EZ Server

Hi. Its me again with another post about some suggestions for the server. I leveled a new character set without giving assistance from some of my established characters because I wanted to investigate some complaints new players have been making on the forums about the leveling process and the fresh 70 experience. I am going to continually update this post as I progress these characters through the server content. I am taking notes on some problems and some suggestions that could improve the overall player experience.

Suggestions (brief):
Add link to lavish software for isboxer multiboxing program
Add link to eq emulator website account creation to website.
Increase damage on prismatic weapons in Mistmoore.
Change velketor's quest to kill spiders non repeat reward an item (jewelry piece?).
Add armor to kobalds in velks.
Decrease hp amount in velks.
Create new zone (plane of earthb?) as an alternative to velketor's lab and add unique quest.
Increase damage on weapons from Bastion of Thunder (atleast so theyre better than epics)
Add free anger proc augs for low level tanks (ae low dmg)
Make staff of fluxing power a quest reward item for casters in addition to being on the vendor.
Make bag of the tinkers free and remove backpack from noobie vendor.
Increase the hit box range on Dragon Slave in plane of time.
Add "superior items" to BoThuner and PoTime.
Add "helper" tank NPC for Dragon Slave and Terrorantula.
Add damage shield potion for level 70s to potion vendor.
EZ reward item credit refund.
Change add spawns on Terrorantula to x amount per 40%

Suggestions in detail:
I wanted to make sure that from the beginning a new player could utilize information from only the website to get started playing on the server. These suggestions are minor, but could be easily implemented.

Add link to lavish software for isboxer multiboxing program
Add link to eq emulator website account creation

I believe that as the players level, they should be moving away from the epic weapons they bought from the noobie vendor and upgrading them in zones their leveling in as is the process after T1; therefore, the damage on weapons in leveling zones should be increased.

Increase damage on prismatic weapons in mistmoore
Increase damage on weapons from Bastion of Thunder (atleast so theyre better than epics)

The leveling experience after Dulak's Harbor and before Bastion of Thunder is REALLY a problem. The difficulty and hp of mobs in velketor's lab and pofear is too high, and the experience the mobs reward is too low. This leveling range is something players constantly complain about in ooc and I found that their complaints are definitely warranted. Further, people have been complaining about having issues with potime and terrorantula (these will be addressed later), which I believe to be a result of a lack of proper transition in gear from velk's and bothunder to potime.

Change velks quest to spiders non repeat reward a jewelry/ range piece/aug.
Add a non repeatable quest for pofear that rewards a different jewelry/range piece/aug.

A jewelry piece as a quest reward avoids interfering with set gear pieces players are collecting from dulak and bothunder. The idea is that players would pursue both quests during this leveling stage and as a result have a  much easier transition into BoT. The quest rewards could be arch type specific and could include:

angry nerds rank 1 aug (tanks)
Tanks NEED some kind of ae agro aug or item to deal with bosses that spawn adds they will encounter later on. This aug does not need a high amount of damage attached to it.
staff of fluxing power (caster dps)
NEW item that somehow affects healing (healers)
NEW item that has similar effects of the brawler's charm (dps).

These items could all be sold by the noobie vendor for the same price incase players did not want to complete the quest. They should all be sold for the same amount ~100k plat or so per item would be appropriate.

Add armor drops to kobalds in velks.
Decrease hp amount of mobs in velks.
Add armor drop to mobs in pofear.
Decrease hp amount of mobs in pofear.

I also had the idea that maybe velks lab could be scrapped off the custom zones list and a new zone that is a little easier to maneuver with multiple characters could be implemented. Velks lab would then just be used for the fighters guild silver chitin hand wraps and potentially a money making zone. I suggested poearthb because it has been used on stormhaven and I really enjoyed the layout of the zone.

create new zone (plane of earthb?) and implement these.

In addressing transitioning from zone to zone, I believe that the "superior" items need to be implemented earlier than T1. The superior item in BoThunder should be usable by all classes to ease the transition for every class into PoTime.

Add "superior items" to BoThuner, PoTime, Qvic, CT

Terrorantula and the Dragon Slave are excessively difficult. They are doable but I do not think players should encounter such difficult foes early on in their server progression process. The helper idea would spawn a NPC to tank the mob as soon as the player engages the mob. I am unsure about how adds are spawned on Terrorantula, but the amount of spiders triggered is definitely excessive. Changing the spawn rates of these spiders to x amount per 40% would be more appropriate.

