EZ Server

Brand spankin new player here, here are my very first impressions.  Remember that this is a true new players impressions, and if you are truly concerned with new player retention, you'll avoid posting replies like "If you think those time sinks are bad, wait till tier x!".  That wont help retention.  These are my experiences, I'm giving you my unbiased first impressions.

TLDR;   - Without the ability to purchase a donator zone instance creator, the initial barrage of time sinks will most likely turn away new players. True EQ masochists will suffer on, they always do, but most will just give up.

- Information overload.  There is *so much* to try to figure out about what I'm supposed to be doing, I feel like I'm just buried in wiki's, forum posts, spreadsheets, etc.  The sheer volume of info could turn off new players.  I kinda want to play and not research, but I'm currently lost in the game w/o researching first.  I'm sure I'll be throwing around all these acronyms soon enough but for now I don't know half of what is being said in ooc.

- MQ2 is a hard concept to learn for people just starting out.  Even harder to get working right if you dont have "computer skills".  This is a barrier, it just is.  The wikis help but for new folks its just overwhelming.  I played on a different server for a while so I had average to below average mq2 knowledge.  My stuff didnt work when I tried this server so it's taken me a while to get it back and running the way I like it. 

- The first non irrelevant thing a new player does is the epic 1.5.   I've cleared Time a few times so far, the first time was with my crew of 6 and only the buffs you get from the buff bot.  The first time it was a challenge with the hodge podge gear I had, and the Dragon Slave ate most of my group but I managed to win, rezz my team with my cleric survivor, and get his page.  Second time was a joke because someone buffed my noobs with insane buffs.  Without uber buffs the difficulty balance was just about right.  But then when I go try to find the spider in sro, the difficulty is just flat out too high for a group of new non-uberbuffed players.  The server is advertised in a way to suggest you have to box to play, I knew that, I love that, I want that.  But if my box of 6 has zero hope of beating this mob alone, I can see this as a giving up point for new people.  Ask for help or buffs you say?  Nope, new players want a winnable challenge, not babysitters.  I'm sure if I continue on this server I'll eventually have a team of 12 or maybe 18, but as a new player I really expected to be able to beat the sro spider with my 6.  I've beat him on my own two more times but that was with some crazy buffs someone gave me, and once a player invited me to his instance and spawned and defeated the spider twice for me.  I gladly accepted and am very grateful, I'm just pointing out that the difficulty jump from Dragon Slave is too high for a group of 6 by themselves.

- Now I'm in LDON working on the epic 2.0.  I get through floors 1 through 5 no problem (they all seem to be the same in difficulty).  I get to the end of level 5, turn in the stone, and only my warrior goes.  I guess I didnt read the wiki well enough in advance to know all my group needs a stone.  I guess it doesnt matter, I have to do this 5 more times anyway to get pages for the rest of my group.  I just need those last two pages on level 6 then I need to find some npc named Master of Weaponry in Chambersb.  Never heard of it, more wiki / forum searching.  Found the EZGuide on the forum, it says the Epic vendor will transport me to ChambersB.  I sure hope he transports my whole group and not just my warrior alone again. 

I'm supposed to upgrade my noobie v1 charm while I'm here in LDON?  I know I already have to do ldon levels 2 through 6 over again for each character that I want to do the epic weapon quest.  Now it looks like I'll be here for quite a bit longer if i want to max out the charm to level 25 like the forum says.  Light blue mobs that barely dent the aa xp bar, doesnt really sound appealing.

- Time for caster/fighters guild?  I guess, I'm not really sure what's in there but the wiki's and forums seem to indicate it's important, and it looks like it's the only way for a toon to continue upgrading the epic.  I start this quest, holy crap it's a lot of old EQ camping grey mobs.  And I have to do this for every single toon I have that I want to get an epic 2.5?  Nuts.  This wouldnt be bad if I could repop the zones at will, I've been told by multiple players I need to have a dontation item to do that, I'd buy that and more in an instant but the forum says donations are disabled for some reason.  I've got 28k plat, I did the noobie charm upgrade to v2, down to 18k.  I create an instance of a zone once and now I'm down to 8k, cant do it anymore.   There is flat out *no way* I'm doing this quest X6 (or more) w/o a way to repop zones to avoid lame grey mob camping.  I cant buy the items from players (assuming anyone even has them for sale), not enough plat.  I've been told I can go farm SLS and sell them to higher level players, no idea what they are used for but if these quest items arent for sale it's a moo point (a cows opinion, right?!).  * The fighter/caster guild quest could be a major concern for retaining new players if they dont have the ability to buy a donator zone repopper *

