Looking forward to level increase or no?

Gah! No! I have one 110, the rest are 100 or under and level locked. I know this game was designed to go to 200, because at launch some people checked out code, but I have no real interest if the game continues at this pace of locking out more players to content than providing fun for everyone. I would really love to see more horizonal progression of just more content instead of more levels.

Eh.
And Eh sums up much of what I think of eq2 atm.

lol I only meant in regards to the freebie / Handcrafted level gear being sufficient to kill the trash. I figure its about the level of handcrafted anyway. I honestly haven't liked the last few expansions, but I understand why they put grinds in, for those people that only have one character and get bored easily and finish too fast. I really don't like it, because I don't have just one or a few even, but I do understand it. I just wish instead of only setting up the game for those people, they would consider everyone, like they used to. I also understand the need to make money, although I don't like it either.

They have to add something into the expansions, otherwise no one has anything to do. So level increase or whatever they increase they have to implement something to work for. People already complain they are bored with CD and I'd be willing to bet that a great deal of people don't even have all 4 ascensions to level 20. I don't mind a level increase, but like everyone said they need to make it fun. They need to go back to the old style quest to give us something to do while we're trying to get to the new level cap. I think everyone is sick to death of grinding the same quest over and over.

I am not someone to zoom through content. I like to walk around areas, and explore, where at lower level I had to run through it. It took me over 10 years in EQ to get to 65 level, mostly solo. I did use a merc to get from 61 to 65 with my ranger. But I do play about 5 hours a week. Substationally more in EQ II, which I am going to have to cut back on.

I need to rearrange the furniture in my room and vacuum the floor. ( I live with relatives. ) And go through around 100 boxes of stuff and get rid of things I don't need anymore. I'm still finding university notes and homework from the late 1980s. Good grief.

5 hours isn't much. I average 2 per day if you add all my characters. I thought that wasn't much lol I don't even have one Ascension to 20 ROFL but I don't think I have seen more than 2 hours this year on my mains even.

You are right about that, in the old days when I had 50+ people in the guild we used to play every night I was on from like 7-11 and then weekends would be double that. Now I don't play as much but not because I don't want too because work stuff happened but I still get in like a minimum of 10 hours a week.

I'm not looking forward to the next xpac as I haven't done squat with the CD xpac. I've tried, over and over, to like the CD xpac but I can't.

I haven't completed more than a few of the CD timeline quests. I've completed the tradeskill timeline and Anchorage timeline on 2 characters. That's it.

I did so much more with the PoM xpac. All 12 of my main characters completed the tradeskill timeline up to the Plane of Hate (though I admit I hated every moment of it) and those same characters completed the adventure timeline. I think 3 characters completed the first 3 steps of the signature timeline (and, again, I hated every bit of it). I'm not sure how many secondary characters completed the adventure timeline but I think quite a few of them completed the faction quests of at least one house before the PoM signature timeline, and the CD adventure timeline caused me to burn out.

I don't enjoy getting the majority of my xp from completing quest lines. I liked it far better when killing mobs provided the main xp and quests gave additional xp. It allowed me to play in the areas I wanted to play in; do quests I wanted to do; and I didn't have to ask others to help me level up unless I wanted to group.

But the game has become much more linear and progress requires completing one set of tasks before you can progress to the next set. If you can't complete a set of tasks, for any reason, then you are stuck and have nothing more to do.

The PoM tradeskill timeline is a perfect example. I was able to progress up to the Plane of Hate but that series of quests required way too much hand-and-eye coordination, for me, so that is as far as my characters were able to go. The PoM signature timeline was possible, with classes that had great AoEs, but murderously hard for priests with only a couple of AoEs. The battles were simply too long and stressful so I have main characters that aren't ever going to get to 110.

That has left a quarter of my main characters locked out of CD. They can't even do the tradeskill timeline because they don't qualify for the free armor. The CD tradeskill timeline is hard with the armor; I can't imagine what it would be like without it.

So I've given up on the game. I do the daily TS tasks, and the daily objectives, and that's about it unless there is a special event going. Even then, a lot of the special events require subs and I'm not going to pay a sub to play for maybe one weekend out of the month.

I am more than happy to pay to be entertained and enjoy myself. I am not going to pay to work. If someone wants me to work then they had better be prepared to pay me. And right now, EQ2 is repetitive, mind-numbing work that offers few rewards for the time spent playing. So I don't really care whether the level cap is raised or not.

I have been playing EQ, and now EQ II, since 2004. I still don't have a main, but lots of alts as I try to figure out what I want my main character to be.

I hope they put in a monthly quest to get a master like we have now with the celestial
Cause trying to get masters etc in POP was awful

One of the posters summarised it really well. There is never any need to go another 10 levels up. The cringe worthy no-one-asked-for stat inflation will go up another notch - hey look i can now do 1 trillion damage! and look at my armor it has 1222233333 primary attributes and 11,333 more potency, more than what I had before.

I am expecting a full new set of ascension abilities (again no one likes them) and a new set of class abilities (with same icons and attributes but with higher stats) and the ever dwindling supply of adepts and masters.

The sheer amount of empty and under utilised zones they have can easily be brought back to life by focusing on what players want and enjoyed in the past. I mean how many of us would happily fork out a premium price for an expansion that has 0 new zones but absolute fine tuning of stats and sending us to those empty zones to enjoy our classes? Revitilising the content by balancing risk vs reward element and making group and raids fun again instead of a snooze fest of macroing class abilities and spamming op ascension spells every now and then.

