EZ Server

What do ~YOU~ want to see in EZ?

This one is a bit different than the rest. I'm posting this for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is that I would like to see EZ return to it's former "500+" online at any time status. A time when a player could hope in to see all kinds of shenanigans flip through OOC (both good and bad...). I've been working through posting update threads and then planned update threads, but I've not played in so long that I've truly lost my bearings. My entire mindset has been changed so dramatically that I can honestly say that I am no longer a reliably voice in terms of player opinion.

With that being said, what types of things would YOU like to see in EZ? New content in terms of new tiers, more LDON (EZ version or live version) things, mini dungeons, more pvp content/events, etc etc etc. What do YOU want in EZ?


-Hate

Just for senpai to notice me </3 lol and poison proc rogue epic XD sorc charm scale on pets procs lots of things everyone flames me for suggesting...how about an alternate tier progression area like tofs has levels but each level is a tier in aspect of gear etc, like floor 1 qvic, floor 2 ct floor 3 tier 1 floor 4 tier 2 etc... you get keys for the same flags as you would other tiers from npc at zl idk XD its an idea and maybe add different slot items for that zone ie different rings earrings etc.

I would like to see a dungeon crawl zone with various levels of difficulty. Like one of the eh Qvic or mountain type zones where you are given a specific option. Kill XX in 20 mins or Kill 4 named. Random drop rewards and random end rewards, using 10 or 20 minute instances. Weapon skins, random level of augs, cash, crystals etc etc.

I'd like to see Convorteum be used.
With the layout of the zone you could easily wall off each floor and create different levels like TOFS.

So many things I've considered lately....

And sorry if I repeat ideas posted, since I'm writing this over several hours.

Dungeon crawls, for sure. I love em! Something thats IP limited, like OT, so you have to work with others....then maybe rewards at the end, or alternate currency that allows you to buy some items. Add various essence drops to the crawl, and maybe SLS drops. Perhaps full strike augs, reward matching level of difficulty (maybe rank 8 max). Oh, and make this type crawl something thats impossible to mass pull and AE. Not leashed....but maybe make the mobs heavy hitters and completely erase any type of run speed buff on zone in? Something. But at the core make this a TEAM task, something you have to work together to complete, with a full group (6 people). Make the rewards good enough, perhaps as I outlined above, and you'd have no shortage of people eager to do em. And....make them solid enough in terms of gear rewards that you'd get people who hate the whole boxing thing STILL playing here.

Yeah, it'd probably be a lot of work....but you asked :D

Another idea I liked.....again, single IP thing, just 1 character....but enter a zone with X amount of other people, in a 6 or 12 or 18 person task. Go through the zone, killing, exploring, opening boxes, whatever....like a scavenger hunt. The first person to hand in all items is removed from the zone and gets the big reward. 2nd gets a lesser, etc, as far as you'd want to take it. Again, all buffs removed on zone in, and a buff bot to hail by the task NPC.

With both of these ideas make different tiers of tasks, in different zones. Use some of the zones people here have probably NEVER seen, from later expansions. You'd get a ton of people playing JUST for this.

As stated above, alternatives to current zones would be fantastic, if they were feasible given the amount of work involved. If not alternatives to tiers, then at the very least alternatives to UC2/UC3! Could even put em in the same zone, different areas with different difficulty. Right now content is very linear, and it'd be nice to have some alternatives.

Make necro Death spell AE the dots!! Make it very short area if you must, or a limited number of mobs it can land on at once.....but that one thing would fix necro dps!

Despite arguments against, I still think getting UW off the same tiered essences as strikes/SOA/etc is a great idea. Throttling UW progression via drop rates of items that are needed for pretty much mandatory gear (strike augs are NOT optional, sorry) is IMO a bad idea....and only hurts newer players just starting out. The people claiming that it isnt broken have NOT tried to gear up a team on their own without ANY higher level help.

Along that same line....its actually harder to get Dragons minor essences than it is to get gods major. Considerably harder. It shouldnt be. Creating a bottleneck that keeps teams at rank 2 strike augs is, IMO, a good way to keep that number from hitting 500 people on. Again, if you claim "this isnt broken" then start a new team and work ONLY that new team and tell me how easy it is to get dragons minor! I think a quick fix for this would be to leave the drop rate, if thats what you want to do, but bring back the trash adds on boss fights in T1.

UW are IMO in a great place! Yeah, the promise of UW augs still intrigues me, but with the new system and being able to slot epic augs into a UW....and the concept of UW on pet classes giving the pets the UW weapon...I think UW is pretty damned good!

I know donations are still down....but I also know Akk's doing his best to get em back up again. Once they are.....one idea I sent to Hunter a year or so ago was small cost reward items, perhaps with a timer. Example? A free instance maker that costs say 5, 10, 25 credits but lasts a week, a month, etc. Some people blanch at the $100 price tag of the current permanent one, but paying 5 ot 10 bucks for one for a week or 4 wouldnt hurt so much. Perhaps "Rent-A-Wrecker", that allows you to temporarily pump one character of your choice to T5 for 3 days at X cost (low). Or rent one thats limited access (if such a thing is feasible). This would allow newer players a chance to PL themselves, experience what some of the higher tiers have to offer and have some fun at a lower cost that paying 35 bucks for a character artificially elevated to 3.0. That kind of a thing. Low cost short term rewards that give players a sample of what higher donations can get them.

Also.....I would really like to see strike augs, UC, SoT, epics, etc removed from rewards. I still dont like the idea of paying to win.....getting items that you can get in game with hard work by just popping down a credit card. I like the idea of donation rewards getting you things that are otherwise impossible to get in game...like the CoH clicky, or the instance maker. Or the run speed click.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm with Chunka on the IP limited content. I would *love* to just run around poking things in the behind with something pointy. I do think rewards would have to be something that you could trade though (depending on what the rewards are). Since we will still need to outfit our own tank.

I'd even go so far as to limit to two. That way you don't need six real people to get things done, if you can't find that many.

It would also be neat to have NPCs cast some spells that require some tactics to get around. Things that make the fights more interesting, like heal amount debuffs, damage output debuffs, etc.

Fuck IP limited content, I don't play here to be limited in what my group(s) makeup is and I sure as hell didn't devote my resources to gearing out my tank so that people could be forced to group together to get rewards.  I'm sorry if what you want is some sort of forced social interaction because you lack the ability to find people of similar tier/gear/focus levels of play to group or raid with, but for those of use who don't have those issues, limiting us to single or double IP addresses to get better rewards sounds fucking retarded.  You are basically suggesting anyone T5+ who's made their warrior the focus of their upgrades and UW, RoA, SoA, UCvWhatever decide to devote resources to some other support characters who aren't and shouldn't be anywhere nearly as geared as their warrior.  You really want 5 warriors and some undergeared paladin/druid/cleric running through shit so you can get rewards that matter to the 5 warriors but isn't gonna do shit to help the guy stuck playing the healer?

Maybe I'm missing it, and definitely I've had more beers than I should while reading forum updates, but I fail to see the point of implementing any type of IP throttling outside of the lame PvP zones we already have.  Btw, you're asking for more resources to be allocated to sniffing IP addresses than is realistic especially considering there are ways around it.

I think you're misunderstanding Dim. It wouldnt be something thats in the tiers, or required. This would be very optional stuff, outside what we already have. If you dont like doing this type thing, no one would be forcing you to do it to play here....just as no one is currently forcing you to PvP.

Also with Kaid on more complex fights...something that requires tactics and teamwork to get past. Thats what I was getting at with the IP limited encounters, because fights like Vishimtar the Fallen, or the old MPG trials....or a shit ton of other AMAZING EQ fights would be pretty much impossible boxing. And those fights are a freaking BLAST.

I'd love to see something complex and challenging here....something that'd be a break from the 12 box gear grind....that'd force you to get with the people you're working with, pick what character you want to play, and work out winning strats with the rest of your teammates. Then next time pick a completely different character and relive the whole experience from a different point of view.

If its doable.....if the workload wouldnt make Hate start looking at sniper rifles on http://www.impactguns.com/....I think it'd do a lot for the server.

This is simple but would offer a great way to keep folks on an bring n new foks.
I would move essence requirement for strike augments and change it to something else.. Something you also get from that tier. You can redo t3/4 so the bosses spawn in hoh.. Or make an alt t3/4.. Also maybe an alt t5... Before doing t10, let's add content and options for our mid level folks.

A lot of players that originally are very passionate about the server lose interest because of the amount of time they have to spend farming. Refer to my post in the suggestions section for what I think could be done. In addition to that though, if you added more quests / events/ increased spawn rates and drop rates I'm sure more players would stick around longer. Perhaps zone quests where if players kill x amount of bosses they get a crystal, adding a chance for zone bosses to start a chain spawning series like in the Halloween event, anything that would speed up progression of the zone would be appreciated by the player. Ezserver is already one of the most played emulated servers so the content for the most part is really solid, a few additional things and manipulation of what's already in place could make the experience more enjoyable for the player. To address the counter argument that such changes would make the game easier, Everquest is already easy, but the time investment vs reward ratio is not attractive to most people.

Would be nice to see some content for the people that cant play for 10 hours straight, LDON and ToFS style.

I agree with Hulk, people tend to fall off due to the Grind.  Having said that, I went through the grind and am T9 and have enjoyed it.  If you want a higher pop you could ease up the lower grind to pull more people in.  Even regular Everquest and other MMO's eventually make the lower content easier to keep people interested.


Tweaks of current content:

1.  Addressing the waypoint cost issue is a must.  I suggest lowering the plat costs and make the regular wp free again (unless it already is).  Maybe even lower the donate cost for the FWP as well.

2.  UC/T5 are the first real grind.  Slight increase of some of the more rare T5 boss spawns.  Increase v2 charm drops (noobs won't have access to ToFS floor 5 yet).  Maybe add V1's and V2's to earlier zones like plane of time/qvic/ct/ etc.

3.  Plat drops could use another pass.  Maybe increase drop rates or increasing the amount of plat each type is worth.

4.  Possibly lower costs of strike augs in some manner.

5.  If we could figure out some way to get the word out (not sure how or where it would go).

6.  Consider monthly weekend double loot or some other attractive alternative.  Server pop always jumps up during double loot time and if more features are being added, people should take notice.

New Content:

1. The LDON style runs could be real nice and rewards could include plat/ess/charms/other neat stuff.

2.  Arena style encounters like the 2.0 book boss with increased difficulty and rewards aligned with each tier.

3. T10 +  !!!


Gonna have to veto the IP restriction stuff.  We have pvp zones for that and there Are ways around it.  

