This game is too Raid Orientated

oh look, a bump on a blog

I completely missed that typo, oops. At least it's good for a laugh. I was just referring to what you had said in your post about making each tier of gear have to be less effective as you went through content below where the gear had come from.

exactly. and those limitations severely limit how much of an upgrade raid gear is.

I have an idea. How about people playing the game the way they want to play it and letting other people play the game the way they want to play it?

Hmm?

Quality trolling OP.
2013 people still falling for matin's troll.

Because it wont be much of a game, if EQ2 is made to cater to a lazy scrub, who believes that the glorious feat of logging in, entitles them to instantly achieve max level, along with the very best loot the game can possibly offer. That is what will happen if people like you, get your way.

Only the short-sighted think that SOE's "Free to Play Your Way" slogan actually means something, beyond the addition of a new payment plan. If I was free to play my way, I want a BFG9000, so I can run up and fire at zone-in access points, nuking every group/raid inside. And for everyone I kill, I get all their gear, plat, and their character is perma-dead. Until SOE does this, EQ2 is not free to play my way, and anyone who thinks otherwise, is dead wrong.

Actually I am a non-raider and I am complaining that non-raid content is too easy. Hmmm. And I know that a friend of mine is complaining about the same, especially in the lower levels. While I remember that i.e. RoK-Quests were nice and sometimes a bit challenging, now you fall asleep when you crush one mob after another - even without a merc.

When I do the advanced version of the ship, I am betting with myself how many mobs I can pull without to die. And the most interesting thing is, that I actually sometimes lose on my own bet =P The advanced solo instances were fine from a difficulty point of view once you did them during the questline, because with 92 / 93 and the pre-95-equipment they were a nice challenge. Now all of them are just pure faceroll. And no, I am not a raider nor do I think I am a pro-gamer (actually the opposite). But keeping some challenge in the game would do the game good as well. Unfortunately as soon as some people (not directed towards you now) are not killing stuff in the first try, they run to the forum and cry...

But that's now again a completely different topic...

As belissa said, the content itself is to easy, even without raidgear.... there where instances the last expacs, which do made a challenge (at least for some of the players). SKY and the challenge zones, where at least a better solution then the instances today.

Dear SOE, please remove fabled drops from solo content. It totally ruins the game. Thanks.

Or significantly reduce the drop rate.

Previously, fabled from solo zones were a small chance for a nice surprise. It not only required the item to drop, but also being usable by the person who got it. Until the change, I believe the low odds of fabled loot from solo instances being equippable, justified their existence despite being out of their tier.

But SOE changed the way that fabled loot in solo instances drop. With such, fabled armor from solo instances is now a loot bonanza on auction channels. I am sure that many of the people selling + buying this gear love it. But there is a question to pose: Is it right that trivial solo instances drop armor that completely bypasses all armor from group based heroic zones?

EQ2 has been a tiered and structured game from day 1. For solo instances to suddenly drop raid level armor in high volume, that completely bypasses the next phase of progression (heroic), strikes me as being a poor decision by SOE. The way I view it, SOE is breaking their own standards of progression, which not just impacts the current content, but will compromise the relevancy of solo+group content in the next release.

I am curious to see how SOE will attempt dealing with the problem they created.

Myself and others have been constantly saying that the fabled drops in the solo instances were a mistake. The ethereal drops I could live with, given the rarity. However, as you said they compounded the issue when they changed loot from being given via the boxes in a chest to actually being in the chest. This leads to crowds of people sitting around the DC zone in, as they're just farming the one zone, swapping toons, going back in, and minimal interest in heroic content outside of the occasional HE or old ST instance run for a chance at a mount.

If sony really felt that non-raiders should have a shot at earning raid level armor in non-raid content, they should have had them be the rare drops in the heroic zones, rather then the almost too common drops in the solo zones.

I have read this four times and for the life of me can't understand what on earth your point is.

If people like me get my way? What the heck is my way? I simply was suggesting that those who like to raid most of all, raid, those who like to craft most of all, craft, those who like to quest most of all, quest....etc. etc.

I can't even determine if you're being satiric or if you're attacking my post.

The possibility of the raid drops itself is not the problem. The amount was kind of fine in the beginning.
But now with the new chests, they get farmed and sold over and over and the amount of these fabled items entering the game (and not being transmuted) is way too high. Groups are nearly non-existent now, since just the advanced solos are farmed and fabled sold. It is not a "fabled drop" anymore, it is not really worth more anymore than vendor sold stuff.

To change it, either change the reuse timer to 24 hours or let the whole account just do it three times a day. I am not even starting with technological possibilities of only people looting the item who were in the zone at the time the mob has been killed. But knowing SoE the end result will be a nerf in the drop rate, so that out of 1 million tries you will get 1 fabled. SoE is just known for being on the extreme end ...

Then I suggest you try reading it a 5th time.

