Print Page - Honestly....what do you expect from newer player

Today's little updates... have really put me on the fence...

Honestly... what do you expect from newer players Hunter? I don't want a hand out on... BUT I do expect to have the same oppurtunity as the players before...

What super duper item or rule has come in existence in the last year or two that basically caused so many nerfs? Please explain, as I wasn't around.

First it was the drop rate of level 6 LDoN way back when, making level 4 the hunting group with much less return.

A few weeks ago it was Shadow's drop rate of charm upgrades... you did admit, to putting it back in but with a lower rate...

Last week it was Air's new AE DD's... I was just about to try a mob when you pulled that out... this scared me off, and figured, I better bone up on some charm upgrades before moving on.

Now it's give Shadow fear... I have wiped 5 out of 6 attempts, the last one he poofed anyway

And what about proc rates, by your own addmission, lower level players will have much lower proc rates than our predecessors at this stage, and high level players will have higher proc rates than ever before... tell me this isn't elitism?

That's fine if you don't want to make it EASY to get UC... but it's wrong to make the hill steeper

I have played through the content pretty much on my own, with little loot from rot or purchase. Ask Nocca, I declined offers for help a couple of times.

So, now what.... I really would like to know what massive change made it such that all these nerfs keep coming in (Proc rate is a nerf unless you're elite ), or do you never want current new players to have a chance to play current content?

Please let us know what you want from the lower end player all I'm asking for is equal oppurtunity

I agree with everything you said except the UC getting harder and maybe proc rates, though I have not logged in to test. Charm farming in ldons have gotten a lot easier. The drop rate was put in when people could do 2 or 3 mobs at a time, now people can pull an entire floor. Mob respawn timers have been bumped up as well.

Fear and DT's have always been a huge turn away for me. They take away 100% of skill and have the encounter based solely off of luck. You can take 2 people, one guy sucks and one guy is an eq god and give them the same gear, the guy who sucks gets a lucky rng and beats the encounter while the guy who is an eq god gets one bad rng for the encounter and loses.

I saw all the changes and was glad that I am playing right now, lol. I wouldn't get too discouraged though. Hunter has made changes in the past and then listened to feedback on the forums and made change accordingly.

Quote from: Xiggie on June 16, 2012, 06:20:43 pm

The drop rate was put in when people could do 2 or 3 mobs at a time, now people can pull an entire floor. Mob respawn timers have been bumped up as well.

Why could you only pull 2-3 at a time? can you please elaborate when...

When I went through it for the first few times... I only pulled one at a time... just to get a charm for each of my key toons. Warrior, Paladin and Cleric. I was able to do 2 at a time near the end.

Then I struggled through Qvic, wiped many, many times, that was hell and took me forever... I slipped into LDoN's occasionaly to see if my new uber gear could do well in LDoN... Lvl 6 I still was only able to pull 2-3 mobs at best.

then I started Dragons got a few pieces, and then went back to plump up charm levels a bit for survivability. I could do about 10 at a time in instances. No zone wide.

I now have my 3.5 and I still cannot pull the entire zone ... I'll get owned, I can pull a lot, but not even close to zonewide. My guess is I will be able to pull entire zone around T4 or T5. But that's when I will probably neeed an UC or two, or three to survive.

I think there's some confusion between NEW players, and players getting PL'd and then going back and UCing a crew...

So at what time could you only pull 2 or 3? When first starting LDoN? if that's the case, it's still 2-3. Even after Qvic, level 6 is only 2-3 mobs. (and I'm talking for a group of toons, not solo)

I think, in Hunter's attempt to keep the PL'ers from creating a UC armies, he's hurting honest players who just want to keep progressing.

Start from scratch without your T5 and T6 toons there for support and see how many LDoN mobs you can take at a time. Then head to HoH and see how fast Avatars and Shadow drop. I think you'd be suprised, the game has not changed that much that we need to make it more difficult.