I have seen many times where people at the top end who have point countless days into this game get all huffy when this type of thread pops up.  Hopefully they can understand that server population is something many desire despite most of us boxing our own armies.  Some of that criticism may have to be overlooked in order to push this ideal through.

~~~~ T9 side note ~~~~

Some simple tweaks that I would love to see.   High quality metal changed item graphic icon to something else other than the metal bits (or color change).  Same with the silk and wisp stones.  Most of us don't have clothie armies but the spiders and wisps are a bit more rare.  Possibly add a few spider spawns/camps.  I'm not sure exactly how bad the undead army affects the HG spawn these days, but you could replace some of those spawned mobs with shadow men which would also help with obtaining the blood.

I am with Dimur and CLB on the IP limit....please don't. I play on this server because I can do stuff on my own and whenever I want to. If I want to help someone out or invite them to run with me... I do so by choice. I think that is what I really like about this server because I have a choice and don't have to be  dependent on others unless I choose to be. I think if I wanted that, I would jump on P99 or play Live if I wanted social interaction. Maybe I am missing something here with the IP limit but doesn't sound like something I would be interested in if I am forced to find others to go thru certain content. With that being said...I am with everyone else on the ideas that have sprung forth! Awesome inputs guys!

+1k

Mix

Just some low maintenance items on my list.

Hand in items should have a check (For Proper NPC) to ensure dummies (like me) do not turn in their ROA to the Level Up chick. 

Definitive instruction on the Epic Vendor regarding Augs.  "You can turn your 2H sword, bow etc.. to me one of ... 1H, Bow etc.."
  - Adding a check for Augs in the early Epic and handing them back if Augged would be sweet.                                       
  - Adding a check for books that have not been combined and handing those back (with the pages still in them) would be nice.  (Yep, did that one too.. back in the day when it was still painful).

We have this wonderful new Wiki so, Wiki links on NPCs would help. 
  - Crafter guild Wiki links on the NPC would be peachy.
  - We already have a quest screen for FG/CG, but a Wiki link on those two NPCs might be appropriate.

... and a bit off the wall here, but I would find it entertaining if NPCs had a more "Hateborne attitude" especially when you screwed up the quest. 
  - Level up chick smacks you in the head and says... "You haven't finished X-portion of the zone quest yet nub."

*****************************************************************

Stun resist.  Nothing on this server pulls my chain more than a 3 foot tall frog from LDoN stunning my T8/9, UW/SOA/ROA equipped toon who was out for a stroll.  I don't know if there is a check for stun resist + level variant, but that occasional bash just tightens my jaws.  If nothing else on the server ever changed except this I would be a happy grinder (and I haven't been in LDoN in years).

Mostly with the IP limit I'm talking OPTIONAL CONTENT for groups...stuff you couldnt do boxing anyway (no way in hell a box tream could do Vish, for example....I dont care how good you think you are). Talking optional encounters that are slated for people who want to work together, and with rewards that are either unique or nice enough to encourage people to group up and give it a go.

I am not talking about putting IP limits on progression content. Again, unbunch the panties, this is optional crap for people who want to group.

lol kwai nailed it on the stun resist. Its maddening sometimes getting stunned by content that can't even take 1% off your health if you are afk and get jumped by a roamer...

Honestly i love this server. a lot. I can't really think of much i would change. The biggest atrocity was the dminor spawn rate and apparently that's being addressed, so yay!

Umm.. as for an idea to throw out there:

Instead of a dbl loot weekend (which probably takes the national GNP down a couple percentage points on the weekends they entail), how about just a freaky friday type of thing every other week or so.

How it'd work is either one of two ways:

1. ) Hotzones.. Every two hours there's a new global hotzone.. That zone is flagged dbl loot and it's up to us to figure out which one it is.  It could be something glorious like t8, something we all could enjoy like Postorms or HoH or jaggedpine... Or something groan worthy like CT or Abyss.. Or Something totally bonkers like gukbottom.

2. ) IP Specific madness: Each person logged in (IP) has their own designated hot zone they must find. Kruciel might find he's got a friday worth of Anguish DBL loot... Krincle would find a friday worth of HOH dbl... etc.. etc.. Maybe this could randomize every other hour or something.

Basically.. something new and different that isnt as all encompassing and OP'd as a true double loot structure. And we could all laugh when Fugi draws Qvic.

 

I was thinking something like that, but I thought it'd be a pain to program. But yeah, that'd be a blast.

I do like the idea of Kerafrym awakening, and randomly rampaging across the world. Something SO nasty that it takes many high level characters (more than someone's 24 box team) to take it down....with rewards for everyone in on the kill (similar to BU during Halloween, but nastier). Something that randomly rampages for 10 mil, for example....or has an AE that erases 99% of your hps in one shot.....something overland, never in the same zone twice....something that travels across zones (which is why I said Kerafrym, because when awakened it'd go all over), so you cant predict where you'll have to kill it. Maybe combine Sleeper and Vish, so when you engage an event starts.

Just an idea.

Gonna beat that dead horse laying over there for a minute, but when we earn something, let us keep it. The End.

(https://www.everquest.com/images/news_images/frostyhot/valdeholm.jpg)

(http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/valdeholm-podium.jpg)

cmonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn T-10

As someone who gets to play maybe 3 hours a week right now due to kids, wife and work.  I would love a way to work through T-5 more effectively.  AKA Allow a mechanism to spawn the boss you need via a quest or turn in item.  I know that T-5 is supposed to be the great equalizer here and I am not going anywhere because of it even if it takes me a year or more to get through T-5 but grinding in Illsalin to hopefully get a spawn in 1.5 hour increments is impossible. 

If our intent is to be more player friendly we have to make T-5 more managable.  I would be happy to trade in say 5 God Majors to spawn a really rare T-5 Spawn at a random point in the zone.

(as a side note I would buy the flags if donations were up but that doesn't solve the issue of not having armor pieces to move on to T-6.)

I don't want the server to be easy mode but allow me an alternate grind to T-5 would go a long way for people.

I would strongly disagree with making it "easier." T5 is the first "Gut check" and everyone before you had to go through it. It is VERY manageable for your playtime and with everyone that advertises spawns that they get T5 is even easier now.

 

Krunk, I'm helping some guildies through T5 lately, you're more than welcome to suck up a few kills.

I agree with making t5 a bit faster

Guessing you're in T5 too?

Dont know......maybe while I was in it I'd have agreed, make T5 faster....but two things changed my mind: first, learning to deal with T5 will help you a lot later....and once you figure out how T5 goes a lot quicker (that and copious use of the free instance maker).

Two small things that I think would be a good addition to the server.

1: Add a new type of essence, that has the same drop chance as the current essence in that tier and call it Ultimate Essence I, Ultimate Essence II etc.  Then use those essences for UW, and double current essence drop rates.  That way you can still limit how fast UWs are able to be acquired, still make people do the exact same grind, but also allow people to progress on the "mandatory" items at a faster pace without also speeding up UWs.

So for example (random numbers picked out of the air for easy math):
Qvic would drop - Ultimate Essence 1 5% of the time and Qvic Essences 10% of the time
CT would drop - Ultimate Essence 2 5% of the time and CT essences 10% of the time
and so forth up through all of the tiers .. this could also even allow you to lower the drop chance of Ultimate Essences to make UW grinding harder and still let people progress on Augs, SoA, etc.

2: Make a zone (I think The Void would be perfect for this) where it is faster to grind tokens/crystals to spawn bosses.  This zone would be for more advanced toons just wanting to go back through t1-4 in order to grind essences or gear up a new toon.  The Void is broken up into different islands, have each island contain a boss that has hp roughly equivalent to the total hp of all mobs you would kill for a specific type of drop, and have them drop the average amount that would be expected during a clear.

So for example (again... random numbers just to illustrate my point):
Island 1 would have Big Dragon with hp equal to about the same amount as all the T1 dragons in PoD and 20 mini bosses health and would drop between 10-15 Fire/Water Crystals
Island 2 would have Bigger Dragon with hp equal to about the same amount as all the T2 dragons in PoD and 20 mini bosses health and would drop between 10-15 Earth/Ice Crystals
Island 3 would have Big Avatar with hp equal to all the Avatars and little minions in Hoh and would drop between 30-40 t3 tokens
Island 4 would have Bigger Avatar with hp equal to all the Avatars and little minions in HoH and would drop between 15-20 t4 tokens

The damage on these named could be set high, about the same as OMM or a t7 boss since the whole point is to just allow people who could already steamroll the zone a faster way to collect the crystals/tokens.

Instance cost could be set to the cost of 2 HoH instances and 1 PoD instance since if you cleared all 4 bosses thats essentially the same thing, maybe slightly higher to account for the convenience, perhaps instead of 160k have it be 200k or something like that (not exactly sure on cost of a PoD instance).

I think that making older content easier is a great idea. There are a lot of people out there willing to help people through this content, but its super annoying farming for hours in Qvic to get that piece of gear that just wont drop. Rot Bot for Qvic would rule.

CT is pretty good as it is.

T1 is fine as it is.

T2 is fine.

Tokens for T3/4 still drop much too rare.

I wouldn't change anything from T5 on.

More random bosses like the ancient dragon and gem collector would be great. Or adding a rare spawn boss in each tier that drops gear, then after killing it will spawn a harder boss that drops gear and an essence, then spawns a harder boss that drops gear + essence + SLS or something, then spawns another boss that might drop Halloween type cool drops or whatever.

Implementing an actual epic item quest for each class would be cool. Something that takes a considerable amount of farming or camping and a huge quest chain that results in a cool item for each class. I don't think it should be a weapon or armor piece, maybe just an inventory clicky item that supports that classes role somehow.

Being someone who's finishing up T4, couple of things I've spoken to other players around my progress about.

The waypoint situation. The vendor waypoint is great, and a very important item to make your progress easier early on. The main issue being the cost of instances/repops once you get to about T5 onward. "Get a FWP" you say. Sure, when that becomes an option again. However some might not be comfortable, or simply cant afford to drop the 100$ for a single item in an otherwise free game. I'm all for donating for support, but for some it might be a little much.

I noticed someone else mention a different type of FWP that only lasts for a limited time. Great idea, mine was somewhat similar, and it's pretty much FWP Lite. A item that lets you create your free instance, however repops aren't free, but are also cheaper than a regular waypoint item. Or just another WP item that has cheaper creation/repop costs all around. This could cost less credits for those those not quite willing/able drop the cash for the regular FWP.

Bottom line is, newer people gearing up and breaking in to t5+ shouldn't be forced to choose between being able to afford instance costs, and getting necessary things like strike augs. And no, going and farming SLS just to make money, only to have to go farm more SLS when you need them for your augs is not a good option, that isn't fun for anybody. You're already going to have to do it enough just for your own augs and other items, let alone having to do it for money too.

I know there are probably some vets out there who think " Well thats how I had to do it, so it shouldn't be easier for anyone else." Great job, but that's not the kind of attitude that going to keep any new people around besides the occasional person that pops up with tons of free time and doesn't care about the extra grind.

I can't really comment on anything UW related, because I'm not focusing on that yet myself, besides noticing that yes, dminor seem to be the biggest pain to get out of any of the other essence, but that's been talked about already.

Anyways, for NEW STUFFS, I stopped playing live seriously around omens or that xpac with the dragons and stillmoon.. anything involving zones after that I'd enjoy seeing. I've messed around with some void zones on a couple other servers, and some of them feel like they would be great with an EZ flair.

....

I'm all for a lot of what was said here so far..

-The FWP needs to stay on the "Special buy me item list" (see below 2 line items before blowing gaskets)

-The waypoint from the ingame vendor should be free (even though only takes a few SLS to buy).(It was off and on Free multiple times already)

-The cost of repops and instances should be cut in at least half of what they currently are there are enough money drains in the game.

-Let's get away from all these 1-4 expansion zones.. I know everyone wants to rekindle the feelings they had when they were mauled by Giants running through Kael, or the the Sleeper event where most players where never part of the original crews that keyed themselves for the zone. SSRA... awesome zone horrible layout.

-There are like 100s of awesome zones where Hate can do his magic without level layout restrictions.

-I hope for some "endless" dungeon crawl event.

-I want to see low end essences ( which are not game changers Q-T2 ) drop more often will help the young players get $ from the mid/end guys since going back to square one to farm something over and over is becoming .. a grind that is zero fun.

-More Special in-zone bosses that spawn WAY more often then say like  the Qvic beholder or the T1/T2 Dragon currently do.. ( they are not game changes.. the loot tables are mehmeh at best..)

-Someone said rare chance of EoFS dropping in Tiered zones. I like but the % has to be super low or these would flood the market (be nice to get on maybe naturally as you spend excessive time in the zone not just farm armor and leave).

-1.0s restored to previous prior to the Level 60 PVP stuff.. Have you seen new guys get fuckin raped by the 1.5 boss.. its funny... even with full grps they normally need outside help ( all those spiders popping blam.. wipe.) I like its funny but rather freaking hard. (not saying 1.0s will fix.. but can help somewhat)

-Special T9 Boss on some timer (2-4hrs) no matter what (2nd generation MCP..hell I dont know)

-Hotzone ... with whack ass bosses that do whack ass stuff ... no idea here .. will edit with more thought.

-HoH randomly spawns a T3/T4 boss very low chance on kill of mob

-UW 2Handed Bladed weapon (axe, sword.. something sharp.. wielding a twig is weird and demeaning as a warrior/pally/sk)

-UW H2H weapon BL and Monks be praised.

-T5 Spawn chance up'd a little ( I don't think Hunter ever made these which he intended to do via posts on forums )

-T8 $

-T7 Mob HPs .. look at the difference between T7 and T6 mobs.. it's what 600%

-Getting T8/T9 guys out of Qvic-T2 zones ... most of has had to revisit these zones.. WAY to many times over and over for this that this that.. very mind numbing and sets the picture for burn out.

-Caster EoA

-AA per hour on /say stats

-HP/Mana Regen on /say stats

-Halloween HP buff should stay with you when zone

