Tired of all updates being for raids

Like many people, I do not have the patience or temperament to group and raid much. However, it seems as if 75% or more of the updates only affect instances where you have to group or raid. Where is the love for people who prefer to solo? Are the developers forced to only work on raid-level instances for level 95 characters with full gear? What about us poor slobs who can get to level 95, but don't have the ability to participate in raids for some reason? And what about those of us who actually enjoy the process of leveling a character, yet are stuck with the same old quests time after time?

You can always play Skyrim or Elder Scrolls Online if you don't like Multiplayer games.

I could also go read a book. But EQII is fun, and should not cater to just those hard-core players who raid over and over.

It has more solo content then almost every other MMO on the market. 1-92 content can all be mostly soloed, even the raids can. That is about 500+ zones you can solo. Have fun.

EQII is fun for people who raid over and over.

Before I posted I went and checked all the patch notes going back through March. Everyone of them has some sort of update for non-raiders. There have been updates for raiders, groupers, tradesskillers, pvpers, quality of life fixes, and bug squashings; there by rendering your argument baseless. Even though you have leveled several characters I would suspect there is still a ton of content you haven't explored.

I am guessing you didn't play EQ2 before they introduced Advance Solo's. There is plenty of content for a ' SOLO ' player to participate in. The reason you don't see as many updates for solo content is that to be quite frank, this is a MMO and not a console RPG. They can't continually introduce updated content and items for solo without adjusting all group and raid content as well due to imbalance. So, you launch a large Solo environment to get everyone started then you build up the group environment and then raid. Sorry but its the nature of the beast. Just like before though, be glad you have Advance Solo's to run. There didn't used to be instances for solo players to enjoy at all.

I recall the last update being a contested zone (which is a group zone, not a raid zone). I want to say there hasn't been a raid zone released since November, but I would probably be mistaken. The point is it's not all raids every update. Raiders make the world go round, so they do deserve some regular updates.

I suppose I should thank you all for telling me how I am supposed to enjoy the game, and how I am supposed to think.

This made me laugh. I will have you know that many of those players not only raid but they craft, quest, collect, hunt, gather etc. This is an online ever changing game that requires maintenance and updates. New raid content was just released and it required some tweaking. If you expect less or no down time then perhaps you should go read a book.

Wasn't telling you how to think, was merely showing your comment about raid only updates was wrong.

I don't think anyone was being so bold. Many were, however, pointing out that your observations on updates were inaccurate. Your overall tone is acerbic and not very representative of the game itself. Raiding represents some of the most complex scripting in the game and makes it more likely to break. As a player that enjoys the solo to heroic content of the game, I'm fairly satisfied with the game as it does a decent job of addressing a broad range of play styles.

The easy answer is, if they added a new heroic zone or new questline for level 40s it would get used not even 1/50th of the time that a new heroic zone at 95 would.

Not to mention everything below 90 is completely broken and your character is so overpowered it's ridiculous, so it would take awhile to even remotely balance it, at which point people would complain it's too hard.

I'm not joining in on if there needs to be more solo content, but I can say that your statement that every update through March has had an update for nonraiders just didn't sound right to me so I went back and looked at the update notes. It didn't take me long - in fact, all it took was 2 days ago (1 day before your post), on the 16th to find a patch that was 100% related to raids. (every single item listed was for Dreadscale Maw raids)

Update or Hotfix - there is a difference.

Not a raider currently but I can say that when new features/zones comes out they are often hotfixed a bit for a week or two. This is normal and we had the same thing for HKC less than a month ago. So I think it is perfectly normal for some hotfixes to be just related to the most current and offending bugs.

Highkeep Contested,
Highkeep Guild Hall,
Fabled Zones
3 new HQ's
Near weekly decorations for MP.

Yep, certain lots of stuff only for raiders.

This is an excerpt from a petition I sent in. I copied the message as feedback as well.

The last few content updates has clearly evidenced SOEs commitment to gamers who play in groups. Everything seems to be for players who regularly group for heroic or raid instances. I interact with a small group of friends. We all have varied playing times and mostly we enjoy interacting in chat while pursuing solo endeavors. Each week I hope for some update with relevance for me and my friends. Most weeks I am disappointed. Even the crafting and tradeskill updates usually require items from heroic or raid content. I am certain there are quite a few players who will never be raiders or even involved in grouping for heroic encounters. I have seen players who group come and go while my fellow solo players have remained loyal. Please keep us in mind when doing game updates. Thank us for our continued loyalty and subscriptions by giving us updates to look forward to!!! Updates that involve ways to spend station cast are fun but we would also like some content update that is relevant to our game play. Thanks.

New comments:

I have no problem with keeping content for raiders current. However, I did pay for the ToV expansion and frankly I would like more to do in Vesspyr Isles than run advanced solos ad nauseum. Yes I can go back and do obsolete raid zones for fun and transmutables with my level 95 characters who have finished the ToV signature timeline, and from time to time, I do. It could be my ignorance, but from what I can tell the more recent tradeskill updates/upgrades have all involved recipes using items that come from heroic or raid zones, or at a high cost from the broker. By the time I have access to ingredients, the recipes are obsolete.

Solo and small group players co-exist on the game with the raiders and the game is big enough that our paths don't necessarily cross that much. I am sure there are many who enjoy and pay for playing the game who prefer to chat only with close friends and there may be some who do not chat at all. I rarely follow general chat. I enjoy playing EQ2 and the subscription fee is quite reasonable. I would just like more than repeating the same tasks over and over or going back and doing zones with obsolete drops with overpowered ToV geared toons. (Fortunately I like house items and they don't get obsolete.)

Raiders with awesome gear have advantages in heroic groupings. This is all to be expected. Raiders should be rewarded for their time and effort. Some of us who pay for membership and have bought expansions in the past are not and will never be raiders. Fellow gamers, it is rather unkind to tell us to leave the game because we don't fit your profile.

This game has more soloable content that pretty much any other major MMO out there, and yet people still complain. You're nuts if you think the majority of dev time is spent on raid content. There's like 10 times more solo and group content than there is raid.

That's all well and good, but the petition system is not for feedback, it's for people with serious gameplay issues, like items missing or the game crashing.

Disclaimer: I'm a solo player as well, mainly due to time constraints. I used to raid, so I understand everyone's needs. The following does not say one is less important than the other.

Getting down to the content of the feedback, you need to understand they can only deliver so much content at a time and it all takes a significant amount of time to design and implement. It's a problem that plagues every MMO. They start working on the next expansion almost immediately after the latest one is released. Heroic / Raid content is the core of the game. It's the core of any MMO out there. There's no way around it. Otherwise, this is a glorified single player game. Without the folks that don't have a problem playing with others, you have no MMO experience. If you think it's difficult and boring now, you should've been here before there was advanced solo content. There was even less to do. If you pay for expansions, there's really no one to blame for not getting your money's worth because there is a good deal of content available. This is a bit like complaining about a gym membership when all you do is ride the bike a few times a week.