To all Solo players..You won

Ok..I bought Kunark expansion in a way to breath new life in my EQ2, wich I have been playing since the release more/less...What i find in the new zones wasn't surprising at all, Solo players heaven everywhere, small questlines for soloplayers...Is this what you wanted in a MMO ?
To my current knowledge i have only found 3 group quests(Inside the castle Kunzar ?)
If that is the case, then you have finally managed to win the huge fight against the boring group oriented players, players that sees an MMO as a way to get out with friends to get an exiting time,,solving fed ex soloquests as a group of 3+ isn't my idea of fun time...It's barely exiting solo..But I agree that the quests are good for timekilling or if you only have a few hours..But this ..
For a Soloplayer, this is GREAT..I know there is players who only play these games alone, many evidently, I just do not see the point...Sure you can talk with your guild etc and feel that you are in sort of a community..And yeah..I agree that solo quests are needed for people that only have an hour or 2 to kill, but this ? Isn't this over the top...?
For me this doesn't add up at all, a multiplayer game is a game where you through coordinated play with other players/friends reaches success, and the massive part is that there is even more players that makes it a world..
How could this happen..? What happened with the developers..Is it World of Warcrafts fault ? or Lord of the Rings online ?
Or have the developers made a survey and come to the conclusion that 90% of their playerbase likes to solo on trivial content ?
Is this an attemt to win players from WoW and LOTRO and alienate the group oriented players in the process..
All I can say is that the Kunark expansion is for me as bad as it get's..Faydwear was just right, but this..
Also..The huge zone thing gives me huge areas with no soul, large areas with huge tree's and thats it..Hardly no details at all..Details that used to give zones the soul that was needed..The EQ2 graphical engine needs an overhaul if it is going to do the huge zone thing in the future, both LOTRO and Vanguard does this way better, in EQ2 it looks sort of silly, with hardly no flora at all(the flora engine of EQ2 is hardly note worthy) Where is the flowers, the high grass, the birds and bee's..I have always defended EQ2 for it's great graphical look and great characthers..But this all ends with Kunark, these zones are hardly beutiful, they are ugly shallow, and full with mobs, thats it..

/Junker

Simmer down now,

SOE stated that 90%+ of groups are done in-dungeons even though the first 3 expansions had plenty of non-dungeon group content. So with that in mind they made all the overland areas built for the solo player.

They did this based on how people play. If you want group content, keep going into dungeons like you've always done. This is by far not a soloers expansion.

Hope you find what you're looking for.

Kram337 wrote:

I did COA last night for the second time. We had 1 Mystic healing us. I nearly sleep-walked my way through the instance; I was bored to freekin' tears, it was so cake-walk eazy.
O yea. That's TOTALLY an incentive to keep doing dungeons.

I understand your frusteration at the new expansion.

But.


I have leveled two toons to 80 since expansion and 3 crafters.

Long read stay with me on this.

From 70-73 all you do is solo quests in KP. Lots of them and none of them need a group. You can team up with people to breeze through these quests a little faster. But yes, this zone is solo.

From 70-73 while your LFGing you can still run and do the other instances in EOF that , once when the mobs were higher level to you, now you can go in there and give it a second look. It is actually fun.

From 73-75 you should be questing in the fens. And there are a small handfull of quests there that require groups for a good portion of classes. Some of the quest rewards now start to offer up legendary gear. This is now where it is fun to go back to KP and join groups for those HEROIC quests in the castle. These quest lines will have you going in more than once, and you can also pick up the lore and legend that is in there.

From 75-77 off to the jungle. This zone is a balance of faction and quite fun to try and get ALL factions up in order to buy off the faction merchants there. THere are three area in this zone that are heroic and have heroic quests. City of Mist Seb and COA. You can go to COA once a day and although an easy zone, it has its fun. Jump into the water in Seb and you will soon be greeted by lev 85^^^ mobs.
I love the jungle. Like to harvest? well hot damn this zone is so full of nodes i can clear trak alley and kill mobs back and forth for days.

From 77-80 off to the wastes, which is really two zones. low end high end. 3 instances and 3 factions to worry about. The only thing i hate about this portion of the game is the grind for the strom quests.

I see what they tried to do and maybee i have got it wrong but this is what i think was done.