-It's time for a Cleric HP/AC Buff upgrade Crabs2 isn't cutting it anymore. (specially since he just upgraded all the hardware)

-More AE/AoE Damage all classes. (cept zerk hahaha)

-Get rid of all the damn illusion red drake green drake stuff out of T8 ... every spell drop seems to be one of those .. like they are set 99% or something rofl.

-More Clear the whole zone get bonus boss (example t5)

-More NPC attitude hahah.. DT BAM!

-PP bags stackable all versions

-V1 Charm upgrades stackable

-V2 of the spider in Dreadlands.... seeking revenge or something

-Black unicorn type event (not the crazy npc loot fest though)

-Make LDON Pleasing again.. seems like this place became the ghetto of EZ lately.

-Add some daily invasions to all Tiered zones (i.e. T9ish)



I can't wait to see the battle arena event
UW Augments
T10

side note comment.. I was in nexus during buffing party it was awesome to see so many different weapons equipped on so many different players.. not as cookie cutter as it once was..  ;D

It exists. Go start it on a caster. The earring is nice. ;-)

(Earring of the Mystic Ages)


-Hate

nice!! didn't know thanks!!  I did a strikethru of it

I think all future tiers should be instances of Kedge Keep, cause people love water. :)

Maybe add like an 'add time' option to an instance. Maybe have it add like an hour for like 100k platinum(I have a free waypoint maker so it doesn't really matter to me). I only say this because I hate when I am clearing Abyss or Loping Plains and see the dreaded 15 minute message when I am almost done clearing or have a bunch of names up still. Maybe you can have like a 3 time limit for that instance.

IP limited may not be perfect but I like the idea your talking about, however, to the point of everyone having their war with the best gear I had an alternate suggestion to this, MONSTER MISSIONS or whatever it was called they were group task where everyone transformed into a specific mosnter with specific skill class was deleved to a specific level, we could give rewards like everyone earns an sls, (make the missions short like 20-30minutes max) were you can even play with lowbies etc, so everyone earns an sls, and everyone gets points, these points are then acquired for unique items, I was suggestion armor augs that offer unique class specials like +agro modifiers like some of the old coa gear use to have for wars, + modifiers for alteriation etc, and ofcourse the augs would have resist over cap and some stats. Honestly, I think this would be a fun thing, that way none of us have to LFG for hours, its a quick easy mission where it doesnt matter what character you play you benefit, and I think it would bring a lot of people into the game. Would it be possible to box those monster missions that eq brought in, maybe, would it be faster to just run with a few people, way faster. Sorry I am pretty sure they were called monster mission I know it was a SHROUD you used that transformed you into a monster with specific skills and deleveled you. add bonus exp so the content worth the aa's as well, or a fun way to plevel alts ^-^. Revision: different armor augs to different slots with different stats like boost avoidances, stun resist, hp regen, mana regen, it would be fun class specific augs different slots sort of like an aug to fit the class instead of mundane farming for general ones, maybe bonus damage small points to spells. Nothing insanely op but also different ranks the points go into a rank level 1 2 3 4 5 etc, but points are more expensive, with higher difficulty versions, that ie take longer, so if you want a quick run less points less reward like a greater light, you want a longer quest grind, then reward sls higher points for higher rank augs. That way its set stats set armor piece set class.

bump

Need to see more idea's or arguments ( gentle ones ) why good or bad of some ideas

Since Hulk can't follow basic directions/requests from a GM, I'll help him along

1) Faction based Progression items
2) More Scripted Fights
3) Faction side quests (Like the coldain and the giants)

I want free NSX's and free UWX. While we're at it, I am ENTITLED to free SLS, FWP, and EPIC augs to 8.

Fugitive beat me to quoting lol.


-Hate

Ive noticed a few people mentioning that palidan/sk epic 1.0s should be un nerfed, just thought id mention that they can be un nerfed if you want and it wont affect 60 pvp one single bit, so yeah no reason not to that I can think of

mad?

Hate, I'd love to see some type chat (real time) meeting every now and then, either on forum or voice. You'd get a lot more and a lot deeper input that way, I think.

Anyway, have some ideas, but I need to look at a couple things in game (after it comes up) to get what I want to say correct.

Yes and no chunka.... forums everyone can see and input... voice or special chats limit everyone to strict times... or 1 or 2 players speaking for all.. need a to be on forums and get players used to participating.. 

You can voip me any time fugi, day or night. If a lady answers, call back in 10 minutes. That's Rent's mom.

Almost true. I could potentially start a monthly chat channel (a few hour chat once a month) and post it for 2 weeks in advance. On the day of shout out something similar to "All interested in monthly dev chat, /join devchat03252" and log the entire chat channel to post on forums. :-)


-Hate

That'd work!

Sony's been doing something like this during Landmark's alpha/beta, and its working pretty well. They squash the assclowns quickly, and conversation's been pretty decent. A lot's come of it so far.

A 2 day suspension across all accounts will do that fairly well if some one wants to act stupid during such conversations. :-)


-Hate

Fix the ring quest and tweak it a little bit to make the difficulty appropriate. Add items to the drop list like exp tokens, ring upgrades, maybe a double loot clicky with limited clicks. Maybe even donation rewards. If you can have different versions that increase in difficulty you could increase/decrease the drop rate. Flag each toon that does the quest so they can't do it again for 24 hours or so. Each toon that goes in to do the quest, whether they start it or just tag along gets flagged so they can't repeat it till the allotted time is up. You could even have it in various zones.

Introduce legendary bosses with legendary drops. The drops would be legendary versions of the drops from the regular mobs. The legendary versions would have stats increased by 15 or 25%.

I don't get as much time anymore, will post again later.

stone, couldn't we just use the fabled model for our existing tiers?

like on a repop of t6 you get a fabled ture that has his normal loot table plus a fabled t6 weapon or t6 item

this would have to be a pretty rare chance, like 2% or something. and if the top tier ppl are doing a lower tier, could just /auction or give to a new player

/shrug

Oops meant fabled.

Scepter of Time quest I think needs to be revisited....badly.

The spell inks need to be purchased or start dropping from at least T1 on. The vellum will keep people from making spells they shouldn't have yet. I have a ton of missing spells on my guys and haven't had a single ink drop for me in T5 yet and anytime they are for sale they are ridiculously priced.

They drop like candy for me in T5.

I am new to the server and have only palyed for a week or so.  So far the server seems very well thought out and alot of content once you hit 70.  The only recommendation at this time is maybe make the "noobie package" a little cheaper for a first time buy, this could be regulated by IP.  This way a new person with a box team can get a single toon up to speed to start farming Time and Ldon's faster.  Not sure how easy this would be to setup however it had made the world of differance also adding aton of enjoyment to the game.  Also would like to see the mask of exp obtained alittle faster so that it can be worked on right away similar to the charms.

Not wanting this server to be on easy mode, just my two cents on making it alittle more fun right away for new players.

Honestly a newbie quest which grants like 500k and 500aa should be made. A little quest which involves talking to NPC which tells new players about the wiki and where to start. Probably be very helpful.

Yes, since ink drops are the ONLY way to get spells. :-P


-Hate

Originally the spell recipe system was designed to give higher tier players the chance to fill in the spells they just COULD NOT get through looting, because RNG hated them. It really wasnt ever meant as an alternative way to gain spells, though this is what some use it for.

T1 is a pretty huge stepping block for server folks. Between the ores and the molds and the two sides to the zone plus the epics and the spells and the....

etcetera..

Its a ton to wrap the brain around. The wiki is huge (as is the vendor book no one ever remembers, much less the 1500 hp free ring that people buy but never equip because they dont check the stats).

Here's a solution that benefits both the upcomers and the returning essence farmers.

Chests. The reglar ones. Minis. Ornates.. All three have something in common : 4 (8 on double loot) augment fragments and metal ores.

The ores are part of the zone design + a cock block. They stay obv.

But the augment fragments are basically tedium. Theres 20something varieties, only the warrior 4 are useful in the long run and maybe the hp augs in the short run. But the clutter up inventory something awful. And they just add to the confusion.

On double loot people dont even loot chests because no one has inventory room for 20 stackable augment frags + 14 class ores + 4 t1 ores. Especially since plat bags arent stackable.

Just kill off the augment fragments and replace them with super rare versions of the full aug (like HOH but obv even more rare). It gives the new players breaking in one less learning curve to climb and gives returning farmers the ability to 'loot all' like god intended. Lord knows how much plat / rainbows on the bottom of 3 screen scroll chests were missed out on because racing thru popping tikis those regular chests waste valuable time (dbl loot or not, really).

The gems need to stay for crafter guild purposes. The ores make the zone unique and t2 ore adds an extra time sink to protect players who need the resists and augs  and weapons and accessories anyways.

I see making the augments mimic the HOH ones as a win-win. Its just another confusing aspect of PoStorms, but its the one that really doesnt need to be there. :)

Yes x 1000

And I say yes x 1000 not because I'm ever going to farm postorms again, but because new players need those augs, and it shouldn't take 200 bosses and days of trash clears to craft a few anger augs that used to be easily accessible within a few hours of getting flagged for the zone (grabbing the warrior's t1 + t2 chest and hightailing it to HOH to get them augs + 3.5 book + 4.0 book) It used to be so easy to help new players thru this crutch with the old flagging system. Now it's a huge cockblock  :o

I used to love gearing new warriors to that point and watching them go back and enjoy leveling their team, farm charms etc. If it were up to me, I'd put anger 4 augs in qvic, since there are so many adds on bosses there. Maybe add a random aug to Ancient Sand Monster, either Anger 4, HP 4, or mana regen 4. Those were the only augs I ever bothered using out of allllll of the things you can craft from PoStorms.

I would like to see resist aug combine 5-9 in place (8 of 1 of the same = 3 rank highers).

I only offer to 9 because that is the tier we are on.

I would like to see all lvls of 4 of the same = next rank

I would like a 50% increase of the shadow knight ae soul eater. As it currently stands a t8 spell is sort of useless post t4.

I would like to see delete instance back. set timer for once every 24 hours to reduce abuse.

It would be nice to see something added to combat abilties for classes if possible.
This is a good way to boost melee


I think a lot of use would like to see some kind of event that would sort of enforce grouping.

My thoughts on this,

I agree that it would be awesome with a "gem collector" sort of thing, geared towards groups of players. However, I really don't think that the reward should be anything considerable in terms of progression. As a lot of players, are perfectly fine doin' their own thang.

Other than that, to generate some drama and fellowship, such events would be fun.

The problem with "Group Events" is that everyone is already grouped.  Someone's 3 box is another person's 18 box.  Putting a static # of players required to complete a event given equal gear is a rocky road to pursue on this server.  Instead, the mechanic of T5 quest credit (excluding the 1 armor drop per boss) is a proper method to pursue in terms of encouraging players to group. 

An example of this working through T10+ would be that all progression items (armor) are gained from a quest.  Think T5 boss spawns but once you turn it in, you get a full set of armor.  Then everyone could truly group up and smash a zone and there wouldn't be benefit to soloing it except for essences/money/etc.

It's funny, honestly why you guys don't group up and just go apepoo and smash zones together. Is the greed that much of a factor that you do it all solo(with your box team)??

There are plenty of us to already get together(same zone) and just go smash and guess what.. all of us get geared way faster then the greed of solo play. (you should see 6-12 groups clearing zones the repop and repeat)

This words "Enforcing", "IP Limit", "Socializing" to get players to play together. I am not going to carry some clown through the content cause they do not want to truly invest in their toons one way or another( There are many players I get with daily as I'm sure they find people to get with as much as I do). Maybe you guys that keep saying force force force feed content should fucking Guild/Group up and go smash shit together I challenge you.

This is always the same tune by the same players(type). The mechanics 9+ tiers deep already promote this, it's honestly up to you guys to /raidinv and /say raid invite <name> each other.


Fast clears (with friends) = more loot no matter how you look at it. So start looking at the content and your friends list and say, "Hey wanna come to my zone"

It's so easy with cross guild/raid instance invitations now.. no excuses

Again, straw man.

NO ONE IS SAYING ITS ABOUT FORCING SOCIALIZATION IN PROGRESSION CONTENT. No one is saying its on mandatory content. No one is telling anyone they HAVE to group. ALL this is is a suggestion on how to get more people on EZ....and providing things to do where multi boxing is impossible, by virtue of IP limits and fight mechanics. Could just as easily not worry about IP limits and create encounters where boxing is impossible (Vish fight, as an example.....EVERYONE needs to be doing something, and there are usually 6 to 8 separate tasks that need to be handled simultaneously or the encounter fails).

Again, this would be OPTIONAL, ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT that rewards people handsomely for working together. No one would be forcing you to drag anyone anywhere, because you could just decide to not participate, and it wouldnt effect your play or ability to handle progression content in any way.

I see all this want want want..

Who the hell is writting this event code to Hateborne to review or do you guys want him to sit down and spend 40-80 hours a week personal time for these "awesome single IP limited with apparently MASSIVE HANDSOME rewards"  ( oh then the guys writing the code think they deserve 100000000s of EZ credit for helping)


The content will still be jacked because player A thinks he deserves what player B received.. This is just like that Black Unicorn event.. when the server gimps were rewarded with the effort of a few because they HAILED a NPC and received near game breaking weapons.




There isn't this magical Code maker that is in the sky, this is not a paid MMO with a team of game designers..



How do you pertain to make content around that? what ask them to take their weapons off so they are the same as you ? and yet RECEIVE HANDSOME rewards.

Get off my soap box with me! Lets go grind

And this is a fail statement, go back and look it's all.

"I want" ..

Even my 30+ Point post on page 2


Not if we do this we can get more players..

Log in <player receives level 70>
Log in 7 days in a row <Player relieves 20M PP>
Log in 14 days in a row <Player gets UCV2 for free>

That above is how absurd other games reward players.. do you see that shit ever being able to be a good thing on EZ?

You yourself appears upset of the asshats on EQNEXT... .. the old players are the tight community small and hardcore..

