EZ Server

I really hope this does not come off as me trying to complain or show disrespect to all the awesome work Hunter has done to provide us with such an awesome server full of fun content.  I have been reading posts about the RoA changes and ways to fix the lag issue ect. and wanted to just post a few thoughts from someone that has only been on EZ a couple months or so.  I really enjoy the server and appreciate the time Hunter consistently puts in to make it the best on EQEMU.

I started the server with a small box team and found the custom quests made leveling very fun and made sense.  Once i hit 70 someone on the server helped me a lot by running my necro through content to get my 4.0.  That made things very easy and i was able to catch my other boxes up.  Had it not been for that individual i don't know that i would have been able to box my way past qvic.  It seems that in a lot of content its hard to get through it unless you have gear from it.  Its hard for me to defend that idea since i was pushed through though.  Since then i have used my necro to level up a box team and get them all 3.5's.  I have recently decided to do side items such as RoA, UC, ect.  I was told UC was the most important so have been focusing mainly on it.

I read a lot about UC and found that doing level 4 grinding for coins and cards seemed to be a popular way to obtain it.  Grinding on my warrior i can normally get enough points for 1 charm per hour or so on my paladin.  That would make the first half of UC take me about 50 hours to complete.  Doing LDoN level 4 over and over is quiet daunting and i often find myself having trouble staying awake while pulling the same stuff over and over.  Now i understand UC is elite and it needs to take time and dedication to earn so i cant complain a lot about it.

In order to train pulls for UC, however, i needed a waypoint and cash to make guild instances regularly.  For that i farmed and sold FG/CG kits.  I got one on my necro because i thought i would farm on them until i found out warrior was better.  In order to get one on my warrior it would cost another mil.  Then i heard back in the day bankers and waypoint makers were free.  The thought of farming them on the toons i want them on for a mil when they used to be free kinda sucked but i got over it.  People that started on the server deserved to get those for free.

Now im reading about RoA changes and how it will take longer to grind through levels of it.  This also means it will take longer to level up more toons when i need them for my army.  Most of the high end people playing were able to use strategies like DS to level up in 30 min or less easily once they put in the time to level DS toons and farm the spells.  Now that  have finally put in the time to do the same the ability is being taken away.

Again i am not trying to sound like a cry baby or jerk, but it seems like over time thinks like the RoA or waypoint and bankers ect are getting harder to obtain then they used to be.  This means it will take a noob even longer to catch up to a "geared veteran."  By making things like this take longer to get it will widen the gap between a new player and a high end player.  I mean even thinking 50 hours per UC i farm in itself leaves me thinking it will be years before im ever in t5 b/c i just dont have that much playtime anymore.  Im not asking for things to get nerfed or Hunter to change the way he wants to run his server.  I'm just trying to communicate how it feels on the side of a noob i guess.

+1

Thanks for the input from a new player

Amen brother. I am right there with you. So much has changed on here to make things better. It is sad that so much has changed to make it harder for lower levels. Some time just add up all the time some one soloing/boxing has to spend to catch up. Most games get to a point they speed up the catch up process. EZ has taken the opposite approach. It still is the best one out there though!

Couldn't agree more...


<Cheers from the Philippines>

1 charm an hour = 100 hours to complete first half of UC, have to do all 4 charms guy. Just throwing that out there.

I've been saying this for a half a year now... and yet the feet gets pulled out from newer players yet again.

Why not just lock the server out from players being able to create new toons

Ok, so I do not want to be that guy that tells his sob story and does not offer any ideas to repair it.  I was trying to think hard last night were a majority of my time has been spent in game and what could have been different to prevent me from endlessly grinding LDoN and feeling like a zombie when I do.  I have a couple of ideas that may be worthless but im going to say them anyway on the off chance they spark ideas in others.

(1) My bad math really gave me hope but when 50 hours turns into 100 hours (the correct math that was pointed out) I feel hopeless lol.  As I said i was blessed to have someone help me with 4.0 on necro so i could grind my other toons flags and gear without any hand holding.  I spent a lot of time in qvic and still do trying to get a full armor set.  I also spent a lot of time in T1 and T2.  Epic 2.5 was also a pretty long ordeal.  My thought is what if UC can be made into a steady flow instead of a pure grind.  What if there was a small chance for charms to drop off of QVIC Bosses only, 2.5 barrels, T1 and T2 bosses only (maybe even max boss Kronos b/c he is wild to box at that gear lvl).