I suggest you clarify.

You're the one trying to make a point after all. Whatever it is.

What precisely was it about my suggestion that people play the game the way they want to play it was so offensive to you? Are you really trying to insist that people who don't like to raid be forced to raid? Are you insisting that people who don't want to craft, be forced to craft? Are you insisting that people who don't like to quest be forced to quest?

Sure, but I would be better equipped to do so, if I was aware of how it is you play EQ2. So I will ask the following:

What is your highest level (primary/main) character? [name/class/server]
Do you actively tradeskill?
Do you actively solo?
Do you actively group?
Do you actively raid? And if so, what content?

The answers to those questions, will allow me to respond using examples relevant to your style of play, and hopefully provide sound clarification.

Fair enough.
My highest level character is Taelnia, a level 90 Beastlord on Guk.
I have toons in all the tradeskills but not all at the highest level. Taemisa is my highest level tradeskiller. She is a level 92 carpenter. My second highest tradeskiller is a level 64 armorsmith.

I solo most of the time. I group only with guildies or people I know.

I raid when my guild wants to get a guild raid achievement or a trophy for the guild (or status points for the guild). My guild is mainly a crafting guild however.

Didn't read the whole thread, but:

1. The game isn't too raid focused, but there isn't enough focus on group content. Right now the game is bifurcated into solo content and raid content with not much meaningful stuff inbetween the two. This needs addressing.

2. What is the point of having raid quality loot as a solo player? Nothing you do requires it. All it really does is make your gaming experience even more trivially easy. I get that most people don't think in these terms - they think the loot is an end to itself. But it really isn't.

((
*rolls eyes*

I get it, you consider all players who are not hardcore raiders and are not content with weak treasured items are lazy scrubs, you consider us all scum, and our views and feedback is of no importance to anyone. You consider that the game should only be designed for the 0.1% of the playerbase involved in scheduled hardcore raiding. Yes, your opinion comes through clearly.

Even though the vast majority of raiders, including all the ones I associate with, do not have this kind of obnoxious attitude, it is precisely this kind of attitude that makes raiders disliked by the mass of the non-raiding playerbase, and it is this kind of thing that fuels the "us vs them" approach in many posters on forums like these.

The game does not need to be designed like it is at all. It would in my opinion be a better game if the game were not "raid-oriented" at all. Meaning, that the path to the very best gear in game were not only via a raiding playstyle. Repeatable heroic questpaths could be designed that had a rare chance of the very best pieces. Even solo quests and zones could be developed which , on earning massive amounts of faction that might take hundreds of hours of effort, might eventually reward someone putting in an enormous amount of effort, the chance to get the very best items. Getting them via raiding would still be "easier" in terms of time and effort, but it would not be the "only" way, for truely dedicated players. This is not a revolutionary concept, it has been done in other games, it could be done here.

Obviously, the type of people with the mentality of that quoted, would become hysterical at the idea, and would quit en masse if that happened. I'd say - let them go, the game would pick up ten times as many subscriptions from normal players as a result.
Of course, SOE won't do it. Were I the lead designer, I would make it so.
))

So I tried to read it all, and here are my thoughts

For the gear perspective, it is totally without discussion or reasoning, beyond your own misguided greed - broken
Fabled items, do not need to drop from Solo zones.

Fabled items, should only drop starting in heroic zones, period. If you want the better gear, you should have to work your *** off for it. It should not be handed to you for blowing through a 10 minute solo zone IE; Dreadcutter.
All my 95 berserker has to do is run to each name, smack them down, AoE the crap out of all the trash and move on to the next, repeat, 10 minutes later, a possible fabled. Is that right?

Not when I take a group of people(6), spend 30 to 60 minutes clearing a zone, the boss drops an ornate with one lesser legendary in it and this is common, way WAY too common. I'd be happy if they erased the fabled and ethereal stuff maybe even the legendary equipment from the solo zones loot tables and made the progression tighter and clearer. Face it, you do not need even legendary equipment to plow through the main quest line in Ethernere anyway, thinking different is just again, being greedy.

If you throw progression of gear out of the window and just say hey, let's let everyone have fabled equipment all the time, you efficiently destroy your game. There is no point in raiding and there is no point in grouping. Why should anyone? So the above can happen to us again? and again, and again, and again....? Oh so I can group up and "communicate with my friends" Ok, we're all sitting in legendary and fabled gear(from solo DC), End zone group bosses drop transmute fodder, let's use logic and just sit in the guild hall and BS back and forth.

Don't sit there and type that we should now equip handcrafted stuff "to make things harder" because what I pay for is a game that has progression to it, but it's just gone.
THE ONLY THING WORSE THAT CAN HAPPEN IS IF E.A. GETS AHOLD OF EVERQUEST.

Yeah I'm pissed, I am watching the one online roleplaying game that I try enjoy playing, get sucked into the same **** drain that all passed games are in.