New Expansion - Itemization and Rewards

Hi all, we are fully in the swing of getting things ready for the next expansion! As I get to help design a lot of the ways you will be earning loot and items I wanted to give everyone a chance to weigh in.

Please answer some or all of the following questions about your experience in Everquest 2. Be sure to include as many specifics as possible because we would like to be able to follow up on any suggestions. More detail and explanation means more information that we can use to improve our current and future plans.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

For those of you that read this whole post, please also feel free to reference any other past expansion in terms of things you liked or would want to see again

1) yes.
2) all the above would like PQ's to drop celestials more than 1 out of 1000 times but I understand.
3) Cabal coins should be Heirloom after a month or two I have 400ish I cant do anything with because of VD when I could use them on alts that I don't raid with so getting them cabal coins is drawn out from only heroic vex which nobody runs now because of VD and the weekly rewards.
4) Overseer's drop way to many mats and barding slots filling up my bank bags just on Barding slots need more ways to level familiars I spend 60 USD on Heritage crates got 3 2500 familiar pots that's it How am I going to level it to take advantage of the ethereal reward if I cant earn pots to level it. I already spend 90 bucks to get the season 8 familiar celestial. Cannot get any experience potions to level it.

1: I felt like the transition between the solo/heroic/raid tiers was well executed up to high end raids, and the best sources of loot were the ones that were consistent. The ability to grind towards something, or, at least, a consistent way to attempt a grind, is more rewarding than having a chance at getting an item. For example, I was on vacation for the first week of the expansion, and utilizing the achievements/collections was a way for me to catch up to everyone I was raiding with, as long as I put in the time to be able to get those items (I'm speaking a bit more directly of the dropped quests/poi quest collections that rewarded 245 charms.)

1a: Edit to add, I agree with the other posters here, the PQ loot was a bit too much. Heroic gear was fine but not a whole lot of variance.

2: I kinda covered it in my initial answer, but what felt rewarding to me was completing a goal, and having an item granted for that goal. Something that was patched recently was the Moonlight In Shadows belt dropping 100% of the time from Aten Ha Ra, and I think that's a good example of consistency making something a little bit more rewarding. It feels like if we had a low chance at getting the item, the alternative to grinding it for an unforeseeable time would be to just not do the content since there was no guarantee that we'd gain anything by it, despite the fun of the content itself.

3: The part of the ethereals that I like (especially after it was announced today that they will be indefinite) is that they are boosts that will likely always be relevant, but will also always be available, particularly in the case of the familiar buff and the potential rumored mount buff. The Cabal coins were a good addition but I think it would've been nice if they'd been there from the beginning so we could see what we were working towards and increase the cost to account for that. Now, I wouldn't apply this rule to every single merchant, but the Cabal items would've been interesting to see from a progression standpoint at the beginning of the expansion, and given people much more reason to grind the zones to get the coins (in this scenario they'd be gained the same way, heroics/raids)

4: I think that the way we earn items is fine, really. Raids drop a good amount of gear, the transition between solos and heroics and raids is good, all that. The things that are missing are the items that aren't necessarily gear. I've seen maybe 4 spells drop this entire expac, and I've played an absolute ton. Similarly, outside of the rare red adorn in raids, I see those very little as well. With a level increase coming next expansion, please please please look at the drop rate of spells, even just masters. There's a bit of magic to finding spells that I haven't experienced in a long time. A good starting point would maybe be a guaranteed master drop at the end of a dungeon, smart loot or otherwise? Maybe that's too much, I'm not sure.

Finally, the last thing I want to say is a request, and if it's not feasible, I'd love to be told just so I can put my mind at ease.

What about set bonuses? I think that's a part of the game that a lot of people have missed, and I think class differentiation suffers from the lack of them. I myself have played both bards this expansion and they feel nearly identical. I've played several healers, several tanks, several dps, and I really couldn't tell you the nuances between the classes because there is nothing exciting and individual, at least to the extent that old class sets had. I know last year there was a big fuss about ethereal adornments, and they were taken out, but I feel like they could've been amazing for the feel of the game, if only balanced just a bit better than they were initially in the PoP era.

