This expansions ranks among the worst I have seen in this game. No tradeskill timeline. The instances are not fun at all and required to get even basic gear. DBG should seriously consider refunding purchase price for this terrible expansion.
I must have missed something, There is Tishan's Lockbox to give you full gear ready to run instances, its extremely alt friendly, the sig line and faction grind isn't a huge grindfest,are you sure you're talking about the right game/expansion? This is the best expansion in quite some time.
The devs really listened to the problems with KA and have made it much easier to get started in PoP. Like Ark mentioned, you get a box of gear and a boost to 50 deity potency when you start the Signature line; the faction grinds are broken up into manageable chunks and are far better than we've seen in the past; and each instance you complete unlocks it for all alts on your account. I'm definitely missing the tradeskill timeline, but the devs have said it's coming in the next month (probably). That is a serious loss, I agree...I'm hoping the wait is worth it. Sorry you haven't had a good experience with PoP...for me, it has actually made me interested in dusting off my neglected alts and getting them back into things. It's a nice change.
My only complaint would be that it feels a bit small compared to some in the past. Aside from that, I am still really enjoying it!
The OP is much like "Not happy with television" because one show isn't any good. Not very constructive. Lack of Tradeskill Timeline is an issue. For now writ grinding is the way forward. Once you've done that you can make really pretty decent gear btw, no need for instances there. I'm decked in mostly TS'd gear and have 552 resolve. The instances are fine IMO. Better than KA! You just have to start with Tier 1 and work up. I feel like overall this is a very approachable expansion (unlike KA). I do hope that a few bells and whistles get added here shortly. (TS Timeline).
I agree with those above. While the expansion does have it's faults, I feel it's a more accessible expansion than the prior one by a long shot.
yeah it's better than KA some fights need twiks and scripts are sometimes too unforgiving. especially for T1 heroics. now What I'd reproach is that some fights are really hard while others .. u wonder if it's a named at all. Well at least it's nice to have some balance into the zone, but sometimes it feels too much. I mean the guy with the wind wall in tower breach ... the more dps we'll have the more horrible it will be. when it's % based and unforgiving. U must make it a big hit but blockable or mitigated with enough HP/resists. but it's nice, fights are quite different from one another and u need to find the strats, it's fun ) (plus I can solo heal as druid, so love it)
The main issue is upgrading abilities, still. Masters are barely dropping. Adepts are dropping as much as masters used to.
I have the feeling Buba indead missed some information. Maybe he didnt read the corresponding articles in wiki and forum. All what he claimed is simply not correct. - With the gear from Tishan even a lvl 100 boosted toon has 30 k pot and a reasonable mitigation. The ascension boost brings him instantly to lvl 10. With this equipment at least the overland zone is a kind of shooting party. I still prefer my gear from KA, because of all the purple adornments and some higher values in ability modifier and mitigation, but I just finished the first faction timeline. I died not one single time and killed around 10 named, without any problems. - Even without a high rank in ascension this should be easy. Maybe it is already a little bit too easy. - With finishing the different quest timelines you increase your ascension lvl automatically, without any grinding. - Faction grinding is easy too and takes not really a long time. - Leveling goes really fast. Finishing just one faction line to the end, brings you from level 100 to 105. - I was not in instances till today, but what I heard it is not that complicate and within the faction timelines you have enough possibilities to improve your gear, lvl, stats, what ever. - Crafter timeline is only delayed, not canceled. I like to say, this is a classical expansion, with increase of lvl, new amor, new quests and so on. We have seen this in the past many times and for sure it is much better than KA and much more alt and casual friendly. Ok, if I want to think negative I can ignore all the things devs made better this time. I can say in the old times expansions were bigger. 10 years ago expansions had several hundreds of quests not only 100. At that time we got several new overland zones not only one, but this point of view would be not fair. 10 years ago we had no solo dungeons, no improving weapons and crafter quest didnt exist. Conclusion: WELL DONE DEVS!
Solo dungeons... this is MMO not solo dungeon fighter.Go play Diablo if you like it...The whole thing in the past was that you need people to get items, to finish quests and to enter dungeons.This was the best thing in this game, not the shiny items not the quests, not the timelines. Those were the best times this game ever had. If you think that the current state of the game is better its only your opinion, but I can tell you that is far more fun, when you constantly need some friends or guildies, or a random person in the zone so you can get things done.
I am really impressed with this Xpac, the jewelry is class friendly and everything seems to have a tiered layer of potency. There isn't 1 piece with 300pot and the next with 2500pot and + to aggression, it seems very well balanced between tanks, casters/healers and melee. It is super easy to bring an alt up for a main change if you desire especially if you purchased the Premium edition OUTSIDE of the Epic 2.0 $%^*@%@$^& but it is what it is. It feels a bit rushed with no tradeskill timelines and still bugs in the system but overall it's a pretty smooth Xpac so far.
I think the biggest problem people are going to encounter circles around getting ascension if you're a new or returning player. I can't even comprehend starting a new toon with this xpac and knowing the mechanics behind getting ascension up--especially if you were even contemplating Tome of the Ascended. There's a huge gap between getting scrolls on a daily basis with their minimal experience (capped at 7 mill and only available from the trainers in KA) and then trying to get ascension leveled in PoP with the huge gap in ascension "vitality experience" required (in excess of 21 million for one level). You can burn 50 scrolls easily just trying to get two levels up. Yeah, you get 6 pots that can raise one ascension class level at a time and yes, as you do each faction you'll get a few more, but the reality is the only life saver is being able to buy Tears of Ascension--which would be a Catch 22 for a new player and more than a few of the current players in game. This is going to be a very big inhibitor for any new or returning player that didn't come into this xpac with a lot of the Ascension groundwork done.
