Insta-Level 85 (280 AA?) (Heroic Characters)

Pretty much agree.

Low level itemization is an absolute train wreck of inconsistency. It is made even worse due to how fast players can level, with very little actual effort. In the time it takes to harvest enough rares to get a set of master crafted armor, weapons and jewellery, the player could have invested the same amount of time and gained 20+ levels, comfortably, in what ever general stuff dropped as they gone along. And if the player does invest the effort to harvest, they are out levelled in a matter of minutes...

Agreed.

Regarding PQs, they could go a different way, and just outright make them level agnostic... With the PQ's already in place, SOE could start a PQ every 40 minutes. Add another one, and there could be a PQ rolling every 30 minutes, available to everyone, offering the rewards schemes you mentioned. Add a portal system for easy access to PQs (or add PQs to the revamped dungeon finder) and it is a system that could have a lot of potential.

The popularity of PQ type events will always come down to Effort vs Reward (compared to alternative options). The moment PQ's rewards were no longer so lucrative, the inevitable happened.

If SOE slowed levelling down, and gave older content some more bite, the value of older content would grow. But as people cried for years to get the old stuff made face-roll easy (with the exception of mandate, which they are still crying about), I honestly don't see it happening.

The gear from public quests was not as good as Kael or Drunder drops, yet people ran them for 18 months after Velious launched. I don't know how that can be viewed as anything but an unequivocal success. 18 months of life in a relatively static quest that repeats once per hour is almost unheard of in the MMO industry.

Imagine if PQs had gotten the full effort of the entire EQ2 team, making them dynamic and having some AI to them to make them more interesting and change over time? PQs were largely built by one guy (Windslasher) working evenings and weekends with absolutely no buy-in from the then Lead Designer, Rich Waters.

Want to know how good Public Quests can be? They'll be the cornerstone of EverQuest Next.

people ran PQs for more than just the armor

In my experience very few ran the Storm Gorge PQ since it was just plain annoying. Many ran the Ring Wars PQ, and that was mostly for the red adorns that you could get there. Each quest runs every 2 hours, alternating.

It's rather sad doing Ring Wars solo now with no hope of getting a red adorn.

Thats why I said "Effort vs Reward (compared to alternative options)".

For a lot of people, the path of least resistance was PQs, and there is no logical merit to argue against it. PQs did not require luck with winning rolls on gems, did not require the gear checks that Drunder (and even Kael) Heroics required when relevant content, and did not require having to bother to go to all that icky effort of joining a group. A player could turn up wearing mixed matched TSO/SF solo quested armor, hit the encounter a couple of times at range, and let the good times roll (loot for no actual effort). About as easy as it can get.

The day SOE removed the gem requirements from Ry'Gorr crafted armor, there was a new path of least resistance. With such, PQs turned into ghost towns.

Why was SG annoying? Is it because:

1. SG was actually capable of causing damage to players?
2. SG required people to actually know what is going on around them?
3. SG was benefited by following encounter scripting, but not required?
4. SG required some basic intelligence with group design?

RW and SG both dropped the same red runes. The only difference is, one required effort, the other did not. Guess which one was more "popular"?

SG was annoying because it required alot of people (more than just a basic raid that you could put together with random people). so lots were there, it also had lots of mobs coming at once. in other words, many players, many mobs, you were lucky to even be able to move.
and even than it wasn't about raw force, you also had to get that npc to buff up the other npc for him to be even able to take a hit.
it was not a "public quest" it was a "real guild raid" with the lag of doing it public. where RW had fewer mobs, thus less lag. where you could actually do something, it required no help from NPCs (you didn't lag so you could actually tank something) and for the armor rewarded, it was able to be done by people in that gear (or even less)

To say SG was annoying because it required a lot of people, is not exactly accurate.
- RW required a minimum of 18 people present to activate full X4 difficulty. This is still true as of this day.
- SG can be activated full X4 difficulty by just one group. This is still true as of this day.

If any legitimate complaint can be made about turnout requirements, that award goes to RW, not SG. And SG did not need more than 24 people. It just needed 24 people* who could press buttons, and some semblance of group/raid composition.

* Unless a raid guild on server had a group present, basically trivializing the entire PQ.

In addition, you did not HAVE to get the clickies from the Supply Runner, to buff the Siege Marshal. That was just one of the available strategies to defeat the encounter. The buff-clicky strategy was actually optimal, for non-optimal raid configurations. However, most people couldn't be bothered paying attention any time someone tried explaining how it works. That alone speaks for itself.

