fury!) high with pride as they sit to rot in my bank unusable. I may not like PQ's, I would very much rather be in heroics playing properly with others but if they must persist..... make the rewards obtainable for all through effort and not 'if-but-maybe' *blows on lucky dice*.
• Class balance - What happened?! I'm not quite sure where to begin in truth, things most definitely don't feel balanced or level. I'll let the BL's and Rangers and Clerics rise up to share their discontent and frustration of investing in their toons to be left so so far behind others.
• Prestige AA - An overhaul and promise of shiny new things was welcomed, but there has been just no communication of how they work, how they should be spent. It's honestly been dumped in, left for us to figure it out... until somewhere it was deemed 'We won't say how they are spent and used... Oh but not like that' where changes are brought in to 'fix' something, when we don't actually know what 'working as intended' actually is?! At release the AA's where promised to be obtainable for all, with multiple routes/path ways to unlock and earn those AA's when in truth.... they are hidden and locked behind achievements such as 'completing 20 weekly missions'.... I feel for anyone late to the party or returning later as they simply won't earn those until NEXT EXPANSION.
• Raid rewards - It's entirely tiresome week after week, desperately chasing upgrades for a raid character and praying for something usable to drop. I've earned my weekly, I've cleared the content with my guild and my 'rewards' for the last 6 weeks have been; several sets of shoulders (the raid quests are better), charms (the solo achievements are better) and weapons I can't equip. We know a merchant can 'check tiers' before rewarding a weekly update and again to purchase the box so why can't we put that loot table onto a merchant. The merchant can check what tier is available to you (we know you can do it!) and you can choose how to spend your coins. Not all rewards are equal, so should vary in price but still be achievable. A clear and obtainable goal and something to work towards.
• Raid rng loot box - The introduction of the purchasable loot box is a fabulous example of how quickly things can go from an 'idea' to BANG implemented! But it's just not what's needed. Let's be honest here, it was brought in to 'help your alts' but guilds are using it to gamble and pray for their mains. Logging in to see swarms of people hurdling around a merchant to buy a lucky dip box .... how is this engaging gameplay?! You want us to spend our raid currency (or any currency for that matter) put in a merchant with items, let us go and grind, farm and EARN the items rather than relying on the role of a dice. The box is a fabulous demonstration that, things can be introduced quickly (which is awesome!), that tiers can be 'checked' as the box will only reward you up what content you're in so the same can applied to a merchant. Heck keep the rng box for those loons who love to gamble on there too. For 66 coins you have a chance of... but for 500 coins you can buy this shiny celestial guaranteed (4 weeks of weeklies seems FAIR and REASONABLE)

Initiatives to support a more alt-friendly experience - because right now they are left in the dirt!
The basic premise to improve alt viability (and also provide a line of support for new/returning players) is to allow ‘main character achievements’ to unlock the rewards for alts on the same account. It does not undo the effort required, grinding and questing will have to be done on a character on the account. (This has been done previously in expansion like PoP!) As a player most are willing and able to earn, grind achieve key updates for our character but currently we are restricted to that achievement/reward to the character that completes. This restricts the ability to play more than one class (lot’s enjoy the variety it brings) plus for those of us raiding we often have to fill class gaps to enable guilds to raid and find that all important class balance. Alt unlocks still require hard work, effort and time played it just offers a more flexible approach and would improve ‘quality of life’.