I started this server just before 3.0 came out. We farmed our charms with BoT and PoTimeA gear. With a well organized group we could pull 1 to 3 mobs and that is how we farmed our charms. I say BoT and PoTimeA gear because PoTimeA used to be super laggy if you had more than 2 or 3 toons in there. Yep, that means we had to carry our 1.0 toons to get gear so we could survive with 2 or 3 toons in PoTimeA to get our 1.5. Before we could even think about getting all the way to ldon6 or pulling more than one mob we had to get our gear from ldons. So it was a floatation between ldons and potimea before we got to farming charm. Farming charms in Ldons 1 to 3 mobs at a time was super boring so after we got our 2.0 and 2.5 out of the way we would take our little teams over to Qvic to get some gear there. And that is where we learned the term "curb stomp". Our first pull with our warrior having a lvl 2 to 5 guardian resulted in every one of our toons getting kicked in the little girl. So then we would take our sorry buts back over to ldons for more charm farming. We'd try again when we got the guardian charm to level 11 on our warrior and cleric.... yep, cleric too because oracle did not stack with focus of healing. At this point we could get a little farther in till we get to the telosian stonemites. Those things hurt. So you head back to ldons to get your guardian charm to at least 21, 25 if you're a cutter. We head back and we are rockin. We make it through the stonemites and all that, get to the ramp and start looking for bosses. Lets just say finding out they pop right after killing a trash mob was very interesting. Another thing that was interesting was the adds. If we were lucky we managed to pop off stonewall. Our poor clerics? Well, they weren't so lucky. As soon as they pop off a heal, boom dead. So through trial and error we find out ok, we need to tag the mobs with the warrior or do some sort of aoe taunt. We get that part worked out after a few rezzes and trudging all the way back there only to find out the fight is going to last longer than our stonewall. Defensive disc you say? Nope, wasn't working yet. We need more dps which means making a mage if we didn't have one already because mage pet did more dps than any other class on the server.

This is literally how this part of our ez career went back then. This took months of playing. I remember only the most dedicated players had a lvl 25 charm. People fawned over a lvl 25 charm link because they knew it was something that took months to do. The point in which people were able to pull wings at a time in ldon6? T2 with a lvl 25 charm because that was the max that was available back then. It has gotten a lot easier. DPS for one thing has gone up hugely. Another huge thing that has made a crazy difference is the market. People never sold anything back then because plat had no value. Paladins are yet another huge difference.

I usually just lurk these forums as I haven't had time to play much at all lately... but just to weigh in here...

the thing you're all talking about is mudflation.

every game with a persistent world encounters this... and there's really very few ways to counter it if you even decide to at all.

yeah things were probably harder, and laggier, back when the server was new.. but that 'endgame' (by Xiggie's post, 2.5s and ldon gear?) was much closer to new characters than the current 'endgame' (6.0s and T6?)

'maxing' your character to the point that there was nothing left to do but farm charms was a much shorter road.. so typically games end up putting in short cuts just to make it appealing to new players

this is why mainstream games put huge jumps in item power periodically.. WoW as an example, each expansion pretty much eliminates months of progression for your character, if you picked up the game now, you wouldn't have to farm through T1-T2-T3 etc, you'd skip the first 10 tiers of raid gear entirely, get random/quested drops as you level and probably jump straight into T13 stuff

not that I think skipping all the raid tiers and all the epic work would be a good idea here, that's part of the appeal to EQ in general for a lot of people, but making it quicker to get through is really just trying to artificially shorten the road to endgame that's gotten longer over the years.. not entirely a bad thing.

I think making a way to "skip" maybe Qvic/Tacvi would be a good idea. Even in Live EQ you didn't have to do EVERY progression before doing the next progression. If so, it would have taken players forever to find the people to help them to get to new tiers. That would be like, when GoD was released the only way you could step foot into GoD was if you did Kunark, Velious, Luclin, etc.

Making a way to skip some progression when you have so much more new content released is NOT a bad thing. Even if it's just tradeable gear being dropped in random zones that is Qvic/Tacvi stat-level and then making T1 the starting point for progression armor. I know I'll get flamed for saying that, but it's the truth. Saying otherwise is just bringing back the big "E" word way of thinking whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

I plan on making a completely new 6-box and leveling them up/gearing them legitimately after already getting toons into T5 with epic 4.5's. I guess it's probably gonna take months to get back to the same place I was, and that's AFTER I already know the way around the server and zones. This is completely discouraging for completely new players when it takes them months to get not even 1/5th of the way finished with progression, but I guess if Hunter and the community don't want that many new players, then just keep it the same.