The problem with EZ.. it's the same how to venture out and get new blood.. is going to be hard and trivial...but handsomely rewarding players (with something in mind of near game breaking (all rewards seem to be)) to play solo with massive amount of restrictions in place cause "tiered items" are to OP..

/shrug I don't know


I do know this a lot of players wanting to get together (forced no matter what you say all content becomes mandatory) don't do stuff in game with other players grps raids guilds.


EZ might not be for everyone (you yourself push players back to other servers in ooc..)



clbreastmilk hits it on the head, but I would go further.. you can go apeshit and smash up zones as they stand together already and be rewarded)
T9 has more loot per boss this is the way it should go too.. the more players in zone the more bosses spawn basically

Also, instead of trying to reinvent EZ

Why not focus on the shit that is lame and broken.

Hateborne needs to make a new post, why players leave and brainstorm that, otherwise we shooting in the wind with the "I wants (including me)"

This right here nails it, we've got one dev working on content and coding and as overwhelmed as he me be, he seems to have absolutely no interest in taking people up on offers of help...Nate's been rebuffed a couple of times on the forums for offering to help with basically a, 'Thanks but no thanks' response.  Sorry for singling Nate out here, but the point is that Nate has done a lot of coding and help over the years for EZ and for Hunter, Hateborne has posted that he's not interested in Nate's help. 

I can tell you openly and honestly that a lot of tenured vets are less than satisfied with trying to offer feedback and either getting a snarky /ooc response from Hateborne, getting told on the forums that you can find another server if you don't like it, or just outright ignored.  I am pretty sure most people understand the gravity of the responsibility Hateborne has accepted, knowing that he's basically in a no win situation and is constantly subject to bitchy, whiny complaints from every level of progression.  I can accept that shit gets old when all you're trying to do is help and it's never enough.  What bothers me, and a handful of other people who've vented/let me vent to them, is the whole martyr mentality of thinking it's all on you and rebuffing people's legitimate attempts to offer help.  Nobody knows what to do because if you offer the wrong feedback or ask the wrong question as to why this is what it is, you either get a pissy response or I'm taking my ball and going home type response.

What I'd like to see?  A little more effort be shown toward building and nurturing this community.  I'd like feedback to be considered and evaluated based strictly on it's own merits from the powers that be since the general community will undoubtedly offer their feedback picking it apart anyhow; I don't see a need for threats of censorship just because it's something that management doesn't like to hear.  We do a good job of policing ourselves and we do a better job of using our in game experiences to reinforce or debunk concerns that people offer up.  People aren't always adept at presenting their ideas and even if it sounds fucking stupid when they offer them up initially, you might be able to find a nugget of wisdom if you can clear the shit obscuring it away. We are the ones playing the content being put out, involve us in discussions when people bring up concerns they deem valid.   

I'd like to see more transparency.  I'd like to have an idea of what the general direction of the server is, where it's headed and why.  It's far too common to log on to changes that were implemented with zero discussion, forewarning or measured feedback.  Regardless of the validity of design/dev changes, people who choose to devote time and resources here don't need to be kept in the dark because the only answer offered as to why is, 'Because I said so.'  We choose to play here at our leisure and would rather be allowed to graze instead of being herded to the trough.

This isn't meant to be a scathing review of on the job performance, I'm simply posting what other people have discussed with me and my own feelings on matters as well.  This is simply me forwarding the results of those discussions to add to and promote further discussion on this thread.  A lot of people keep pointing out ways to fix content and that's valuable feedback, but I think we need to also concern ourselves with the positive health of the community feeling some of us aren't experiencing as much anymore.

I suggested it before, and its been touched on by others before and since: we need a solid round table, recurring monthly, quarterly, etc....maybe a chat program for real time input, and the notes posted in a text file on the forums after. You wanna see things improve? Open up the discussion....TRULY open it, and keep in mind that while its going on NONE OF IT IS AN ATTACK AT MANAGEMENT. The players love the server, and want it to succeed. If people get out of hand you can bet your ass other players in that live chat will verbally beat them down before management has to take any actions at all.

But you gotta have to balls to REALLY open the flood gates and ride out the wave....and skin thick enough to not take criticism personally.....and that aint easy.

To Fugitive/Chunka pissing match:

LoL you kids.


To Dimur:

I don't know what else that needs to be done. I try to post any changes as they occur (or, generally, in a warpath thread). I am starting this up specifically because I am both concerned that people are not particularly feeling the "being heard". So far, I'm unsure what content suggestions I'm ignoring or what people I'm openly attacking/mocking/ignoring. I really am not sure what other effort could be shown short of handing out loot and mailing flowers. I've heard a similar statement from you before, but I've really yet to see a lot of specifics on fixes/changes/etc. Not to say "YOU SUCK GIMME ANSWERS", but I'm seeing disapproval without suggestions.


*shrug*


-Hate

If you see disapproval without suggestions, then I suggest you look up definitions to words like transparency, feedback, discussion and snarky.  Not trying to be rude, but typing from the phone and I explained each of these words in great detail in my previous post.

we took it to PMs all good here.. :) sorry for derail

Stackable plat bags please

+1 Madthrok for that great idea!

In theory there could be another thread that breaks down what players want to see into "new content" and "changes for current content".  I have seen Hateborne pump out something without server consent, but at the same time, I think he listened to well constructed and detailed reason when he was dealing with the HP/DMG adjustments for UW. 

Change requests in a large corporate IT environment (where I work), tend to get resolved quicker when the problem is correctly documented and detailed.

I see both new content and current content change suggestions in this thread.  Some are simple and not likely to see reason not to implement (stackable plat bags?).  Bigger stuff like the ip restrictions might be best to have server input.

My suggestion to Hateborne is thus, throw up a poll/vote here for some of the controversial changes that "you" will consider.  That way, if the server votes for or against it, you can direct the haters to the winning vote team.   Stuff like stackable plat bags?  Shouldn't require input.

+1

Dimur,

Not going to turn this into a public pissing match, but you are being rude. Simply stating "not being rude" while being so, does not make it less rude. I'm going to try one last time to get a legitimate answer out of you.

---

This right here nails it, we've got one dev working on content and coding and as overwhelmed as he me be, he seems to have absolutely no interest in taking people up on offers of help...Nate's been rebuffed a couple of times on the forums for offering to help with basically a, 'Thanks but no thanks' response.  Sorry for singling Nate out here, but the point is that Nate has done a lot of coding and help over the years for EZ and for Hunter, Hateborne has posted that he's not interested in Nate's help. 



He has offered once or twice. Nate is highly competent and very helpful in EZ's past. Simply because I did not want help in two occasions does not mean I'm "rejecting" all help. I would like to point out that Hunter rarely reached out for help except in desperation or if something was damn near shrink wrapped then handed to him. Every addition I made to the server was 95% completely turnkey. Hunter could copy, paste, and be done with it. Nate offered to act as a third set of eyes (yes, third. Akkadius exists too). I am being dickish when I say this, "Simply because Nate has done a great many things, he is not entitled access to the server as a result of his actions." Nothing personal, Nate and I have spent enough hours annoying each other with crazy things. I'm fairly sure he understands the intent of that statement. :-)

---

Again, Natedog/Paldail is very good at what he does but I refused his help as it was not needed at that point in time. With some upcoming bits, I'll be harassing the hell out of Akkadius and, potentially, Natedog for assistance as it's...well, @#$%^@ing huge. I'm a bit miffed that somehow you have become the focal point for the server's veteran players and their complaints/comments. Oh, and that none of them are able to post/email/pm on their own. As for the snarky OOC responses, if I stopped what I was doing every single time some one made a suggestion or demanded a fix...nothing would get done. We have forums, email, and PMs available to keep Akkadius and I updated on what's not working, what's "off", and what is completely @#%@ed. Even if I tried to constantly notate EVERY SINGLE OOC SUGGESTION, I wouldn't even be able to truly investigate/work through them. Hunter logged in seldom enough that he could do that, I'm on significantly more often and cannot.

---

Not going to lie, the statement in red straight up pissed me off. I've deleted ~3 threads since I've had any authority. One was a "server down?" thread I started and was mistaken on. Another was a small rant/flames that got "too hot" (basically started and ended as pissing match and insults with tons of profanity and no useful bits). I know there was a third one but I cannot remember details. As for OOC, I don't even wreck people for rated R language (which I will have to start doing as it's getting a wee bit out of hand). I would prefer you provide an example(s) of when I censored some one? I've revoked 2 people in the last 2 months for an hour or so to calm them down and then months ago when a player and I had a long running "spat" that ended in daily insults/taunts.

Again, please provide some example(s) of when I've been overbearing or a censor.

---

I am amazing more vocal in explaining things then Hunter ever was. Not that he was bad or worse for doing it quietly, but that's just not my "style". I prefer people have an idea of what's going on. I'll admit that I don't post a backstory for every change I make, but in 100% honesty, what MMO posts full backstories for changes? (You'll never see Blizzard going "We nerfed Mutilate's bonus from 98% to 86% based on the findings that a rogue with dagger X and sword Y, in raids AB or CD, and utilizing trinket 1234 becomes effectively unstoppable DPS and never becomes a fair point of competition."). I'm also running threads on major changes coming down the pipe. Whether or not people want to read them is their own prerogative. I don't know how else to be any more clear or transparent. Again, pointing to Hunter, his method was "accept it or leave". I'd like to believe that I've been at least marginally more open than that. I've also yet to knee-jerk-nerf something into the floor because of 1 potential case of abuse.

---

I understand that and appreciate the input. As mentioned earlier, I'm seeing a lot of things that seems to be my failings...but I'm not seeing any evidence to prove it. I'm not above failure or pride, but I need metrics/data/examples/evidence instead of merely saying "It's a problem because 'we' said so".

As always, you've been great about providing me metrics or feeding me information to fix issues. However, this post is, while well worded, very "smoke and mirrors" feel (or perhaps, 'less informed'). I asked for more specifics  and got "If you see disapproval without suggestions, then I suggest you look up definitions to words like transparency, feedback, discussion and snarky."

---

-Hate

So ya. I would like to see raid bosses that require mechanics and strats like off tanking x while killing y or x and y off tank between 10% difference in HP's or boss z becomes enraged. Etc. Cool shit.

Already in the works for soon(ish) area. ;-)


-Hate

Not looking to drag this out any more than it already has been, but it's quite easy to sit here and ask me to offer concrete evidence and specifics when I simply don't screeenshot or log every infraction I see.  The one example I did point out was summarily dismissed by you and then somehow twisted into me rallying the pitchforks to replace you as dev/gm.  I never claimed that Nate be given access to the server, I just clearly and plainly pointed out an example of you dismissing an offer of help from someone skilled and versed enough to give it. 

Another example of you being disinterested in someone offering help was the entire time you were tuning T9 and multiple vets offering to help test changes and offer feedback.  If memory serves, and yes I apologize for citing my memory as a valid piece of evidence since I neither logged or screenshotted the conversations, T9 was opened for testing for all of a 5 hour window and shoved through.  I know I offered on more than one occasion to devote time to testing and feedbacking the content before it was released, but apparently the 5 hours of a few people running around the zone was enough to correctly tune it.  Since it's been opened, I've done my best to offer feedback but I still wonder how much would have had to be corrected on the fly if it were a bit more polished first.


So to paraphrase you sir, Simply stating "not being a dick" while being a dick does not make you less of a dick.  This is one post that comes to mind when asked to show you threats of censorship...sure it may not be squelching someone from speaking but it's a totally dismissive statement that says if you don't like it, get out instead of anything resembling constructive consideration of the ideas presented.  You know the reason people follow and question changes even if they don't feel compelled to log on is because they are sincerely interested in EZ surviving and thriving since they've devoted an enormous amount of their time into progressing through the content it has to offer, but here you openly mock someone who disagrees with the direction they see EZ going.  The other day, and again my apologies for not logging this or taking a screenshot of it, Chunka suggested in /ooc that there be some sort of open chat to discuss various issues and concerns.  Your response to this was promising, even going so far as to offer to log the chat so it could be posted to the forums for people who weren't online at the time but of course you had to throw in a comment about serving someone a 2 weeks suspension if the chat went south.  I'm not claiming that you'll knee-jerk react to something totally benign, but you on more than one occasion have used the THREAT of censorship which is all I stated...in no way was I saying there was a problem with actual censorship being imposed or enforced.

As for you being miffed that I've somehow become the focal point for the servers' veteran players and their complaints/comments...get over yourself.  I am a member of a community of peers, many of which are at or near the same point in progression that I currently am.  We do talk, as amazing as it may sound, since this is a group of people that share common interests, motivations and goals.  And when we talk, we talk candidly about things that we like and things we dislike, just like real people do.  I'm sorry? if some of the things we discuss are things that some people don't feel like relaying for whatever reason they have be it fear, indifference or general malaise but I've simply pointed out some of the concerns that I have and that were discussed with me.  I also don't log these conversations, so again it would be pretty difficult for me to give you anything more concrete than what I have offered up.