1) no. the PQ items (which partway through the expansion had their droprates nerfed to essentially 0) were better than all solo/heroic/raid content gear until the vasty GU released (except for choplicker which was replaced by phantastic weapons).

the solo questline rewarded BIS items (secondary+cloak) that are still not replaced even after vasty GU.

until vex2 raid, there were essentially 0 raid dropped items that were worth equipping, as by the time you were able to kill the mob, you were already getting equal or better loot off the raid weekly.

at no point this entire expac until emperor (or maybe vex2 in general) was anyone in our raid excited to open a raid chest. when we killed creator for the first time (and every time after that) literally no item was ever actually used

it was also very frustrating being 10k potency behind the entire expac because i didnt do last year's eths. seriously ridiculous.

2) none, really. getting free better-than-raid-dropped gear every week for free felt cheap. opening emperor chest is the only time I'm excited about loot.

3) ROS ethereals were fine, coins of the cabal were fine, until they were completely trivialized by vasty loot.

4) would be great if there was any actual progression. but 2/3rds of our slots this entire expac were already taken up by solo gear, pq gear, and for those that had it, eths from last year.

and then vasty was a huge slap in the face for everyone who wasted their time raiding for gear for the prior 8 months, as all the gear the acquired raiding during that time was immediately replaced by heroic gear with like 2-3k pot increases.

In RoS, the entry for new/returning players was too steep. To get into heroic dungeons generally required a group to be fully decked out in every single top piece of solo gear available, including mounts + bardings. This meant entry into heroics was painful and not fun.

On the otherhand, those who came in with previous expac gear with highly inflated stats were able to breeze through them.

Throughout the Heroics, it didn't feel like any real progression. Loot from the easiest heroic was just as good as loot from the hardest. The overall difficulty of zones didn't overly change either. It would be nice to see more progression through heroic itemisation.

My biggest issue with this expac loot wise, was that there was literally 0 reason to run Heroic zones. The best loot came from PQs or quests etc. There was nothing that really made me want to go back to these zones each week. The Daily/Weekly Celestial items helped, but that was 3 months in and too late. [And the drop rate was abysmall].

• Sig line + achievement felt rewarding. - Clear goal to aim for.
• Collection reward metas - Good long term goal for zones, with good reward.
• The bonus reward satchels from recent event. - Chance of rarer items with value.
• Cabal Coin items - An achievable goal through currency to work for.

Things that did not feel rewarding;

• PQ Loot - RNG on them was not fun, and neither was the drop chance before & after the nerf.

• Ethereal system in current form is good. Clear goals, and unlocks for account wide features.
• Coins of Cabal - Good system.

• Drop rates on Red/Green adorns in this expac has been atrocious, especially in heroic zones. You run those zones with 6 people and maybe see one drop every 50 zones. So a 1/300 chance of getting one.
• Drop rates on Master spells - Non-existant.
• Heroics lacked the carrot on a stick to keep people in them. More items need to come from these zones that are best in slot until very late game raiding.
• Bazaar coins - Needed a purpose. Having thousands of those with no use isn't overly exciting.
• Achievements generally all gave the same 290 potency red adorn. Having like 10+ of them felt pointless.
• Too many items that are requiring old content to be run to get them. Blue adorns as prime example. Players shouldn't have to try find groups to do the previous expac content, to be able to get items that are pretty nessecary in current expac.

In summary. RNG Bad. Goals = Good. Heroics = Lacking.

I disliked that you had to jump through hoops to even start the solo signature line, and then afterward you still didn't have enough resolve/potency to be able to start heroics and had to jump through more hoops. I shouldn't have to have a level 20 fully geared and super-accolade merc, a level 20 familiar, a level 20 mount with barding, adornments on my armor in every slot, or even expert spells to do solo content. I should be able to go into solo with base gear, app spells, level one merc/familiar/mount and complete the content with relative ease.

I would prefer the gear for soloing to go back to Kunark Ascending expac, where the tradeskillers made your gear and handcrafted was good enough for the entire solo questline with little problem and mastercrafted allowed you to start heroics immediately if you wanted.

In any case, make the starting gear good enough to get you through solo content without struggle or need for all the additional stuff. Bonus if you allow armorers and weaponsmiths to be /useful/ again in making gear better than box gear.

I would prefer MC tradeskill gear to be on par with a full set of solo quest reward gear, which will allow you to start heroics immediately without having to scour for sources of additional potency/resolve or have fully leveled merc/familiar/mounts.

Make Tradeskills Great Again! See Kunark Ascending for what I thought was a great tradeskill/gear system.
Free the shinies! Make them non-heirloom so we can finally complete collections via the broker.