- Next step after LDON?  Not sure.  It sounds like Qvic if I want to improve my armor and continue with the epic, so I zone in with my noob group and man these trash mobs at the zone in hit for 2k+, wow such a huge spike compared to where I just came from.  The wiki says forget about LDON armor, so the best I have is Time armor.  I know I'm not ready for this zone, I was just testing it out, so I guess I need to go get 2.5's for the rest of my group.  I cant imagine how that's going to help, but everyone says it's important.  For the half a dozen mobs I killed a the zone in, it wasnt  really a dps problem even though my dps is downright pitiful, it's a HP problem on my tank.  The wiki suggests I could do the crafters guild quest to get dps improvements for my crew, but my real issue is gear (and a huge lack off aa's but at least that is fixable).  I could cheese this by getting someone who won the game to buff me but there is absolutely nothing satisfying about that.  Maybe the wiki was wrong when suggesting to skip the LDON armor.  And if I do get weapon augs from the crafters guild to up my dps, I'm just going to have to skip the rogue.  I absolutely cannot keep aggro off of him, all I've got to work with on my warrior at this point is taunt, bezu bellow, and cyclone blade and once a mob gets on my rogue, mashing all 3 doesnt make any difference.  I've been told I dont need hate augs for my weapons at this level, I flat out disagree.  Go ask my rogue, but you'd better go ask him at his bind point, he visits there a lot.

Speaking of crafters guild, the only saving grace is that at least this time (compared to fighters / casters guild), you really only have to do this on one character, or so it appears.  I'm not really looking forward to making all that artisan seal nonsense but I'll do it once so I can progress.

I'm sure I must be missing something, I'm convinced I am.  Back to the forums and wiki for more research.

Well done and I think you bring up several valid points.


MQ is tricky but really on the starter guide it gives you enough information to get going.

I can't agree more that a group of 6 newblets has no chance of beating that spider in Sro.  the spider spawns to many adds and you have no real aoe crowd control so your healers get agro and its a mess..    this should be tuned so that 6 newblets with buffbot buffs can beat the encounter. maybe not the first few times...but it should be doable.

the stone turn in thing in LDON sucks but i Dont really see a need for the change .. the stones drop plenty and you should just loot them on each char.

It does take some time to get the charm to 25 in ldon.. some will say wait for tofs.. but tofs is a long way off if you are in ldon.   this use to be like 10000000x harder as the drop rate was extremely rare.   like not even a shard a day.. that hard..  this camp will take some time but is worth doing.

the fighter/casters guild quest is a roadblock... but its just the first of many.. yes its a long camp...yes its a pain.... but that's what the entire server is set up like.
we only have so much content and people don't want to run through it in a few months.   this could be changed .... but the ability to repop zones at will is not something they are going to hand out like candy.

thank you for the insightful post! hang tough past the caster guild and qvic is tons of fun:) you are just at the very very start...

 ;D

Great insight into a new EZ Player, thanks for the post.

Good thoughts - I agree with you about the Spider... should be hard for sure... but currently it's impossible without outside help. (unless that's the intention?) - the entire rest of EZ content is possible, if very hard and time consuming, without outside help

I definitely wouldn't get your charm v25's in LDoN... that sounds like a nightmare... possibly v10 or 20 on oracle for your healer (each ten levels increases the healing/dps of the charm)... UC1 (level 50 of all 4 types) is where the real jump in goodness starts

Charms are super fast and easy in ToFS 2 or the daily dungeons... - but like you said, you can't touch that content for a long time

Good post Moruk a lot of this confirms what I suspected regarding difficulty for new players. I know this because I remember how hard it was myself even before there were any higher tiers - plus fg and cg kits were sold in packs and the economy was active. Sometimes in the end game it's difficult to recall just how much work went into getting where you are. That said, it's good EZ is hard, but a little more guidance and tweaking here and there couldn't hurt.