Yep, you do post a thread outlining some design intent and changes and players appreciate it, but it's mostly an outline.  As an example, it will say something to the effect of 1. Implementing Necro Death line Pending and be updated to 1. Implementing Necro Death line FIXED with no discussion or information in between (please note that I am only using this as an example and I haven't even followed this specific change).   As far as other MMO's, I wouldn't know since this is the one I choose to spend my time playing, so offering some arbitrary WoW reference is just going to go over my head.  I don't want to compare you and Hunter because there was a lot of shit he did that I hated as well as most of the shit you have done that I love.  But to specifically say you have been far more vocal about changes than he ever was is a bit of a stretch.  Hunter was very responsive in tells and /ooc when discussing design ideas and things he saw needing to be addressed, not to mention he was very active in email replies.  Hunter also wasn't holding down a full time + job for long stretches of time that allowed him to do this and he also was able to parlay this little hobby of his into a viable way to sustain his chosen lifestyle...for these reasons and more it isn't fair to compare his level of communication and/or involvement with the player base to  yours.  That being said, he very closely followed and commented on threads discussing various design and itemization issues...the original T7 thread and the ToFS threads jump to mind immediately as great forms of two way communication he engaged us in.

I'm sorry I can't give you time stamps and log entries of things that you can review and weigh in on, and you know more than anyone that none of this is personal.  I've always had your back because I know that you have always first and foremost placed what you consider the best interests of EZ in mind.  This back and forth could probably continue indefinitely because you're a numbers guy and I can't give you hard numbers about this shit, only feelings that I have and the people I confide in have as to why the general health of the community isn't where it needs to be.  I also know that it's not all on you, but as a vested member of this small community we share, I hope that you can look at this as constructive criticism and not me telling you how to do your job.

For testing, I'm not sure how many hours/days Hunter allowed for testing new content. I spent tons of hours testing it alone, but I cannot predict how others will respond. As with Hunter, my ability to actively monitor during testing phases are extremely short. It's not that I believe testing is magically complete in a full hours, it just comes down to delaying things a week+ before I have time again to sit down and dedicate more of my continually dwindling free time to testing. Hell, ask Akkadius. He's been politely waiting for a month to give me a tutorial on the expedition system. :-(

For the censorship, if you come in the "round table" chat channel and start going "penis penis penis lolololol", you will get a 24-48h suspension. That has nothing to do with bad ideas or disagreements, it's just people being assclowns for attention. I don't hold any expectations that these discussions will be flowery or 100% upbeat as it will likely end up being heated at times, but that isn't the type of thing that will earn a kick/suspendsion. In the quote, yes I got pissy. People that do not play and have no interest in playing, but linger to criticize. If you have a legitimate interest in the server (read: you play here :-D ), speak up! If you are just sitting on the sidelines, with no intention of playing, but like to throw around your opinion...yes, I will be less than polite.

Lastly, I took most of it as just that, constructive criticism. You actually provide points and actionable data (or, at least a well defined direction) that I can make use of now or in the future. More often than not, it's the complete opposite (from others).


Thank you Dimur. Keep'em coming people. :-)


-Hate

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in about censorship, If you guys make a channel for specific real discussion about things, and someone comes in acting like a retard, then by all means suspend a retard i dont think anyone cares about that.

The thing I worry about is how the server was (not talkin bad about hunter its just how it was) right before he passed, You were not allowed to ooc opinion without threat of ban or suspension, period. THAT shit is not cool and thats the thing I worry about, its ooc, we talk about random stuff in ooc and for an internet comunity we for damn sure do a good job of policing ourselves and keeping it non offensive chat.

But yeah make a channel state the rules of that channel if people break the rules of that channel screw em.

So, lots of interesting things to be read in this thread. Some not quite so productive and bit overboard.

I have taken the time to catch up on dozens of E-Mails, PM's and other such issues, of which is sift through the countless threads on issues on the forums here and after reading through this I will have to make a few statements.

First I will start off by defending Hateborne, not because all of what he does is perfect, nor is my actions but considering the circumstances at hand and Hunter's untimely death, we as a server are sitting in very great standing overall. Hateborne has done a great job learning many things riding by the seat of his pants trying to pick up the beast (a mess if you will) that Hunter left behind, we both have. And though not all of it has really been all that bad, it has at the same time been an opportunity and honor to keep the place going to the best of our ability. That's not to say that maybe Hate should change his approach in how player faced issues are handled or that we evolve our approach as to how EZ Server related issues are being handled, you can guarantee that is our commitment to do so. And you can see already that he is making a humble attempt to balance his approach.

The reason I mention balance is that when you take up the role of Lead Server Content Development, you take on a crazy amount of roles and responsibilities that can ultimately make you feel overwhelmed at times, and it makes it very difficult to give every facet of this server the attention that it needs. When you can easily get loop-holed into distractions or issues and bugs that take away from things that need its attention. This will always be a balancing act that any server operator plays depending on how many roles are effectively distributed.

Some people wonder if I am avoiding content development or server issues itself. The answer is once again no. A lot of things I want Hateborne to take the reigns on, not because I don't want to, but because I know he can, which creates challenge and allows us to divide our resources up respectively. There are a lot of other issues I address on the back-end as far as exploits and core bugs, crashes and issues that having everything to do with stability that means the world to not have to deal with for someone trying to focus their perspective entirely on content related issues. Does this mean I am not helping on content related issues? Not at all.

Currently, and in the near future we are consistently working on making our time efficient and changing our approach, such as life. You see this with new rules, the Wiki, new tools, new server hardware, new server code, revamped tiers, revamped features, revamped NPC's and tons of fixes everywhere. There is no shortage of things being done currently.

Developer Chat:

This is not a bad idea to have a scheduled live chat, but the problem with this is that things can easily drown in the chat box and there is too much distraction in-game to have a productive chat. The forums are the best place in my opinion to have structured thoughts (Thought out) and expressed.

Issues, Bugs:

The same goes for this, when you see a GM enter the server and you pounce on them regarding a bug, exploit, issue. If it is not game breaking and does not warrant immediate attention, please post on the forums so they can be addressed, do not be surprised if you are asked nicely to do so.

Content Related Issues:

I like to see everyone posting their ideals and what they want, do know that not everything will make it through even though there are in reality a lot of great ideas, many of them will be considered and even put into action. I have a big list of things myself that I intend to address personally.

Receiving Player Help:

Getting help from technical players is not necessarily something that we are wanting to avoid. There are many bright minds here who passionately care about this community in both love/hate relationships (No, not hateborne) that it only helps us all to come up with ideas and things that would make the server a better place to play.

Future Content:

One thing that makes me happy is that I see a lot of people who are interested in 'Dungeon Crawls', I must make note of this that with the recent server code update we now have the ability to use an engine that I spent over 150+ hours or so developing on that allows us to create 'Expedition' or 'Mission' oriented content that very much resembles structured LDON/DoN/TBS 'Missions' where you would take up a repeatable zone with a limit of characters, whether it be a group or raid. This was something I developed for EQEmu as a whole and was released very recently.

Expedition System (Not EQ Live's System):

• Task Synchronization - Will sync task progress for all members in the task if you set it to
• Enforces Level Requirements
• Enforces Player Count Requirements
• Enforced minimum player requirement as well as maximum
• Supports as small as 1 player, to 80+ players
• Will not allow more than the specified players to travel to the instance
• Supports Task Lockouts - If lockout is set - players can't do the instance for the specified time frame until the lockout is lifted

I personally LOVED this style of content as you can easily log in for a while and KNOW that you have time to knock out a few missions and get some points before you hit the rack for the night. You can progress on your own and spend your currencies how you wish (And whatever else you might gain by doing the mission).

For us, it is a very realistic thing to create 'Gauntlet' oriented dungeon crawls where we can chain several instances of a zone that use completely different 'versions' of those zones to tell stories or have it be a simple slaughterfest with custom ruleset just for the sake of fun.

With this we can implement 'Daily' missions that people can log in and acquire points towards specific items that you can only get from dailies, which would encourage people to log in to make sure that they do their Dailies so they can get that special item.

With this we can setup just about any sort of special event that we want enclosed in its own special instance.

And yes, I'm still waiting on Hateborne to get with me so I can show him how it works :)

For now I think I've typed enough. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns I will respond to them after I get up from my nap.

Thanks everyone,
-Akkadius

So that’s me :)

So why have I stopped playing EZ:

1.    Boxing 12+ toons is really tiring.  When I first started playing on EZ (some 6 years ago) a single group of 6 toons was adequate to all content (T2 being the highest teir).  For me 6 toons was really manageable playing in large amounts of lag.  When the content shifted and it became obvious that a second (and then third) group of toons was needed to manage content reasonably – I started getting tired of logging toons in.
2.   There are too many long and boring grinds on the server.  Everything from RoA to UW to SoT are just massive in themselves.  Personally, I hit the “one grind too many” syndrome.  The content is just not dynamic enough and the grind ends up being really hard work.
3.   Single zone tiers started to really bore me.  Spending a couple of months grinding out T6 possibly broke me.  The zone is dull, one dimensional and not at all fun once broken.  The forced repetition there (with way too many shades of brown) just did my head in.  Loping Plains was better but I started to long for more varied content.  
Side thought – it would be nice if the entire server wasn’t in the same gear and going for the exact same items.

I’ve started playing on the live servers again – mainly to get ready for EQ Next but also to recapture that sense of solo play again.  After playing on EZ I had really forgotten how skilled you need to be to master a class.  The toons on EZ are so maxed out that only a few of the AAs are truly meaningful – and nowhere near as meaningful as on live.  And really – when you box an army there’s no need to really think about the nuance of a class when you can simply muscle your way through the content.

Today on live you can start with a lvl 85 toon (with all the AAs possible to attain at that level) and you are equipped with Raid ready gear for that toon.  The server populations on live are now quite low and to answer this, Sony has provided Mercs and Heroic Adventure zones where two or more people can group together in mini raids.  Playing solo and in small groups is now really feasible on live.  The hell levels have all disappeared and leveling to 100 could take a focused player no longer than a month to achieve.  

It occurs to me that EZ currently has no streamlining to end game content.  If anything, it’s been deliberately developed to stop newer players from progressing with any kind of speed: especially in the face of needing to box more than 6 toons.  Live now seems to shortcut content for newer players to ensure that endgame content is more than possible faster.  For good or evil – it means that returning players like myself aren’t put off by this MASSIVE grind to end game content that could potentially take years.  When I think about EZ, I wonder how long it would take a new player to build a box set of 6+ from Field of Bones to T9 with all augs, UWs (on main tank), RoA at 200+ level.  My guess is that it’s close to a year (with lots of help).  Certainly no casual player is getting there anytime soon.   As the server grows and develops more tiers the distance between a new player and end game will be close to insurmountable without some serious consideration to streamlining the earlier content.  How does EZ server look at Tier 20 for example with no changes to the lower tiers.

My thoughts anyway – from a distance.

Strix

I'd like to piggy back a bit on Strix.  I am currently in T9 just finishing off the last few toons with full gear.

Looking back, I will say the most fun I had, was leveling to 70 and the early tiers like qvic and tacvi.  Don't get me wrong, I had fun breaking into a new tier but the grind is mindless sometimes.  In my opinion, as more and more content is created at the top (t9 currently).  Lower end content can and should (in my opinion) be made somewhat easier.  Examples would be UCv1, AA increased at lower tiers (but not enough to beat out higher tiers), plat gain at lower tiers, additional rot bots and anything else that makes an upward sloping demand curve.

http://www.digitaleconomist.org/pref_4.gif

If we take the vertical axis and make that "Difficulty in terms of time spent" and the horizontal axis is literally just the different tiers arranged in ascending order from left to right; this is what it should (in my opinion) look like.  That line can just be extended to the right as we build more and more tiers.

Some may disagree with this and prefer to keep what they have earned at the same difficulty, but seeing as I am in the same tier as  most of these folks, it's just a difference of opinion.  As stated by strix and seen with any successful MMO, the business model must change to retain and attract players.  You typically can't perfectly balance the hardcore crowd's wants and desires with the casual's.  Finding the middle ground for EZ is prob quite the task, seeing as the majority of the people who play here would qualify as a hardcore MMO crowd.  EQ live especially at start/beta was pretty hardcore to begin with, which is why I still get the itch and play here.  Most of the successful business models we have seen typically try and keep the most recent content difficult (but not impossible) in order to keep the top players busy while easing up on the lower end content as more is created to ensure a new player base exists and grows.

And to add a disclaimer..  I don't support hand outs or stuff going from easy to Free.  Just tweaks here and there, as has already been seen and done in the past.  (rot bot, essence drop increase, plat increase, charm drop increase etc. etc.)

To steam line this concept into an operational management standpoint, anytime a new tier is created.  Spend an average amount of time revisiting lower tiers up through the list for any possible tweaks in the line.