• Green adorns – When a character starts out, particularly a new/returning player most will rely on the free gear crates at the starter zone to provide enough supplies to ‘survive the quest line’. The green adorns included in the box are BoL (which is perfectly fine) however they are level 1 and ONLY level in BoL solo zones, having them in the crate gear at level 10 would really help support the stat gap for new/returning players and alts.
• Green adorns as tradable – Green adorns are no-trade when dropped (making these heirloom would be fab, they used to be free trade completely). Once levelled and replaced due to an upgrade earned it would be really helpful to be able to trade that levelled adorn to an alt on the account (again the hard work has already been done, we are just recycling!) currently replaced adorns are destroyed as they are no-value, no-trade and well just useless.
• Mount/familiar baubles – A lot of time, effort and often cash goes into levelling mounts/familiars and trying to do that on more than just a main is extremely difficult. Introducing a token or unlock once your main characters mount/familiar reaches max level would allow an alt to use (eg. Heroic currency) to purchase a bauble that would then level their mount/familiar. The hard work isn’t being taken away, both have to be achieved on the main first but would really help make alts viable. Familiars & mounts make up a significant amount of stats and really do go a long way to making an alt viable.
• Gear unlocks – BoL got this so so right, it was honestly perfect! Please can we revert to the system previously used, a piece of armour drops and once looted will also provide an unlock for that tier & slot. (ie Solo pants drop, unlocks all solo pants for the account) This also provides opportunity for alts to spend heroic currency (which can be transferred from the main if needed) so even when unlocked it’s not a handout, it’s earned.
• Adorn unlocks – PoP introduced a fabulous adorn unlock feature which was a huge step to making alts viable. Runes/adorns are relatively rare so require a decent amount of grind to get the right ones, being able to also get spares for an alt is incredibly difficult. PoP adorns once looted provided an unlock for that specific adorn for the account, meaning an alt could then purchase (for currency, plat and status).
• Previous Adorns rewards – Towards the end of BoL blue adorns where added to the currency merchant for raid/heroic currency allowing alts to purchase key adorns without completing the achievement directly. It would be fab for new/returning or alts to be able to purchase this with current currency (could the be added to the RoS currency merchant?) Otherwise we have returners/alts having to go back into old content to make their characters viable now.
• Token mission rewards – purchasable Celestials & full loot table for solo, PQ, Heroic, Raid. In place of the pot-luck/rng of mission rewards a token system would make rewards worthwhile. Not all loot in those tables are of equal value so there would have to be a scaling amount of tokens required to purchase (otherwise we could everything once and kit out in celestials). A modest and ACHIEVABLE amount for those top end rewards would give players both reason to run the zones and a clear goal to work towards. (eg 14 daily heroic missions would yield enough tokens to purchase a celestial). It still requires effort, it encourages people back into the likes of heroics because they see it worth while and also creates a routeway to provide rewards for alts (Tokens would need to be heirloom)
• Ethereal currency – (Probably over asking here but hey!) Ethereals are a fab way to keep players engaged through the summer months and leading up to an expansion launch, but we very much create a significant stat gap for anyone who misses this, alts who weren’t able to farm the currency or new players. Whilst there should absolutely be incentive for players who stay active during summer it would be great to have a way to achieve at least some of the items. There are a few options to bridge the gap whilst maintaining incentive/rewarding those who do complete the Ethereal Events. Make the currency heirloom (why was this even changed- it was originally heirloom!!). Rollover Ethereals into the next expansion, allow them to be earned still but scale the value down, for example if during the Ethereal ‘main event’ you can earn 200 coins per week, once expansion hits keep the event live but reduce the weekly limit to 50. You could also make less of the Ethereal items purchasable post-launch, this rewards those who play non-stop whilst allowing new/returners/alts to purchase ‘some’ of the key items.

Please remember, be kind and fair when replying here. My thread is in the hopes of change (yes i'm an optimistic loon). If you where lucky on day 1 and dripping in celestials I salute you, but don't hate on those of us who have been grinding and working away too without those dice

Ryver'Fish

I agree with every single one of the points above. The account unlocks would be a great start.
My Inquisitor would love to be viable again but in all the years of playing she's only been FoTM for about 3 expacs .

One thing I'd add would be to stop putting so many fail mechanics in Heroic zones. I've been playing since launch and heroics were largely fun to do and you could carry some undergeared people/noobs as the zones were forgiving. Hardcore raid strats were left to raids. People ran heroics with PUGs and it wasn't horrible. You met new people and made friends in PUGs. You laughed at the horror stories but they were bearable as even with those you still mostly finished the zone. There were a couple of BiS items on the loot table that kept people running them through most of the expac.

