Kander's Candor Questions thread! [Always Open]

What is the developers stance on Botting? Botting has become a huge problem on the Kaladim server. What is being done about it? Secondly will you allow Kaladim to continue past Destiny of Velious expansion?

As an Australian because of the exchange rate I naturally pay more in Aussie dollars than if I was to pay in US Currency is there anyway that this could be worked out so we pay roughly the same, the quarterly payments dont really hurt me but when expansion time comes around I have trouble even trying to afford the collectors or premium edition on 1 acct let alone the 2 I have (hence why it would also be nice to have linked just to pass stuff off lol)

Does anyone at DPG actually read the Bug Forums? Quite a few of the current bugs have been reported since Beta.
One bug that stands out, but has got NO ATTENTION, is transmuting current level Adepts still gives you old useless Planar mats. This is pretty appalling. Can we expect this to be fixed any time soon?

Also is anyone at DPG actually interested in Tradeskills? If there is, can they be put in charge of Tradeskills going forward?

Would you please put the house items that we could purchase from the Proving Grounds merchant on the Loyalty Merchant there were items that i wanted to buy but it closed before I knew it was closing, so even though I have coins I cant get anymore. Loyalty merchant would be a nice compromise.

Another question for Kander:

We were told way back in TSO that critical mitigation like mechanic will not become a feature in subsequent expansions and since KA this has now become the norm in the form of Resolve. Why?

Gninja Raider's digest from last year highlight the prospect of Resolve not playing as much of nagging role as it in BoL. Granted its effects are lessened to a degree but it still creates a major disparity between players wanting to join raiding guilds and/or change alts. Combine this with unprecedented level of RNG based items required to have the necessary stats, you further create a distance between players willing to group and raid unless they are with people they know/trust to be adequately geared (resolve +stats) and are good.

I believe the answer to the casual non-friendly expansion in Kander's candor in episode 3 should have cited this as a baseline of the problem.

Ok first thank you for all you do love the Overseers I hate to think you are not doing well cause you are.

1. crafting why adorning do you have to trade items that is why I made the adorner so I can make my own stuff. PEOPLE are crazy with what they charge and try to find someone to trade with you.
2. Will we ever be able to update our spell with our crafters that is why I made them all. and i mean all!
3. I know this maybe a dumb question for some but I do solo's and you have bonus for missions i am not getting bonus's so what is a mission. I know overseer is a mission I would think all quests are mission including solo zones. So the bonus is plat? I never check that please explain to a dummy lol. If it is plat I would rather have items in chest and I am sure most would. Transmuting those items helps me get adorns.
4 Why the 2 times use recipes this is crazy,
5. why can I not sell the items that I get almost everything is heirloom, the crafted stuff stinks so no one will buy it and everything is so expensive I have to sell my rares to buy anything and this girl does not sell rares so it is killing me.

6 I love the podcasts well done but I wish they were longer i play and listen WELL DONE!!!! Thank you for all you do

Just remembered another question. All these patterns we get and no where to put them my bank is so full. could you make a box for them in personal box or BIGGER BAGS AND CRATES like the sales crates for shared bank no more space.

I would like to ask a question in regard to my specific playstyle. I might represent a very small portion of the player base but I talk to people occasionally who like to play this way as well.
A friend of mine and myself like to lock our xp to 100% aa's at lvl 10, 15, 20, etc and explore as much content as possible. Its an incredible amount of time spent at these low lvls.
As such, I've become aware that there are no low level mount gears, no low level merc gears, do overseers reward low lvl stuff? afaik no, but i have not used that feature since BoL is an xpac i refuse to spend money on.

Is there any hope for a player such as myself that spends long amounts of time at very low lvls to have a point to lvling my merc beyond the battalion buff? a point to lvling my mount? a lvl 20 merc is incapable of putting a hat or a shirt on?

Will there ever be ANY feature or addition or content that expands the experience of people playing my style?

Thanks.