Akk, I agree and disagree with you on live round tables. Yeah, it can get pretty crowded and you can end up seeing chat just fly by....but if its organized properly it wont be much of an issue. The benefits from a real time chat vs a forum post I think will outweigh the detractions....especially if we log the chat and post a copy or even a text doc on the forums to examine and pick apart later.

Ideas heterodyne, and they feed off of each other far better in a real time format than they do in a forum environment in my experience.

This rang a bell for me. This is one thing that seems lacking on EZ. Would be nice to have a zone that I could spend 30 mins on one day, come back in a couple days and continue where I left off. Closest thing is T6 where u get 3 days, but even at 3 days is not much for a player new to the zone unless you can play for 4+ hours.

Sure, if its organized and we have specific topics we aim for and keep on topic it can be productive. I never said I was opposed to it.

I'm relatively new to the server. I've been playing off and on since approximately December. I'm just a few pieces shy of breaking into T5. I've taken breaks ranging  from a week to a month. I usually break shortly after grinding to finish a the and starting a new one. I can tell you after grinding to finish a tier the sender of accomplishment i awesome. It's exciting. I end up taking a break because that feeling goes away quickly. I'm looking forward to /dreading T5. As a new player that loves this server and enjoys his time, I'd like to offer a little insight. Take from it what you will.  But I will also regain from commenting on anything above t 4 since I have no experience to base an opinion on.

Terrorantula and dragon slave  is way too difficult for a fully time geared 3box. I'm not sure about a 6box. I was lucky enough to get help the first 3 times.

Qvic and CT should be revisited.  I had every piece of T1 T2 armor and still needed one piece from Qvic and about 8 pieces from CT on my 6box.

T1 is an easier stepping stone then C right now.  Guaranteed single pulls, etc.

I like the idea of getting rid of the Aug trash.  I only did weapon augs and the rest is still sitting in my bank.  I think if you got rid of the Aug trash,  you could make anger augs t2 only. I felt t1 without them wasn't too difficult.

Killing Kronos legit the first time was super exciting and tense.  I loved the fight.  I needed help the first two times he spawned for me though.  Maybe have two tiers of mobs in T2.  The second tier being legs and chest,  and more difficult but doable if group is geared up to that point.

On that same note,  maybe split hoh into 2 tiers along the same veins.  Hoh mobs are easy coming in with a full group fresh from t2. Easy.  If you upped the difficulty on certain wings,  that sense of accomplishment coukd be replicated in a way maybe.

Also,  fuck mobs that root in hoh.  Fuck them with a rusty spoon.  Right in the face.  My group has never wiped due to root,  but I spend a lot of time waiting for root to clear just to loot the mob before going to the next one.  Root is not difficult,  just time consuming.  

Also,  having the token turn in in airplane is just annoying as well.  I can leave my cleric up there for turnins but it's annoying when loot for him drops and he ports down and then I either succor the group or nexus gate his ass and port him back.  

I know I'm not super hard core,  and I haven't put the time in yet.  But in my opinion,  even if we had 1000 people on at peak time,  but all of them in Qvic through  t2,i don't know that you can call that a healthy server, because I guarantee that as the server stands there will be a lot of attrition before they got the dreaded t5.

That's all I got for now. Thanks for taking the time to read my post.  

Just FYI just behind hill there is a round pad(octagonal? whatever) click it and it ports u to entrance.

True, but maybe I could add an auto teleport for player doing turn in?


-Hate

Well, I will start with a big Thanks to Akka, Hate and everyone else behind the scenes for picking up the torch that fell with the loss of Hunter.  Again, Thanks to you all!!

I have to agree that a streamline approach for new players would benefit the server.  I just returned from a 2 month vacation from my EZ job... :P  I think that an approach that allows for quick 1 to 2 hour runs that reap nice rewards for progression would help new players and maybe help older players with new avenues for ingredients needed for upgrades.  Something like using the dungeon crawls from LDON, Depths, Lavastorm, and so forth... But use them as tier base .. Qvic = Ldon and those points used to buy essences, sls's, and so forth.. Wouldn't something like this help new players obtain the ingredients faster which would assist them with finishing the tier progression for armor and epic's?  And allow higher tier players to farm ingredients for all tiers in another way and get AA's to boot?   Also, using those systems allow for more extended zones (I used EZ) while allowing everyone to gain from farming if only for a few hours a day.  Also, make the crystals like in lavastorm the same across the tiers and tradable so there can be additional game currency.  I.e. buy a uc1, HR XX
 
So just an idea but still agree that some type of change is needed to attract new players and give something to old players.

It is not an abnormal concept mudflation, it simply means that we need to bridge older content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudflation

The trick in doing so is keeping its challenge while giving new value existing content. Whether that means that existing content is directly spiced up or there are alternative bridges to allow existing content to be moved through, those are all left up to implementation and what ultimately is done has to be done with as much balls as it takes careful planning and implementation.

I've heard a lot of bridge content ideas here, I will continue to wait for what more have in their heads.

In the meantime I will be brainstorming things that will integrate into existing things while noting all of the ideas in this thread.

I too want to thank Hate and Akka, keeping Hunters legacy alive and well is, well mear words don't do justice.

2 things,
1. Don't make token vendor auto port you down, just out a token turn in down near the port up.
2. Bridging the gap, as an old returning player with several UC's I really like ToFS, for going back to finish UC's on others. I think the v1 charm drop rate is a little better in ToFS floor 1 than LDoN. If you could make that around the difficulty of LDoN 6 then lower / newer peeps could work on charms and resists and it would be something different from their past progression. Keep the rest of ToFS the same though.

This is a joke right?    We turn in hundreds upon hundreds of tokens.    Doing this we would have to run a toon back every time.    That does not make the game more fun, that makes it more tedious.  

The way to turn in tokens is give your tokens to a tool toon and stage your kill crew inside.   Turn in token and kill.   It is simple and works well as designed.   There is no need to redesign this content.   

High level what I would like to see:

1.  Less reliance on RNG moving forward.    I remember when HoH mobs dropped crystals and you used those crystals to get charms.   This method worked well and I think far better than the current RNG model.    You could calculate how many mobs you needed to kill to achieve what you wanted.    RNG makes it borderline impossible to calculate.     For example I'm back flagging some scrub toons up to T9.   I destroyed 50+ wrist bosses in T8 and have yet to see the wrist for those toons.     I know bad RNG go QQ moar, yeah well Perl Rand() is not perfect and will most certainly bug out sometimes.    Whereas in T6 I kill a specific boss and know I will get the gear I need.  

2.  Regarding bridging the gap, well I think maybe you do Current Tier - X and make that content easier.   Maybe X = 5.   So make it easier to get through to T4.   I wouldn't want to see all content easier or people will just bum rush to the latest tier then you will lose players to attrition.   As Akkadius said you need to maintain challenge.    I really do not think that the UC quest line should be changed at all (even though UC3 is a beast).   Yes it is tedious but we all did it.   UC1-2 are ezpz now.

3.  Mobs have higher HP.   Back before my hiatus in 12/2013 it seemed mobs had a sheep dip ton more hps.   Maybe my dps has just gone through the roof (I dont parse so /shrug) but it seems sometime between then and now mobs got a hp reduction.  

4.   I would be a huge proponent of increasing the time invested to reward ratio.   It would be nice to spend 1-2 hours and be able to get something accomplished.   For example, I'd like to spend 2 hours in T9 and get a HG spawn.    A month ago I got HG spawns consistently, now it is BP and Zerka 24/7.  T7 is a similar scenario.  
However, I'm not sure implementing daily quests would be a great thing.    Dailies killed WoW for many.  

5.  IP restricted content is fine.  However, could you consider making it a 6-12 limit vice a 1 toon limit?   Personally I never want to be in a lfg scenario again.   Let us bring our 6 and own stuff as we see fit.    My core 6 have a sheep dip ton of work put in them and I would like to leverage them as much as possible.  

6.  Limit changes to content to specified time periods.   Excluding bug fixes/hot fixes maybe do Monthly or Quarterly releases?    


Lots of "I's" in this post but you asked for our feedback.  

#mute Red Horse!

Moving the poair teleporter wouldn't accomplish a whole lot and maybe save a group with a toon on turn in that needed drops a few minutes out of the night.  We have already deduced by reading that person's post that they were not aware you could click on the platform to port back up.  Problem solved already.

I was hoping I could clarify before anyone else said anything.  It is easy enough to agro the mob, and then type /bcaa //hail /bcaa //say teleport. 

Someone mentioned early about Current Tier - X = Easier zones.  I think this is a great idea if everyone can agree on X.  I understand a lot of people are of the mindset "In my day, I walked 15 miles to school, uphill, both ways, in a blizzard, during the hottest month on record in the arizona desert."  But if a compromise can be made on how many tiers back the grind should be scaled back, I think this is a good solution.

A couple more things I thought about after I made my first post.

I don't think CT should remain necessary, for the reasons stated in my first post.  The gear is not necessary to advance into T1. 

Whether or not you think that's a good idea, the difficulty of T1 and T2 trash should be increased.  The difficulty of T3 trash should be increased.  Both times breaking into the tiers I did not have any difficulty with trash mobs.  I think if the trash mobs were a little finer tuned people would not reject increasing the drop rates of crystals, or tokens, or essences, etc.

Also, if you wish to increase the drop rate of essences in tiers to help speed up progression, increase the requirement for UW by the same amount.

For example, you decide to increase T1/T2 essences by 20%.  Increase the UW requirement by 20% as well.  You could then increase essence drop rate of T3/T4 by 10%, and again the requirements of the UW by 10%.

This way players would progress faster, but at the same time, not effect UW progression speed.  You don't have to create a new item for UWs only.

Thanks again for your time.

You're doing something wrong if all you're getting is BP and Zerka

First thank you all for making EZ what it is right now.

a few things ild love to see.

VT being tier 10.

and i have an idea to help backflagging/helping noobs

Having boss tokens drop in T10 such as T5 T6 and T7 to give a random boss using the POA Tikki.

if you want to keep people playing this game, make some drop/spawn more high
been 2 week im in ToFs floor 5 , i have kill about 150 enraged relative and not a single essence drop, 2 week for a single item this geting rediculious, you can check my log im not lying, ive been there 2 week for real, beside during DBL i spend 1 day on floor 5 and 1 day in hoh/poa

to do that it would probably be best to make an npc in each of those zones that will spawn it, otherwise for t5 it may not count towards the quest as the quest takes place in illsalin

I would love to see the Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Hand quest put on our server.  Of course the stats would have to be modified to reflect the time spent doing it and to match an equivilent worthy of the time.

It's a very long quest, but was very rewarding when done.  Not sure if the zones and NPC's are available here on EZ, but would be awesome to see. Also, part of the quest is completed by "finding" certian areas, does that function work here? Stand at XYZ and get an update. The quest takes place in The Burried Sea and Barren Coast.  Don't know if the boats would work, as boats are how you zone between them, hitting the zone line while not on the boat doesn't work.  If they don't work, we always have the teleporter :)

Below is a link to the main quest page.  From that page you can see all the individual quests required to complete it.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=4188

There are 39 individual quests that must be completed.  You gain 27 bones during the quests.  You have to assemble each finger individually and all the hand bones via combines and then combine all the finished pieces to make the final hand augmentation.  Would have to remove the currency of Dubloons and make the item required to buy with them purchaseable with Plat.  The only item you have to buy is the container in which to make the combines.  Each combine eats the container.

I don't really know anything about how the coding for it would be done, but I'm willing to do all the leg work and provide any/all information needed to get it done.

Most people have already hit on everything but since there was a heated discussion about getting folks to stick around, I will chime in. I am currently in T9 BTW. I want to see more new folks and people stick around. Someone had posted a way in which making the earlier tiers faster and easier by way of increased drop rates. I believe that simply increasing the drop rates to allow for younger folks an easier time to get to uw 6 and strike augs to 6 would be great. The real problem is for them getting their strikes up for the group. If they could get strikes faster, they would be more inclined to stick around because they see return on investments. New folks should get things faster than I did when I did them because now there are higher tiers. Other games do this as well. increased lower tier essences.. ie essence through say abyss would make the game move faster for the newer folks. Having these essences would allow them to make augs and thus be able to move through tofs and hoh faster for their uc's.. I do not think charm rate is an issue since increased dps would increase the drop. Another way would be to add strike augs to a rare drop table for a zone... or at least diamonds, plat bars, etc. to help them out a bit.

It seems like a solid handful of posts have been in favor of the Top Tier - X = Tweak, formula.  Perhaps that can be fleshed out some.

Tweaks per zone/tier (Disclaimer: These are optional suggested tweaks only to be considered IF management decides to use the formula and still depends on what the X value will be)

I will also try to play devil's advocate on each point to provide unbiased feedback.

1.5 Book boss slightly nerfed dmg wise and increased spawn rate or made static spawn (or added back the other 1.5 boss).  May also want to consider tweaking Dragon Slave in Plane of Time.  Devil's Advocate: We are talking about the first real challenges on the server.  These create a barrier to entry that is often beneficial in not giving players false ideas of this server being solo'able.

Qvic add 50% chance for additional armor piece drop on boss and small chance increase for the armor slot gems.  Devil's Advocate: This is typically the first time a player on EZ is experiencing a bit of a grind (finding armor's gems) and again, barrier to entry and taste of things to come.

Cazic Thule armor drops went very fast for me recently, so maybe no tweaks needed here or others could input. (I miss Tacvi </3)  Devil's Advocate: I have not tried this zone without higher lvl toons powering through it so maybe someone else can comment on the difficulty properly.

T1, as many have said, the T1 Essence drop is terrible.  Crystal drops could be increased. Maybe increase the ancient dragon spawn. Devil's Advocate:  None, drops are bad.