At least PQs inspired server hardware to get "upgraded" faster.

you seemed to have the assumption that I meant it needed alot of people to start it.
when I meant you needed alot of people to Do it.
a group of random joes could not do SG.

As far as lag is concerned (with the two PQs), even though my system had no trouble with any raid zones prior to and including Sentinel's Fate raid zones, as well as not having any problem over at the Ring War site, even at the lowest quality graphic setting, my system would bog down at the Storm Gorge PQ (even after I changed the setting to not display mounts). I don't know what was causing the lag. All I can tell you with complete veracity is that the lag was very bad at Storm Gorge and not bad at Ring War.
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Regardless, as far as the "Heroic Characters" are concerned, I'm adopting a "I'll-wait-till-it-is-at-least-in-Beta-before-passing-judgement" policy.

SG was only unpopular because it required some thought and leadership. Couldn't just zerg it, or Goredeth would just slaughter everyone and the marshal wouldn't be buffed.

Person A picks up 500lbs
Group A picks up 700lbs
Person A should get reward A+
Group A should get reward B+


My reasoning?

If person A can pick up 500lbs alone then in a group (even just two people) person A will probably (May I have the check?) have put in the most effort.

The catch?

Try coding an AI that successfully puts this example into action. Has been tried and tested but never very successful. Machine learning (one of my graduate classes) was very fun but very difficult in terms of application. Theory was fun Problem is reasoning...do you know of a machine that can reason well? Do you really believe life is a series of incredible nested conditionals and loops? lol In time I see this happening but we have very far in such a short period we should be happy with what we can do and smile as we press on in the adventure that is technology.

The point?

At this point in gaming I would not get too bent out of shape if the effort/risk department does not meet your standards at the present time. Remember grouping in itself is rewarding as you can talk with others and perhaps network ..just a little. May enhance your life ! ......alright I will stop looking like a self-help book

And how do you propose they implement something like this? How do you gauge "effort" exactly? Damage done? Buttons pushed?

All this would do is create an every-man-for-himself situation. Why be a support class at all if the high DPS class gets the best reward for putting in more "effort"? A team works together for a reward and there are many roles to play. Some deal more damage. Some heal. Some have control effects and ramp up the abilities of their teammates.

Isn't this the inherent problem in the broken public quest system? Why would you ever want to apply that to every encounter?

SG was annoying because:

1. It was a lame escort mission.
2. We had to try to keep an NPC alive who could not be healed by healers, or buffed by buffers.
3. We had to get items from another NPC who would run away when we needed him, and not be there when we needed him.
4. the Marshall really should have rerolled as a Crusader. Then he'd have some agro and lifetaps instead of dying when the enemy breaks wind.

The only successful SG runs I saw, were when a REAL raid force of 2-3 groups would pull the names over to one side and tank them normally, while the wimpy Marshall would beat up on a few heroic trash.

Did I mention that escort missions SUCK?

1) Little more than your opinion.
2) The NPC could be healed and buffed by anyone who made use of the Supply Runner. Not very difficult...
3) The Supply Runner did not run away "when he was needed". He would come and go. It was player FAILURE to not make effective use of it when available, and stock up. One single person using the runner clickies, did not suffice.
4) If the Siege Marshal was as weak as you imply, it was player failure to not buff it with effects from the Supply Runner.

I see a pattern... You blame encounter design, when the real fault is player ignorance and laziness. The reality is, it was easy to both heal and buff the Siege Marshal. But alas, it required more than simple face-rolling to do it. A mob (Supply Runner) had to be clicked, then an item had to be used from the inventory. How dare SOE make it so hard?!?

Unlike you, I have witnessed successful SG's where players with a semblance of intelligence, were correctly buffing the Siege Marshal. And with the right buffs, the Siege Marshall was a beast. Arrange for a heal clicky rotation, and the buffed Siege Marshal would not die when an "enemy breaks wind". He could easily tank Goredeth + a rider or two.

I have also witnessed a single group take down the entire encounter. SG could be completed using a strat as simple as tank-n-spank.

Only one thing sucked about SG (outside of lag), and that is people who complain about it, but were too lazy to actually learn the encounter. All SG proven, was that scrubs want great rewards, from an encounter where they only need to turn up and faceroll. Thus, they flocked to RW.

