Please Instance Everything

Then my mitsake, when someone says top guilds, i think the very best, not multiple per server. Just because people are fighting over it, doesnt mean they are equal.

Not your fault - I wasn't particularly clear. If I was still in my EQ1 hardcore mode I'd have read it the same way.

Dd

Hey you guys remember when Talendor/Gorenaire used to despawn in like 30 minutes if you didn't kill them? And Ascent would respawn so if you wiped you probably weren't getting back in 30 minutes? And your dragon would despawn and you'd be locked out of spawning another one for 3 days? But they haven't made them easier, right? Sometimes the hardest part of an encounter isn't the mob itself maybe.

haven't been reading the last few pages but i came across these snippits and i have to say

/agree

At the very least T5 raids kept people playing for a long time in the pursuit of full fabled...not so much anymore...

I think everyone will agree that T5 was the 'glory days' of EQ2 raiding, when you're talking about balance between the hardcore and casual crowds.

The pris1 line was released ENTIRELY instanced, were there whines then? There weren't any, because there were plenty of contested and single group content (which actually dropped good loot) to keep even the most hardcore 24/7 raider occupied. Who cares about Niscanith if Venekor was up in CT? And it got even better when spirits and splitpaw were released. It catered to everyone, because hardcore players got their phat lewtz, while skilled casual raiders were able to complete a tough questline for a nice reward - and they were able to upgrade via instances, though not as much as a guild who killed contested.

If KoS was released the way it should have been, that is - bug free, with 3-4 instanced raids, proper itemization, ALOT more than 3 real contesteds and an upgraded ToS, BUT with the DT access quest entirely instanced along with Deathtoll, no one would be saying a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] thing. Not a peep from casual raiders. Not a peep from hardcore raiders. The hardcore raiders would still finish claymore first, simply because they put the most time into the game and have the greatest desire to be first, and deservedly so. As long as the most difficult contesteds drop outstanding loot that is better than anything found in an instance, I think everyone will be satisfied.

Edit - The only problem with the above scenario would be that people would be geared too quickly, which I agree is not a good thing. Full t7 gear in the first month is stupid, what reason is there to raid the same mobs over and over if everyones already twinked? Perhaps getting rid of relic altogether would help, I dunno. That's really the only problem I would foresee.

Message Edited by Tasnus on 06-07-2006 11:27 PM

oh this is a " i wish it come true " thread ? cool

For EoF

-Make 5-7 Instance, for Raids, dont give them a timer on themself, give the Nameds a timer like they doing in EQ1. If you kill the namd in that zone its away for 6 days, so you can try and raid for fun.
-Make more Access Quest INstance, so hardcore get more instance then cusual player ( yeah cusual cry but who cares they have it far to easy )
-Make the Mobs a real challange, not just uba dps needet
-have items like

-Epic drop > any group instance / quest reward ( dont dont involve killing an epic mob or more )
-Fabled > Legendäry
-Endzone Loot > then any other drop ( beside it contains killing and questing in this zone )

I love to raid, but i dislike it when i see a lowbie that raids 2 times / week, run around in full relic and 2 uba weapon from an easy Quest. Cusual player have it far to easy, they dont have even a single clue, how easy this game is. I dont care, let it be this easy, but make the Coreplayer, that raid night after night, have far better items, that cusual player wont ever optain aslong tehy dont raid that much or in a High End Guild. If they cry then they should raid, but not change items so they feel again great...I just want to see a difference, with an endgeared char towards and regular geared Char, its no fun like it is now..

Access quests are BAD. Access to a mob should be purely on your ability to kill some "gatekeeper" mob at the absolute worst (think Aaryonar, Rallos Zek, etc), but I'm a big fan of having progressing simply enforced because some mobs are actually harder than others!

The real effect of an access *quest* is to slow down the hardcore guilds and stop them getting to the end zone as fast as they want to. Trust me on that - I lived through it expansion after expansion on EQ1. Ask anyone who lived through Luclin if Ssra Emp key and VT key were good or bad for the game.