Tons of solo content, enough to burst at the seams. ( I know i leveled two toons through this stuff in a month, a mystic and a warlock).
You are able to solo quest your way to 80. 10 levels and keep in mind you also some how have to try for 40aa points too. The quests take car of a good part of this.
Once you are 80 or even before, you can run and fill up your plate with heroic content night after night. EXP will not be as good as it once was. You can not "grind" your way to 80 on exp alone faster than with quests.

You have to find and seek out the tons of ^ named mobs that exist in every zone.
You can solo all teh way to 80 but find a gorup of peopel around the same progress level as you, go with them, hell of alot more fun.

Graphics and huge zones. I have played LOTRO and i loved the grass and bees and bugs, great stuff. But you are talking to a bunch of people who played since launch and can not ecpect them to upgrade just for an expansion. This game is all about the established players, not new players. As proof by SOEs lack of promotion or advertising for this game.


Try some of the instances. and by all means venture down to seb. Place is a riot.
But dont make an assumption about a whole city and its people without ever leaving the airport hotel.

Okay well i have yet to venture into the group content of RoK. If it's too easy then I guess that'd be dull. But it is still group content. If its too easy with a group try to duo it or something.

I'd like to mention also that on my server the population is so bad that without this solo content I'd never see 80. I'm on Venekor. So not only is it the lowest population server, but the population is then split into 3 fighting factions. I know they dont/shouldn't make content with venekor in mind but thought I'd mention that I love the solo crap.

Well I disagree with you.

It's not all about soloing. It's about the layout of their heroic content.

The first hit you can try for heroic group content is Karnok Castle in KP. LVL 72+

The greatest prob of that zone:
- Loot is shittier compare to some quest reward.
- The place is really hard - even with a full group of outlevel char in (like all 76+), u can die of ADD a lot. The mob at this place are design to mess with the boxers. 3 boxer cant dream of farming that place all night long.

After that, at 75 CoA and city of the mist and sebilis. The problem with COA is the drain power. So, forget about boxing... With a bad tank who doesnt know the zones or bad healer, your pickup will fail at some place on the instance progression. If your group DPS is not enough, you will fail on the last mob. So, group content are not "dumb-down" compare to other expansions. CoA offer you some named script like raiding.

Vaults of Eternal Sleep and Chardok (open contested place) and Courts of Korocus (sp?) - 77+ for a pick up group. The zone is doable, but a lot of pits and script named are there, if you cant figure out the script and so, bringing a cohesive group to fight those... no chance on that.

Maiden Chambers and Chelsith (80+) are rarely run by PuG on Nektulos. Those two instance are hard has well. Mob are heavily scripts and named can be compared to mini raid named version.

So, Grouping is more challenging then before. Grouping it's not accessible for all group. The group content is aimed late in the character life (75+) but, from 70-75 we got a lot to do :

- Shard of fear
- Unrest
- OOB
- Nizara
- Nek 3


The only difference with RoK is, when you seek a group, you can do something while waiting for it. RoK got enough solo quest to always give you the possibility to quest for AA and faction at end-game. That is a new possibility. No more endless grind writs while waiting for a group.


And a new concept here: If you want to have top gears to start running instance, you should do the legendary quests in ROK. Those quests are harder to solo, but possible. That bring challenge. And, that suggest to you, that if you want to group, you need to be geared for it.

To resume:

RoK progression:

70-75 Solo quest - try to find the legendary one and finish the quest line - u can try to form group in unrest - shard of fear - nizara - karnok castle (hard place)

75-77 try to form group or find group for CoA - Vaults - City of the Mist - Sebilis

77-80 be in a good guild with good tank that know how to figure out and adapt to script named.

My other guess is, we had seen a lot of doors that are empty. Like any expansion before, empty doors at release (Lyceum anybody???) means further development in expansion. The epic weapon quest line could bring other place to group before the next expansion in november 2008.

Actually, I find the group content at end-game better than Vanguard End-game . Well... I should compare apple with apple... How many group content we got in KoS at release? How many in RoK? I guess RoK wins with actually 9 place to go at end-game for grouping and about the same for raiding.

RoK is large. So big, that you need to pass more time to explore it and to discovering the lore and content of it.

Marie-Ange

Kram337 wrote:

I've tried it with a duo. My guildy & I are strong enough that together, we turn all non-heroic content in the expansion into sheer boredom.
But we can't do heroic content, because it utterly owns us unless it's very green.
There's no in-between -- it's either solo, or full group -- & IMHO, that's a significant problem, particularly when doing the heroic content with a competent, full group is just as mind-numbingly easy as is duoing the outdoors content. The balance on this expac seems entirely out of whack. Why they couldn't apply the same design philosophy as they applied to EOF -- which was chock-full of goodness -- is simply beyond my comprehension.

