One of the interesting concepts I'm having difficulty understanding is how "time" spent in game means you'll eventually get anything you need. Sorry, but my impression is that would be true only if, a flawed RNG/Loot table arrangement weren't involved. I don't care how much time you spend in a game, or don't, you could spend thousands of hours running a instance and never see the item. Player A runs an instance twice and ding, gets the item. Six months later, player B is still running the instance and never sees same item. That's why you've still got players who haven't seen some recipe books, while getting literally a hundred of a different type. We've been raiding since day 1, three times a week and have seen two raid mount drops in all this time. Other raiders have posted they see one a week. The idea that a flawed RNG number generator can be overcome by spending time running the same missions ad nauseum is counter-intuitive. Yes, some players will spend a lot of money to be number one. Some people just spend money, because six months later, they still haven't seen the item and want to improve. There's only so much time in the day, even if you're retired like I am. I can log a lot of hours in a day. The idea I am going to have better results is inherently flawed when coupled with a broken loot system and RNG. There are guildies and raid mates who have stuff I haven't even seen yet and they play a lot less. And no, they're not buying it either.
I see better gear running the raid weekly than I do when rolling on an item. My dice suck...but most of my gear upgrades have come from the weekly anyway But I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that the OP was unhappy with not being able to catch up to the DPS being put out by fully adorned maxed classes...without paying for it. Gear RNG is only part of the issue. And if you are raiding regularly, you should be getting some upgrades. Lower spell levels and lack of the blue fervor runes is what is hurting most returning players, imo. Not RNG so much. In a perfect world, I would pull out the old credit card and max out all my spells. But, I'm an adult and I keep game purchases to limits that suit my budget.
No argument from me on your comments. Loot drops from raiding have been incredibly thin in some spots. You bring a raid force into a zone, kill a boss and it's two loot items--with one of them almost always a red rune of Adamant Defiance? Give me a break. Regarding the blue fervor runes. Not sure everyone may be aware to check the tinkering merchant in Myrist Library. There are at least two of them for sale for status and archivist solidus coins iirc. The gold ones from CD xpac missions. They're heirloom, so you can consolidate them, but most of us have a lot of the darn things. One offers 70 resolve and the other is a combo of 25 resolve and other stat enhancements.
The issue with this for returning players, is they haven't earned the achievement to unlock the purchase of those runes.. so unless they join a guild that regularly runs CD content then they can't buy them for coins and status.. this is where time or money comes into play... invest the time to get a guild to run them thru the content.. or xfer to isle of refuge and just buy them.
Exact quotes from raid leaders in discord; "Yeah, the pay-to-win is such a huge part of playing a t1 dps now. I have returning folks trying to come back to the game on T1's and I have to break it to them that they literally won't get a spot unless they can get p2w stats."
He's referring mostly to players / raiders who have been gone for years and want to get back up to speed quickly. You "can" get up to par without paying, but it is a tough haul and without the CD blue fervor adorns...shrug..you'll never attain parity. So the fact that there is another way for returning players to rejoin the game and start raiding immediately is pretty cool IMO.
i always tho that spells tiers were STUPID ,even on vanilla , but u live with experts until u got lucky or payed tons of plat for them they added research cool but they added more tiers...+ Ascensions , if u dont pay or play often , by the time u have spells upgraded , another expansion is released and guess what? do it again lol In other mmorpgs once maxed u work on gear on low mans or crafting , and thats it , here? u have so many things to work on before being able to think about even raiding ...gear is the less of your issues.
I think you're talking a whole different ball game here. No, the ptw stuff is not to 'get up to speed quickly', it's for those who, in order to compete with top dps in the top guilds, will need to match their 185/190k+ potency by using premium infusers. This is hugely expensive, as you could buy 3 or 4 20-packs of crates before you see even one of the celestial infusers. And you're off the mark with the blue adornments comment too. It's not a case of getting up to speed without them, they are 100% mandatory. If you were trialling at a top guild as an assassin say, without those runes, you wouldn't match the parse of the healers. It doesn't matter if you played chaos descending day in day out, raided, and were awesome. It means nothing as a T1 dps at the top end of BoL, as you're missing thousands in potency, stamina and cb without those infusers. Sorry, but that's the truth. That said, BoL raiding is really not difficult, even challenge mode. If a handful of people in the raid are ptw, you can progress nicely. If none are, then you'll have to be very patient, as you won't pass the challenge mode dps checks.