I think only a specific type of hardcore player is willing to figure it all out and do all the grinding. This type of hardcore requirement results in having end game folks who can be a bit rough around the edges - even overly competitive. If you like it, please stay. If you have suggestions, make them. If you hate it, there's always p99 ;)

Interesting take. I have to disagree, though. I went through all you're going through, and did it when the server way FAR FAR FAR less "newbie" friendly....and when you had nowhere near the options and advantages available to newer players now. Did I do it alone? Usually, yes.....but not completely, not always.....but almost always with people (guildmates) who needed the content as much or more than I did.

When I started here I knew a TON about Everquest. I was always my guild's go to guy for game knowledge, and knew most of Allakhazam by heart. I rapidly discovered that this was meaningless here, and in some ways a handicap, since EZ was so different. So I asked questions, and experimented. The forums at the time were....a mess, honestly, so I asked players in the game, half of whom either intentionally misled/trolled me or simply gave me bullshit info because THEY didnt really know. This is a big reason why I created the EZ Guide and later, at Akk's request,  the EZ wiki (http://wiki.eqemulator.org/p?EZ_Server_Main).

Some observations from a long time "rough around the edges, overly competitive"  EZ "vet" whos pretty much seen and tried it all here:


This is why the wiki are divided into sections. No need to absorb it all in one chunk (no pun intended). Its very easy to tackle things a section at a time.


Honestly when I first started I thought so as well....but I've since realized its very very simple. It all boils down to understanding how the syntax works. Get that down and mq2 is ridiculously easy. The posts and wiki help with this. As far as "computer skills", none are needed, other than learning a keyboard. Or are you trying to use a version other than mqemulator.net and compiling on your own? A big help is to not look at all the // and / as programming, but as chat commands (which is what they are).

Basics of the syntax; /bct <charname> //command tells a single boxed character to perform that command. Examples might be /bct moruk //assist Chunka, or /bct moruk //keypress 6, etc

/bca //command tells every other box beside the one you're running from to perform that command. Examples might include /bca //assist moruk on one line, then /bca //attack, or //keypress 6, etc. This would make every box assist you then hit hotkey 6 on every one of those characters. Set up key 6 on all those boxes to click epics, cast spells, do special abilities, etc and you can control your box army easily.


/bcaa //command tells ALL boxes in the EQBC channel to do the command. One might do /bcaa //useitem 19 (if you in game type /useitem it shows what each slot number is....in this case its feet slot), or /bcaa //itemnotify feet rightmouseup (another way of doing the same thing) and all your characters would right click their boots (which when all have T2 or later boots means they'd gate to nexus).

Again, all this is in the wiki, in the section labeled "Boxing".


PEBKAC, 100% (google if you need to). ANY 6 box team that makes any sense whatsoever (meaning warrior or SK to tank, though SK will have troubles, solid heals and some decent dps) can kill Terrorantula with buffbot buffs and no other help. You simply have to use what each class brings to the table. If someone tells you that there's no way you can do it on your own, they're wrong, and its easy to prove. Hell, ask around....tons of players (recently) have killed Terrorantula without help or higher end buffs.

I often say "this isnt EQ", but in some ways basic EQ knowledge is needed here. Non custom spells, AA, discs, abilities are for the most part the same as live....as are some basic mechanics. I can see where you'd have issues if you dont know basics. Otherwise....follow the wiki and guide and you can take down starter mobs pretty much with your team naked without any higher end help. I've proven this to more than one by doing just that (yes, i have a ton of level 70 characters laying around made just for this purpose....even have a testing lowbie guild). One other thing you REALLY need to look at is your basic skills. EZ levels you SO ridiculously fast that its not at all uncommon to hit 70 and have core skills that would get a level 30 killed in Mistmoore. Check 1hs, 2hs, defense, offense, dual wield, parry, dodge, alteration, blah blah blah. Granted you eventually max all these in the FG/CG, but for starters low skill levels will get ya killed. Also....basic AA! CS/CA, Planar Power, Durability, etc. Good idea to spend some time AAing a little, at least, to make sure you have the basics covered.....at the very least on your tank, if nothing else.