Change add spawns on Terrorantula to x amount per 40%
Add "helper" tank NPC for Dragon Slave and Terrorantula.
Increase the hit box range on Dragon Slave in plane of time.

These are some misc. issues I thought could be addressed:

Make bag of the tinkers free and remove backpack from noobie vendor.
There is no reason for the bag of tinkers to cost anything.

Add damage shield potion for level 70s to potion vendor.
This could help with fresh 70 content.

EZ reward item credit refund.
Players could hand in items they no longer find useful that they purchased using credits and receive 1/2 the credit value of the item.

They cannot add the client because its owned by SOE. Distributing it is a huge no no.

They cannot copy, distribute, or profit from SOE property. The server code is not SOE but rather a database. Client side is all the SOE junk.

Holy shit..


we all got past the newbie levels....


they can too..


no reason to modify the server to make it an instant gimme for any level...


bad players need to learn to become better players in order to progress...

they do this by failing and repeating content until they succeed and understand HOW eq works...


Please don't make this a fail proof server...


EQ is a raw hard game.....

why not add an xp npc that you hail and boom you are 70? then you hail again and you have 500aa...then you hail a THIRD time and you get all your t1 gear...then it would be fair and balanced...

we could simplify this to 1 hail...i don't want to lose anyone making it to complicated...

actually when you roll a toon it should start at 70 with t1 gear....

What you're saying makes complete sense. There are 7 or so links in the EZ guide that when downloaded and placed in the same folder, make up the UF client. I thought it would just be nice to have this on the wiki although maybe we're not even supposed to have it on the forums?

spoilers: if you DL'd the client from the forums, you're a pirate  ;D

arghhh matey!!

Instead of all the anti-change BS you just spewed perhaps you could have shortened your garbage down to "I don't care that hate asked for ideas to encourage player growth, keep everything as is".

Thanks for the great ideas and input HulkPunch.

Someone said something in another post a few weeks or months ago about not having but a few people who "work" on this server and not trying to hand out freebies because as soon as people get to x-point-end-game they will quit playing too....that is the best way to put this whole dumb down the beginning stage of  70-tier 3......

A lot of people argue that since a magic box is free, why not just fill the inventory with those? I argue that since magic boxes are used for so many combines, the player could be easily confused when they fill his/her inventory. Further, since a magic box is free, why is the bag of tinkers not free? They have the same slot capacity and fit the same size items, bag of tinkers would just offer players less confusion when going through their inventory and combining items.

I fully support the idea that leveling between dulak and BOT is pretty ridiculous for new players.  Pofear has that thing where every 4th mob is 5 levels higher and has 3x the dps and hps...  Velks is a nightmare to climb solo, i cant even imagine trying to get 'the group of 6 everyone in /ooc told u to make' up the slippity slide.

The kobold quest was the worst 'could be doing anything better with these hours than this actual quest' timesink that actually bottlnecked xp vs. time spent 1-70.

I say burn it all to the ground, leave the chitin hand wraps for FG quest and be done with it.

Even though the xp is slower, Sebilis has far better cash (now that lev is feasibly out of the picture in velks for castle shenanigans) and you can level to 65 there anyways, while picking up knuck dusters, fungi tunics, and manna robes you need anyways.

I'd heartily reccomend (and do) Seb over either velks or POF for levelling progression. Sadly the cash + fg items u recieve in there make it the best *custom* zone for levelling in that range, and its not even custom ;).

And Terrorantula, where to begin. I get Master of Weaponry being a gut-check test of your boxing skills and how geared out you are.. but c'mon.. 1.5 start boss? What gear are you supposed to have at this point? How many AAs? I mastered BCCMD in t8, i sure as hell wasn't ready before my first epic 1.5.

Put quillmane back and be done with it. PoTime and LDON are going to test players ability to cut the mustard anyways, tossing a buncha adds on a poor dude with 0 AE aggro and a tank that can't take 3 hits from the main mob anyways after the healers get mobbed by adds is just.. Well it's just spiteful and not the way to make new players want to stay here.

And a pre-emptive FU to the 'we did it so they should' weiners who conveniently forget that 'no we didnt face this clusterf*ck of a 1.5 boss at all'.

Yes, beyond Terrorantula the server has been made a lot ( a LOOOT) easier thru the tiers to progress in, but the old gut-check was t5 (which made a ton of ppl quit/take breaks etc for good reason), the new one shouldn't be in south ro.