1. I felt like gear progression was ruined in this expansion. I completed every weekly for cabal coins and better gear came out in Vasty Deep II before I even had a chance to have enough Cabal Coins to purchase all of the 270 resolve gear from the Bedlam merchant. Also, VDII gear came out not long after new gear released in Expert Heroics. With raiding, after SW: Shadow's Hold came out, there was little reason to go into the other zones other than to progress. Our guild members haven't spent DKP in months because better gear is obtained in heroics.
Also, I was very disappointed when I killed The Abandoned Labomination in VDII. For the level of difficulty, I felt that the reward should be better than what I can earn from a daily.

2. I would like to see more master spells drop more often as well as red runes from heroic content. Also, please make it easier to get ascension spell components/ascension spell upgrades.
3. Reference first answer for Coins of the Cabal.

4. No.

I would like to see more expansion like EoF and RoK. I feel like these expansions were at the peak of Everquest II!! I also loved having class gear with class-specific bonuses to go after such as armor sets with 3, 5 , and 7 piece bonuses and epic weapons. This gave people something to look forward to obtaining and made the archetypes stand apart from each other.

Answering this from the perspective of a person who tentatively does not plan to continue playing post this expansion's raiding progression.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?

On a scale of 1-10, I would place heroics and raids at a 6.5 in terms of earning the gear I needed to progress further. In solos, I did not feel this at all. I felt the weekly heroic/raid (and heroic daily) rewards were a great vehicle to push gear progression along. However, I think too much weight was left on those weeklies and dailies. Having raided consistently weekly since the beginning of Reign of Shadows, my opinion is the gear dropped from bosses was not nearly as desirable as some (most) of the weekly rewards. I would even go as far as saying the "rare" drops on most raid bosses were still undesirable. I felt resolve progression was a little better than the previous rounds, but in certain areas it tended to make things dull for a while. For example, completing a raid weekly up to a certain tier for a while (Tier 11, I believe?) rewarded 255 resolve gear. The raid mob(s) required to upgrade that weekly to Tier 11 dropped the same resolve gear - 255. After a while, it does not feel as rewarding to complete this weekly. It becomes dull. I would have liked to see mob drops being the chase, not chasing 5 kills or 3 dungeon clears for a piece of loot. But, again, the weekly/daily rewards were great. Not denying that.

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

This coincides with a point I made above - weekly rewards felt the most rewarding more than anything, only because I found the most upgrades by volume for my characters. I felt it was an appropriate reward for the effort spent. But, I still do not think all bets should be placed on this in the future.

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

YES. Please keep doing ethereals and cabal coins (or comparable). I'm of the opinion that this is how ethereals should have been done from the first time ever.

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

Please stop restricting the ability to fly. This should not be a reward! I think the reward for completing the signature questline & the appropriate side quests was great. I hope something like this continues. Last thing, please re-introduce a "rare item" merchant. As done in Tears of Veeshan, Terrors of Thalumbra, etc. I think this will help reduce the "lull" when in farming mode, I know it did during those expansions.

Edit: Set bonuses pls.

1. Some people like to "level up" via the quest system. Some people like to "level up" via grouping together in instances. You cannot jump straight into dungeons with box gear. This was discussed some on Nadaj the Bard's stream the other day and a lot of the people wanted gear that allowed them to progress through grouping and not just doing quests. That being said, if you do the solos, a lot of the gear just immediately goes to transmute fodder pretty quick. Please give more options for fragments. Sitting on a billion powders, infusions and manas but having no fragments is rough.

2. I'll admit that I haven't done much RoS raiding, but quest gear, by far, has felt the most rewarding with the two celestial items and their value. The most rewarding aspect of tradeskilling, to me, was the ability to fly in the zones before I had done the primary signature quest. I also liked the achievements (gear, aa and adornments). If you paid attention to details and did all the little things, you could get significantly rewarded. I am not a fan of the charged recipes, although I understand their purpose. The problem is that it creates too many hoops to gear up with, making gearing up through tradeskilling less of an actual thing. (Bucket hat ftw though.)

3. The bazaar coins are just not worth all that much. They do have their place but for the most part, I ignored them. I would like to see another option for those who don't group added to catch up to later weeks. I like the move to add the indefinite in, to add them to account unlock and to allow catching up.