Either way,  two basic paths to get past this:

Hard way: figure out how defensive and stonewall discs work on your warrior, and use em. Understand how Focus of Heal level 1 buff works, and why you must ALWAYS have it on your healers. Learn the disc/aa abilities on classes like zerker and monk that will pump a groups basic dps, and use them wisely. Understand that one healer per group here probably aint gonna work; thats one of the best messages you can take away from the 1.5 epic fights.

Easy way: send a character, even a level 45 bard, to Jaggedpine to farm greater lightstones, make SLS from them and use them to buy 1.5 kills. I doubt you'd have a hard time getting a needful player to do all 10 page kills and Terrorantula for you for a SLS.....and SLS farming even for a completely naked newbie takes very little time. SLS are used for tons of crafters guild items, and sell for 250K each. Again, a level 45 or 50 bard can solo these things easily, and could, if you use the tools available to you here, farm 3 to 5 per hour with almost zero effort. I'll let you do the math....it hurts an ogre's head.


Ok, I edited the wiki to make this a little clearer....sorry! Now reads, in Epic Beginning section, LDON/2.0 portion, "You'll do the same on each level, handing a stone of descent to the NPC at the end of each. If you die on these levels, you'll have to start again from level one unless someone rezzes you! So be careful. After you hand the stone to the NPC on level 5, you get a key and a flag for lvl 6 (JUST on the character handing in on 5, so make sure all boxes have a stone when you hit 5th floor!)" with the important part in bold. Hope that helps. As for upgrading charms, this is an ongoing process.


Its only important to finish these quests if you want to play here :D They arent hard, just time consuming. Pretty basic though. As for needing free waypoint maker, you do not. it helps, yes, but I did 40 or 50 sets before I ever got the waypoint maker. If nothing else, spend 10K and make an instance. Its not as if cash here is hard to make. Even a level 45 solo bard can be a multimillionaire inside of a day (see above).


Wrong, 100%. If something as quick and easy as completing this quest throws you, then you definitely wont like this server. In a way thats what some of these quests are for: gut checks to inform you whether or not further gameplay will be something you're interested in. Work the system and it does not take to long, though.


Qvic is rough, no doubt about it. Its supposed to be. But yeah, you need 2.5s to work it, on a few classes at the least. Work on CG/FG and LDON, and its not that hard. As for LDON armor.....I used to tell folks to not bother with it, just spend points on charms. I no longer tell them this. If you're having a hard time, use cards and armor up your team....because cards are no longer 4 per armor piece, they are 1 per piece. After you have the gear you need, can turn em in to increase oracles on healers, or sorcerors on zerkers (those are 2 biggest impact) or guardian on warrior, short term, for defenses. I changed the wiki a while back to reflect this....in the section "Charms, Ultimate or Not", under Farm Charming: " Anymore drop rates are fast enough that not many bother with points. Because of this, and because armor from LDON cards is 1 card per piece, LDON is a GREAT place to gear up a little before Qvic, using cards.".

Overall, I think you're a perfect example of the type player we need on EZ: you're analytical, driven, eager and you do your research. You're also the reason why I made the guide and wiki in the first place (well, players like you). You just need to tweak things a little....and gain some of the info that ISNT in the wiki (intentionally, I will admit....not everything should be spoon fed, as soooo many here tell me, and I have to agree with them).

But....EZ MAY not be for you. No matter how you slice it this is a time consuming hobby. If you want it all, and want it now, you need to play WoW or any of the 1000 MMO's out there like it. This game takes TIME....and honestly I wouldnt have it any other way. Use the tools, experience the content......make a shit load of different characters and try out what works for you! Dont follow the constant cries of "Oh, you need a warrior, 2 pallies and 4 zerkers". Have some FUN. Experience the content and learn from it, because you'll need that training later.