My first thought is "well these drops may get exploited and people wont go to LDoN anymore."  Then i remembered... I rarely ever see a charm drop in LDoN level 4.  Since LDoN offers more mobs training instances of it will always lead to better charm turn out.  There would be no reason to farm bosses or barrels for charm drops.  It would, however, mean A LOT to noobs farming qvic bosses for hours just to get that last BP if they knew they had a slight chance at a charm.  Basically all the grinding to get to HoH and above (which i believe is a good place to have a UC or two) would slowly help new players develop there UC charms over time and then finish with LDoN grind fests.  If it means anything this change would not help me personally b/c i have already spent my time armoring up in these zones.

Another thought in making UC and other side quests have kind of a flow is progression rewards along the way.  If you gave a reward when someone turned in an epic it would be repeated and exploited but some quests cant be repeated.  For instance when you turn in all your tokens from qvic to get your flag, when you turn in FG or CG set to get your flag, ect.  It would be cool if when these flags are complete the character gets a no drop exp potion or a charm to help them progress along in RoA or get a little closer to UC.  The flag is a huge reward in itself but these other items would make the new player feel like there is a flow in the side quests and normal quest line.  And if they did not know what UC was they would ask in ooc "what is this charm for i just got" and could learn about it early on.  Instead of RoA and UC feeling like complete side quests and then hitting a brick wall in progression and being forced to farm them before you can go farther in content it would remind people to work on them along the way.

(2)  I am still a very new player so please do not laugh at my noobness.  I have not done any RoA yet but i have PLed a few toons to add them to my box team.  I did a lot of research online and came up with a team to help me with the PL.  I have a 3.0 shaman for clicky, druid for regin, and mage for DS.  The perfect team so i should be grinding lvls in 25 mins right?  NO, I am never sure what is best zone to PL in, constantly pull to much and die and have to wait for refresh timer on shaman buff, ect.  A 1-70 for me took around hour to hour and half.  And thats with the buffs.  Now i know skilled players can do it in no time but i have yet to find my nitch and become skilled in the leveling on this server.  The problems i see is if you nerf it for someone practiced at it that can do it in 15 mins to 1 hour then your going to make a noob like me be 5-6 hours easy.  Thats why i have a few suggestions.

The first is level cap each level.  Cant zone into MM till your level X.  Lguk till level X.  Cant zone into BoT till level X.  ect ect.  This would mean you can PL pretty fast and kill a lot of mobs with DS but since mobs are all in your level range you cant get those crazy fast levels in single kills.

The second idea is have DS scale.  Even most powerful DS on lvl 1 does x but on lvl 20 does more, 30 does more, ect ect.

The third is what everyone else has said.  The lockout timer.  This controls how fast the RoA can be done but still allows players to feel uber powerful getting it done 15 mins into the timer.

(3) I remember something i saw in EQ live that was so fun and i believe would help people see how good there box crew is and allow for a fun to get item that new players could get to increase the power of there crew.  It is an arena type event with waves.  The item in questions would have 100 level for example.  You get level 1 for free by hailing an NPC.  You then get ported into an arena.  A mob comes out.  You kill it and hail npc to get lvl 2.  Then another mob or mobs come out you kill them then hail for level 3.  ect ect.  Each wave is harder then the first.  This would mean at some point a player would hit a brick wall and not be able to advance any higher.  But as they gear up there team they will be able to go back in and complete that round they just wouldnt before.  It would make upgrading your team seem more meaningful.  Right now i am farming to be able to box t3 and t4 bosses.  I need a few UC and a lot of augs for that so its a lot of grinding before i can progress AT ALL.  It would be super cool if after i get a few new augs or charms i would be powerful another for another level of the arena event b/c then i can feel like my minor upgrades mean something instead of needing so many upgrades to get to next level of content.

Ok well i've ranted enough.  These are all just ideas.  This is Hunters server and i love playing on it and respect that it is his.  If any of these ideas lead to discussion thats always a positive thing, and if they all get shut down thats ok to.  Just wanted to voice some thoughts floating in my head.  Thanks for listening and for making EZ the best server on EQEMU!!

I LOVE the idea of harder and harder waves of mobs, could be for a new T7 level item. This should be written down for future use.