@ALL OF YOU PEOPLE... If your not paying to win, then you are the reason my prices on the market place and for Krono's are still so damn high. Start pitching in, cause if those of us who so generously keep spending were to stop being generous ~ they may just shut off the lights. (Trust me when I tell you, there LOTS of pay to win folks out there) Pay to Win such a dirty term... Pay for right now bigger bang for the buck! That's more the truth, and I subscribe to give me bigger bang now. I don't want to wait till next tier to start seeing masters for the current tier. But that's just me... You don't like pay to win, find a guild of like minded individuals to raid and play with, this way you wont notice that your behind and you will feel content. You like pay to win? Awesome, come join me in some *** kicking fun! Either way it's entertainment, you get what you pay for, just like with anything else in life. Why would you expect anything different here? Just sayin...
Almost ever aspect of this game is now either pay up or wait a long time. Pets, mounts, spells, Overseers, crafting times all require an insane amount of time or cash. SOE started the concept and DB continues it; making the research times so unreasonable that you “want” to spend cash so you can progress. Sure, you can get drops to slightly reduce some of these times but the % rate is so low it isn’t worth trying. If a new player logged on today and created a character, it would take years before they could do enough DPS, healing, or tanking to perform well in a T1 Heroic (current content) without spending cash. Who would want to want that long?
What Mr. Rogers said. Remember when you had a reasonable expectation when running an instance (solo, group, raid) and seeing a master (for anything) drop? Check the broker out. Seeing any masters of any kind on the broker? They're virtually non-existent. That's not by accident, people. Progressing in this game whether you're casual or serious is about opening your wallet up and paying for it. You've got a better chance of seeing Donald Trump complementing someone on TV than having any thing of value dropping in this game to progress. Which means your only alternative is researching and the time involved on the current stuff is so long it will be 5 years before you possibly get there, if that soon.
Go back and try reading my post. I said it would be a tough haul to get there and even then you would never achieve parity with other raiders without the blue fervor adorns. BoL & CD crafted infusers are almost as good as cobalt crate infusers. If you are fully infused with those, you'll find that with the paid infusers, you'll be searching for some of your gear that can even take one. That said...the p2w aspect of this game doesn't bother me in the least. I have way more disposable income than actual game time. So short cuts gained with a credit card works just fine with me.
Hate to break it to you, but the paid infusers are on a different layer, so infuse your gear all you want with plat and crafted infusers, each piece is still 375 pot short of its full potential. Times that by 21 pieces of gear. That's the main (but not only) huge gaping gulf between ptw and non.
I have no problems with that gulf....gaping or otherwise. Its only ptw if you can't afford to pay, lol.
Yeah, like you I could pump money into this without a problem, and I've done a bit. I certainly got premium edition (before it really dawned on my how ptw it was) and the wife and I have bought a few crates here and there when it was novel and fun. But let's say you're a T1 dps class and you want to join a hardcore raid guild. You now have to buy enough crates to max out pretty much all your gear, or you won't make the grade. Does that really sit ok with you? You already pay a sub, maybe you bought premium edition too. That's quite a lot of money for a video game already. If you want to max out your gear, you're gonna need a lot of premium infusers, and certainly the legendary one's won't do. You could be talking 100k dbc or more. That's not ok in my opinion. Back in KoS, in the stone age, I played an assassin. All I needed was a good accumulation of master spells and my dps would steadily improve with acquisition of gear. If I took that approach with an assassin now, I'd probably be being outparsed by the mystic pet.
Thinking about KoS/EoF/Rok. If we'd have had this ptw stuff back then, we'd have been missing half of the best raiders who played the game. A good number of them really were basement dwelling turbo nerds, but my god did they know the game. These days their lack of wallet weight would have kept them out of it.
Yeah, separately, I have tried to suggest them being added to BoL in some way to help returning players. Personally I got all of them last xpac, and I do feel for those who struggle to get them. But that's not ptw, even if it is a bit rubbish that you have to do dead content. With hard work and help, and taking your opportunities, you can do it.
Agree. I miss the days when upgrading an alt meant that you passed extra gear down to that your main acquired and maintained your spells. Last expac with that was ToT. Hardcore raiding is far past for me though so I'll likely never see the issues you are talking about. Quite happy with our once a week raid alliance, lol.
Lmao! If we're gonna flex our epeen, there are plenty of us who make a better living, but choose not to spend the money required to be a T1. Why? This might sound crazy but mmo's work best when players are rewarded for their play time and skill. Not RNG or their wallet. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you can progress your character and maximize your character in a reasonable amount of time by just simply playing the game. Unfortunately, this no longer exists in Eq2.