However, if your idea of fun is churning through content in a few weeks til you've "beaten" it then finding another game.....again, this may not be the place for you. EZ is VERY similar to classic EQ (NOT P99 or current live) in that its a time commitment. If you decide this isnt for you, very much understood, and no one holds it against you.

Either way, thanks for the input!

mq2 is a nightmare, its one of those things where you really need lines like chunka just laid out to make it function. I was on the server for a year and almost full t8 before i even figured out how to make all my melee toons attack one target  from a single button.. and i still /bccmd quit'd my enchanter and druid because i never could satisfactorly toss them in a second channel or get them to not rampage suicide. At worst i'd just give them non melee items in the main slot so they couldnt attack things lol.

FG/CG stuff is a pain. When money is tight i'd recommend making a single guild instance of it (money is steep but it lasts 3 days). Worst case scenario, and i know being a beggar sucks, is asking in /ooc for someone to make a guk guild instance for you and invite a couple of your toons. It's totally free for us to make, and believe me, we were ALL in your shoes at some point. Also there's alternatives to some of the mobs, like the lizard by the waterfall in dreadlands that drops (i think) an FBR which is easier than messing with najena. There's a gnome in steamfont that drops a SMR a lot more often than the archmagi in guk, etc....

I always thought the spider in Sro was a brutal step up as well. And that was before the adds. The only real defense you have against it is there is plenty of bored AFK people out there that would be more than happy to snuff it for you. It's a bottleneck to you doing stuff on your own again, just accept the help.

Qvic is a beast. Luckily qvic also is something bored folks waiting for new content would be more than happy to run you through once or twice. And believe  me, the armor and epic upgrades from getting some free qvic runs under your belt will make your ldon/epic quest - type backflagging worlds easier to do on your own.

One thing the info out there may not reflect - Ldon armor cards are only 1 card per upgraded armor piece now, not 4.  So it's a LOT more 'worth it' than it used to be. But one bored higher level player can get your qvic armor instantly which bypasses that useful tidbit... so /shrug. As a side note, the game gets a TON more fun in PoDragons, Hohonor, ToFS, minis, etc... There's a lot less linear progression and a lot more 'what sounds more entertaining to do today' options out there once you crest out of qvic. Qvic armor/epic 3.0 is the bottleneck you slowly ease your way through, then its super fun again.

Then T5 will make you pull your hair out. :) Welcome aboard. Its a fun server :)

Excellent food for thought in all the replies, I appreciate it!

I didn't go into any detail on why mq2 was giving me trouble, because I thought my post was too long and also wanted to focus on content.

I'm a software developer so stuff like mq2 is my bread and butter.  I understand every piece of it, I've even tweaked half the macros I use to better fit my playstyle.  What is giving me fits is that fact that for some reason, it just plain doesnt work about half the time.  What I mean is, I start eqbcs, then mq2, then I fire up a character.  It's a crap shoot on whether or not I get the in game mq2 window and commands are recognized.  I've never figured it out.

This same crap happened to me when I was on the other server.  That server only supported Underfoot so my mq2 folder was different.  For this server I started from scratch, downloaded the ROF2 client, the ROF2 / classic MQ2 version, etc.  Sometimes it works when I launch a character, sometimes it doesnt.  When it *does* work, I never exit mq2 unless I just have to, it will usually keep working until I quit it for whatever reason.

I've tried all the obvious stuff - run as admin, etc etc, I've just never been able to nail down why it's so iffy when it decides to work.  Windows 8.1 64bit, 32gb of ram, sometimes I have other VM's running but i never noticed that to be a factor on if it works or not. 

Oh well it seems stable at the moment, I just wont reboot any time soon :)


Anyway, back to the game.  I'm headed to go get another 1.5 for my warrior the next time I'm on, then I'll probably go ahead and get at least warrior ldon armor.  Terrantula boy wont know what hit him.

MUST run RoF2, EQBC and MQ2 all in admin mode for it to mesh properly using the RoF2 version.

Assuming you're running Underfoot or RoF2 (acquired from a download link via EZ Forums or wikis) - and the respective MacroQuest (and EQBCServer) downloaded from http://mqemulator.net/downloads.php (http://mqemulator.net/downloads.php) - I've never had a problem with it.