< 3 you all, lets fight for the newbies. :)

Never understood why the change was made to 1.5.    It was better when you could do Terror or Quillmane and they were both timed spawned.   There is nothing fun or challenging about killing spiders and hoping that Perl Rand() works in your favor.    When they were static spawns you could stage your team and prepare accordingly.     There is no need for 1.5 to be some rng hell hole.

THIS.

although personally I liked the killing the spiders mechanic. Sure it gets to be a pita after 12 times, but GOD DAMN it was hilarious when I first spawned Terorantula. He just pops in your face, a giant spider - I'm pretty sure I didn't even attack, I was so startled - sure I wiped instantly, but it was funny as shit

I agree with Peign on the Terrorantula issue.  However, if we want to keep it dynamic, I recommend that we make it so that it pops where it used to spawn. Kinda the way Tserrina spawns off a bat. 

**If you pop Terror in pub and have problems with the current event, ask for help in ooc.. Someone will always run out to help.


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New ideas cont.

As of now, I have just completed the 2.0 epic on my tank so I wanted to provide some feedback on LDON and how the process could be improved for new players.

Suggestions (brief)
Make a cleric group heal spell before vivification instant cast.
Increase drop rate of LDON cards, add guaranteed card drop to boss kills, and change armor to require only 1 card.
Increase respawn time of LDON mobs (not bosses).
Add 100aa crystals to LDON and PoTime.
Increase damage on 1.5, 2.0 epic weapons OR make ALL epics augments with similar effects that become more powerful as players progress through whole number ranks.
Master of Weaponry - Decrease the number of adds spawned. Trigger 1 add at 50%, 1 at 25%.
Decrease damage of all mobs from bothuner - LDON by 20%.

Suggestions (detailed):

Early on in the game, mana problems and are really an issue so clerics are severely limited to the number of vivification heals they can cast and group heals are sorely needed because tanks do not yet have a means of obtaining ae agro. Since characters do not yet have more hp than vivification is capable of healing (with healing focus buff), a lower rank group heal that is instant cast would be highly beneficial to the cleric's arsenal of spells.

Make a cleric group heal spell before vivification instant cast.

The problem I found with LDON is that I was hardly obtaining any gear as I progressed through each level. The only gear I really found was that dropped from bosses and the few charms I gathered along the way.

Increase drop rate of LDON cards, add guaranteed card drop to boss kills, and change armor to require only 1 card.

I found the respawn time of regular mobs to be slightly too fast for new players to deal with. I do not know if the respawn time of regular mobs was decreased when they were tethered, but a two minute or so addition to the respawn time of regular mobs would certainly make things more manageable for the player.

Increase respawn time of LDON mobs (not bosses).

AA's have a substantial impact on the players ability to tank and damage mobs, but I found that AA's are hard to come by early on. Having tank AA's is the difference between life and death; therefore, players need some kind of means to obtain their aa's faster so they can more easily progress through content.
 
Add 100aa crystals to LDON and PoTime.

Throughout my level 70 adventure, I found that incoming damage to be a bit excessive. The approach I had to most encounters was a zerg like a approach, where I hoped to deal a large amount of damage rather quickly so I did not have to heal much at all. Decreasing the damage of mobs before players have the buffs that mitigate damage on their tanks would be extremely helpful.
 
Decrease damage of all mobs from bothuner - LDON by 20%.

The disparity between zone dropped weapons and the 1.5 and 2.0 epics is too small. There is hardly any reason for the player to abandon their newly acquired 1.5 or 2.0 epic for a weapon that just dropped from a LDON boss. To remedy this problem, the damage and stats could be increased universally across all epics 1.5-2.0 OR all 1.5 and higher epics could be converted into augments like the 3.0+ augments. Certainly this would mean revising the exisiting weapon augments, but it would definitely allow for a smoother game play for the new player.

Increase damage on 1.5, 2.0 epic weapons OR make ALL epics augments with similar effects that become more powerful as players progress through whole number ranks.

I found the Master of Weaponry to be excessively difficult. Most of the difficulty is a result of the excessive amount of adds and the lack of ae agro available to tanks early on in progression. Limiting the number of adds would create a more appropriate encounter.

Master of Weaponry - Decrease the number of adds spawned. Trigger 1 add at 50%, 1 at 25%.

Additional Notes:
I found that one of the most worth while things a player can do after recently obtaining level 70 is to farm SLS so they can be sold / traded for 2k/10kaa rainbow crystals to allow the player to max out all their aa's for their level early on and begin ranking up their ring of the ages which has a HUGE impact on tank's beefyness at this stage in the game. While this is a good strategy for newly leveled 70's, do we really want this to be an option for the player? It seems like having this escapade undermines all the other more appropriate potential options that could be available to the player that they could find in their own adventure.