T2 felt pretty good for me all around.  It was relatively easy to get armor and essences compared to the previous tier.  Maybe increase the ancient dragon spawn.  Others could input here. Devil's Advocate: Killing your first Kronos solo is something most people remember and that feeling is a part of EZ.

T3/T4 is where you really start needing DPS augs so the aim to tweak this zone is to look at how aug's are obtained up to this point.  Determine if the normal group progression into T3 actually Is likely to get you several appropriate tier dps augs along the way.  If not, find out why.  Plat concerns?  Essences too rare?  SLS concerns? As it stands now, I personally believe UCv1 takes longer than UCv2 even with access to mass pulling any ToFS floor I please.  Devil's Advocate: I recall this zone being the first zone I spent far more time in getting UCv1/Aug's.  Possible barrier to entry and taste of things to come.

T5 excluding the corals I actually loved this zone and the boss spawns but if the formula ever hits this zone, please get the rare spawns increased.  Bone Rot anyone?  Could jump these boss spawn rates 5% and leave it be.  Not sure if we would consider changing coral to a moveable NPC but I guess that could be an option.  Devil's Advocate: I'm guessing most vets would agree that this zone makes and breaks people.  Usually determining if someone is going to stick with it into the later tiers.

T6 I really don't see any tweaks for this zone.  Ess drop is one of the best.  UCv2 I can knock out multiple in a double loot session easy.  Plat is solid.  It was fun to break into on own.  Maybe other's have input.  Devil's Advocate: None that I can think of

Not going to bother with going further at this time.

Non-Specific Tier Ideas:

UCv1 vs. UCv2 Having done 10ish of each I can say that UCv1 takes far longer and this shouldn't be so.  You can tackle this in a few ways.  If you increase drop rates in T3/T4 trash you end up speeding up the process for the whole server.  If you add chance for UCv1 charms to drop in LDoN/qvic/tacvi/T1/T2 with increasing drop % chance (but under T3/T4 trash drop chance) you end up giving new players a leg up but not really helping the higher tiers.  Alternatively you could increase UCv1 charm drops in ToFS to encourage players to go there to farm those and resist augs, getting them used to dealing with AoE early.  Devil's Advocate: Barrier to entry I guess but this one is more than likely responsible for most players leaving and should seriously be considered as we do have 2 other UC upgrades after this one to stem the tide.

UCv3 prob needs scale drop chance in T9, UCv1 is spread across multiple tiers, so why not UCv3?  Someone else thought of this idea previously (Kruciel I think?) so credit due for that individual, not me. Devil's Advocate: Still new and highly sought after item at the top tier, maybe not time to tweak?

Please remove (if you have not already) the garbage augment items from all tiers (non dps augs from LDoN etc.)  They had a purpose before DPS augs were added but no longer.  Keep Aggro Augs of course :)  Devil's Advocate: Hodor Hodor? Hodor! I like trash loot

SLS idea.  Now granted, with Ancient Wisp now in T9, I will never need SLS again.  This is still however, an issue at lower levels and still not really addressed.  Farming these sucks, it's boring and tedious.  I suggest you simply add a chance for these to drop in either Tiers/LDoN and/or ToFS at 1% chance. You wouldn't even have to remove them from the current wisp tables and people would just go to jaggedpine when they needed to catch up or Very early in progression and want some starter platinum. If we are concerned that SLS is a plat sink and by removing it, we cause inflation, just add a vender SLS that costs 350k~500k.  People WILL use it.  Then you add GLS and/or SLS drop chance to Plane of time through Cazic Thule while leaving the current wisp zones up I suppose.  Devil's Advocate:  What could I even put here?  "Yeah I enjoyed farming a lvl 12 zone for days to get what was a necessary component in an otherwise custom server, meanwhile half the server botted while hunter slept"

Platinum gain is leaps and bounds better than it was but still is an issue for the lowbies.  Thankfully this issue has untold number of ways to tackle it.  You could (A) Reduce aug requirements for rank 1-3ish by 50% or some other amount, effectively reducing plat requirement while barely increasing inflation.  (B) increase plat gain from lowbie zones not likely to be farmed by T9 UWX wars to abuse the change.  Zones such as LDoN, Plane of Time, Qvic and CT. Other's could input here.  Devil's Advocate: INFLATION

Instance Cost:  I have a FWP, ask that same question to anyone in T9.  Do they have one?  If answer = no, they are either lieing or have a friend who has one.  Do we want this to be some sort of donation requirement?  Is 100 dollars ok for it?  Do we want to leave that as is?  If so, please lower instance plat costs by a considerable amount or make that vender waypoint free at the very least (if it has not already). Devil's Advocate: Altering the worth or value of a donation item is a touchy subject.  This one may require mass server input and careful consideration, but please acknowledge that this is an issue.

 Uc1 should be hard the gains on uc1 is game changing and 100x more important than uc2

UC1 can always go back to taking a few weeks of LDoN just to finish v1's. How does pulling floor 6 for the next 3 months to v1 your toons sound? UC1 is fine with how easy it is now  >:(

How about adding custom avatars to your toons >.< get tired of staring at the same graphics on aythena every day I want angel wings and magic princess girl outfits!! lol that aside it be an excuse for you to get more donations into the game and make things more exiting like turning my sword into a kawaii embrella ^-^ just take the piece and the piece you want changed into magic box and boom, also have a remove for it in the augment sealer possibly avatar only augment slots Lots of ways to make it work -_- just come on every tier...same exact armor graphic every time, never changes...look the same since qvic apart from dye, having unique tier graphics for the toon would really make us feel more excited about upgrades.

No. Just....no. Bad enough we utilize PoP zones (brings back nightmares to one of the WORST of EQ eras, and thankfully you get away from PoP fast here) and ToV (awesome memories, really, really REALLY bad pathing)....lets PLEASE not go to a zone that combines some of the worst of both. Lets put more content into newer zones....zones a lot of people on EZ have probably never seen....and zones created after SOE finally ironed out some alarming geometry issues in the game. Some great suggestions in various posts on this.


I like the idea....but lets not make things too easy. There definitely needs to be a grindy time element or you churn through content too damned fast, and things become really boring quickly. Yeah, we have some of that now, but it could be FAR FAR worse.


No. See above as to why. Think EoFS 5 is bad? Try 6 or 7. I've worked all three. Bottom line is that UW is not now and never was intended to be easy to get. In fact there could be a solid argument made that its too easy to get NOW. And with that we're getting way too close to yet another Tball Trophy Argument.

You dont need a UW. It helps, sure....but its been proven that you can run a team to T9 and be successful without a UW. The UW is a rather powerful reward for people who want The Big Carrot....and dont mindsurviving the Big Giant Stick Upside Their Head to get it. UW is fine as it is.....or perhaps even TOO easy to get. It most definitely should not be made easier....and IMO it should definitely be level limited at the very least.

UC1 is fine as it is. I'd say all that needs a look on UC is perhaps alternatives to UC2 and UC3...even if they are more challenging than current choice for UC2/3.

I know I just started on the server a couple weeks ago, so I cannot speak intelligently on how needed certain items are to progress or how difficult content is with or without certain items.  However, I can speak to the broader idea of content tuning. 

If, as you say, UW is really not needed to progress, then sure, make UW's as difficult as you like.  Hell make them unique to one person on the server if you want to.  That won't make people stop playing.  What makes people stop playing is when required items for progression are more tedious (not necessarily more difficult) than they are willing to invest time to get.  Tedium and difficulty are two very separate things that I think almost every single person in this thread recognizes.  However, there seems to be some disagreement on what exactly is required to progress and what is not.  Do you need a 6 box to get to T9 or do you need 12?  Do you need UW's or just last teir epic augs?  Are the server admins tuning content with characters in max gear and expecting every single player to be in said max gear to overcome it or are they using chars in lesser gear to tune the content they create? 

And that last question really is the MOST important question.  What is the content tuned for?  What are the expectations the admins of every single player that plays on this server?  I know the thread is designed as a way for the admins to get ideas from the players as to what they want to see.  And there is extremely high value in that.  However, if the admins are then going to take those ideas and create new content, they have to balance what a person 18-boxing with UW's on every char thinks is a challenge versus what a 6 box in epic augs thinks is an acceptable level of challenge.  I guarantee the two will be wildly different.

+1

there should be 2-3 ways to achieve these grind items. different zones to get SLSs in, different zones for essences, just name the blue, red, green, black vs ct, gminors, gmajors etc

grind content, which makes up about 90% of our server game gets super boring after you've done it 10, 12, 14, 20 times.

I'm not suggesting anything be made easier. I'm saying make the scenery change. personally I don't mind farming tokens but hoh makes me vomit when I zone in.

t8 is great, t8 for uc3......zone is cool and all but you can pretty much wake up at 4am and do it mostly asleep after the 50th+ time

stuff gets boring, boring = why bother, why bother = why am I logging in

Yes.

Heh, sorry, couldnt resist! You can do through T9 with 6 man, but it'll actually take you longer than it will with 12...and will be a bit harder. You need to max out things on pretty much your whole team before you move to the next tier: no UC1's on half your team when you tackle T7....no half assed strike augs. You need to wring every last bit that you can from all 6 of your boxes, or you have issues.


Again, you dont NEED UW....even if you're just running 6. But it helps a metric shit ton if you do, and if its current. But that involves more tedium than you can imagine.



To go to the next tier you must have the maxed epic and armor from the previous tier....so yeah, they are.


Which is why I love this server. It gives you options....and options you just do not see on other emu's, or on live.

When I say "max gear" I mean full UW's, full UC's, BiS jewelry items, max augs, along with proper armor.   Are all those required or are they just slapping on the full epics, armor, a few "good" pieces of jewelry and some mid-tier augs?  Are they tuning with 6 boxes or 12 or 18?  Are they tuning drops for a typical player of THIS server using 6, 12, or 18 chars?  And is that tuning resulting in the player retention they are seeking?  If not, what areas are they willing to compromise in order to increase player retention?  

And all this is just really the basics of content tuning without getting into the "hard core vs casual" tuning that most live MMO's are forced to deal with.  What we are talking about here is just your "core player" tuning.

And you are correct, very few MMO's give you options when it comes to progression options.  Most MMO's have very strict raid number and group composition requirements that are sometimes rigidly enforced.  This server obviously does not adhere to that, but then those options also make it more difficult to challenge the various different play styles on this server.  As I said, the person who brings 18 to an encounter designed for 12 can't complain that it's too easy.  Likewise, the person who brings 6 shouldn't be complaining that it's too hard either. 

Edit Typo:  Should be BiS instead of BiC.

Listen fellas. I'm in T9 and my SoA is around a T3 level and RoA at 400. It's all about the support team. You can do it. It's a little harder but it's doable. Take it from a casual, you do not need max to go to the next level.

Max gear/augs are not required to progress. It helps but being able to pay and not new an afk bot helps more. Minus the changes to needing epic to progress all tiers I think progression is at a good rate. People can farm sls and trade thm for run through of qvic and other tiers. If that's not your style of playing then yes it will take longer. People will/use to sell charm upgrades all the time.

Due to a horrible laptop that i recently replaced (and now can do 12 toons if needed, yay)..

I probably was the first person to 4box his way to t9 flags. Believe me, you can do damn near anything on this server with 4 toons, its just not.. fast. Except Mata... Mata with no way to escape DT = phone a friend or just send toons after 8 zillion 6.0 books that are free rot every day when someone is doing uc2s.

Honestly the real trade off you need to ask yourself about is mass trains vs. single target power.

With 12 toons you have the flexibility to have killing speed on massive pulls, as well as legit single target dps.

With a 6box you are going to need to give up either mass pull abilities, OR give up single target dps.

The UW obv is the way to have cake and eat it too, with mass pull from supports and the warrior is the brunt of the single target, and you get by with a 6man box.

Just don't be in a hurry. T5 is a grind to slow ppl down and force them into UC grinds and strike aug grinds and really makes you go sideways to even out your strike team. Once you hit t6 you really start racing toward t8/t9 in a hurry, especially now that so much gear is rotted/sold cheaply. The only reason t5 is so dang frustrating is it's the last zone tier where your toons don't really improve much at all from beginning to end (which is why the strike augs and UC side grinds are so vital.. you still suck as much as you did conquering t4, and there is literally nothing dropped in t5 that takes your breath away. Its up to you to do that with UCs and strike 7s and mana necks and SOAs and RoAs etc...

You could do T9 with less than 6 without UW. A druid casting drake skin on your warrior could allow you to 2 box all of T9 with some mass pulls.  Bard elemental song will negate T6 boss Muram's DT.  As other's have stated, the content is tuned more so that your DPS determines how fast you kill which helps you progress faster or slower.

Since you seem to want a more cut dry answer, I will say content is tuned for 6 man but this is still only relative to how geared your tank is vs. how much you are healing vs. damage being thrown at you.  If your pally/cleric/healer can't keep the tank up, your tank is undergeared or your healer doesn't have a high enough UC/oracle charm.  If your tank is well geared and your healer has a baller UC charm, then you could 2 box everything.  There are currently no enrage timers, no rampage, and only a handful of bosses DT.

Unless Hate changed it back this option has been gone a while. It no longer will eat DT. I pull OMM with a pet, then pick him off with the warrior and beat him down. Even SM pet works for this, though IG pet works better.

What dt?
never been hit by a dt, never seen him cast a dt unless there were too many mobs or a boss up

exp crystals in tofs  ;D

Fastest travel = targetable group buff

make it fade on zoneing to prevent abuse

Then they would have to refund all the ones that where bought on each char..b/c that would make it useless to have on ppl who have them on 12+ toons.....just saying

What kovou said. I have a /bca //keypress 0 and every box has fastest travel on the 0 key. Only have to hit it when I wipe though, which is pretty much only during a lag spike. Really not too bad to deal with.