Come over to PvP-land. It'll put a different spin on things.

Bloodfang@Nagafen wrote:

If I want PvP, I'll play a REAL PvP game, on REAL PvP servers, & do it for FREE.

thark wrote:

Thank-you - I knew if I pressed that I win button for 3 years It would pay off one day.
Yes soloing is so much more horrible then say standing around spamming LFG for instances and - sorry we don't need you because we have to have 3 healers and a tank and a some dps - but not your DPS
see LFM in chat - respond 5 times send 6 tells - finally get a response - sorry we are full.
Yes grouping was so much more fun - I am sorry let me put these toothpicks in my eyes because it is so much more enjoyable then spamming trying to get quests done.
Grouping has it place - but I want to play a game during the hours I play and if theres a group great if not I can still have fun.

Look at the last expansions overland heroic content. It sits untouched, and has sat mostly untouched for as long as the expansion has been out.
Sony properly identified that the vast majority of players do NOT like to fight heroic encounters outside of dungeons. With the exception of the occasional named, most ^^^ type stuff outside goes untouched.
Of course they could have and should have added a bit more heroic outdoors throughout Kunark, but that is neither here nor there. What's done is done.
I think it safe to say that most everyone agrees there are too few good heroic dungeons in Kunark, but hopefully with time they will add more.

Just have to comment on the 'mind numbingly easy' herioc content in ROK.
Maybe for you. Maybe for your buddies, but not everyone has that easy of a time with these dungeons. Did you try COA or Vault when your healer(s) & tank were 75-76? hehe If not do that sometime and come back and tell me how easy it was to complete =p.
=)
If you are going into someplace with the ultimate group set up at max or near max level, yeah it's not going to be as much of a challenge. But not everyone always has that option, and it's more fun when you don't min/max.

CoA is also the easiest instance (OK, maybe Vaults is easier because there's less fear) in the expansion, so yeah . . . with a full group of 6 it's not hard. But then . . . even the easiest instance is harder at max level than the hardest instance in KoS was. And until Unrest was released, the instances in EoF were all snoozers from the outset - save for the first-time coolness of the floor starting on fire.

Bledso hit it right on the head, IMO. Previous expansions you do the solo content in the first hour and then LFG for the rest. Now, even after I hit 80 I still had incomplete solo questlines to work on while LFG.

The Karnor's Castle quests do suck though. I haven't even finished them just because the rewards (both XP and money and items) were all sub-par in comparison to solo quests I had. There are other heroic quest lines I still haven't completed either - Sebillis, City of Mist. I'd like to see more heroic content still, and more rewarding heroic content, but there's still loot I can use from instances. And when the epic quest lines arrive I suspect a fair portion of them will be heroic.

Agree to disagree about the look of the zones though. There are details all over. Just because there isn't some nifty bridge or cool statue on every square inch of ground doesn't mean it's lacking anything, and there are some pretty dazzling locations with intricate details.

Ok..Im happy to see that most of you are happy with this expansion...Even thou I think it's rather strange..
So the group mobs on other zones where unused , well not from my guild it wasn't...Besides, content is used even thou no one ever kills them, they add flavor to the zone and dangerous areas that are hard to run around in..I bet the content or many areas in Kunark will stay unused aswell even thou they are solo, infact I know this, most are empty already..
An example: In Looping Plains you have this rift with Warewolfs triple up heroics that was used for some quests..but once you and your friends finished these quests there was no reason to EVER go back there, same goes for ALMOST all the SOLO stuff in Kunark.. Or will you run around the docks in Kylong plains and hunt spiders or warewolfs later on ?
But isn't it all about balance ?
I can see another tone in the thread "What is worst about RoK" thou..
I'd say"Tons" of rather meaningless solo quests, are they tough ? do they pose a challange ? Are they tricky to figure out ? And finally are they exiting ? I would have to say NO to all of these questions if someone asked..They are but a small time sink that can be fun for an hour or 2, just as they were ment to be..Or am I confused..Where they ment to be a grind for you to level on..? Is that healthy game developing ? Or maybe another game and/or playerbase that diktates the outcome of how a zone in SOE's game will look like..
About the engine and the looks of the RoK zones...Didnt they make EQ2 a zonebased game so it would look better than all the rest of the games out there..? There was always rather "small" but very nice and detailed zones wich made EQ2 the best looking game in MMORPG genre..But now games without zoning(fluid zoning) looks and plays better than EQ2..The price for this is a detailless area with mobs only, and one or 2 small ruins scattered, all to the price of EQ2 engine feeling even more clunky than it did before...It's almost like trading a Good Apple for a rotten one..
And yes EQ2 is still one of the most demanding games on todays hardware and yet LOTRO manages to create an outdoor world that is by far more better looking than the one of EQ2 with less demands on the hardware, how come ? Poorly optimized , what is the problem ? PS..I still think the characthers of EQ2 is best or better than any other game..