1. So this question specifically applies to TLE, (Kaladim) I would love to know the thought process behind removing what can easily be classified as the most nostalgic or defining part of the game, set bonuses.
2. Add on to the above question. Will we see set bonuses return in the most crucial expansions, such as RoK and even more so TSO? This change sucks the life out of the game....
3.Will we continue to see additional content such as the Avatars? I think this was a great addition for the TLE how ever to make this more successful and engaging/fun for the community the loot should be "Top Tier" and properly itemized, a defining mage weapon should not have scout stats etc...Moving into ROK/TSO the avatar charms should be the greatest thing next to sliced bread

Piggybacking onto Bhayar, we get surveys once in a while and I'd really like to see the answers to those who completed them, such as "From this pool of participants, X number of people say they are casual/raiders/decorators". Would the devs be willing to release some of those survey numbers so the mentality of raiders vs. casual could be quelled?

I would like to know if there are any plans to expand on the Guild hall amenities and rewards for guild levels past 100 (or whatever the level is that stops giving amenity slots).

Also, I, for one, loved the Arena areas (not the battle grounds), the pvp areas like in Maj'Dul, etc.. We held guild FFA and Last-man-standing challenges; and sometimes just hung out for a change of game pace. Is there any way to introduce these back into the game?

Being a 20-veteran of EQ/EQ2, I always looked forward to the veteran rewards. I was disappointed to see them done away with. Can these be brought back?

Thank you

another question i forgot to ask
Will the celestial doc quest offered by Vorai in myrist library from Chaos Descending ever get moved to current content for obtaining the celestial ascension spells. ?
Running current content to finish the quest and obtain them would be a lot nicer than doing old content most people don't want to run anymore.

Thanks to both Dreamweaver and Kander for (re)starting up the podcasts, they've been very insightful (and entertaining)!

1. Can we have a heroic gem merchant added to BoL - the gems are really stacking up beyond what'll be needed even to upgrade to challenge-level gear!

2, Can some consideration be given to giving heroic-only players a pathway to the raid gear? Allow a conversion of heroic tokens to raid tokens, even at a high conversion rate of (say) 100 to one.

I appreciate the age-old argument that "if you don't raid, the raid gear is too OP" and whathaveyou, but with the advent of challenge/expert levels, that raid gear would be nice (even just the red adorns available on the Sanctus Seru merchant)! A conversion of heroic-raid tokens would also provide an going reward for repeatedly running heroics while waiting for the next GU/expansion.

3. How about some upgraded heroic gear (and/or red or blue adorns) on the Sanctus Seru merchant?

One: Things have had a very tough, stringent, and well, stingy RNG for the last few years. Several rare items have been associated with this, without a way to purchase, with work, items that were fun or useful. Items like: deity altars from key quests in Thalumbra, which were on extremely rare, mythical keys, that had no purchase point anywhere, and now are just a pain to *hopefully* someday get. The fun zones that were placed in game: duck portal and the burned lands - many folks never saw these....a way to purchase a one-time doorway per toon would have been nice - that way everyone gets to play along at least once. The VIII adornment recipes, which I have seen one time, and some folks never, and which are so rare, I can't afford to buy a charge of them from someone else, because they're usually bid out to the highest seller (often topping 40 million plat). Can we start seeing either an alleviation in the rarity of such items, or have installed a way to work towards them? Depending solely on RNG feels stressful and tiring, day in and day out, walking away from efforts, mostly empty handed, save for a handful (bankful) of potion vials. My biggest problem is with RNG.

Two: Where are the quests? I know ya'll are putting a lot of effort into the Overseers, for it's time efficiency. However, what dissatisfies a lot of the community is where they spend their time, and that's the monotony of mission quests. Every day, without fail, a run of zones, and that's it. That was the context of an expansion, was it's quests offered, and the last few years worth of quests have been limited to the Signature line's introduction of the zones, and a few timed quests around the zones, and some body drop quests. But there's no depth in the expansions. Little Amy lost her doll...help her find it...turned into a reason to go hunt vampires in Mistmoore Castle, or hunt Wuoshi eventually...there were any number of quests along the way that were everywhere for every reason. If there's any character in the story at all, start developing back stories for them. Could we expect to see any non-signature, non-mission related quests in the future?