Dd

its called R-A-I-D P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S-I-O-N. I did VT key and i liked it. I liked PoP tiers. Heck I even liked Veeshan Peaks Access quest. It kept me busy and i felt rewarded at the end unlike this game with instant gratification. There's nothing exciting to look forward to. Please put in more access quest :smileytongue:


Message Edited by Esar on 06-08-2006 12:00 AM

LOL. Well you sure as hell are in the small minority of EQ1 raiders who actually enjoyed that expansion.

PoP however, I agree, was alot of fun.

You were never in a high end guild in EQ1, right, at least not one that was the first to access the content you're talking about there?

Liked VT key... sorry, but that's just laughable. Which part did you like exactly? Maiden's Eye? Perhaps Fungus Grove? Was it the wasted time waiting for stupid named to spawn on the 2nd floor of Ssra? Now tell me exactly which part of this was "Raid".

Key quests are not raid progression and never have been raid progression. Raid progression means you RAID, not camp a trivial mob on a long spawn. That is the opposite of RAIDING - that is doing NOTHING.

Riddle me this: Why does a guild with the force, ability and mobilization to reach Emp Ssra have to spend 3 weeks farming trivial mobs that require zero skill just to get a shot? That's not "progression". That's a timesink for the sake of having one.

Dd

oh come on, VP key is not raid progression, that is baloney, raid strategy hardly existed in Kunark. The strat for every single mob was 'lol kill it in 45 seconds or wipe'. Raid progression from early EQ was farming PoHate or PoFear, it had nothing to do with camping the key to VP and no sane individual liked that camp.

Raid progression is based on GEAR, TACTICS and to a lesser extent levels and AA points (those are assumed, however).

You could not take a group of 60s that had not raided and walk into NToV, you simply could not do it because you didnt have a) the tactics or b) the gear required. You had to armor up on quest armor, then you had to take down lesser mobs for ST keys, then you had to work on Primal, then you could bust into NToV and take down Tormax and Yelinak and the other tough bosses.

Luclin was a waste of an expansion, the progression was totally hosed (bane weapons are a BAD idea), but at least it did have 1 block - Emp. But then you had to camp 10 lucid shards, which was another grand waste of time and energy for raiders that wanted to RAID not solo green mobs 20 levels below them.

PoP is a good example of real progression. Gates of Discord is a good example of real progression (and added in GOOD single group progression, not 'lol boring [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] camp' progression). OoW had the 6 trials, single group (req'd, essentially) and raid, and then the signets, that is well planned progression. I can go on here.

Camping stupid stuff for no reason but to waste your time = no thanks
Doing difficult trials to prove your level or experience = yes please
Raid road blocks based on gear or tactics= yes please
Message Edited by Keldoth on 06-08-2006 12:15 AM

For all you instance hating my electronic unit is bigger than yours... Why dont you go be the big raiders on a PVP server, I mean hell... whats more hardcore than having to defend your raid on the way to an instanced zone.

Racing to a mob does not make you better, just more time on your hands!

Now, that stupid Cingular guy didnt spawn this weekend but I heard he has been reitemized and will drop the RAZR line now. I am gonna go sit at his Kiosk again. This time I am gonna make sure people passing by know that I am more l33t cause I am gonna race and get him before they do.