They're now mini raids and horrible. I like raiding strats when I'm raiding. The game used to offer other playstyles which were more inclusive. A friend talked to me about returning to play last week - when I explained what they would need to do they decided that they'd rather spend the money and time on something else. I feel the current approach will cause more players to leave and makes returning really hard

Yea I agree with this, the old Coldain PQs were great fun as there were stages and actually things you had to do to complete them. I have no clue why there was not an armour merchant this time around, it was a great way to start to gear up an alt but still left you gear to collect that made playing them worth doing.

Aye, and one more thing:
Charmed pets need to start doing like 5-10% of casters damage imo.

I so agree with all your well-structured and positive criticism and viable solutions.
I also agree about the Heroics. When raiders are struggling with them, where is the content for people who like to group on new content but don't want the challenge level of a raid? Some of the solos are still problematic enough for SOME classes (class balance again ...) that people are having to duo them without them rewarding anything that isn't going to be salvaged...
Would it be too much to mention Mystics here?
Can't help myself...
Shaman ...the defining pet class in EQ1 now in two flavours both with a fluff pet ...the shame!
AA utilities don't make up for a good solid canine companion that can hold his or her own!

I do agree with above! Well said Ryver!

If I would have been able to run 5 heroic weekly's before they fixed that achievement, I would have 4 more aa's now.

I do feel sad that I must use raid coins for gearing up alts who never will be raiding anyway, while main will still need those raid coins in the future.

I do like to play other characters than just my main, but atm it's not really possible since they have no decent gear at all, only some solo gear. Since it's a pain to find a heroic group (1) need to be a strong group so you can finish zone and (2) need to have alot of time for being able to clear some zones, I can't get heroic gear to gear my alts.
And yes I know raid qst unlocked shouders for alts, but again: just shoulders and again need raid coins which I need on main later. Even so: we need to remember not all raid!

I know the game is alot about grinding etc, but atm it's not even possible for many ppl to "grind"' heroics to get any armor upgrades at all with solo gear on. It's almost still impossible to carry a char with low armor into heroics and actually finishing those heroics. Also seems to be needing voice for most heroic zones too.. not that easy in a PUG...

It used to be fun getting loot in heroics because if your current char couldn't use it, atleast it was unlocked and your alt could buy a better piece thanks to that drop that looked useless first.

The chance of ppl able to finish the achievement of completing all collections in RoS is only for a very few lucky ppl: since barely any heroic runs at all.. and if you're lucky to run one, all still need the no-trade of course IF it already spawnes...

Yup, totally agree, especially about ethereal coins. I started playing BoL at end of August, and didn't have a chance to earn enough coins to upgrade all my items, nevermind buying the Sol Ro spell upgrades.. I was happy to run the old heroic weeklies to earn more coin when this expansion dropped, but now that's gone, and have no means of getting upgrades to my spells. Prices on broker are either ridiculous or books simply aren't for sale. As an example, the warlock Sol spell is on sale on Thurgardin for 50 mil plat for master/gm, and there's only one user selling it. That's just bonkers and unfair to people who started late doing heroics, and didn't have time to stash enough coins. And yeah, unlocked gear was the best thing ever. No idea why that was removed from the game. And yeah, please make those green adorns Heirloom. They are rarer that water on Mars, and if you get one on a toon that has a set already, you're left with no choice but to try to sell it instead of passing it down to an alt... Sad times

Well written and thought out post Ryve, thanks

A few points from me -

PQ's - completely killed grouping by making the celestial drops better than the heroic gear and also making the first few named in each heroic group drop a legendary chest as reward

Class Balance - yes agree, don't even mention the years of torture a paladin has had to endure, many posts raised about this but nothing has been done to improve

Prestige AA - completely confused by these changes, there are also many aa's that are useless now, suspect this is the same for most classes

Raid rewards - in my view, the whole rng for raid and heroic crates is not right and the loot tables look limited, I have stopped spending on the heroic stuff because the drops are so poor, i.e. the same 1h blunt or symbol 12 times out of 20

Love the suggestions you have made on improvements and would support them all, also bring back class specific quests for an item or new ability please, the Sol Ro spell reward was good, I would like to see more of this please.