I think adding a rare chance for charm upgrade to other zones would be fine. Would probably include Qvic through T2 since T3 is where the v2 starts to drop. Chances would be rare even on bosses else I know players would spam instance right at the boss location over and over. I'm sure adding more charm upgrades to more zones would increase players being able to sell loot rights as well. I'm still thinking about using ToFS for an alternative grind area with ranked items and charm upgrade drops.

One time rewards for quest is a great idea too. Now that we have potion experiences I have to find more ways to give them out as a reward, like the bags of plat on the kill quest from Surefall.

Having waves of mobs and each wave harder than the last would be a great idea. I've thought about that since playing Oblivion doing their arena thing there. Would probably pace the event though, maybe with a 5-15 minute cool down between events for looting, etc. Difficulty of the mob might reflect better loots, or even better chance of charm upgrade component. I'm sure it'd be a more fun grind for end game players than going back to LDoN. Players and guilds would have bragging rights about how many rounds they survived in the Arena, but I'd hate to see it turn out like Halloween where it'd take 100+ players then crash the zone for a high rank fight.

cool ideas thanks for listening as always Hunter!

What about a gamble system in with it. You kill a boss and you get a loot token lvl 1. You can turn the token in for loots to a particular npc or you can turn it in to another npc for the next wave. Kill them and you get a loot token 2... and so on and so forth. You either get the next level of loots, or you get nothing. You could make it so the token to start it is just Half of an Arena Ticket. You turn the Half of an Arena Ticket in and you find out of it is a Spectator ticket or a Participant Ticket. If it is a spectator ticket you get a random left over loot. That could be based on what tier you currently are on. If it turns out it is a Participant Ticket then you start the Arena Event. Upon turning it in you are gated to an instance for the Arena Event. It could even be announced to the server. (Stone has started the Arena Event! | Stone has completed level one Arena Event! | Stone has completed level two Arena Event...). Obviously as you go up in levels the difficulty goes up as does the loots.

The reason for the instance is to avoid a situation where someone else comes in and out dps's you or crashes the zone from so many coming in.

Thanks tons for listening to the ideas Hunter.  On live there were basically 2 arena type events i can remember.  One was a guild type thing for dragon kills specifically.  Started with old school dragons and went up to high end ones.  Each level offered a better type of item.  I do understand an event like this could end up like halloween and cause crash.

The event type I was talking about was like another arena event i remember from live in freeport for a charm i think.  Basically only 6 people were allowed in the zone at a time.  On EZ Players would have to choose which of there 6 they would want to take in and farm with.  So to gear out an army you would have to do event multiple times.  Whats nice about the req of 6 max is that the instance would not be as likely to crash or lag i would assume.  Also on live the next round of mobs would not spawn until you hailed the quest giver to get your next level of item.  So if you killed a set of mobs you would have plenty of time to loot and buff and rez before hailing the npc and spawning the next set.

I have also seen 2 ways of doing the arena.  One way is that the game remembers your wave so if you clear maybe first 10 waves then take a break when you go back later it remembers the lowest flag of the members in group and will start you back at wave 10.  The other way is much more hard core.  Bascially when you zone in your stuck in there.  You start at wave 1 and go as far as you can but cant zone out for buff bot or anything.  Then say you wipe on wave 30.  When you go back to progress farther you have to start at wave 1 again and work your way all over again.  That route is harder and required you to have characters in the 6 that you would want to use to buff your team ect.

LOVE this idea. 

Event starting over would suck pretty bad, just being stuck there until it is over effectively locks out people without the time to complete it.
I too from the start of banker/waypoint price increase saw it as too much of a hike. True it probably never should have been free, and they are both worth paying for...but such a  high pricetag when all the other players already had these items essentially screwed the newer players.
Adding a second way to get these items in established lower tiered  zones would be a good idea, say making them a combine with parts dropping randomly from bosses just like podragons and the hp augments.
This would allow lower tiers to farm these and higher tiers could still just outright buy them, paying for the convenience factor.

the 2 events ive seen are one the dome event to further your qvic/kt progression on live...and the Arena Champion's Badge earned thru doing http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3403 (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=3403)
The Arena Master's Challenge

I could try to make a limit of 6 characters allowed in the zone, and only way into the zone is through Instance. Then its all scripted for the arena event, and would be best of the best bragging rights of which 6 man army got the most rounds done.

That sounds cool!

Cool

+1

+1 Like

Great stuffs!!!!