BTW, whats Thorazine and why are they prescribing it to me now? /shuffle

Wow, I've never seen a post dismantled so quickly ~

Everyone read the above statements and learn. Danke

A PoP-esq expansion would go a LONG way to helping this game if done correctly. I dont really care if most of the players never raid, there is clearly a large variety of people who do raid in some form or another.
Using PoP as a model, I think from the get go the whole tier 1 needs to be available to everyone. If I remember correctly only 4 adventure zones were available and a couple months later they unlocked 2-3 more. Those 2-3 more need to be open from launch. The first 4 should be mostly xp zones, and I think each should contain a DAILY raid instance for a guild, possibly 2 of them being x2 and two of them being x4. Build off the t5 daily raid instance model of itemization and drop rate, those were good. For the other 2-3 zones have one by like temple of scale with a big bad contested at the end. The other 1 or 2 can be a harder exp type zone and one of wich must contain a weekly x4 instance.
I would suggest having a flagging system where to gain access to tier 2, you must defeat all of the daily instance zones and the boss of the weekly instance, but not the contested mob. Do something where like 70% of the raid must have access to zone people in like in eq1, not just one person clicks everyone in, but not everyone must have all flags either. There are alternate quests for access to tier 2 that do NOT require raiding. They will be lengthy and require hardwork kind of like the claymore quests up to the epic part, but a bit harder. This will allow non raiders to also gain access to the tier 2 zones.
This should allow everyone to be able to get access to tier 2 without any competition realy. Obviously this tier is a step above tier 1, so everything needs to be HARDER and have BETTER loot. I see tier 2 with 2-3 zones total. Another weekly raid instance and two contested mobs.
For access to tier 3 I would like to see the boss of the instance be required, and also some trials. One heroic trial, and 2 raid trial instances. These trials can only be done while on the quest and drop no loot. They are there for the sole purpose of progressing through the expansion. Massive waves of mobs are always good for a trial For the non raiders there is a quest but they MUST have raided and defeated the daily instances from tier 1 as well as another claymore esq quest to get tier 3. Sorry non raiders but thats just how I see it.
Tier 3 is just two zones. Each have a contested mob in them and a weekly x4 raid instance.
Tier 4 is sperated here in my vision. Access to tier 4a comes from defeating the two x4 instances in tier 3 and is nothing but access to another raid instance on an 8 day lock out from zone in. This zone is THE end game zone if your an instance raider. It will be [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing hard. It will be big. It will be fun with some of the best loot in game. There is no access to tier 4 without raiding.
Tier 4b is accessed through killing any four of the 5 contested mobs thus far in the expansion. Yes I realize this will piss people off, but remember each tier is noticeably harder/more rewarding, so the first two tiers (if this is implemented correctly) should be mostly devoid of the uber guilds by the time they are in tier 4. This is a NON instanced zone full of epic trash mobs. There are four to six contested mobs scattered around the zone. This is your end game zone contested raiders.
If this was implemented we would have 4 daily instances, 5 weekly instances, and 9-11 contested mobs, on varying timers. I would say make the lower tier contested start at three day spawns and work up to around 10 days for the 4b mobs.
Now as far as itemization goes. Those daily instances need to have one or two good drops that will be useful for a long time. Those drops need to be rare, but they need to exsist. No weekly raid instance should drop more than four pieces of fabled, and no contested should drop more than two. EVERY drop off a contested no matter the tier needs to be at least as good as 90% of the gear you would find in the weekly instance for the same tier. The weekly instance can have several pieces of gear that is better, but vary the slots and types of gear between the two so both have reasons to be killed/cleared.
If I was progressing items for this I would do it very generally as follows: Tier 1 high stats fabled, no effects. Tier 2 relatively similar stats, small boost in hp/power and a decent mitigation boost. Your FT crap can start showing up here on the top 10% of items for the tier. Tier 3 is the relic tier. Every piece of relic needs an effect/proc and make them tailored to the individual classes. Relic does not come from trash, it has a *chance* at dropping off bosses both instanced and contested. Master spells can rarely come from trash, that is good enough. Relic will have similar stats, a slight mitigation boost, and a slight hp/power boost over t2, plus the effects. Tier 4a is some [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing sweet gear. The stats jump up from relic, items can have multiple effects/procs but still relic drops. The final two bosses of the big instance here have a *chance* at dropping hardcore relic feet and helm. The hardcore relic is like relic on steroids. This will be the best gear period. This is only a chance as there is nice jewelery and other things. Most loot should be weapons, and right side gear since relic and hardcore relic will be the goal of the left side. Tier 4b each contested has a *chance* at dropping the remaining slots for hardcore relic, one for shoulders, one for forearms, one for gloves, and for the hardest two mobs, one has a chance at the bp and one at the legs. Asside from this, 75% of the gear these contested drop will be better than anything found in t4a, but they spawn less frequently and drop less loot. 98% of the loot from tier 4a/b will be better than anything found elsewhere, but it will be rare and slow to enter the world. You cannot count on ever getting anything or ever getting all of it for a LONG LONG time.
Those are my ideas anyways. Trying to give ample content to both the high level xp player, the pickup raider, the casual raider, the instance raider, and the extreme hardcore contested raider. I really cant think of a way to be more fair and still maintain reasons for killing things with progression and proper itemization.