Ironically, as I progress through the early stages of progression, I am actually finding the game play more difficult than later tier game play; therefore, the argument that if people do not learn how to play now they will not be able to handle the game play later on can be completely thrown out. A lot of the spells players rely on later on are not available to the player early on and therefore severely cripple their ability. A few remedies to early 70 experiences are to buff these players with crab, oak, and whatever else or to provide assistance, but players should not result to relying on such buffs. Infact, I would argue that these buffs could be restricted to only 71+ players because they undermine the leveling process early on. Even if an experienced player is rolling a few more zerks or necros or whatever, they have at their arsenal the ability to quickly power level through pofire. Getting to dulak stage of the game hardly takes any time at all now with the custom buffs hate created and actually recently updated to provide even more hp to players.

Well, I noticed yesterday helping some peeps with MoW that he is yellow to me at 78...  Hate might need to look at him.

Ok fine..you want it fixed...lets fix it..

all epics should be augs..right out of the gate.. let people farm weapons add the aug they want....fun fun fun..

warriors need some form of AE aggro out of the gate. (See Aug)

give druids some weak form of skin either as a spell or effect on epic (current ae/snare sucks half the mobs cant be snared and the rest resist the effect at higher levels) small window around t5 where the druid can land his epic and not snare himself in the process

switch cleric epic from a heal to hp balance+small heal(fast reload on this)... no reason for pally and cleric to be the same...

wizard epic is useless...make it summon a familiar (+damage/-agro/secondary cast proc.. or something that is actually useful...the rune is a joke...)

Monk epic...I don't even really understand what this is supposed to be used for? does it cure the monk? does it cure the target? i dunno I never click mine...monk just punches shit...

Pally....love my pally awesome heals and moderate dps...perfect...this is my main healer in my main group..

rogue ... my favorit dps toon...no reason to change..as you progress BS becomes less of a factor but whatever...love them rogue stabbins..

BL/SK/NEC dont play them...no idea....I am sure they are awesome..

Enchanter....pet is a beast in 8.0 but damage is moderate at best ..even with mana neck and all the clickys the main point of chanter is ROA and VT...good class well done...

Mage ... another pet class with decent nuke...epic pet is epicish i guess....mostly use for COH and I guess damage sheild when plvling..20k proc even if it was a 100k proc or whatever means nothing when mobs regen is so high and have so many hps..might as well be 1 damage..no where near NS damage I dont care what you do so if its not a dps class what is it? anyone?

So in order to balance out the beginning we can look at adding and or modifying a bunch of content...OR we can just make the epics augs to start and up newb dps and change some skills around to be more useful on epics.. with our crack development team (you do an awesome job so not meaning to make a dig) lets try to find the simple solution instead of trying to redevelop entire zones for people that are in them for 1-5 days before the move on...

I am actually considering an overview of all the classes eventually. I am just trying to work with Love to hammer out these  dungeons right now.

-Hate

Great input balidet, thanks!

I'm scared

Hate-

I am totally not complaining far as I am concerned leave it as it is...but if people want to make it "smoother" to start then some of what  I said may help..


Please continue with what you are doing....as I rapidly approach t9 (small set back....backfarming charm/aug/uw to  max before stepping into t9) I look forward to more content!

Since my last post, I have progressed through LDON and Qvic and made a few notes along the way about some potential changes that could remedy player frustration experienced throughout this content: I really do not have too many suggestions though because for the most part, the transition from LDON to Qvic seems really smooth. The transition could be made even smoother with some of the suggestions I made in earlier posts.

Suggestions (brief)
Change armor drop in Qvic
Add "special" drops to LDON and Qvic
Make epic augments all have similar effects

Suggestions

Change armor drop in Qvic

It seems like the most frustrating aspect of Qvic players deal with is the rng armor drops required for progression. I propose that Qvic armor drops be made more like the later tier drops (t8, t6) in that specific bosses drop a specific slot. The bosses in the caves could drop the legs and breastplates as those are the items with the most stats.

Add "special" drops to Plane of time, LDON, and Qvic

To my knowledge, these "special" items were added to T1+. Why not start earlier and add these items to Plane of time, LDON, and Qvic?

Make epic augments all have similar effects

Some of the earlier versions of epics have obscure effects e.g. the warrior epic 3.0 anger clicky, the Mage 2.0 and 2.5 epic pet buff, Enchanter epic rune spells, etc. If these effects were changed to lesser forms of the later augment effects, the epics would prove much more helpful during this progression phase.