Three: Where are the Heritage quests? There used to be anywhere between 3-5 HQs an expansion. However, we haven't seen one since KA, and that I feel, was because the community asked for it. Can we bring those back please?

Four: We've had two that have had total crafter involvement - the Earring of the Solstice, and the Coldain Prayer Shawl...both of which are still very useful...Something more like this. Can we have a quest line that involves crafters from all walks again, something that gives each and every one purpose?

Five: Something the community seems to be missing is interpersonality - a reason to interact with each other, beyond a zone run. Something that needs help to do for someone else. Quests that need a zone to run, or crafting that needs someone else to do. We need more ways to connect to each other. Can we see more of this please?

^^^This. Everything Mercychalice said, x 1000.

- Why do we keep seeing itemization like +spell skill on obvious melee gear and vice versa? What is the idea behind it?

- Will there be a boost to Challenge raid gear? I personally expected a +1k potency inrease over regular raid zone gear.

- The amount of different runes in DoV which you could add to gear to gain different procs and stats was great. In the past expansions, we have seen a copy and paste of the runes, Now, basically everyone have one and the same set of runes - no customization. I assume this is due to lack of time. Any plans to improve here?

- The BoL raid mount is fairly rare. Getting it for alts is near impossible at this stage. Any chance to make this available from status merc for alts once the main has obtained it?

Then lets cover Battlegrounds in the next round of questions.. Its going on a number of years now without any kind of response as to whether Bg's would ever be re-implemented in the game.
Its a simple question that only requires a simple answer..yes or no.

I dont need a reason why either way or how you pronounce Gninga or any of the other fluff that's been put in the previous Pod Cast. Just a straight answer...is that really too much to ask?

Cant seem to edit post..Other points

- Any plans to moving away from this approach with new armor pieces (gloves, bracer, ... etc) for each resolve tier? Why not just as in some previous expansion, have gems drop/earned where you can infuse your base items with to level them up. With the system right now, it is hard to keep track of what you already have and what you need. For example, if you dont keep notes, you don't really know if you can get those 190 resolve gloves yet as you might still need to go after the 180 resolve gloves.... You might have 180 resolve gloves already but, ooops, those where looted on an alt so the main still needs them to get the 190 ones.

- Any thoughts behind the heroic weeklies? I remember in PoP, there was a drive to actually run heroics. Not only because of the mount tradeskill items but also the chances for Celestial Teachings. Right now, the weeklies are just meh. We have seen that spell research reduction and so on was included in the crate, which would have been a really good idea, but apparently that was a mistake and not intended. Give a chance for masters/ancients to drop? Asc. scrolls? Be it from just finishing the weeklies with the challenge heroics (what are the intention of those anyway?), just something...

i prefered it like the way raid armor was done in AoM, choosing there & then what version of the item you wanted which added for more diversity between classes. Also as it stands, higher potency means more damage, so T1,2,3 are pretty irrelivant if your potency surpasses someone else. Mystics dog can do more if they got more than you.

I would like to see actual class balance for the higher potency gaps. Even if you have 2-3k less than someone, you should not be doing 1/8th of their parse for example.

Maybe it's not able to be changed idk, we are not told these things, maybe in episode 4 idk, but the gap between is so insanely high and it needs to be done correctly.

Simple fix, make an expansion that takes you Back to maybe a " Void period " of Shattered lands, places burning, sieges on Qeynos / Freeport ( make it a weekly event where anyone can join ) make it PVP and when people apply to enter the event put them into a Specific set of gear Equal to Everyone elses with a few " new lit up skills " where your normal ones are greyed out. 1 ST, 1 AOE, 1 Charm, 1 Heal. Drawbridge can be the castle gate and the aim is to break into and break down Queen Antonia Bayles or Lucans inside fortress gate.

Do not make the loot overpowered but make it desireable, not a requirement but worthwhile.
Its not impossible other games have sieges, all your doing is making a new expact based off the old Shattered Lands but with the Void " Touch ". Your creating a new application window to enter a select " Event " which will lead you to a completely new Event version/Section of Antonica / Commonlands. Your Auto Equipping people into a tailored set of gear which everyone will have. Your adding 4 Primary skills for each character to use while in those zones. PvP is not even a touchable subject with current stats on live, so this is a good counter. set stats, set skills, set gear, No upgrades, no Uber items etc. Completely moving away from obsured stats and skills.

