Is DB Trying To Rid Game Of Casual Players?

You are funny, dirgenoobforreal. I am a crafter and have no idea what you are talking about. And that's part of the problem--DB, just like you, assumes that casual players sit around looking up all this stuff to maximize our characters.

The question is, "Why should we?" Why should we have to fight anything but some overland mobs in order to craft, harvest, and decorate? Why have players, who have dedicated years to crafts, harvesting, and decorating, suddenly have to also be warriors?

We aren't the ones crying about the lack of content. We aren't the ones blowing through the content. So why the sudden push to make us into something we aren't and don't want to be?

I have nothing against AAs or reforging I just don't want to get into that aspect of the game as it requires time to figure out which AAs and reforging will work best for my normal play style. And since I duo my characters, I would have to figure out two sets of AAs and reforging for each of my 40 characters. That doesn't sound like a fun way to spend my time.

Fortunately, I've never had to do that in order to keep up with the current content until now. And if I'd known I was going to have to do that, before buying 2 premium and 5 collector's xpacs, I wouldn't have bought them.

I think you owe it to your customers to let them know that there is a major shift in policy before they plunk their money down on a product. And this is a major shift in policy that blindsided many of us just as the persistent mounts did.

My characters will be able to get around this by doing the TS signature line. It won't solve the persistent mounts problem but hopefully my old mounts will do just fine for what I want to do in Luclin.

Other players won't have that option either because they don't have the time, the ability to juggle all the numbers involved in maximizing gear, or the real money to buy their way to success through the marketplace. Hopefully people on their servers will help them out so they can continue to play the game the way they want to play it--as casual players who just want to have a little fantasy fun.

I am glad you found my post funny, but if you didnt understand what I wrote, may I suggest playing a different game because what I wrote is fundamental to playing this game and have been a fundamental part to the game since AA's were introduced in KoS and reforging was added in AoM.

The fact that you bought that many big expansions packages ill advised of you if you only intended on ever doing solo stuff.

I am a casual player by far. Honestly I don't panic over OMG I'm supposed to have X amount of potency or I have to have this much resolve. Of course I don't group so I don't do heroics at all until they are a couple of expansion behind us, then I go back and do them. I do the best I can, and I do a lot of harvesting to make everything I possibly can to make myself better. I have had no problems at all running all the solo instances, even the ones that are casting curse. Of course I haven't tried my Mystic yet, I'm sort of cringing at that one. Not because I think she'll have problems with the zones, but because it take FOREVER to kill things and I know I'm going to get impatient with her. But my Pally, Dirge, and Swashy have had no issues at all.

I don't understand if you are a casual player what are you worried about just do what you can do, try to make yourself better so you can do the things you can't do and don't sweat it.

I think if DBG was trying to get rid of casual players that would mean that about 98% of the players would no longer be here. I play quite a bit but I don't raid or group so I guess that makes me a casual player.

There are a couple of assumptions being made in this thread that seem to permeate a number of forum threads. I think "Semper" had an excellent observation about defining "what is a "casual" player. "Casual player" has a number of definitions as evidenced by some of the responses.

Almee, if you have a statement to make, keep it on point. First of all, I've only played this game 9+ years, but I don't ever recall an expac coming out that had higher level harvesting nodes placed in lower level zones. Mobs have always been aggro---so why you state "crafters" are suddenly being asked to be warriors is completely false and illogical. You don't find level 90 nodes in the Common Lands. Since you don't adventure, you have zero idea of the current state of adventuring as it relates to requirements to craft or how important crafting has become to adventuring classes.
The idea that because you are a crafter and that should somehow qualify you for a special cloak that makes all mobs none aggro to harvesters/crafters so you can craft anywhere in the game without defending yourself doesn't make sense. If you don't want to adventure, that's fine, but understand your decision to not participate in what is a huge part of this game has consequences--because, guess what--the mats you need to craft are located in the wilds. Real life is the same way...you don't find trees for timber cutting at Walmart. You go into the wilds where there may be rattlesnakes, bears and cougars. You don't want to do that--fine. Go to Walmart and buy the planed lumber you need at a premium because someone else took the risk to make it easy for you. In game--buy it off the broker. Yeah, you'll pay a premium but that's the sacrifice you make for your choice to ignore the adventuring side of the game.
Keep your statements on point with facts. Frankly, you've been wringing your hands so often and threatening to emo-rage quit the game, that many people probably don't even bother reading your post. The idea that the entire game should be changed in scope so you can justify your personal decision not to adventure is reflective of that. Accept the fact that your decision has consequences for your ability to do what you want. Or pick another game out there that's focused on the crafting and creating and doesn't require you to do anything else.