Thank you. Finally someone really gets it and I can agree with 100%.

Everything you talk about here is awsome accept the access to content by killing contested hehe. Yes I know I know... round and round we go. I just don't understand why you have to make access to content rely on kiling contested mobs. I don;t have a problem with contested zones I think they are really needed but why make access to then contingent on other contested mobs? I just don;t get the logic. If you want contested that's fine but allow everyone to see it not just people able to kill contested. 90% of us wont even be there to do it anyways so why does it matter if we go in to just look around?

You know, honestly, What is the difference between as access quest or a "Gatekeeper"? Both the access quest and the "Gatekeeper" would require you to kill something to get to the mob. The only catch with your idea though is that you would have to kill that "Gatekeeper" every time you wanted to get to a mob. An access quest only has to be done 1 time and then you could get to that mob every time it's up. What you said after access quests beign bad is actually worse in my opinion for the not so strong guilds out there.
and in the second part of the post it sounds to me like you want all obstacles taken away so you can race any guild to a mob. You know that those "UberGuildX's" out there had to do all of the current access quests too right? They didn't just get it handed to them on a silver platter. They worked for it and earned it.
There is Nothing stopping any guild out there from getting to DT now other than their own skill.
Harla Dar = Instanced
Lord Vyem = Instanced
Gorenair = Instanced
Tallendor = Instanced
Deathtoll Itself = Instanced zone
If people have a problem with doing an access quest, why aren't you same people asking for the reuse timers to be taken off of zones? I mean OMG, a 6 day lockout on a zone!? Sony is Blocking you from Content right there! Grab your pitch forks and torches!!!!

I would love something like that ishboo. We could have got that in eq2 , main issue right now is that mob drop too much loot. Labs is the easiest instance and drop something like 10 fabled a night + 4-5 relic/legendary set. On a night we got 12 relic/legendary and 10 fabled, that mean 1 item for everyone in the raid (very lucky but it has happened).
I dont really know if the named are much easier on this expansion or if this is due to the amount of very good gear available easily.
They need to design the next expansion entry raid based on relic gear/claymore reward as a basis (so easiest zone should be something like the hardest zone right now) and design other zone based on drop on these zone.

The only thing that required you to kill contested really was access to the big time contested zone. There needs to be a measure of who gets in and who doesnt for this because otherwise you end up with 500000 people standing there with no intention of ever pulling the mob, doing anything to the mob, just watching you, standing on you, lagging you up. This way at least if people had access to the zone they probably were trying to get their raid force ready to kill it as well.
Frankly if your not there to try and kill the mob with your raid, you have no business standing on top of another raid and lagging them up. I absolutely hate that.
Besides, since the contested are lower "tiers" they should be more accessible. Can any guild say they killed acrimoniad everytime he spawned in t5? Can any guild say they killed Haragaur everytime he spawned? No way. Getting the lower tier contested for access, especially once the top guilds have moved into the last zone will be easy because there just wont be a reason for them to be killing them. The same as the top guilds dont make a point of going out and getting terrorantula today.