Just my 2 cents.

Quote from: Mr.V.Light on June 17, 2012, 04:57:36 pm

yeah things were probably harder, and laggier, back when the server was new.. but that 'endgame' (by Xiggie's post, 2.5s and ldon gear?) was much closer to new characters than the current 'endgame' (6.0s and T6?)

I know what youre saying here and I agree, the gap between endgame and newcomers should never exceed a certain distance. Pick a distance you think is appropriate and always find a way to keep it there as you add new content. You can do it through gear resets, or increasingly accelerated gains up to that threshold, or some other fashion. In this way, you dont discourage new people from starting up here, but you also give the hardcore people their dues. WoW did pretty well in this regard, you didnt have to spend as much time in the previous zones as the people who first fought through them. Even EQ eventually realized that this was a necessary evil and changed to accelerated experience (up to a certain point) and gear resets (somewhat).

Despite what I said above, the forums was a terrible place to post this idea. The endgamers here are the most vocal of the entire playerbase, and most of them would rather have no newcomers at all than let someone have it easier than they did. So next time, I would suggest PMing Hunter if you want to make a suggestion but want to avoid the headache that comes with it. ;)

Quote from: cerwin on June 18, 2012, 01:50:18 am

Quote from: Mr.V.Light on June 17, 2012, 04:57:36 pm

I know what youre saying here and I agree, the gap between endgame and newcomers should never exceed a certain distance. Pick a distance you think is appropriate and always find a way to keep it there as you add new content. You can do it through gear resets, or increasingly accelerated gains up to that threshold, or some other fashion. In this way, you dont discourage new people from starting up here, but you also give the hardcore people their dues. EQ eventually realized that this was a necessary evil and changed to accelerated experience (up to a certain point) and gear resets (somewhat).

Despite what I said above, the forums was a terrible place to post this idea. The endgamers here are the most vocal of the entire playerbase, and most of them would rather have no newcomers at all than let someone have it easier than they did. So next time, I would suggest PMing Hunter if you want to make a suggestion but want to avoid the headache that comes with it. ;)

Maybe people just didn't read what I said. Back then it took months to even get to ldon. You spent weeks in BoThunder alone. With the addition of augs and the market it has cut that time down to weeks to get all the way to qvic, and that is slow at that. To add to it even more you have people giving away gear that was once highly treasured. So in other words it has gotten easier and the time to gear has shortened quite a bit. How people can't see this is beyond me. Hunter has also made things quicker by upping drop rates in areas like t1 and t2 and probably more.

Quote from: cerwin on June 18, 2012, 01:50:18 am

Despite what I said above, the forums was a terrible place to post this idea. The endgamers here are the most vocal of the entire playerbase, and most of them would rather have no newcomers at all than let someone have it easier than they did. So next time, I would suggest PMing Hunter if you want to make a suggestion but want to avoid the headache that comes with it. ;)

The forums are a great place. It gives outside of your own head perspective.

End gamers are the most vocal. They have time invested not only in the game but the community as well. They also have knowledge and experience in the server. If it were not for that knowledge and experience that every newcomer benefits from this server would be a lot harder.

I have helped more people on this server than you have known on this server. I have brought people from other server into this server. I have shared ideas with Hunter a couple of times about what I think would attract people and keep newcomers interested. I have even gone so far as to create brand new toons so that I could see things from a newcomers standpoint as best I can.

Hunter does not respond to PM, something we learned from experience. You'd do best sending him a short email. Hunter has said in the past longer emails tend to get pushed to the side to read when he has more time.

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination "end game". I just recently stepped into T5 (I'm pacing myself, Sgt Hulka). I thought I might weigh in a little.

I'm against some types of content, as I have stated before (DT's or similar in particular, since I dont see the "elegance" of it, I guess....it just seems like a cheap mechanic to me, and did before I ever played here). Please do not confuse that with me wanting things to be easier or faster.