We are both posting based on empirical evidence of actual encounters we experienced. Yet we saw different results. Maybe your server is a parallel universe, where the 6 second casting time on the clicky heal for the Marshall doesn't take longer to cast than it takes for his health to go from 100% to 0%?

In my experience, the marshall always died before the interminably long heal would even finish casting.

No, I am against any encounter that prevents me from using MY character to directly affect the fight, and instead puts me behind the wheel of 3-4 maddeningly slow abilities. I put SG in the same category as Dungeon Maker until they finally put in "play as yourself". This type of gameplay is like putting concrete boots on our characters and telling us to swim. It's like going from a level 95 Ranger with 200% haste to a level 10 Templar and saying "go have fun with combat!". It is not laziness to ask that we have an active role in a fight.

Finally, it is not just my opinion that escort missions are undesirable:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EscortMission
http://www.giantbomb.com/escort-mission/3015-227/
http://www.dorkly.com/article/51153/the-dorklyst-the-13-worst-escort-missions-in-videogame-history
http://www.complex.com/video-games/2013/05/ten-of-the-worst-video-game-escort-missions-ever/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_124/2644-Escort-Missions-Suck
http://gamerchatter.com/2013/04/08/i-hate-escort-missions-unless/
http://www.complex.com/video-games/2011/03/worst-escort-missions/
http://www.leelaughead.com/2012/06/05/on-escort-missions-and-why-they-dont-have-to-suck/
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...eryone-hates-them-so-why-do-they-still-exist/
http://metro.co.uk/2012/12/09/does-anyone-enjoy-escort-missions-readers-feature-3307266/

I died laughing at this one:
http://www.cracked.com/video_18319_every-video-game-escort-mission-ever.html

Did you actually check any of those links to see if they are relevant? Clearly not.

After reading a few of those articles, which you clearly grabbed from Google in just a few seconds, all of the games being complained about, are solo-player, or solo content. And in almost all of them, the NPC is exceptionally weak, with no capacity to be buffed up into an absolute beast like is possible at the SG PQ. Thus, your dislike for SG is nothing more than your unsavory opinion.

In addition, you are doing it wrong if you think you're character does not affect the outcome of Storm Gorge. Once again, you blaming poor player skill on game design. Nothing stops you from using some clickies on the Siege Marshal, among doing DPS/Healing/Buffing etc. You try to make it sound like you are only able to do one, or the other... Which is very misleading on your part.

Not to mention, the perfectly viable strategy of engaging the entire encounter head on, with no interaction from the NPCs... That was not nearly as hard as you make out, either. Sounds to me like you just run with unskilled company in EQ2, and would prefer to blame encounter mechanics. With all that taken into account, your comparison to Dungeon Maker (original) has no actual merit.

You're complaining because people could not turn up, face roll, and win. Why am I not surprised...

using the heal was a bad choice for SG in general. probably why you let him die. I remember back than the "secret strat" to winning was just having 24+ people get the "Mug of Might" which stacks, and put it on the marshal until he is as tall as the wall he stands infront of. it was a "quick get the mug and use it and you can even get a 2nd one to use if you are fast enough"
I still say SG sucked to how much lag it made, and how uncontrollable it was. where RW was no lag and much easier control.
It doesn't have to be faceroll easy as other people are saying the complains are about, but SG was just a bad design in general

The server lag on Oasis, when RW was new, was clinical. SG was marginally worse, but both lagged (server side). After the server upgrade, the lag at RW and SG was significantly improved. People with slower computers may have struggled at SG, but Oasis had a great crew of semi-regular PUGgers that made short work of SG. Seems like not all servers had this type of player participation/competency.

And the Mug was great, but having a few other people using the other clickies (heal among them), was icing on the cake. Point is, there was multiple ways to deal with the encounter, and the Siege Marshall could be turned into an absolute beast. It was a long way off being anything that resembled the typical "Escort Mission".

you seem in denial about how the PQ was bad. cause you keep acting like people calling it bad was people that want it easy. which is not the case. it was bad just because the design was awful. the objective was bad, the chance of success was the flip of a coin really. it had nothing to do with people of participation or competency and Oasis was a bad server of both anyway.
I for one lead many pug raids during the time that was successful, although I forget what server I was on at the time. but SG was just a poor design in general. and it was a typical escort mission, as if the marshal died you lost, it had nothing to do with your raid force, your raid force could all be at 100% health and power doing just fine and than bam, you lost.

that would be just like you going to fight Boar in PoW and this npc is there and if the AoE kills the npc your whole raid will just insta die.