/Enosis

For the single group challenge, you could just make it like LDoN. A new zone once you reach a predetermined number of successes which comes with a jump in difficulty, and a flag that allows you to jump in at that level in the future. The single-group challenge sounds FANTASTIC, Hunter. Possibly my new favorite post from you. :) Make the later zones impossibly difficult.

Regarding waypoints, I was on an eight month break when the prices were raised. I disagree with the change, specifically for the noobs. When I landed here, it was the ability to CREATE MY OWN ZONE-more than anything else-that made me fall in love with this server. Having to fork over a million plat for the privilege seems particularly onerous, especially when they can't even use it to farm CG/FG gear, anymore.

with the charm drop idea with waves of mobs what if you took the event in poj and vamped mobs up could use same event just vamp mobs up make like two or three different tiers of the event say if your t1 flaged you can do the first rank which has a xx% chance to drop one charm if you win the event if your t3-4 flaged you do event two which has a higher chance to drop one or has a 100% chance if your t5+ flaged you do event three which has a 100% chance to drop one and say a xx% chance to drop two the event is what like 4 waves long mabey you change number of waves or change % around just thinking mabey would be easier with an event thats already in place like hangman event.

There are probably 20-30 LDoN zones and we're using only 6 of them so there is room to use others for 6 box challenges.

What you didn't tell everyone else about the 4 super secret levels to farm Omega Stones from?!?! Just like the cow level!

/tinfoilhat

Ok, do tell.

-Hate

Hopefully I didn't misunderstand your question.

Seems there are 48 zones from LDoN:

The Cauldron of Lost Souls   guka
The Bloodied Quarries   ruja
The Sunken Library   taka
The Silent Gallery   mira
The Forlorn Caverns   mmca
The Drowning Crypt   gukb
The Halls of War   rujb
The Shifting Tower   takb
The Maw of the Menagerie   mirb
The Dreary Grotto   mmcb
The Ancient Aqueducts   gukc
The Wind Bridges   rujc
The Fading Temple   takc
The Spider Den   mirc
The Asylum of Invoked Stone   mmcc
The Mushroom Grove   gukd
The Gladiator Pits   rujd
The Royal Observatory   takd
The Hushed Banquet   mird
The Chambers of Eternal Affliction   mmcd
The Foreboding Prison   guke
The Drudge Hollows   ruje
The River of Recollection   take
The Frosted Halls   mire
The Sepulcher of the Damned   mmce
The Chapel of the Witnesses   gukf
The Fortified Lair of the Taskmasters   rujf
The Sandfall Corridors   takf
The Forgotten Wastes   mirf
The Ritualistic Summoning Grounds   mmcf
The Root Garden   gukg
The Hidden Vale   rujg
The Balancing Chamber   takg
The Heart of the Menagerie   mirg
The Cesspits of Putrescence   mmcg
The Accursed Sanctuary   gukh
The Blazing Forge   rujh
The Sweeping Tides   takh
The Morbid Laboratory   mirh
The Aisles of Blood   mmch
The Arena of Chance   ruji
The Antiquated Palace   taki
The Theater of Imprisoned Horrors   miri
The Halls of Sanguinary Rites   mmci
The Barracks of War   rujj
The Prismatic Corridors   takj
The Grand Library   mirj
The Infernal Sanctuary   mmcj

How about a quest for a pet focus item in Crafter's Guild similar to Mana Necklace/Armor/Augs

6 man challenge sounds great! How about a neck piece I.e. a medal?

How about a hell lvl every 10th lvl and if you win you can immediately pick up from where you left off last time, maybe a clicky on the neck? Or a flag? This means you only need attempt ten lvls at the most in a run and not trying to go from 1-100 every time.

We have a neckalce, shield, ring and range. We need a cool quest earring like i heard the sceptre use to be :)

why it always got to be an earring? why not shoulder, back,  or ammo/powersupply why always an earring seesh

shoulder and back good idea. Not ammo or power source.

A new earring is in the works already for another quest :)

You get no benefits from anything in ammo slot.

ment to add face anyway hehe

Was wondering if we do go for 100 waves of mobs, could we use sets of bosses from all the expansions.

I.e wave 1-10 would be bosses from original eq maybe finishing with Inny or cazic,
11-20 would be bosses from kunark...
Etc etc (I never played all that much on live to complete the list, so would be nice to encounter some of these gods/dragons)

I'm not saying having 30 cazics running at you, maybe have him come at you with some of his Demi-gods, or he could spawn once they are all dead?

Just throwing it out there :)

or have hte final wave set be all the bosses from each era