4. Maybe during ethereal events, you could "mischief" it up a little and make some of the solos drop, at exceedingly rare rates, some of the raid and/or heroic gear. Since the new instance gives an opportunity for people to surpass most of that older gear, this allows people a chance to pick up odd slots or to get some of the appearance items. I hate that you get to a point where the old dungeons are just pointless even when they are still current expansion. This could open up the variety.

I'd like to see the return of "fun" item effects. This might not end up being via an item drop but could, perhaps, be related to a quest to "imbue" an item with an effect so that you could "level up" a piece of gear with a neat effect. Or it could just be something on a drop. I'm like many others. I don't pay attention to my charm effects. If it has a clicky, most times I'm not going to pay attention to it. The effects just aren't all that interesting. On the other hand, you better believe I loved my little protectors or my dolls from my cloak and ring in hate. They were flavored items that were exciting to get. Everything doesn't need to have this kinda stuff on it, but some pieces for everyone (with scaled versions for each player type) would really be neat.

Someone also mentioned being able to get the old LoN loot. I'd add into that being able to buy (perhaps with currency) some of the plunderable gear. Or, dropped visual unlocks -- unique hair or skin colors, perhaps tattooes or piercings (I know those are trickier). Maybe one or two hair styles (where skeletons allow moving hairstyles from one race to another). These could also be tied to achievements or other events. Maybe a tradeskill reward is a really awesome hair dye, etc.

I feel some of the best items that came from vex heroic challenge, the x2 bounty, and the x3 vd2 named should not be "chance drop" they should of been achievement or a for sure thing in the chest for as hard as the mobs are to even get the proper groups in there to defeat them and open the chest and find no BiS item/s to be found several dozen runs/kills of these mobs and never seen any drop it absolutely unacceptable, it makes it even moreso difficult to find players to even want to do those zones/mobs

@Mint - good start by asking for feedback, I'm sure you'll get lot of it and often loudly contradictory - good luck.

I'm gonna throw you a curveball and not answer any of your questions, but I'll mention 3 things not in those questions that are globally more important and you need to (even if without acknowledging) keep in mind if you genuinely care about your attempt at de-clusterfudging loot to succeed.

1. any and all loot options or procurement methods are now inevitably viewed via the p2w lens. it's the ball and chain i'm sure you didn't ask for, but might as well get used to it constantly sinking your efforts. therefore, you need to be constantly hyper-aware what relevant p2w crapola is available, exactly how overpowered is it, what are the specifics of gacha methods of procuring them are and how soon the next wave is coming that will both make previous wave obsolete and your normal-loot efforts obsolete. people judging your loot-design efforts will be hyper-aware, so if u want your efforts to succeed you need to be hyper-aware as well

2. you need to be hyper sensitive of timing - when your loot content goes out vs when other loot content that it'll inevitably be compared against goes out. say new raid content that'll drop next tier of loot. loot is a perfect example of content where timing is just as crucial a parameter as thought and effort you put into your work. you can't talk about it in a vacuum without a time-frame that encompasses other loot sources that will hit simultaneously or soon after

3. you need to hyper-actively play the game at the level for which you're designing loot. i know it's possibly too much to ask for since you have a full time job and EQ2 realistically doesn't even have to be your preferred game of choice, but without #3 actually #1 and #2 won't even be possible. clearly please dont read it as a demand, but understand that you can't succeed at your project without #3. trivial example - say it's not in your power to make melee relevant in EQ2 - it's too big a project, not your call, and not your area of expertise - fine. however, you need to be AWARE just how useless melee is in current meta and by extension any stat that increases melee - thus how invalidated and clowned your efforts would be when you attempt to design an item with a melee-focused effect. again this is just a handy example, not a comment on where melee should, shouldn't be or wont be with the new expac, but you need to be in-tune with mechanics reality for your efforts to be worth anything

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?

There is/was too steep a requirement to be helpful/viable in heroics, and the loot wasn't worth the effort. Also, red adorn drop chance is WAY too low and needs to be adjusted. Doing solos, heroics, and raids weekly and I have only been able to complete one void etched set and have 2/3 of two other sets, and we are almost to the next expac. I'm not an anomaly among my guildmates - most are in the same boat.

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

I honestly miss the days where there were 4+ items always in a raid mob chest, but the mission system has made things a lot more fair IMO. At least everyone that finishes the quest gets something. I feel there's been a disconnect in RoS where the PQ armor (and last year's ethereals) has been much better than anything else you can get and think that the most challenging content should rightly give the best rewards.