While in the new Void shattered lands, it allows you to revamp all other content to be more stat healthy, instead of the current Mayhem that is displayed.

Also in the Void shattered lands, I would suggest keeping all the current instances / raid zones, and revamping them, leave a few of the X2's still in game ( people miss X2s alot ) ( add more bosses too them ). revamp the X4's to be a bit more strat heavy but in a good tier quality.

One thing i was not a fan of was the tier list of bosses , having X to kill X, should not be the case, if anything yes they should have a good amount of HP / Defense but not to the point where it's unkillable unless you have X progress in the expansion. Would prefer it to be more aimed at strat quality than gear quality, with end bosses having a healthy amount of phases added to them. could take Villucidae for instance, 75 50 25 10, different stages, but take that sort of scenario and add Another thing ontop of it. So your constantly doing something new at each X percent. Makes for an interactive and excruciating night and at the end of it, it feels worth it fail or loose, each phase you get something down people have a conformation of progress.

Pretty much overload us with subtle content, mid expact reinforcements, ( not just summer ethreals ) - New zones that will take time and effort to complete, while completing / revamping old content X and above to relevant stat quality, that way when " The Void " ( shattered lands ) Expansion is finished you will have made all the expansions to the correct stat values they should be, once it's implemented peoples current armor will be the correctly itemized to fit the new and improved stat values. And while people will be screaming for a new expansion at that point what you could do, for a new " mid content reinforcement " is tune a few of the Lower level dungeons and have what you did previously " Fabled Dungeons " to match current requirements.

Again your revamping stats to a point of which they are not Crazy while maintaining balance and content. while adding new features, systems to keep people active and it also allows you to make a new trailer for the game, since it's essentially the biggest change in EQ2 history and in my opinion for the better.

Sure gear will be better no doubt about it, but it will not have these insane values that struggle to be calculated. seeing a mob hit for 400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000billion is like huh so how much would it do if i used this debuff, 399999999999999999999999999999999999999999999940 Okay sounds good. but instead values will be easier to understand.

Your not overloading people, your giving them something familiar but different. While Reinforcing to the community that a big change is about to happen and we are doing stuff and while it will take time we are going to get it done for the better.



Also i really appreciate that you are going to be overhauling the AA system, i cant wait to acctually venture down into my other lines that always get missed.

See AA's are a major part of the game and your making that better, so all that's left is the Stat component and we are good to go. Make a trailer, get it advertised properly, and if ya lack funds jeez do a gofund me. I think the Last thing we want is for this game to be gone or worse, ruined.

Just my two cents on a few issues that I feel could personally be changed and with a solution added.
Could make this post 100x longer but think these for me are the main issues i currently see.

Why peep feel casual players are marginalized - 1. You put shinies in fabled zones and house items in heroic zones. Quests and craft lines give inferior gear to go get those and don't give enough house items. New content gives little to decorators and what IS given is sometimes just old stuff in a new color. You've locked down the number of house items allowed in pre order packs from 1 per character to 1 per account. You send polls asking what peep would like to have for a new house - then produce guild halls. The Panda gave no house last year but had adornments for gear that were soon obsolete. 2nd. Lots of folks in smaller guilds are caught in a cycle because they don't want to play with strangers (raiders can be very mean) and quest lines, achievements, infusers, shinies etc do not give gear that allows a guild group to jump from casual to heroic. They can't complete the zones so they quit trying. Also, it can be difficult to get into a pick up group and sometimes impossible to even get one going. If you lower whats needed to run heroics 1st tier I guarantee you that you will see a jump in people running heroic zones. Or give better gear from solo drops and quests. OR make it possible to buy raid gear on the marketplace (we will call you names and accuse you of being greedy jerks - but we will buy it). BUT, my question is ... Are we ever going to get new houses again or do we have to wait for new expansion? And whenever we do get new houses, why cant they be pink?