Most of the time, people have problems because they downloaded some other version of MacroQuest, or a paid version ("gold"), or tweaked the code, etc...

IDK why it would be giving issues.

Glad to have you on board.

Like Chunka said - MQ boils down to three commands

/bct Nameofcharacter //command
/bca //command
-and-
/bcaa //command

bct tells one person to do something
bca tells all but the one giving the command to do something
bcaa tells everyone including the command giver to do something.

Then just add commands

/bca //target Akkadius ... /bca //stick 15
/bct nameofhealer //cast 5...
/bcaa //ooc I'M A PRINCESS!!!!!

This post is all you need to get started with your bot team and mq2.
http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=3803.msg48712#msg48712

yea channels is where  its at for mq2... i have the following..

/melee (obviously melee toons)
/caster (I don't run casters anymore..but its still an active channel.)
/hand   ( Love this one.. all the toons with main hand click's that are fun are in this one.  monk/zerk/pally ect... its attached to my attack key)

then you can /bct melee /bct caster  and so forth..

I have never had the problem you are having with mQ2 I don't have a clue what would cause it to be random...

what really helped me out was when I was struggling the mighty struggle with my original group in qvic a nice ubber player (Nottle) took me on a run up to tier 4 on my warrior.. it took him a day but after that I was able to handle qvic and gear up the rest of my group and move forward...

main point is focus on the tank above everything...

and if you get stuck just ask for help... most of the players on this server love to give a helping hand:)

How do you get a toon into more than 1 channel? I still don't know how to do that.

somat like

1 channel = /bccmd channels melee
2 channel = /bccmd channels melee pets
3 channel = /bccmd channels caster pets dps

and so on. use whatever channel name you want

Red

O damn that helps a lot... ty sir.

Or run in a public folder.

Strike augs are free in the fighters guild once you have access, Albeit they will be level 1. That will up your dps quite alot for your group. And I would go the route of farming a few Superior Light Stones as stated. Pay someone for a qvic run for your warrior then u can have access to cazic and postorms. VERY NICE weapon upgrade there free of charge once u have that zone access about 1k damage per weapon on 1 handers,  also the weapons aren't Lore. If you haven't gotten access by the time I get off work I will gladly help you out with it free of cbarge aND i have doNE the sam for many every since. I was handed the same courtesy by someone when I started made the game so much easier.  My chr name is Extinct and Limpie. I normally play those toons.

I am always back farming Qvic/Ct essences. If you see me on hit me up for a run through either.

I thought that was the crafters guild?  I've had access to the fighters guild for a while now and I dont see any strike augs.

So get crafters guild access on a few chars. Its not as if it takes much time at all, or costs much cash. You can do the entire quest without farming a damned thing....dont have to swing a weapon once to get any of the items, and can do the flag inside 90 minutes without much effort.

Honestly, I am baffled as to why more players DONT flag their melee just for the starter augs...or flag at least one casters guild flagged char to make mana necks.

Here's some numbers for ya:

Ninjastrike I adds a 4K proc to any weapon its slotted into, and works at level 70. Any NS class can slot 2 of them at least (one in each hand).
Firestrike I adds 2K to knights and zerkers
Icestrike adds 1K for all other melee and priests

Mana neck is a lot pricier to make to start with, because there is no free rank....but later its less expensive. Casters wearing a mana neck, when they nuke, get added spell damage, for one, that stacks with UC/sorc, AND gives pets a short term buff that gives pets a proc with the same damage as a firestrike aug of the same level as the mana neck. So.....make a mana neck 1 for your mage and he immediately adds 2K proc to each hand on their pet...in addition to any other procs the pet may get.

Use the guides and wiki, crafters guild your characters. Its worth it.

Oh, and just an FYI: farming ONE SLS (which takes very little time) will pay for materials to flag 3+ characters, easily.