@Vogie Ok, the Epic 2 still takes a long time, but be honest, it is called "epic". It cannot be easy. THe basis of the game is, you want the best, you have to work hard on it. On the other side, except raiders, how important is epic 2 now. It is bis, but we have 24 slots. Imagine you would have 23 fabeled items from PoP and 1 poor weapon, I believe you would be fantictic good equiped. What i want to say, do not overestimate one single item. An alt will performe well in PoP, without epic 2 if the rest is very good.
Let me count the ways I hate this expansion so far, and this is my thoughts, but they are the facts,some might love this expansion. 1 - An expansion that is one zone and about 30 percent of the expansion is a water ring around ONE island. 2 - All zones are inside one zone, Which you cannot even get to without zoning into main zone and then fly all the way across the zone. This is equivilant to one zone and one door for everything. 3 - the upgraded pre-order expansion travel item does the exact same thing as the wizard spire in the guild hall.... 4 - forced to do all 3 faction lines and the sig line to get to the new yellow adorns, which the patterns only drop in instances, and the group I am with has seen 4 total adorn patterns. 5 - Adepts are not dropping like they used to, I could run an instance and get 4 or 5 adepts. Have not seen one 6 - Heroics have way to much trash, we know Kander loves his trash mobs, but this is over the top, for our group which is not a bad one it took 2 hours to do PoD tier 1, yes this was figuring out some of the scripts, but the trash mobs are everywhere. When you group is looking for ways to get around the trash to make the zone faster, there are too many trash mobs. 7 - shineys inside of things in instances 8 - I will say Tradeskill line not ready, even though we know its coming 9 - Tanks (other than Pallys) are useless, most scouts can tank the heroic zones, because they are ripping agro all the time anyway. 10 - Potency Bloat 11 - My eyes bleed after to doing all the faction quest lines - Pakiat is just brutal enought for now? Now all the fan boys will rip into this, because of their blinders, but all the above are facts not just a this sucks Stach
Well, I feel some aggression in your post. So I will answer in the same way: First, of course my post was my personal thinking, I have the right to say it. Ok, you just did the same. Second, to reduce the game to grouping for running dungeons in group or raid is nonsense. It was always much more than that. EQ2 was always a good mix of raiding, grouping, solo, housing, crafting etc. Many players always enjoyed only a part of it and that is ok. Solodungeons are a perfect way to show casual gamer that part of the game what they missed in the past. Third, no I dont like Diabolo, I am playing EQ2 nearly since beginning. I am today a typical duoplayer, because I love my wife! Fourth, in the "best time" what you love obviously so much, we had a official ranking list. I was over a year in top 100 worldwide. My best position was no. 9 ranger worldwide and no. 2 on my server. Of course hard core raiding was the basis for that. I know the meaning of "you need people" and I know how involved people can be. If you can compete with this, I am willing to discuss with you the changes of the world generally and EQ2 specially. Maybe you didnt recognize, but there are plenty of people out there, who just want to enjoy the game in their way, not in yours. Many of them left the game because KA was too hard for them, PoP is a chance to bring them back. I have no evidence, but I believe today more people enjoy just crafting, questing, housing, what ever, than hardcore raiding. Fifth, maybe you should remember only 5 devs are keeping the game running. Of course they cannot satisfy every wish at ones. Finally, I like PoP and I repeat: "Well done devs!"
I normally don't respond to generic rants.. and I'm no "fan boy", I will call a kettle black when necessary. But I love how the dev's listened to feedback for this expansion. I love the /key thing.. makes it very alt friendly.. and I have 13 alts. I've just recently finished the signature timeline, so everything is unlocked. Hard to beat that... I've enjoyed all the solo instances.. very well done. Kudos really... Kudos.
So I do agree with the general sentiment, an MMO should be, well, an MMO. Howver, I like the addition of the solo dungeons for a couple reasons. 1. It gives people something to do when they can't get a group together. This is badly needed in any aging MMO. 2. The solo dungeons are actually a good primer for the Heroic dungeons. People who have done the solo dungeons tend to at least have a general idea of how certain mechanics work, making it easier for a random group of people to work together toward defeating the Heroic content. It's not perfect, it's not exact, but it's better than trying to explain every single fight in detail for six people.
I am sorry if it sounded a little bit aggressive, english is not my first or second language.I am not mad about your post, im mad about the way this game has taken about few expansions ago. My point is that before with quested gear and nothing else you can enter dungeon/instance with a group and have fun. Now what you need to grind keys, PG tokens, another maybe 2-3 types of currency only to be able to do something in the current heroics.To invest huuuge amounts of real money to be relevant in raids... Dont get me wrong i am complete casual i love casual gamestyle but with people, with friends.So what do a new player now will do in the current exp - he will do the signature, maybe grind the factions, try to get in group and as soon as he undestand how big is the gap to someone who didnt stop playing eq, he will ask how to get better stats. But the aswer to this question will be go grind this and that and do it "alone".By the time he might gear himself he will be long gone and moved to another game.Yes there will be people staying and playing but most of them will dislike the timesink wich is needed you to invest to have fun and not feel like you've been caried like a baby by your group.This is what gets me mad... Once again sorry didnt intend to sound aggressive or to insult you in some way.
