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

Do you really want to try to herd a cat? Claws and all?

I was actually hoping that today, Tuesday... Patch day....what no patch? Would open the beta for testing GU68.
/sad

they already said beta for the new expac wasn't coming until september 15th

I can't say I understand this line of thinking. There are zones upon zones of great content pre-85. Now that leveling has already been so sped up, much of the content is missed anyway. There is so much to do pre-85 it boggles the mind and, in my experience, confuses new players. Sad, really. They want it all spoon fed. Much easier to be insta-85 and lock oneself in a dungeon, mashing away at spells and combat arts without a clue of one's role in a group setting.

It's sad, but it's reality.

EQ2's biggest asset has been its years of content. This is why new MMOs typically can't compete, even though they have better graphics and feature sets. This should have been realized, and steps should have been taken along the way to protect and preserve the value of EQ2's years of compelling content, but due to a revolving door of producers, and the inaction of a former lead designer, very little was done to keep the level 20-70 content relevant. In fact, steps were taken that made it less appealing.

Crafted gear was boosted in power twice, such that it replaced all dungeon drops. Then itemization was revamped so that everything was linear and boring. Then the last vestiges of heroic encounters were turned into solo content. Add in mercs, and grouping up in low level dungeons is an unrewarding experience in EQ2 because the enemies just die by the roomful with absolutely no challenge at all. And time spent in these low level dungeons does not have any meaningful improvement for your character. It feels like time squandered because when you get to 90, you'll be throwing away all that gear and gearing up all over again.

Earlier in this thread, I laid out my plan for what I would do to revitalize the content in EQ2 and solve these problems. They would be controversial changes, but no more controversial than handing out level 85 to anyone who wants it. I would quadruple the difficulty of all 20-70 heroic content. I'd add level 90+ rewards (tokens and rare adornments) to level 20-70 content. And I'd multiply the XP earned from completing Heritage and Signature quests by a factor of 8 or 10. All of this would make heroic content from 20-70 worth running, and people would get to see just how good this content is as a nice bonus!

People sign up to play an MMO because they want to play with other people. Right now, 1-85 in EQ2 is being off in solo zones without much if any contact with other people except the sometimes atrocious 1-9 chat. If I were signing up to EQ2 today for the first time and didn't have friends to play with, after a few hours I'd probably say forget it -- I can go find better solo games elsewhere. EQ2's strength is in grouping and raiding, which doesn't happen prior to level 90 nearly as much as it used to.

P.S. EQNext is trying to solve this problem by avoiding level ranges, and having non-instanced housing and less (but not zero) instance dungeons, so that people are always bumping into each other.

The EQ2 team are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

My wife and I leveled our most recent alts from 1-90 doing only heritage quests and the shorter signature quests. We completed every single one between those levels. Not once did we stop and grind anywhere. The only additional quests we did were for any pre-reqs to the heritage and our epic weapon quest lines.

We didn't need to use potions, playing many times with 0 vitality remaining and we only have 60% vet bonus. Leveling can be simple and meaningful and fun if you want it to be. We didn't make 1-90 in 3 nights. But we did do it in a couple weekends and handful of weeknights.

Every thing you said is spot on. It's so sad really. If only the EQ2 team had listened to its dedicated player base over these last few years, instead of altering this game to the point where most don't even recognize it any more.

It's funny to me that in EQN they are talking about putting elements in it such as penalties for death to make it more challenging, but took that very element out of EQ2 (Remember when the game first launched? If you died you had to go and get your shard? That could be very challenging). Go figure.

The game update is being released in September. It is a totally different critter from the new xpac.

You had some very valid points (although some obviously disagreed). Unfortunately, much of what you wrote got buried either by people going off on other tangents, or by people like myself trying to get the subject back to the topic of the thread (since I tend to respond to what people write, I have to make sure that at least part of my post is directly related to the thread topic so that I don't get accused of non-constructive posting). Maybe creating a separate thread with that plan would get it more visibility as well as more focused feedback.
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I wonder if the Heroic Characters will be a limited range of character classes (perhaps the less represented classes, as one poster suggested) or if all character classes will be eligible to become Heroic Characters.

I Say, Players need to have at least a level 15 toon. In order to use this feature. Otherwise, We will have lvl 85's asking how to play there toon.

I see that anyway

Level 15? It takes about 20 minutes to get to level 15. People need to have leveled a 95/320 toon before being allowed a "Heroic" character. Else those who have played this game are being short changed.

For one,Seneth, you sound like someone I would love to group with.I know exactly where you are coming from.

Secondly...

Dealing with the instancing portion, it's sort of funny how the industry has come full circle from where it came from to now.

Maybe that's just a noble truth being underlined there: we are never happy as a whole. If we have privacy, we want to see people. If we see people, we want privacy. But still it is funny to see an entire tide change in the industry first hand.Only took 15 years to witness.

Indeed. Went from full contested to almost full instanced and now back to almost full contested.

I'm kinda puzzled at the EQNext Round Table question yesterday about how players feel about contested content. I thought nearly ALL EQNext content will be contested? Kinda silly to ask a question when they've already designed the game a certain way.

When I think of nothing but contested content, I have flash backs to EQ1 and setting my alarm to 2:30am so I could wake up and kill that darn gnoll in Highkeep for the tome drop.....

I think there are a few issues, and I don't think insta high end character is the answer to any of them.

First of all you have a rich and deep game that is so completely packed with content, it's ridiculous.

Having people skip nearly all of that, in itself, is ridiculous.

Now I understand people wont want to go from 1-85 let alone 95, as is. It's long, it's arduous, it's just not how you market to get newer people "Come here, start at the bottom of a mature player base and take forever to work you way up!"

I would suggest taking a look at what seems to be a popular thing in other games: increased XP. SWTOR does double XP wekeends at times and the place gets packed for those weekends.

What this does is allow people to see the content, but allows them to see the content they want and not all the side quests they dont want because of the vastly accelerated rate of progression.

It also sort of addresses the "Hey, I have 50 abilities I have never seen before and don't know how to use" because they are getting them at a much more natural progression level, even though it's greatly accelerated (because after all, do you really need to kill 1,000 orcs to get a general idea of what a new spell/ability does? Wont 500, or even sometimes 250 suffice?).

Now SWTOR is a bit different in that it has a class quest line that runs the entire game, and then planet quest lines that only run per planet, and the rest being side quests. So it's streamlined so people can just stay on the class and planet and forget the rest. Whereas EQII is a little more side quest oriented.

But from my own experience, I just spent the better part of 38 hours completing Moors of Ykesha. And I have to say, that's too much for most people. It bleeds them dry. They never want to go back to that area again after spending so much time to get through it.

And most times, even with XP boosts, you still need to bleed areas dry because you end up close to, just barely over, or just barely under your target lvl. Sometimes way under if you are focusing on AA.

So for good or bad, that's my alternative suggestion: have massive XP bonus weekends. People like to see progression. And in a game with close to 100 levels, and so much content to get there, it's intimidating.

Ok ok. 35? 40?

See https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2...iring-about-the-new-heroic-characters.539180/ for a breakdown of all anyone who is not employed by SoE or currently in the closed beta knows.

I say if they are going to let this heroic thing slide....boost exp on the lower level quests because the main reason I never really run the quests anymore is simply because the rate of grinding mobs is greatly higher then questing. Triple the darn quest adv reward and you will see folks loving some quests again.


Inb4 you do quests for the RP/Story.....yeaaah true but also for exp

That is actually an idea! It does make sense. Now if they would update the stats on those items hehe.

Wondering if vet bonus is put on quest adv experience?