I appreciate the information, really I do.  But there is only so many hours in the day, I just havent gotten to the crafters guild get.  1.5 x6, 2.0 x6, fighters / caster guild x6, 2.5 x6, 3.0 x6,  15 qvic tokens x6, you get the point.  I'm not being lazy I asked a legitimate question :)

Yeah... Fighters guild will give you the Anger Augs I to use for warriors... you have to get the Fire, Ice and Ninja from the Crafters guild. Utilize the forum Wiki's and that will help you speed thru the Crafters guild flag. Just need to get 1 toon flagged to get strike augs for your toons.. as long as you uprade them to rank II they are tradeable from what I remember.

And set goals on what you want to do when you log in. This game has ALOT to do as far as upgrading armor, epics, strike augs, charms etc.. all of which can be overwhelming but just plan out what you want to do for that play session and go at it. Above all.. just have fun!

Have to agree, just setting a goal and breaking it down piece by piece is the best way overall to do it. Especially if you have limited play time availability.

What they said! If you have a set goal when you log in you can time manage a lot better. I'm in the same boat you are.....work and family eat up a ton of my time lately (lots of 14 hour work days). Often I'm only on for an hour, maybe 2. Best part about EZ is that you can still get a lot accomplished even with short play time.

An update:
 
I read through original post and it comes off as really negative.  That wasn’t my intent so I thought I’d post a follow up now that I have a better understanding of the server.  I’m having a blast, and I think I’m pretty on track with my progression.

-        The buff bot is fantastic.  These buffs are typically all I have on, my group of 6 has a cleric and a paladin and so far I don’t even bother using their buffs.  This will obviously change as I progress.  Almost every night I’m on someone advertises uber buffs at the nexus which is insanely helpful, but I mostly miss those though due to being inattentive to ooc ;)

-        All my mq2 problems are solved (hopefully).  I don’t really use many mq2 features, I really just use the map, and auto login.  I wish there was a way to find out the server number without actually trying to log in.  It’s not something that is published by eqemulator from what I can see.  I thought I’d get lucky by web scraping and finding server id’s hidden in the html but no luck.

-        I’ve done up to epic 3.0 on 5 of my 6 (haven’t done cleric yet).  What a HUGE dps increase from 2.5 to 3.0.  The berserker in particular, if I have a big pull stuff just falls over dead.  I’m really having to restrain myself from shelving the rogue and making another berserker.

-        Fighters/Casters guild:  the first quest I did took forever.  I was not very well geared (only up to epic 1.5 and bits of qvic armor) and didn’t have any cash to create my own instances.  The better geared my characters became, the more I was able to send them all out at once to camp things simultaneously.  I sold 2 SLS’s to afford the zone repops and that made all the difference.  I’d almost like to see a disclaimer on the wiki that tells the noobs like me to not to start these quests until they farm the plat for instance creations.  For the most part, these camps are really dull and boring.  There are two exceptions though:  Reavers and hunter/forager.  Those are actually interactive and fun, I wish it were possible to make the other camps more like these two.

I greatly appreciate that npc in the guild that maxes out your skills.  Previously I’d left my noobs online attacking the practice dummy trying to get offense / defense skills.

-        Crafters guild:  I finished this quest yesterday on my warrior.  I didn’t even try to start this quest until I finished out all the tradeskill aa’s.  I didn’t keep track of the plat I spent, but as far as time goes, it took me about 4 hours I’d guess.   If I were to do it again on another character it would be significantly faster since I didn’t really know what I was doing the first time and had to really follow the wiki and google a bunch of stuff.  Now that I’m inside I haven’t done anything yet, I’d like to make a couple ninja augs but I haven’t gotten to that yet.  I did end up leveling an enchanter to 49 though so I could enchant my own stuff.  I kept failing combines and it was difficult to find online enchanters at times.

-        After I do the 3.0 for the cleric, it’s back to qvic.  I screwed up and deleted some armor on my warrior because I was given waaay better armor by a kind player (WatchYouDie).  I hadn’t looked into beyond qvic at that time so I didn’t know it was necessary to have that armor in order to make CT armor.  Now that I’m nearly all epic 3.0’d and have pretty much maxed out aa’s for level 71, finishing off these missing pieces will be a breeze.  When I get to a point to where the progression armor is finally as good as or better than the armor WatchYouDie gave me, I plan on either returning it or paying it forward to another new player.