Gon

nice post, fully agree. especially with the gear unlocks. this was perfect in BoL, no clue why they changed it, very disappointing.

The original poster hits the nail on the head on every single subject.

While there is a lot of other subjects that could be mentioned, the most important one is that we need a paradigm shift away from "character entitlement" to "Account entitlement" as was done with adorns in PoP, Amour in BoL etc.

If we do NOT the ability to make alts viable, change of characters during expansion and MOST Importantly!!! The ability for people to return/start the game will HAVE become possible only via server transfers to freetrade servers, and a hefty investment of additional monetary funds to even have a remote chance of trying to compete or be able to fill your role in game.

There is SO many ways this could be achieved without exploiting ... hopefully we can have an earnest and fruitfull conversation with the powers that be EQ2 wise before its to late.

Regards

I would concur with most of the points made here and thanks for putting it all in one place. I think if I was to say prioritize things:
1. Restore heirloom opportunities for green adorns and such. I cannot fathom for the life of me how a company totally dedicated to pay and win made the incredibly stupid decision to make having more than 2-3 alts to play not possible because of design and content decisions.
2. Make heroics doable for people not in raid gear and dump the dependence on scripting in heroic zones. I'm not saying it should be a pushover, but it's way overdone right now in some instances.
3. Stop everything else you're doing and get the damn AA trees working. Also included are spell recipes for every spell in the game. Some are research only, which IMHO, is ludicrous. If you think a spell no longer has a function (to wit, the Warden's Healing Tree which used to have a decent power regen ability) then eliminate it. Also, update the recipes to the current xpac for tinkered items like the power links.
4. Recipes for items (unless it's a rare used only in raids) should not be dropping in raids. If it's good enough for heroics, it should either be stuck in yet-to-be-seen recipe books or dropped in solo/heroic zones.

A lot of these have to do with using logic when deciding what to load and put in the different zones. Currently, there is no logic for a lot of it. It's comparable to rewarding Grand Prix drivers for winning with a go cart made from a lawnmower engine for their next race. Like that's useful. Or giving your military BB guns when they're about to engage the enemy armed with .50 caliber machine guns.

Agree with all. Alts are important. Think of competing MMOs like FF14 where all classes are compressed onto one character without the need for logging all the time. Sometimes, I don't want to tank, sometimes I want to slack and play bard!

The OP post should be printed out, laminated and plastered all over the developers office and then a scanned image of it imprinted on the board meeting agenda for Jen and all the upper management to see.

That said, the chances of that happening are less than a man finding a lantern inside a black hole...

I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the tone this feedback has been posted in. But we also have to be honest to each other.

This feedback have been shared with developers multiple times since at least PoP and all the player feedback falls on deaf ears. They claim in the podcast that they listen to player feedback. Who are these players and where can one see the player feedback that lead to BoL and RoS and to some degree PoP and CD?

I really do appreciate everyone taking the time to read and the positive support from players, it means alot. (to me anyway)

It's so disheartening to see players support the suggestions but with a heavy note that they have absolutely no faith in receiving a response or acknowledgement from the powers that be at DPG. That said, keep sharing ideas or thoughts ('m ever the optimist) and you never know.
If anyone has any other ideas that I've missed or not accounted for, or ways to improve the suggestions I've made please do add here and I'll update the OP to reflect all your fab suggestions.