Easy, maybe. It is painfully slow to do the solo instances. Waaaay too slow given the complete and total lack of any gear upgrades from solo zones. And, unlike dps classes that can bring a healer merc to speed and smooth things, there is no merc that makes any noticeable difference in the amount of time it takes my healers to clear solo instances.

It's also not really helpful in BoL to think this way. You can harvest without aggro in most of the Blinding, the canyons below Grieg's Spire and in the Teeming Caldera especially.

If it's getting through the crafting sig line that's causing heartburn, well, being calm and deliberate, and watching how mobs move, will allow any level crafter to get through. Yes, it can be really challenging. I used the "floaty" on my harvesting cloak to be able to jump from a high point to a lower one to get around certain obstacles. You can't swim the rivers in Aurelian Coast (piranha!) but you can swim around the coastlines in the AC ocean. But the emphasis is on patience and diligence in looking for ways around, or waiting for a mob to path away.

/sigh

Enough.
I can not just stand around while others attempt to confuse and deceive; the post i reply to is wrong in so many ways.

1. Multiattack ONLY allows for 1 extra (auto)attack, with a tiny percentage change for a second.
(note: with MAXED MA, one only has a 75% chance) [so WHY waste the reforging points beyond 120%MA(guaranteed +1 attack) when stats of better use is recommended, i.e. Recovery(120%)*, Reuse(120%)*, AM(as much as one can get), Casting Speed+(as much as one can get)]

2. for ALL Priest Classes with a focus(pause mouse over) on their innate attributes, one will read "Strength does not benefit your class."

3. while Strikethrough may be beneficial for a Priest that their auto-attack be not Parried, Blocked, Riposted by the beasty, their primary, Primary, PRIMARY focus, per their design is to be,... A HEALER, Not a tank; so Wisdom. If a healer is directly engaged in combat with a beastie, then the Tank is of poor quality, and needs to be re-trained not to be a child hiding behind mommy; That, or just needs be replaced with one whom does know how to tank.

The Priest's focus is to keep the TANK that stands between them and the hostile beasty healed. period.

To deceive others by sending a healer into melee a beasty, and having them expect victory will, of course, only end in a huge amount of frustration for the Priest, having set them up for failure attempting to do something they were NOT. DESIGNED. FOR. is a prime example of "others" innate hatred for their fellow Norrathian.

*due to the sadistic zone-wide debuffs, over provisioning important stats is recommended so at least one can expect to maintain 100% there-in.
+this is with the hope certain idiocy will be ended with a return to what made casters effective in their ilk.

I haven't found EQ nor EQ II to be solo friendly when I started over 12 years ago; however, solo play has improved. Having mercs available has helped.

Since I normally don't play much, its never affected me too much.

I have put more hours into this game in the past 6 months, than I typically did for about 14 to 16 months on average previously. I guess I enjoy EQ II more.

Such a wonderful thread with all types of varying and might I say "Helpful" views.

The post was referring to casuals running Kaladim the instance not Kaladim the server. Reading comprehension 101

Sooooooooo much irony in your response.

You're right you turned it into Kaladim the server, my bad...but true not worth the pixels.

Just a couple of notes. There is no longer any benefit in overcapping Casting Speed. The conversion to Spell Double Cast is gone. I understand you are hoping they will return to the way it was from your note on the bottom. I feel like this is not very likely, and if they do restore it you can always go back and respect back to casting speed. I'm told that overcapping DPS mod is worthwhile currently. It did help me a bit.

Strikethrough. In a group setting I agree with you. Much of this thread though is about casuals and soloing. Strikethrough does come into play when soloing, so if this is your primary play style, this is beneficial. If you have a good tank and always group, I agree this is not vital.

Seems one of the problems is the lack of standards on what is called Solo, Advanced Solo, Heroic and so on. Often Solo quests get tagged Heroic when they really are not. If you have played long enough you know that you'll never know how hard something is until you do it. Now people who are casual or newbies will look at the tag on a quest and assume its not possible. DBG needs to be more realistic on what they determine a zone or quest is. Something is wrong when you solo "epics" as part of a quest line.
Best advice is try a quest or zone to find out how hard it might be.
It might help if they started having a chance of real loot drop from overland and zone trash mobs. The slim chance something good could drop would help reduce the grind.

I want to reply to you because you at least have common game mechanic knowledge and make sense, but also some minor flaws. Hope you don't find this offensive.

Correct on casting speed. Anything above 100% is a waste.

DPS mod has no cap anymore. Once you get above 5k you get an exceptionel damage curve. This is true for all classes. With the new food you can get 18.02*2 and with snack 2.44 multipliers. That is an extra 3848% extra auto attack damage. Then you have multiple priest classes that through AAs can increase their auto attack multipliers by 0.38 (or more if its been changed recently, giving you another 38%).