Yesterday I needed a small group to do the solo quests in Kylong Plains. With my Troub at least - go figure. I've seen plenty of groups doing the solo quests in there.
Solo is an option, you dont have to do the quests solo you know.

I don't mind the expansion too much, but I wish they had toned the solo down just a bit and added abit more group stuff. Until you get to the jungle there are very very few group quests.

I wish they would have taken out a few of the solo quests and added more group quests that took you into the dungeons more. As a defiler that is spec'd for healing, soloing is EXTREMELY slow for me. By the time I would complete enough quests to level 1 level, my DPS friends were already 2 or 3 levels ahead of me. (and it's hard to group up for alot of these quests because they are so short for DPS that you are rarely on the same one at the same time).

Maybe they should have 2 ways to level up, either solo or group content. Right now if you don't do the solo content and only focus on the group content/quests, it will NOT take you to 80.

for the next expansion keep the same amount of solo quests, but add lots lots more group quests. give us a choice of whether we want to group or solo instead of pretty much forcing us to do solo quests.

thark wrote:

If most of the zones are empty, why is it that every time I zone into an RoK overland zone there are 2 instances?

I agree, the occasional heroic does spice up an area. For example, in LP, that roaming heroic named/ph werewolf that runs around where the dire wargs are. Keeps you on your toes. There is some of that in RoK, but it's gone once you are no longer KoS to the assorted factions.

Without those "meaningless" quests, the method of leveling in the past was grind cyclops in PoF, grind heroic mobs on BG in TT, grind SoS. IOW, get in a group and kill stuff over and over and over and over and over and over and over. No, these quests by and large aren't challenging, especially if you alt-tab to eq2wikia or alakhazam to get the waypoints. When I did them they weren't listed on either site, and some of them took a little bit to figure out. I'm a Berserker though. Low Int. /shrug Some of them have a decent text/lore/story, but of course many are "Meh". A dull story is better than killing hundreds of heroic mobs for no other reason than XP IMO.

I disagree that LOTRO is "by far more better looking" too. In fact, it's bland, unimpressive looks were one of the reasons I didn't continue with it. More efficient use of hardware, I'll give you that. Better looking, no way. Just my opinion though. I also think this expansion has better looking, more awe-inspiring locations than anything EoF had.

Oh, I also think that once epics are out, there will be more for people to do / try to do in groups throughout the 70-80 range. I could be wrong, but it makes sense. I sure hope so anyway.

Guy De Alsace wrote:

Well..I guess you are right about this..and this is also what we have done a couple of times..But, whats the point in this..? The only time these quests could be somewhat exiting is if you do them solo, as they were ment to be..So..Please...

Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:

Well...I guess it's somewhat based on opinion,and I will respect it..But if you would ask the majority I would bet they would agree with me that LOTRO has better outdoor graphics than this, not a better game however..Sorry
By empty I didnt mean one or 2 instances, I ment details, details that makes you like the zone, details that sets the flavour of the zone, details that has an identity, sure there are some, but compared to the rest of EQ2 it's very sparse in Kunark
Each and every zone pre Kunark is better looking and more detailed than this, I'm telling you they had to cut detail's out due to the bigger zones..Tell me what you find so nice in Kylong Planes , the only thing i could think of is a couple of statues along the coast..And if you take the zone with Klakanon from EoF and look everywhere there is stuff animated windmills, gaisers all over the place that makes the zone get a soul and spirit..I find these things lacking from what I have seen so far in Kunark..Another good example of this is the wonderful harbour area of Butcherblock Mountain when you enter and see all the small islands and the impressive harbour, in Kylong it's just a plain dock..
Tell me what you find aweinspiring in RoK..? there is nothing there part from many disjointed mob's and one or two ruins and a couple of statues, Unless you find the mountains impressive or the huge tree's..