I vastly prefer being able to have more than one path to get item A. Keep the RNG in the chests, but give us a way to accumulate a currency to eventually buy it.

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

I like both systems this expac - the RoS ethereals are not attuneable items that will break gear progression next expac. As long as there is a way for returning players/new players to get the AA upgrades/familiar buff (which Kander has said there will be) I think it's great. As far as Cabal coins go I wish more items were purchasable for them, such as PQ items or even the more rare drops from Vasty Deep for high quantities of Cabal coins. There should, IMO, always be a way to get what you want without having to completely rely on RNG.

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

Mentioned above, but the red/green adorn drop rate has been horrible this expac and unlike last overseer season, there is no way to obtain the recipes to make red adorns this go-round. The bonus chest from some missions that happened earlier in August was great - make that a perk of being a member IMO.

Also, unlock mechanisms for flawless rewards - blue adorns in particular. I'd also like to ask if it's possible to add blue adorns to Panda. You can't do much of anything with no fervor and without Mysteries/Embers/Insight most folks will be lucky to break 200.

People returning to the game or who used level boosts and relying on Tishan's Lockbox were not well-prepared for solo content in RoS. One notable problem is that green adorns in Tishan's Lockbox are NOT leveled, but should be. In order to really not be constantly dying, people needed a LOT of knowledge about where to improve their gear.Perhaps more guidance from the questline or NPCs would help?

Gear needed for solos should be obtainable by solo methods. And STARTER GEAR for heroics ALSO should be obtainable solo.

Mastercrafted gear should be accessible as starter heroic gear, and should be easily craftable by the traditional tradeskill classes. NO-TRADE and HEIRLOOM patterns are, frankly horsedung. Let crafters do what crafters do, and don't make the crafters have to adventure to get what they need to craft stuff! The Tradeskill Sig Lines have been much more obnoxious for folks who have low-adventure-level toons that are max-level crafters, and that needs to be remedied.

All currencies need to be either account-wide or at least HEIRLOOM.

Mage gear should not have freaky tank stats on it. Mages can't even USE BLOCK. Make itemization match the needs of the classes for whom the gear is intended.

Admittedly, I have mostly solo'd this time because I was away for a long period. I do like the gear bags from the "looted" quests. So far they've been pretty helpful in getting me to where I can hopefully try some heroic content before the new expac. The exploration-based quests aren't bad ideas either and were a fun addition for gear earning.

I will add as an aside though that I think we really need to focus on getting a smoother power progression. I didn't use the terms gear because there's a dozen other things to factor in besides *just* gear at this point. With all the mechanical changes to solos (Chaotic Leech, etc) it was extremely rough going in there in starting gear for the expansion (RoS Box Gear and adorns mostly) because my Mercenary and Mount are far behind, plus I haven't had much luck collecting bardings and accolades. Solos should probably be approachable with minimal investment, and if we continue to go with the Heroic -> Heroic II -> Expert progression, I think we need to have MORE loot outside of JUST gear appear more often. Mount Bardings, Mercenaries at a lower drop rate than their crate counterparts, more accolades -- something to keep us hanging around the "lower power bracket" to continue farming towards the higher difficulty content rather than just doing heroics a couple times to fill out a couple pieces of gear...or alternatively waiting for gearing events, if you're a late comer. lol.

1. By the time I had completed the RoS signature line, the solo zones were trivial, and I could run the heroic zones with some difficulty. Thus, I did not feel that the solo zones rewarded gear needed to challenge the next tier of content. I don't necessarily consider it a problem that I could skip solo dungeons, as the sig line took me through most of them anyway.

The heroic dungeons this year did not have any internal progression. Once the scripts were solved and the bugs fixed, I found that all heroic dungeons were of near equal difficulty. The only exceptions are Savage Weald, Vex Thal 2, Vex Thal 3, and Vasty Deep 2. SW remains a challenge for me and my raid-geared team, and the alleged rewards (we still haven't finished it) do not seem worth the trouble. It is incredibly unlikely, perhaps even impossible, that a heroic-only team could ever gear up for it, especially considering that the gear that drops within SW is far worse than the gear needed to survive it. I am pleased with the relative progression of gear between VT 1 and VT 2, though I suspect that VT 3 has the same issues as SW (haven't finished VT 2 yet). I am also pleased with the progression of VD 1 and VD 2, except for the final boss whose resolve check is so high that it excludes most of my guild's raid force. The gear in VD 2 will help us gear for it, but it feels too far out of line.