Every single time, Hulkpunch, puts up an idea for making things "smoother"  all I read is "dumb-down-the-content- and-make-it-super-easy-so-that-we-have-to-roll-out-new-content-every-three-months".....or is it just me?

I read this statement:

This is so far from true, it is comical! How the hell is Qvic or CT harder than t8 or t9 gear for gear?  That is just stupid and discredits EVERYTHING else you say.

+1k

...how is t8 or t9 at all difficult? Skin like drake tank pull mobs ae with zerkers rinse repeat. Sorry you did not understand my comments.

Reaching the later tiers of the game is not at all a measure of skill despite many players believing it to be, it is just a measure of the time you have invested in the server. Higher tiered players may have knowledge that new players do not have, but that does not really mean they're any better than them. The only time skill comes into play is when moving through zones quickly and efficiently.

Gear for gear right? Then T9 is by far the most difficult.  Are CT and QVIC class specific drops or armor type specific? T8 is class specific which can mean a long long wait for your last drops. Also, new t8 players take over an hour to complete the zone.

I apologize, when I read this posts, Hulkpunch, it aggravates me.  The beginning stages of EZ are not overly difficult.  The only thing difficult about this server is the grind.....if folks cant come here and grind out the content then they wont last, period.  Making content easier wont change if a person likes to grind out their time or not.  All it will do is allow people to steamroll content and then QQ because they are bored and expect folks to put out newer content for them to play.

You know the answer to that question. Maybe I should have said T1/T3 instead.

Pretending content is perfect the way it is, and throwing your arms up in the air for any change is eye rolling.  Hate clearly asked for ideas to help grow the server and Hulk went out of his way to re level a group to see where tweaks might be made to help with hates request.  The constant barrage he gets anytime he posts suggestions from people who in turn, don't suggest anything, is disheartening.


This statement is the cookie cutter generalized statement of stick in the mud mentality.  Apply some logic to this.  Lets say someone new (Like everyone once was who is now in full UCv3's waiting for T10) comes along who has the drive to get to the end, tweaking and tuning older content wouldn't have derailed us, so why assume every newbie who starts here would act any differently than you did.  Did you even read hulks changes?  Most of them are relatively minor changes that many of us would have enjoyed while had they been there long ago.  There is also no Requirement that any suggestions posted be put into the game.  They are just Ideas.  At least Hulk has some.

I haven't run it in so long, it was an honest question, not a lead in to my response which it does read like... sorry

If one were pretending that everything is perfect, then no, you would not see a suggestion other than to leave it as is. Of course, there is the other option that one is not pretending and honestly feels that things are good to go the way they are.

(However, agree that some responses are just meant as flame/troll.. but your always going to get that which is why we have to wear our big boy pants when we throw out recommendations on here.  Hulk knows how to sift through the junk, so does Hate)

My response to Hulk was because I am watching a guild member going through t8 and without help, it takes a long time, drops little essences, and is difficult for him.  And in T9, gearing up is insane.

I hate the gear system in T9 with a passion. Truly hate it.

I have just completed t5 on 5 toons and need one kill to get the other 13 done. I hate this water zone with a passion. On one hand I like that it's quest blocks the steam roll through the zone but on the other hand it's a huge time sink and you are stuck there for awhile. Hunter always dumbed down the content when it was no longer current. Is say anything to reduce the time required to get through these zones and into t6 would be a healthy thing for the server.

I am sorry, I thought you were being facetious.

Yes and no. The next minidungeon is going to assist with T5, but on a randomized and daily basis. I REALLY like the way the zone handles and the fact that it essentially "nudges" the player into gearing up some.


-Hate

Hate, any chance you could add stonehive as a clicky gate from say the waist slot? Or add a gate to bind clicky on armor?

I'd actually be against dumbing down the content, especially in t5.

Hate's added roaming mobs, spellcasting npcs, knockbacks, special abilities on bosses, etc. It's going the other direction, and thats fine.

Hate has ALSO added hero stone drops in all zone, rainbow crystals, etc... It's a nudge to 'improve your toons' for those even too stubborn to spend time in TOFS before they positively have to.

For any real gripe about content being harder or grindier, there's been an opposite side of the coin that makes it easier to acquire the tools necessary to smooth out or even speed up the grind/progression.

All that said, i couldn't fathom a single person who would be opposed to un-rooting the corals. The 100 boss req is steep on its own, the rares are rare as ever, and corals difficulty is simply the encounter exploiting the limitations of MQ2 and underwater sticking.