No they wouldn't, anyone who has one on multiple characters already has gotten the benefit from them...there would be no reason to refund it at all.  You spend your credits however you see fit, I think it's short-sighted to claim you would need a refund for yours unless it made the ones you already purchased not work in some manner.  I'd liken that sort of logic to someone who deals with new content that is later tuned down and made more streamlined/easier for the people that come behind them bitching and asking for some sort of refund since they had a harder path in that content.

what YOU want to see.....

plat bags stackable?

just thought I'd throw this one out there again, we've only been asking for it for like ever....

Plat bag stack
T3/T4 Token increase
Beastlord line of spells that are beneficial (other than pet)

Amen.

As someone who lost over 20 million this week to the dreaded trade bug, stackable plat bags would also completely eliminate ... the plat vanish trade bug.

people could just trade bags in place of plat. Done and done.

An update to paladin Brell line.

Stackable plat bags.

Master Essences made tradeable again.

AA vendor with some ez-reward items i.e. some of the non-(greed)-gamebreaking mechanics on it for the fun factor.

Plat bags should have been made stackable long ago /sigh to 1000

Take the H2O requirement off the rezzer ( the trolling earned a place in history with it )

I want a pony.

TIL ....Kruciel is a brony

Again, temporary, lower cost versions of some of the big ticket EZ credit items....like a month long free instance maker, or a rez clicky with charges. That type thing that gets some of the newer guys into the fight without having to spend a ton of cash. Also the temporary ubercharacter thing that lets someone have a character they can use to push their team through lower content without just simply buying a 3.0 character. Maybe a 4.0 pally or zerk or necro with UC and strike5's/mana neck.

Change the random dropped v1 charms in T7 to something useful. Are there really people in T7 who still need v1's??

Dump the mounts. Worthless for a lot of us for a number of reasons. I wont use one on my warrior for obvious reasons, and if you stick figure the rest of your team (which most do) they are unusable. They drop from specific named in both T7 and T8 100% of the time, and they are worthless (except for UC3 quest in T8). Maybe a run speed click with charges? Dont know, something different and useable.

In a perfect world? ROF client working, and allowing us to use larger bags and click items from inside a bag!! Along with dozens of other nifty features :D But I gather RoF still has issues.


Now....as to keeping player pops high....I think we're losing people in 3 major places aside from normal attrition and seasonal play time changes any MMO sees. I have some ideas for this, and some of them are a bit involved or even extreme:

The first is off the bat, between 1 and 70. EZ is very different, and new players get no hint of that at all unless they stop playing and actively seek out and read different out of game references. A lot of them get confused and/or frustrated because of the slight differences they see as well as the confusing lingo and info they hear in OOC. Some of them see people offering 50K for a jade reaver or FBSS and think, "Oh, just like P99 only more so". They need to see early on some hint of whats ahead....something to hook them in. So....I honestly think 1 to 70 needs to be tweaked slightly.

Big, bold info at log in that directs new players to the wiki, or at least the EZ guide. Perhaps in the pop up.

Warning: this idea may piss you off....but think about it a bit before just shutting it down! Maybe work on the Gloomingdeep intro on EZ, so that players start there then get sent to QRG.....with an option to skip Gloomingdeep. Add a 1K cost to the newbie charm v1 on the vendor, but give it as a reward for completing the tutorial, along with the same for 1.0 epics. Get newbies used to the idea of TANSTAAFL (which is definitely the law here). Make this intro somewhat quick, and make it til 20, to get newbies past the damage cap rapidly. If at all possible modify it a little so that the content reflects what they'll see during progression. Oh, and accept player help making this stuff, if ya do it Hate! We've a lot of guys familiar with the EMU setup who'd love a chance to show people what they can do! Ok, yeah,this would be some work, but you asked! And I really think it'd be a huge help to people starting out here.

Consider moving guild quests around a bit, to give players access to FG/CG earlier on, or perhaps a "light" version that they can start right off the bat that gives them some benefits, with the upgrade to what we use now coming later, as it normally does. Maybe a "One Quest Fits All" for the early players, then they chose FG/CG as normal after 70. But get them a quest to do right at the start that actually matters. They need to have skin in the game at the onset, and 1 to 70 needs to mean something other than an invis clicky they never use and just getting to real content. Perhaps make this initial guild quest progress as you level from 1 to 70....with different benefits accruing as you complete each task or hand in, with the final a good sized fight at 70 that gives them an idea whats to come after PoTime. Oh, and level lock this quest, so that you cant just shove someone through with a 78 character.

Rework initial progress after Dulak. 50 to 60 is a real dead zone here, and it discourages a lot of new players. Maybe along with the previously mentioned quest do a task in this quest in a zone or zones that makes progressing past these levels a bit flatter, not as many big dips and spikes in rate.

The next spot we lose people at seems to be from what I've seen T5. This is the real player killer on EZ. I'm conflicted on this: on the one hand I think that a gut check like this is great, and helps toughen up players for whats to come later...but on the other I know that it can be a REAL bear for some players, and I know we lose a good chunk of people who just through their hands up, say "Screw this!" and go play "World of Tanks".

The real issue with T5, my 16 year long hatred of any underwater content in EQ aside, is the random element of getting bosses to spawn. I have literally seen 30+ of the same triggered boss pop in a row, when you need the other of the two. I've seen 50+ repops without ever seeing some of the random named from trash, EITHER of them on the shared trigger. The worst I've seen getting a T5 flag completed is 234 instance clears/repops. Now thats not that big of a deal with a free instance maker and a team that can clear the zone in 30 minutes (mass pulls and fast corals) but thats still a very large amount of time spent to get to the next tier. NO other zone takes as long to get through as T5, on the average.

Its like Raster on crack sometimes. Maybe find a way to make it a little more consistent, unless the goal was to make T5 take months for some players. Dont get me wrong, I like the system in general for T5, but the RNG aspect can be a real killer. Keep the RNG, perhaps, but give a way to do a backup...maybe collect 10 4.5 books and hand it in to trigger a select mob on the list, or something of the type. The bonus mob at the end helps with this some....but again, dealing with 100 different mobs, and RNG can be evil when combined with progression like this.

Again, dont make it easier, but make it more consistent.

After that we lose people end game, because they've seen it, done it, got tired of it and wont play again til new content arrives....but this is simply unavoidable in MMOs the way they are built atm.

I KNOW RIGHT! H2O be gone! please, lets free up another bag slot!

hell, is there a way to get rid of the food/water requirement too? I know you can filter it out, but aggg, just be done with it.

ALSO, can we add the class 1 distiller to the newbie supply merchant? instead of going back to nexus, so it could be on the reward merchant, or at the zone in cause hate put those in every zone (thank you btw)

If possible just do away with the distiller merch completely, and add the box and distiller and dummy aug to the noobie merch. Move three items to get rid of an NPC.

Tier 5 suggestion: This was brought to me as an idea by a player that never posted it hear, but was suggested to offer tokens in Tier 5. My idea to that would be 1 token 100% chance off a boss, with every type of boss spawn possible having its own token for instance sea snake token off of boss for sea snakes, I was suggestion 4 tokens to spawn a guaranteed rare. This would allow players to at least be able to farm up and get rare spawns more effectively but still make tier 5 a decent challenge. Not to mention many players have multiple same class boxes this would allow them to use tokens to spawn rares they would need for their alts, not to mention could help with plat gained as player could sell tokens to make up instance cost.Wrist bosses could drop random tokens or a chance to 1/2 or something of that nature. This would help with the kill credit bottle neck but still leave the zone grindy and a challenge.

^

I honestly kinda like this idea.

This is basically the change Hunter did for T3/T4 to isolate the bosses you needed more so. With the above this will still have a RNG factor and but still get players farming and trading to find the mob they need more..

The more I think about it, I really like this idea.

I just followed Fugi over here to troll him a bit, but after reading, I am actually forced to agree with him in that this is a sound idea. Low development time, not a huge impact, but definitely adds some dynamic into the zone and a social angle for trade etc.  8)

Maybe more like 25% chance to drop. I don't think the current flagging system is very lowbie friendly. I personally use to run people through on occasion and get them t4 flagged 4.0 and get them started a little. Now it is just a drag to get through.


Also maybe have something like the signet in Tofs drop off wisps while farming stack-able,  moderately priced item. This way people will get a little cash while farming sls and speed up the process. This might motivate some people to farm sls as well.

the whole point of farming SLS for lowbies is to get cash...why would we need to add a cash drop to a nothing mob? jebus..it can only get so easy before it stupid..

EZ aint got to be EZ..ya know...what I mean..

As an old guy doing it again  I gotta agree.  I haven't has any issues so far.  Between Qvic essence drops being good to me and SLS farming for all of 90ish minutes I've made 4 milish.  Between Hate's precompiled MQ2 and the wiki/newbie guide there isn't much more you can do for new folks besides direct them to where the information can be found and be nice.  

EDIT: I would like to see Greater Lightstones stackable, but that's really not that big of a deal.  I'd rather see plat bags stackable.

Everything "lootable" stackable to 100 not just "10"

This stun garbage is it me or have the seem to be stunning more and for a longer duration...

Look @ stun from mobs

My 77 Warrior was getting stunned in Pofire last night.. True Story... /sigh

I noticed it too.  Ran a new toon through to ToFS 7 last night and was getting stunned by mobs that have never stunned me before.  Something went wonky in the past couple of days.

Ever since the day hate was messing with making himself immune to stun I'm getting stunned 5x times more than normal :(

Jade Reaver drop rate increase.

SKs getting a froglok ghoul pet.

I might start playing again!

- Hambeast

I've been playing on and off, for about 4 years.
Initially started and got to right where i was ready to do MCP, I had my UC all ready to go and decided to take a break to go back to other games/rl.
When i returned i was happy to find the wall of content had been slightly shifted up to t5, with the .5 epic steps introducted, DT removed from MCP ect, I had a blast starting to get my group up to date, i did avoid getting aug stuff in favor of begining the grind for UWs, ending up finishing uw2, and 100 dmajors and 50dminors before another break time, but that also brought me about halfway through t5.
recently returned and i've found the below list (exluding stuff t6+ since i'm not there yet) to be basically exaclty the answers to why I was 'burning out' each time.
Back many years ago I did do cutting edge EQ progression, the 30+ hour camps for each piece of VT key, or original epics, ect.
And I do think a lot of the grinds on EZ have a great concept behind them, but I personally know that my burnout would be reduced with reduction on the gear walls to see newer content.
I know charms drop much more from many more places, resists too, but I do feel like the entrance "fee" of time here so to speak should be pushed up some. A lot of people here talked about how t5 is the "gut check" and that they were happy it was causing people to burn out and quit, but what benefit is there to encourage that feeling?

some people at the top talking about how they're bored there so it's a good thing other people burn out earlier so they don't have to feel the pain of being bored at the end game, I don't understand this mentality.

If you're at the top and bored you always have the option to go back and create challenges for yourself (start a new group, limit yourself by not using zerkers or something)
Why campaign against lowering the bar for entrance into content though, the more people in each tier the better the feedback can be.

The people on the highest end will always be able to remain on the cutting edge if they want to, other people progressing at a faster pace than you did years ago does not diminish you.

Posted this from work sorry it's not clearly formatted and intelligent.

TL;DR I think hulk's suggestions would be pretty much all really great for increasing player base/retention.

I am on a tablet so in summary, I concur with the above

Again, as I stated on another thread: remove too much of the time sink and the game goes away. Tons of MMO wannabes found this out the hard way in the last decade, all trying to be the next Warcrap (read: next soulless, empty, meaningless MMO designed to fulfill the e-peen wishes of bored console gamers while raking in as much cash as possible without doing anything positive for the genre or the state of the art).

If I want a easy mode gearfest, there are tons of those games already out there. Say what you want about Hunter, but one thing he really seemed to understand is that <whispers> if you build it easy, they will come.....for about a month before they get bored and go elsewhere.

And that one statement explains a lot of the problems some players face. Do this and you set yourself up to fail. Strike augs arent optional. UW's are. Flat out, if you have melee and dont aug them you may as well not bother (exception possibly being zerker). You may as well drop em and roll wizzies. But even then you'll be getting UC and mana necks. I've run across quite a few players who ignore strike augs and/or UC and then wonder why the content is so hard to get past.

As for being a "top player".....ahhh, no. Sorry. Ask around, big players will tell you how gimp I am. I spend way too much time in game and afk (work a job and own a small business, as well as dealing with family), and when I am in I do a lot of stuff like helping guildies, answering questions, writing the guide/wiki, etc. It took me months to get past T5.

Of course it went a lot faster once I actually stopped to listen to what the "trick" is to getting T5 named to spawn rapidly (I'll give you a hint: it requires you knowing what triggers what boss chains, and it costs 100 EZ credits and you can reuse every 10 minutes).

None of us want to see players quit and leave the game in frustration because T5 is such a bitch. The "gut check" is supposed to be educational. Its supposed to drive home some very important conclusions about EZ, as far as what you need to do to be able to tackle content rapidly. The "gut check" is supposed to drill home just how important strike augs are...and UC's. And SOA. And a good group makeup, and not only having all the spells for your classes, but knowing how to use the spells in a way with your box team that will get every last bit of benefit from the abilities.

Thats the gut check. Thats why we need to keep T5 ....well, yeah, a bitch.

Now....that being said, I still stand by earlier statements that there needs to be a "check on the gut check", if you will....a way to spend time and resource to spawn named that for some reason just will not pop with RNG. Spending 3 or 4 weeks trying to get a handful of bosses to spawn, even using all the tricks....yeah, that'll piss you off. But any such shortcut needs to be expensive in terms of game resources and time, too, or there's no point to it.

Attention!

This thread has now been locked and is considered "closed" for now. Akkadius, Loveborne, and I will review thesse and see what kinds of insanity we can produce for you ladies, gents, and trolls.


-Hate