The heroic zones did help me gear up for T1 raids, and I felt I was making progress through normal boss drops (particularly final zone boss drops). However, I did not feel I was making progress as my guild worked through T2 zones. Entering a new raid tier should reward better items, yet the reward tier was not lined up with the difficulty tier. Loot drops were underwhelming in every raid zone except for Echo Caverns (which was the baseline), Savage Weald (which was a mid-content release with better gear than previous but equally difficult bosses), and Vex Thal 2 (which is much harder but also more rewarding than previous zones). In particular, the relative difficulty and reward of Savage Weald vs Vex Thal 1 felt backwards to me. We would often use SW to gear up for new encounters in VT 1 only to discover that the new VT kill didn't drop any upgrades for any raid member.

2. The most rewarding system is boss drops. It is very satisfying to kill a challenging boss and see a cool item immediately. Conversely, the worst system is when said boss drops nothing of use. Crafted items are useful as a supplement to offset bad luck, but many of the pattern-crafted items in this expansion were too low in value to bother with. The single-use recipe books had great items that felt earned and in-line with progression, but the single-use meant we had far too many patterns and not enough recipes.

3. The currency-earned gear that uses Bazaar Coins is a complete joke. They are equivalent to solo-drop items, which I had plenty of before I even had enough coins to even buy one item. The Bedlam merchant had useful, in-line gear, after both the Raid and Cabal items received stat increases. Prior to those increases, the raid items had the same issue; they were obsolete before I could afford them. The Cabal coins should have been heirloom, as they originally were and as all other expansion currency has been. The challenge to grow and improve should be on me, the player, and not on my individual characters. As in past expansions, I should be able to share my excess earnings with my "younger selves", particularly for armor and adornments. I am not asking that alts automatically receive identical gear, requiring zero effort on their part. Rather, my main toon has an excess of coins that he is unable to use, while my alts desperately need the same currency.

The Ethereal "coins" are another matter entirely. This year, they aren't a currency; they are a progress bar towards your next nearly-free item (I find status and platinum nearly unlimited). Coins are a much better option as they allow a degree of choice in how they are spent. This year's ethereal event forces every player to take the same items/upgrades in exactly the same order. I much preferred previous expansions where the items had stat variations, and I could choose one for my Ranger and a different one for my Paladin.

4. Please stop creating single-use or limited-use recipe books. Instruction manuals don't go *poof* when you've finished building your IKEA furniture. This tactic makes it difficult for crafters to contribute to their guild or to the community when even the recipe book is a limited resource. Similarly, please remove recipe books from raid loot tables and place them somewhere that crafters can reach (crafting dungeons maybe? I really liked those). Recipe books are *crafting* content, not raid content. I can accept raid-dropped patterns and other raid-dropped components, as this allows raiders to take their expertise in killing things, combine it with the crafters expertise in making things, and together producing an even greater reward. Just as it is frustrating for a dungeoneer to find a piece of gear they can't use, it is equally frustrating for a crafter to finish a harvest/crafting mission and receive an item only raiders can use. A recipe book (not a pattern) would at least let the crafter sell their services to other adventurers.

For the trade-skill timeline, how about as a final reward we get a new trade-skill mount? The last one we had was from the Obulus Frontier trade-skill timeline and it's now several xpacs back in stats. That mount is the Brightfire, Essence of Arcanna'se. The one before that was way, way back being the Far Seas Pack Pegasus.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?


PQ's were great at first, but the loot that dropped was a little to good as it wasn't replaced for a long time. Also the Ethereal loot from previous xpack has lasted way to long. This total polluted the loot table at the time. and any loot progression was corrupted by it. However I like the more traditional, nearly full solo is needed for heroic, nearly full heroic is needed for raiding. However i did think a few key items at the end of the previous xpack should last approx half way through the next xpack, as a reward for going out of your way to get it. Such as rare drops off various bosses, even if its solo/heroic/raid, just so all kind of players can get that small rare chance of some great loot.


2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

rare boss drops are great, they keep brining you back to do it again. mission reward u do once and that is it. But I am have enjoyed that 1 cool signature line item at the end of the main quest. Incorporating tradeskill, I saw being back experimentation, I used to like how in a older xpack you could get some rare drops to make a item... and then if lucky make it even better.