Whilst my thread is genuinely with miss-positive hat on, desperately wanting change I am literally at the end of the line. We debated for some time whether to even buy RoS across our accounts (family of Eq2'ers) (We always buy top packs across our accounts because we're more than happy to support the game we love to play - when it's fun) What tipped the scale for us was the friends we play with, so we decided to give it one more try but it's so so disappointing.

The lack of communication, the snarky comments from certain DPG in Discord, the ban-hammers in Discord and the direction of rng-madness I can't continue with. This is my last 'all-in', unless some significant change happens over the next few months I'll hanging up my leather & whips and finding something else to spend money on (we all know it's shoes).

Wholeheartedly agree! OP captures the sentiment of most players I know.

Hey DBG- got a job opening? Hire Ryve!

Lols

well i was lucky with this - i inherited shoes from former player in this game; and now perhaps i will have money to see at what it will become as result, when everything is settled (i'll just wait for next discount).. well.. at least for one of my toons

The points are all good, the only problem with all is that Daybreak has not heard this either. The only one who has an ear for the community every now and then is Dreamweaver but it can't solve everything or play god for us players.

The biggest problem on the part of Daybreak and her dev team is communication with each other and with the player community, there is almost no exchange. The reasons for this are too high ego and too high a level of ignorance. Kritki is welcome here, this addon shows us all what exactly has gone wrong with this company in the last few years.

Why fix things if you haven't even fixed old things, i.e. class balance has been promised by Kander for three years nothing has happened, only one thing that class is broken or AA trees have become useless. Also the Gear Mechanic of the Dev has thought to make a lot of auto attack stats on Gear even though these have disappeared with the AA trees and the forging. Scouts only need Meele stats like wdb dps strikethrough and multi, if you take away these values, you have to get replacement stats that have been missed, here they work without a plan or reason.

You get the feeling DB wants to make a kind of China MMO out of everything Hyprid classes, who can ultimately shape their character through their skill, if that is the case it should also be mentioned and communicated with the community.

Group game is also broken on the EU server hardly any groups go, why is easy to say neither the stats many have for it thanks to the great fixes in the PQ (drop rate is underground), why always this had to be arrived without a concept again. Above all, it is also the scripts where many create problems, for some less for others more not all are high end raiders or hardcore players you should give everyone the opportunity to improve. The fact is that too many things are broken, no matter what class, certain things do not work, unfortunately, and as a veteran player of 16 years I feel sorry for new or lateral entrants who have no or hardly any perspective to date because they get to know a game that has lag Poor 32-bit graphics and an outdated Directx9 have to struggle, and besides the platinum, everything that no new one can afford has changed. Masters runes adornments everything costs millions in platinum, why not buy things with the coins you have learned from Solo Heroic and Raid Content.


ps. @Ryve yep the Bann Hammer is to Strong in the Company why is easy, no one Nobody is allowed to say anything negative, but what you forget will be prevented. All countries will have free human rights in 2021 and may express their opinions widely.

And what Daybreak is doing and doing here is not legal, at some point someone will come and take action against it, then you will have a problem in the company. Anyone who makes mistakes in life or at work must always expect criticism, and this is the only way to change something in life, i.e. improve it otherwise it doesn't work, or the game loses even more people what has already happened after the addon.


For all the others stay save, and happy farming in Game or what ever you guys do.

I wholeheartedly support all the suggestions made by the OP. There is just so much common sense in what Ryve has posted.

I have been around since EQ2 first launched. I recently returned to the game after 4 years away and whilst 'catching up' was mainly fun I have found RoS to be a frustrating disappointment. Whilst I really would like to stay for a good while longer and to lure back some old guildmates I have genuine reservations about making the commitment. I am spoilt for choice when it comes to spending my £££'s elsewhere.

Just about everyone seems to hate RNG rewards, scrap them immediately and allow players to choose their rewards. Fix the AA system, especially the Prestige part which is a complete mess.................in fact just work through the list that Ryve has kindly put together.

I want to be optimistic about at least some of these changes being implemented but, sadly, history suggests otherwise. I would love to be proven wrong!