That said, this is just a futile attempt or rather frustration.

Roll on November'19 -- looking forward to the youtube stream with "pre-order the premium collectors edition" and get your win button (vagueness intended ) taking 35 of 40 minutes video time. It is only $199.99.

The 3 years between increases was EQ1, not 2. EQ2 only ever went that long once, from AoM to PoP.

Some of you people just crack me up I can't count the number of people complaining there is nothing to do, now you are complaining about a new expansion coming out with a level increase so there will be something to do. Seems they just can't make anyone happy. Except maybe me, I look forward to new expansions and new places to explore, and I have my hoard of alts so I still get to see the old places too.

Well I am hoping there is some fun in it. I don't think it is possible to make everyone happy though.

I didn't do the PoM signature questline on any alt. I had to get help with it on my mains that I two boxed through it. I only moved alts AA slider to 0. Ran yrzu faction and the first 3 of the other two and got the alts to 110 adventure. I have 5 left out of the 29 I have. I used potions as well but it can be done this way to save aggravation.

I also only finished the tradeskill line for PoP on the same 2 mains. The alts have only enough to get to 110 done, due to vet bonuses, that ranges from part 1, 2 or 3. Eventually I would like to at least have part 3 done on all for the pack pony upgrade, but I also hate every minute of that line. I don't mind the others I have to do, although have only done the CD one on my oldest 1 character.

It all comes down to what you enjoy doing and what gameplay you find satisfaction in. When people complain about there being nothing to do, they are complaining that there is nothing left that they find worthwhile to do. Sure, there are tons of things to do overall, but if you hate crafting, don't like decorating, or leveling a multitude of alts, etc, then those options are meaningless to you.

A level increase used to mean new and fun ways to improve your character and plenty of new content to work through. It really doesn't anymore. We're getting fewer zones than we used to and each new expansion comes with a complete itemization reset whether there is a level increase or not. A lot of people see a level increase not as a path to more content and more powerful characters, but as a money grab by Daybreak forcing people to redo all of their spells again since that's really the only aspect of your character appreciably impacted by a level increase. Everything else we'd be getting, we'd be getting regardless of a whether there was a level increase or not. A level increase doesn't equate to "more to do." If anything it can equate to less to do since some of the content has to be allocated to leveling and ceases to be relevant at the level cap, which is where the majority of players will spend the majority of the expansion.

I honestly don't care much one way or another about the level increase. I just seriously hope they don't add anything new to ascensions.

I'm tired of all the extra crap other than player levels.

why wouldn't they add more ascensions? I would expect some new ascension II-abilities

Not thrilled.

Level increases have slowly transitioned from "woo, new levels more power" because the amount of pay-to-research was minimal. You could adventure around and get the random master spell, trade it off if it didn't apply to you - Exquisite boxes weren't something only limited to heroic / raid content... The game was different - the rates at which you were able to gain power was directly related to the amount of time invested, since the content provided the upgrades (not a cash shop).

Insert micro-transactions and the cash shop.

Level increases mean actual cash revenue. Spell drops are so terribly weighted in the RNG, they never drop. Harvestable resources needed for spells are non-existent behind the weighted RNG. It took what - and additional 7 months of talking about the Planar Energy drops for a change to come into effect?

There's a reason why the things we need to progress don't drop... and a reason why I can "reduce research time for cash" in the marketplace. How many of ya'll remember the research reduction potions that used to drop randomly? Pff, they're all gone.

No, level increases these days isn't about the content. As in the past, we will go from 110 to 120 simply by running the signature line. Spells, ascensions, mercenaries, familiars and the like will need to be leveled up again... all of which have the "buy it now max level" button for cash.

You know, instead of fleecing me with spell research and whatnot... how about adding a set of appearance flip-flops in the cash shop for like 10 bucks, there's a bajillion other things I'd rather spend cash on that don't directly affect my characters' power. My monk needs flipflops.. and overalls.. and a set of nunchaku made out of loafs of bread. My halfling needs a growth cloak, a straw hat..and a piece of wheat sticking out of his mouth... and flipflops.

We need some Heritage Quests, some Hallmark Quests, some World Building events (I love the Anchorage but I am talking like the Spires and the Griffin Towers), some new Tradeskill Missions added to the ones in Mara, some new researchable recipes added to our research assistants, perhaps make our research assistants decide to work together and research somethings that are new together (Droag + whatever one you chose)…. I digress, I have mentioned all of these things before.

I have my main on AB at 110, a few at 100, and the rest at 85 or below, I do all the quests I can find, all the dropped quests I get, notes tacked to trees, etc, I like to look at the zones and see what I can find and admire the art that people put into the zones, they loved the game as much as we do.

There is nothing wrong with having notes and books from your University days. I never sold back even one of my textbooks, I kept all of them, they are great reference material, they also make the kids laugh if they have something extremely absurd in them.

I'm putting that planar energy drop rate down to a bug because it significantly dropped down for me without notification (I admit it could have been a ninja change). I have tried to max out as much as I can my harvesting and until the patch where they said the increased the drop rate, I didn't get a single one for weeks. And that's with almost 1300 in harvesting skills, a 27 or something rare chance and 70 - 100 bountiful chance. After the change I finally get those drops again.