3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

Currency earned gear is like cookie cutter gear, everyone can get it if they simple do it enough times, I wouldnt be unhappy if we scrapped all currency based gear.

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

Am new class specific quest , such as epic weapons , though this would be a lot of work.

Hey! First of all, I’d like to thank you and the other devs for reaching out to the community for feedback these past few weeks. It actually feels like communication has been greatly improved, both in discord and on the forums.

Itemization in the first round of heroics, at expansion launch, seemed pretty smooth, overall, but I believe it was only because of a few key bugs that were in the game at the time.
A.Players could reforge into crit bonus on gear in a way that was unintended for the first month or so. This let us progress a little faster than what was probably intended. It was a good bug, that made it feel smoother, but I feel that if this is not the case, it may impact future expansion launches if not taken into consideration.
B.Key item slots from various sources were bugged in their drop rates, namely PQ items. They were in an uncommon state, but in a way that felt reasonable. This was discovered to be a bug, and after it was fixed, they essentially did not exist for the average player.
C.Several combat mitigation values and raid scripts early on were not functioning, leading to easier time killing mobs that otherwise would have taken more time. This is not an uncommon occurrence, but its another thing that led to a false sense of good progression.
I feel that if the above aspects of RoS launch were actually implemented how they were meant to be implemented, it would have been a very different experience. I think that in a perfect world, the rarer drops that are in the game have to be not as rare as the developers would like.

Infusing is an aspect of itemization that helped us. With it gone, itemization will improve, no doubt, but maybe not at first. I would recommend adjusting for this if not already adjusted for, because it allowed us to get more stats than what probably was intended.

Shinies: the current implementation of shinies in the Vasty Deep Zone is AMAZING. PLEASE keep this going. It actually makes the shiny meta reasonable to obtain, but still provides a sense of chase. It’s the best itemization decision I have seen in years.

I would like to echo Melt’s portion about set items, and link my ideas in the other forum regarding nostalgia effects. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/item-effects-nostalgia-and-more.599913/page-2
While I understand some of these may be too farfetched, the ideas that they bring of buffing underused class abilities and making efforts of class balance are worthwhile to be looked at, plus its free inspiration . Set bonuses provide a great source of interesting and engaging new mechanics, and also provide a sense of chase for raiders. I really think that this is a great way to further player engagement and increase the longevity of the expansion. I do ask that they are not completely locked behind challenge heroics or top end raids, however. I would like them to be achievable my most of the playerbase willing to raid, possibly the end items being behind what would be similar to the Creator, whatever form it will take next expansion.

To specifically give answers to your questions:
1.Rare drops from crates need to not exist. I’m referring to the Mount, Familiar, and Merc buffs, as well as the versions of Mercs, Familiars, and mounts released with them. The mid-expac Mercenary and Familiar were almost double in stats from the previous best in slot versions, and completely obliterate the gap between the heroic player and the top end raider. This gap will never be in a good spot because of combat mitigation, but these decisions to not help. I would recommend that the mid-expansion versions only be 20-25% better than the ones at launch, and be directly obtainable, not random. This would provide a good balance for those who want to purchase it to improve their character, while those who cannot feasibly afford it, not feel completely left behind.
2.The sources to obtain gear felt great, and very diverse. PQ rare rewards were really cool. Raid loot was fairly balanced, with the exception of melee stats, which were purely used for reforging because of the state of autoattack.
3.Currency earned gear felt pretty good. I would definitely lower the cost of the armor related to coins of the cabal, as it was pretty unobtainable during the effective lifespan of the gear. (I mean that by the time we could get more than 1 piece or so, it was replaced by easily sourced loot from VD1/2). The jewelry was really well balanced. I would also suggest loot be obtainable for alts similar to how it was in Chaos Descending and Sol Eye. Better sourcing alt character gear also has no negative impact on player engagement and expansion longevity, and gives us a place to spend our currency. It really felt like the raid currency and heroic currency had nothing worthwhile to spend it on, and I would like to see options there, whether it be for alts, temporary adornments, charged tradeskill adornment recipes, or unlocking fun things to improve our character over time.
4. SET BONUSES PLEASE . Also, the fight night and Diaku challenge effects are cool. More stuff like that! Max hit clicky for spells. Scouts get em, us mages should too!.
I hope you read my novel. I want to be passionate about the game. I really do. Steps taken the last couple of weeks are in the right direction. Just don’t fudge it up with more unnecessary pay-to-win, and stuff that makes it harder for people to catch up. Terrors of Thalumbra was the golden age of ease of access. You could get a character ready in two days and take it into lower raid zones. It was amazing.