While you can certainly argue that zones like airplane teach players the value of mastering bccmd to kill as efficiently as possible.. there's simply no tangible gain from slowly grinding corals underwater. All Corals ever did for me was inspire me to grind out a high level UW. Specifically to one-shot them... Which i couldnt do until the UW was way, way past abyss stage. /shrug.

Unleash them. Today. I'll link my UW and SOA next time im online. I have 0 to gain from this personally. I'm way past abyss, and the inane coral encounter flashbacks still wake me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night every now and again. I just want the nightmares to go away.

Thanks :o

Sure. I'll add a spell effect tomorrow during my offday!


-Hate

Id go for unrooting corals

unrooting corals.............oh the dream of it......./wake up Rent.....

really good dream there, I had a dream that you could pull the corals in T5, it was so nice. I woke up wet!

I like them rooted..   :)

I like T5 the way it is.  That zone made me take a break... almost a year.  Every single melee toon I had died on corals ... until I started UC'ing each melee.  That was a good lesson and one I have followed since that epic fail.

EZ isn't "just" about progression.  It's about charms, augs and now ... resists.  The amount of time required to produce a new progression zone, test it and make it a challenge vs ROFLStomp --> cakewalk is months long. 

T5 is over a month long on breakin from T4, and that's with the primer posted that took some of us months to decode.  It teaches those tier-equal players to head back to LDon (or ToFS) to finish up their UCs/Resists.  They are going to need them later anyway so this might be a good time to get that done.  I see no reason for that content to be dumbed down to days/hours long.

Freeing up corals would not be a viable option for those tier equal players.  That would just end in a wipe for them.  Unrooting corals would only serve the UW/UC2+ crowd, and I like hearing the whines in guild chat once the noobs hit the water. 

Let's dance. There's a zero percent effing chance that freeing up corals ends in wipe in a situation rooting them ends in a victory. I award you zero points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

Unrooting corals serves everyone. Someone using a UW isn't AEing, a rooted coral makes no difference to them. Strike two.

As for the UC2+ crowd, they still make the lesser tiered guildy/invitee kill coral while they kill the rest of the zone and then afk. Why? because the coral take no skill, no thought process whatsoever, and are the tier 5 equivalent of wisp farming. Err, make that ROOTED wisp farming.

Any time progression is mucked in a situation you can equate to wisp farming (the single most aggravating and unfun yet neccessary aspect of server progression), a re-examination of the entire process should be welcomed.

Anyone who's ever needed Moe/Glaciius off Sea Snakes after 50 clears of the zone will tell you : unrooted spread-the-f*ck-out underwater mobs aren't something you can chain pull and giggle while doing so. Its..still..a...big...grind. Merely a small mercy.

It's like explaining to your young son why the idiot neighbor leaves his dog in the car with the windows up on a 90 degree day while he drives 300 feet to the lottery deli on the end of the street to chain smoke/do scratchits/play video poker inside:

'why does he bring rusty with him daddy?'

'BECAUSE THATS THE WAY HES ALWAYS DONE IT. DO NOT QUESTION THE LOGIC BEHIND IT'

I got 30 abyss banked and a UW8. Everyone in my guild and on my friends list has been pulled thru t5 many times over. I have 0 reason to enter the zone period at this point, i don't even stand to gain from it.

I just want someone to unroot the corals for the sanity of the masses.

Let Rusty out of the truck, Hate. :(

Corals and other mobs no longer summon in t5.
The range where they group attack has been reduced so your toons are not getting arrows in the chest from adjacent corals.
Accessories have been added to more mobs (was good while you needed accessories to progress)
You no longer need accessories to progress
Essence drop % has increased in t5

Like every guide in the past says.. u should uc your melee toons at around this stage of the game. If you do not, well that's cool too but corals are going to be hard.

*I am no fan of this zone but I respect that over the last couple years it has been tuned to a point where there is no need for further change. Coral should not be able to move anyway... its a coral... if it can move, its so fn slow it has to be seen on timelapse.

And it's also the middle tier in advancement and years old so one would expect it to get eaiser as it's no longer bleeding edge. I really am starting to feel that there are 2 camps, those that got theirs and screw everyone else, we had to go through it and those that honestly want change for the betterment of the server. I really don't understand the mentality. What or how does it hurt anyone to ease up on stuff through t5? Oh it hurts those that value epeen.