I've played EQ for a long time (late 98 and then into launch). I LOVE the game, though its lost a lot of its appeal for me on the live servers. Why? Because SOE seems to want to pander to people who want things faster or easier (hereafter referred to as "WoWhiners"). They actually added mercenaries to the game to compensate for the population dropping. They believe the pop declined because their game was harder and more complex than that Blizzard monstrosity....but EVERY EQ player I've spoken to who did anything of substance in EQ said they left because SOE "bastardized" or WoWified the game....they made it easier, faster....just....well, less. Less challenge, less involvement, less FUN.

I've played a lot of MMO's over the last few years, trying to find SOMETHING that has that old fire. It doesnt exist. Every new MMO out (with the possible exception of Vanguard....but thats another story) is following the WoW formula: if you dumb it down to double digit IQ, they will pay". And almost universally they have failed. Why? Because they arent original. Because if someone wants a game that panders to the mentally challenged or the "so casual we cant do anything for more than an hour at a time" crowd, Blizzard produces a decent one. Because almost universally after a few weeks you've pretty much been there, done that in the entire game (SWTOR anyone? WAR?).

The resistance you get from these "end game" guys and the old timers is mostly because we do NOT want to see this game take that path, just to appeal to the WoWhiners who show up, bored to tears with their cardboard cookie cutter crapfest of a game, play here because its "free", then piss whine and moan because the game doesnt hand everything to them on a silver freaking platter like that Blizzard POS does. And forgive me....but I cannot help but find the ridiculous in that: the game you are playing bores you to tears, so much that you try to find something else, and the first thing you do when you land is try your all to make that game a carbon copy of the game you left from boredom. This is what happened to one of the best launched games I have EVER seen, RIFT.

If I have painted this in an unfair light, I wont apologize. I stand by my statements here. But to soften things, I will say that if you want things easy, you dont want EZ. There are plenty of games out there, many FTP, that may better accommodate your expectations and play style.

Oh, and one thing to Hunter: regarding the PoAir "DD" thing....someone before mentioned keeping the DD/DT, but put it on the adds. I have another idea, perhaps, to keep a challenge without the zerg element: perhaps every minute or 10 seconds an add stays alive, the boss gets an attack/dps buff, making them stronger and nastier if you dont take out the adds. Something that stacks and stays, making it impossible for people to AFK fight Air.

And another to the people commenting on Shadow and his fear. There are ways to handle the fear/root thing. Think about it a while and it'll come to you.

You folks have taken this thread to another Easier/Faster place, where I do not wish to be. I want equal opportunity.

My original post was asking about what updates have been put in from original game, that makes it necessary to put in all these "extra" obstacles?

Xig did answer a few... improved drop rates in T1 and the addition of augs (Xig, do you mean strike augs OR the augs that drop in LDoN+). My question about drop rates, did they increase because of population increase? It would make sense if you have an large influx of players entering an area to keep the traffic moving.

But I disagree with market and rot as being an excuse to a shorter path. Yes, these were highly prized back then by higher level players, they are highly prized now by newcomers. If you wish to sell them, destroy them or give them away it is up to the player doing the killing. It should NOT be the job of the server admin to decide to change older content on the basis of obsolete gear going to new players.

Hunter, ask yourself exactly why are you making OLDER content more challenging? Players up to that point in the game do not have any super powers over our predecessors. OR are you just trying to keep T6 players from amassing a UC army for sale or whatnot? I think you may want to look for alternate avenues for that, such not to discourage players doing level appropriate content.

As I said before, I am not looking for easier/faster, unfortunately that does happen naturally, as higher end gear trickles down to other players. But those of us who try to progress properly should not be punished for it.

I was referring to strike augs. I capped out my monks dps before strike augs at 12k. Pretty sure that happen somewhere around Tacvi. Before then the highest dps was mage pets. They just took a hell of a lot of managing and tended to either die themselves or get your group killed.

Hunter has stated in the past that about 2 tiers behind top tier he increases the drops and spawn rates. I am guessing that T1/2 was in Anguish originally for about 3 or 4 months. That entire time I saw 3 plate legs and 2 plate bps. I am pretty sure that I killed in T1/2 more than any other person on the server and that is all that I saw. A group that is on the T1/2 level could get 2 or 3 a day now easy. On top of that people give stuff like that away now. That or sell it for nominal amounts of plat. That has to be considered because that influences how fast most people come through the server. Most people take advantage of the market and most people will accept a freebee. If you are not taking advantage of those things then you are a rarity. Nothing can ever be based off a select few, it has to be based off the mass majority.