Edit: After I typed this, I read Twistyd's post. It has a really good point, and I would like to echo it. Please play the game at the level you are introducing loot for. Autoattack is beyond horrendous now, because we simply cannot get the amount of self stats required to make it a compelling option due to how Reforging was gutted. In an ideal world, both ability-based and melee-based combat would be equal, which is hard to obtain, but right now it is far from it. Far, far, far from it. A character that would want to make auto attack 20% of their parse loses 80% of their ability damage potential. I feel that if you were to actively experience what we're referring to, it would give you a much better understanding. Feel free to ask any of us personally if you'd like to know more, we would be glad to help.
Also, set bonuses XD.

1. As you completed Solo, Heroic, and Raid dungeons in Reign of Shadows did you feel like you were earning the gear you needed in order to challenge the next tier of difficult content? If yes, what were the best sources of loot? (rare drops, merchants, mission rewards, etc) If no, what didn't feel right? How could gear progression have been improved?

Solo zone gear just BARELY got you enough stats to run T1 heroics, where it was so bad that the ones returning who were lacking fervor (since the only way to get it, if from past content that no one runs) could not get by the first named in Quarry after an hour of attempting it.

If you are going to continue with fervor, make it accessible to 75% of people with a lesser amount one, I mean those runes from Vex Challenge Raid kill all other runes that NO one else will be able to procure unless you are with a top 3 raiding guild.

I honesty felt that crafters were given the short end of the stick again, the patterns were stupid and pointless for the most part, and the prices of them on the broker were astronomical.
I think that the BEST as of late TS for getting into heroics was Chaos Descending xpac, the MC gear was perfect for getting into heroics, and pieces could be made up with solo gear until it could be replaced. With NO unnecessary Uncommon Lunar Material (that I am willing to bet, that 100% of people hate) Just back to basics. (So missing a dedicated TS dev =( I know you can only do with what you have... but still missing one)

Then beyond Heroics -> Experts (which alot had to be carried through, had stats, just no fervor) -> to raids was fine, not that Vastly came out, it now trumps raiding gear.

2. Of the many ways to acquire items and gear in Reign of Shadows (boss drops, tradeskill, mission rewards, etc), what felt most rewarding? What did you like about that system?

I Think that tradeskills were the HARDEST it has ever been to collect books, I know some people that still have not finished Void Etched books to this date.
Red Adorn books should be player made as well, like BoL
Some of the solo drops from were BIS (cloak), and I like that, it means everyone can get it, not an amount of a few select people.

3. What did you like about the currency-earned gear in Reign of Shadows (Ethereals, Coins of the Cabal)? What could have been better? How would you like to see these systems used in the future?

Normal currency, not enough to buy things with ( not really a fan of that damage changer for heroics, 6/10 times forgot about adding them, had to make an ACT trigger to remind me)
Ethereals are fine, it makes sense how to acquire them, and how to use them now. LOVE THE ACCOUNT WIDE OPTION!!! LOL
Cabal coins, enjoyed the earning of them, and how, to spend them on, only thing missing is the heirloom tag, so the main can help feed the alts that are just short of making them.
Raid Coins are fine.

4. Is there anything else rewards-related you want us to know about?

Some of the good stuff was a drop rate of pretty much zero... Master Spells not even in raid drop. I think that I completed 2 sets of Red Adorns from the solos once, I had 1 Destruction Rune drop from 100s of runs (many commons piling up, no complete sets) Celestials from PQ's are silly rare. I got more from the VD bonus chests than ever from doing the PQs themselves, including ones that never dropped for me.

Overall - did I enjoy this expac, yes... Alt friendly, definitely getting better than it has been. Definitely enjoyed the fly per zone portion of the sig, compared to the fly at the end of the sig line. Crafting was useless for the most part. Shadowed Balzanite Rares were horrid to find in shadowed harvesting.

Only thing that I would change, is if you finished the current sigline, it gives a free pass to the previous expac requirements... example: the Akhevan language runes collection, just go look for them. Shadowed harvesting, did the current TS sigline, then automatically get shadowed harvesting skill, without having to do the previous xpac TS sigline. (if you want the staff, then do it, just the skill, you get it automatically as example)
7.5/10 would be a fair score.