Un-Rooting the corals would benefit higher tiered players more than lower by allowing them to be mass trainable like the rest of the zone.  I don't personally need anything from T5 but would still be in favor of un-rooting or changing those mobs.  Though really, I think making some of the rare pops a bit less rare might find the same benefit to lower tiered players without added more benefit to upper tiered players.  Paladin gloves anyone?


This mentality you bring to light is rather rampant here for some reason.  It used to make sense in old EQ so perhaps it's just a clinging idea.  You would cock block players from progressing gear because raid bosses were not instanced for years.  In some more recent MMO's and older you could also argue a certain pvp advantage was gained from keeping players away from content.  In EZ however, the only idea that seems to fit is that player A spent X amount of hours to get X item and everyone else should have to do the same because they did or the items themselves lose value.  It's a real enough concept but is that reason enough not to turn this awesome server of an old game we all used to love into the best it can be?  It shouldn't be, but as I am all for free freedom of speech, it can go both ways.  Those for and against. 

All that mattered here in the past was what Hunter wanted and these days it's Hate and a few others.  Best anyone can do is provide Solid information backing any sort of suggestion (or against) and let the cards fall.  Changes have been solid in my book as of late.

This made me spray Coca-Cola out of my nose!!!!!!!!  HAHAHAHA

Personally, I play my mage solo sometimes.  It's much easier to back-flag and back-farm things on him than running the warrior around... at times anyway.  I'd really like it if there were a way or item to add to pets that gave them a small AOE for aggro purposes.  Pet can't handle three mobs at once if I have to heal at all because I'll get aggro on the one(s) pet isn't killing.

I agree a bit here but how will we use a pet in a raid if its pulling aoe agro? I guess some lessor form of cyclone blade on the upgrade pet weapon proc would not be bad.

Good thought on the cyclone blade, enough to pick up empty aggro, not enough to cause issues in higher tiers.

What if you were totally revamp T4 into a new zone. Totally eliminate the coin system for T4? Pick a zone big enough like Ocean Green village or something. Make the bosses spawn on death, randomly. I know it's a lot of work but would solve the outcry for the drop rates etc.

Is it broke honestly?

or

Just a mechanic that doesn't satisfy a few.

I would say a little of both. You can't increase coin drops too much or that section of gear (t3) becomes a joke, which might as well be eliminated at that point. It could stay the way it is, but you would never hear the end of the QQ train.  Truth be told, its the only zone that has 2 tiers rolled into one all depending on farming the previous tier. Just like CT was introduced and the other eliminated, so should the T4 portion of PoA.


(https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/720824576/h818C91E7/)

Easy, make it something that you can choose to give the pet (IE an item or spell that adds the AOE effect).  Alternatively yes, a small AOE (which is what I said in that post :P ).

Hrmm, sorry... I have to take all credit for idea.. please go back and modify your original post... Microsoft out.

My characters have just reached T5 and so I thought it would be a good time to post some more ideas since my last post was made when I was in the Qvic phase of progression.

Suggestions brief:
Add flawed gems (quest item) to Ancient Sand Monster
Rework Eye of the Beholder and Ancient Dragon triggers
Reimplement Tacvi as an expedition to function as a bonus zone for CT
Remove Waypoint item (not free waypoint)
Adjust Plane of Dragons Special item Staff of the Seven so it is better than podragons vendor purchased weapons.
Increase chance for tokens to drop in Halls of Honor
Make the T4 boss Warlord drop 2 breastplate slots instead of one.
Add bracer quest.
Make 1 EZ credit cost 10 berries
Create short time challenge expeditions.

Suggestions detailed:

Add flawed gems (quest item) to Ancient Sand Monster

It would be nice to provide players an incentive for killing the Ancient Sand Monster after they acquire the 3.0 book for their epic since the books are picked up rather quickly. The gems they need for armor can sometimes be rather rare, so this would also address that issue.

Rework Eye of the Beholder and Ancient Dragon triggers

A lot of players progress through Qvic and Plane of Dragons without ever seeing these bosses. If their spawn triggers were adjusted in a way to make them a little more common, the players would finally be able to experience these encounters.

Reimplement Tacvi as an expedition to function as a bonus zone for CT

The problem with tacvi was that it allowed players to move through the content much faster than was intended since players could make instances of tacvi and repp a zone filled with only bosses. If tacvi was reimplemented as an expedition with a 24hour cool down, it would function more like a daily like the T2-T4 expedition and allow players in that tier and others farming essences to experience a "bonus" zone once per day.

Remove Waypoint item (not free waypoint)

If this item were removed and instances were set to cost what they currently cost with the waypoint item, new players would avoid having to farm the SLS to sell to players so they could afford the waypoint item to make their lives easier while farming cg and fg items.