Then you got WBD. This is obviously capped. Thats why you want as much WBD and WBD overcap you can get as each 1 point increases your auto attack damage by 1%. With the "Vitality To Strength" prestige AA you will always be at cap in the beginning until you have enough WBD overcap. The red rune "Rune of Expedience" is exceptionnally potent because of the 150 WDB overcap procs currently.

So why do I tell priests to go melee? Well its quiet simple, melee auto attacks are no longer delayed when you cast and the new food and snack wont stack with spell weapons. Also because of Rune of Ember is actually useful for all classes now.

With all this in mind, 2995 MA is also amazing because you get one extra swing plus have a 75% additional chance of making another swing. 2995 being the luclin cap when factoring in the mod MA avoidance.

As for strikethrough and accuracy, people think this is not useful for DPS in groups or raids. Both are. There are a lot of brawler mobs in every expansion now and they can avoid attacks at 360 degrees. Accuracy is also a lot more useful now because without you will miss from anywhere between 10 to 12% of your attacks.

Priests & mages should also do all the above in raids because its free damage to your raid.

To wrap it up ill just tell people one thing. Do not trust ingame tooltips. Especially not the ones in your character sheet.

Lastly to the person who tried to call me out previously in this thread, please dont when you have no clue about how the game works.

PLZ PLZ STOP blaming you're short comings on being a priest class and how fricking hard it is as a priest, I have now run 3 priest classes (Inq, Fury & Defiler) thru the timeline using only the gear from chest and upgrades that I got along the way from the questline and with my merc had no problems (especially as they gave priests that bufff to help as it is), the only priest I had a few probs with was my defiler and while it took a bit longer i got it done. Take your merc off of attack and have it so it just follows you that way he /she/it wont run off but will stay by you healing/curing, if using a tank/scout merc same thing just have it so you use the mercs attack button when you want it to attack! I had no help as I did this all late at nite once all my guildies have gone to bed/work.
Yes some of the puzzles are a bit GRRR and yes some of the mobs are a bit ridiculous BUT with patience and learning there is nothing that keeps anyone, solo, casual etc from playing, only the shortcomings of people who just dont wanna learn strats and have patience and willingness to learn.
Now Im not trying to be rude to anyone in particular but I am fed up with people saying priests cant solo, when all it takes is perhaps looking at your aa's seeing what you can monkey around with, running dropped quests, pq's, hidden collection quests all that stuff that can give you gear if you are just patient, not to mention the overseers whom whilst yes can give a lot of crap (and yes seems to be more than was a week prior) but they can give out rather good stuff as well
Now Im not as verbose as some of you seem with youre wordiness and supposedly intelligent thought out writings so i hope my point has been made without being tooo rude

Mystics, inquisitors and wardens are melee healers. They get the maximum effectiveness (healing, group buffage and dps) when in melee combat. Unless the strat is a ranged strat, there is no reason for those three healers NOT to be up with the scouts smacking mobs.

@Ceyarrecks

1. If only solo, 120 MA would suffice, but if eventually doing heroics, mobs have 373 and up, MA avoidance so one would need 500+ MA and mobs also have 500+ Ability Doublecast avoidance so I have no clue on DB's reasoning to get rid of spell doublecast and put in AD, then make it so every mob in expac *except solo content* mitigates it all!
Some mobs lower reuse so as a healer I say 150-200 in reuse , in case you find yourself in content with heroic / raid mobs that reduce those. Since casting speed no longer coverts to doublecast. I suggest 150-200 as well.
2. This is not about strength as a stat, but about the strength-line in the AA tree, which has nothing to do with actual strength.
2. Strikethough is good for a solo priest.
A healer who just heals is like a ranger who only uses their bow and never uses combat arts. There is NO reason for any healer not to dps and many heal better when they do.

Bhayar, because you are relatively new to the game you probably don't know that the original EQ2 was hyped as a game that was completely unique because it offered different, but equal, leveling paths for adventurers and crafters. Crafters no longer had to be warriors to play a MMOG.


I knew, when I switched to EQ2, that my days of adventuring were coming to an end. EQ2 offered me a way to keep playing without having to have superb hand-and-eye coordination. I could just craft, harvest, and decorate with a little bit of fun adventuring on the side. A heck of a lot of us, still here today, are here because of that promise that crafting and adventuring would be separate paths.

It was the ideal solution for those of us entering our senior years but who still loved MMOGs. It was also ideal for people who had physical challenges that made adventuring hard to do. EQ2 was a MMOG haven for us.

That is why I haven't maximized my character's stats and gear and why I won't be doing it. I will never be good at adventuring again but I am adequate in most circumstances. I pay money to play and that is all that should be required to be able to play and enjoy the game.