I would also like to add that reputation seems to matter a lot in everquest. It matters more because if you have a bad one people don't want you around, they don't want to help you or show you the ropes or anything. As far as I know Undeterred your reputation is pretty solid. Looking at this thread alone, I may disagree with you but you seem to be a pretty solid guy. That is part of playing everquest vs other games, why not take advantage of that. If you are anything in game like you are on the forums I know I would certainly have you with me even if you were under geared for where I was at.

Quote from: mpano66 on June 18, 2012, 08:35:16 am

I've played EQ for a long time (late 98 and then into launch). I LOVE the game, though its lost a lot of its appeal for me on the live servers. Why? Because SOE seems to want to pander to people who want things faster or easier (hereafter referred to as "WoWhiners"). They actually added mercenaries to the game to compensate for the population dropping. They believe the pop declined because their game was harder and more complex than that Blizzard monstrosity....but EVERY EQ player I've spoken to who did anything of substance in EQ said they left because SOE "bastardized" or WoWified the game....they made it easier, faster....just....well, less. Less challenge, less involvement, less FUN.

Wow, this argument is so outdated. and yes, i still play eqlive.

Quote from: mpano66 on June 19, 2012, 06:41:15 am

Its challenging, but not the way it was. And there was a long time that it was not. My statement stands. And yes, I still play live....AND I tried Cata (wife wanted to be a Kung Fu Panda). No change there, still complete shit.

Yeah, WoW isn't challenging at all. I will disagree with saying that it wasn't challenging in 2004, but other than that, it's a completely cake walk now. Within 3 days of new raids being released the guild I was in beat all of them here a few months back.

And honestly, I would say EQ IS just as challenging as it was, unless you're talking about the stupid long grind to level up, in which case, no, it's not. But why should leveling up be where the challenge is in a game? To me, it shouldn't. The challenge should be in the progression and raids, and unless you've done all (or most all) the raids in VoA, then you probably don't know what I am talking about.

First post, yeah, but been here almost a year now. I came to EZ Server because I missed the difficulty of EQ. Granted, it's not the same as old EQ where you needed specific classes for encounters (beyond the Triad) I like the ability to box and solo, and I appreciate it. I'd like it more if debuffs were effective, but EZ Server is still the best out there, imo. Time consuming is an EQ trademark - Soon(tm) - is evidence to that, as is hours in a hell level for one bub of xp, or grinding Thurgadin/Kromwell faction, Rangers/Druids can't raid PoG,TRAIN RIGHT!!! Memories....

My point is: Yes, endgame is the goal, but getting there should be the fun of it, the endgame is the reward. If the entry levels get easier, you miss out on a lot. Mostly, the people and reputations. Those at endgame have nothing else to do except upgrade items or raise alts, so it's fun to get them there quickly and have them contribute to the farming pool. The new people want to get to the top tier quickly because other people are there (competition). Both end up getting what they want due to complaining and the old timers end up resenting the newcomers because it's easier for the new guys... It happens in every game. Since this is an endgame based server, getting to 70 should be relatively fast, but the tiers should be painful if appropriately geared.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I love playing Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - for the nostalgic difficulty and actual penalty for death - over any current MMORPG . I just miss the chat and grouping, so I play here and get the chat at least with /ooc.

Four of my toons have their 2.5s and I work on QVIC if I feel like it. I'm an altoholic/strategist building a team and just having fun here, but the easier it gets, the less I enjoy it, beyond the first. My solution is to do the solo loop to 70, group 2.0(s), FG/CG camping and PL for RoA levels. Nine accounts eats a bit of time, but it distracts me from the stupid crap in my life indefinitely, which is the overall point.

Thank you, Hunter, for giving me something fun to play. I appreciate every minute I can log in. Saluud.

EZ Server

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Undeterred on June 16, 2012, 03:14:35 pm