Adjust Plane of Dragons Special item Staff of the Seven so it is better than podragons vendor purchased weapons.

Increase chance for tokens to drop in Halls of Honor

If I recall the drop chance for tokens to drop in Halls of Honor was increased a few months ago, but the number of clears required to accumulate the tokens to progress through T3 and T4 is somewhat ridiculous. Alternatively, a one time quest could be added that would require to kill x amount of mobs and reward tokens.

Make the T4 boss Warlord drop 2 breastplate slots instead of one.

The amount of time required to farm the tokens, then combine them and kill a boss that rewards only breastplate is excessively daunting to players gearing up.

Add bracer quest.

Whats great is only one bracer from the tiered sets is required for progression so the player is able to have any type of bracer for their second wrist slot. Generally, the best item to get is the highest tier bracer available to them, but what if a quest were added similar to ring of ages, earring of the ages etc. that allowed players to improve their item while they progressed through the tiers. Since the ring, earring, and mask already require aa, what if there was a quest npc in every tiered zone that required the previous tier bracers + new items from the zone for an upgraded version.

Make 1 EZ credit cost 10 berries and vice versa.

A conversion between berries and EZ credits would be really nice and would allow players to acquire EZ credit items over a long period of time without donating.

Create short time challenge expeditions.

What if there were a series of expeditions that were only active for a short period of time and required players to kill x amount of mobs or bosses before time expired for a reward. The encounters in the Expeditions of Dranik are GREAT and similar encounters could be added so players not only have to deal with pulling a large amount of mobs on a timer, but they also have avoid objects like the lightning balls from the lightning event while being hit by knock back spells from some of the bosses they pulled in their train.

LoL Nope. They are similar to how the T9 spawns used to work. They have no progression value. Suffer. ;-)

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This I like a lot and will likely start soonish.

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Hmm, I'll look in to it.

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Already planning on it. Just trying to find time right now :-(

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-Hate

...It already is. I don't recall the stats offhand, and it's not a LOT better, but it is better.

T9:

Any chance we could either A) up the spider spawn in T9 or B) increase the chance to drop Strong Silk?  ^.^

This statement is ridiculous.  Let's remove something that others have chosen to pay for, so that people wont have to farm SLS's?  Come on!  If you have issues farming SLS you might as well quit the server because SLS and essences are what this server is basically built on.  ::)

It's not farming SLS though it's farming the money because that's the fastest way to acquire it at that point in progression. It's an unnecessary hurdle.

Ok well I just went through this phase so I guess I could give my opinion on it...

Personally, I felt like the craziest thing was the amount of back farming I had to do on T1 POS...  I finished T2 easier. But you know, that whole RNG thing must have got me. Most of my group was ready to hit HOH but I had to essentially grind/waste time/pretend it's classic EQ. I'm not complaining, I just felt like it was out of line with the other progression I had been though so far.

I've also seen eye of the heholder a few times but never the ancient dragon. First time I saw the Eye it got my heartrate up so that was fun. I guess I missed out on the Dragon. In hindsight, that seems unfortunate because I see it as content someone developed that probably i would have enjoyed but RNG or whatever spawns it never happened in my time.

As for farming SLS, I found that pretty easy compared to the other farming especially the T1 crystals.

Overall, my biggest suggestion for changing things in this QVIC to HOH phase would be make T1 less grueling in the sense that it's farming crystals just to farm crystals while providing no upgrades, challenge, excitement... just running a group around trees to kill a dragon in a few seconds.

You farm crystals just to pop a boss that in turn will grant you armor, accessories, and essences. You can also sell the crystals for cash. The dragons drop gems for cash as well and mats to make your armor combines.  Consider the farming the grind and the excitement the turn in and boss kills.

The excitement comes from making the angry nerd augs : the last free dps the server offers. :)

Ditri posts get me excited

u get me excited zefirus

An apt time for a meme...

(http://makeameme.org/media/created/Im-so-excited-tzyyky.jpg)

I dont know how to respond to this...T1 is not a grind...its not hard.....  you can gear a group  of 12 up in a few days....


IF that is to hard you should probably just stop...


IF this server becomes an All content is accessible to everyone server what is the point of it?


It takes a LONG time to get fully 100% geared up to t9.. like a long time..hundreds of hours... massive amounts of back farming.. essence farming.. plat farming...resist farming.... UW farming.... if t1 is so tough... you have  along road ahead of you...