-        I need to put Kiwis on my ignore list (sarcasm).  I have truly lost track of how many qvic and ct runs he’s done with me gobbling up the loot and aa’s.  I think I’ve only actually cleared qvic fully twice by myself, and I’ve never cleared CT yet I have almost every armor piece from there already.  I don’t even know where to begin to pay him back.

-        I’m really making a lot of use of the xls that was linked in the guide.  I have to hide a bunch of tabs to make it manageable for my current progression, but overall it’s a serious time saver.

-        I still maintain that the spider for the 1.5 epic is out of whack for truly new players.  At that point you really don’t have but maybe 10 aa’s and the free 1.0’s, and there is nothing but primitive agro control using class skills like cyclone blade.  Not like it matters anyway, the big spider and all those adds chew through a noob tank in a matter of seconds.  I believe my warrior had around 9k hit points at that level.  I know Chunka disagrees but that was my experience.

 

Grats and very thought out post... and i'll say you'll disagree with Chunka on a lot of points... but you have to think of the spider for 1.5 as the Progression checkpoint to make sure you are ready to move to the next level..you will find this wall again when you hit T5 (some will say T2 Kronos but i didnt hit it until T5). Also i have something for you Moruk i forgot to give it to you last night.... as for the rogue...bench him and make another zerker if you feel you want to....or make a 2nd group and put him in there. remember all points lead to bigger damage! lol

Irsmart/Whispering
Guild Leader of Ancient Elite

I would be careful with the min maxing on this server.. its so tempting but really in end game a rouge is fantastic!

the zerk is pretty much always fantastic so he does make more sense...less $$ to max out the firestrike over the ninja's but it s all about what you want to do.

The spider is Way OP .. I died with my original crew at least 20 times before someone helped me kill this thing.. it was not even close.. Yes my group makeup was probably horrid.. but its way early in game for new players to figure out what works and what don't.

Honestly if the adds would just spawn like 1 or 2 at a time so that you could have a shot at aggro control that would be way better.. kind of a krono type thing where you can spend all day killing adds but you gain nothing until you kill the real deal.... /shrug

I assume the armor you where given is blue diamond armor and that is way way better than what you could possibly get yourself.

long story short is keep plugging away and have....but try not to worry about min/max... just about the time you figure it out they will "adjust" a class and you will have to change it anyway lol:)

I will concur, as I have done for the past year, that the spider is way to hard. fortunately, lots of people are more than willing to kill it for us nublets or uber-buff us so that it isn't a problem.

I'd recommend actually running CT once or twice by yourself, with only buff bot buffs on. That was probably one of my favorite early zones (at least the first few times I ran it - after 20 it does get old ;) ).

check out this post  (http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=3851.msg61076#msg61076)for how to set up a script that will find the proper server number and put it in the autologin script. You'll still need to log in one character manually, then the autologin can do the rest.

I was looking for a way to completely automate this step, I keep both eqlsPlayerData.ini and MQ2AutoLogin.ini open in Notepad++ for easy editing, but I dont want to edit them daily because I'm lazy.  I'm a software developer so I was hoping to be able to look at the eqemulators web site and somehow pick out the server ID from the html.  If I were successful in finding that number it would be trivial for me to write a quick app that polls that site every minute/hour/day whatever and update my 2 files for me.  But I cant find that server id, I dont think it's advertised.

I see everyone talking about Terrorantula being sooo hard.  It's not that it is too hard you just need to have more healing than the damage taken (follow this rule through each tier) Heck I did it with a paladin when I first started and they don't tank nearly as well as a "true" tank.

And the eye liner is to die for!

Sorry, couldnt resist :D And I will agree with IRS on both points. Min/maxing here is almost pointless (some classes with issues aside, like beastlord) because as you progress things can dramatically change for a class. What seems awesome in T4 or T5 may be bleh T6 or 7, then again after T8 decent again. As for the rogue....if you are seeking a class to UW after your tank, this is the one. DPS on even a UW4 rogue is insane. UW4 will literally outdamage T9 dagger and ninjastrike XI because of the insane backstabs. Get that UW higher and its nuts. Right now my UW6 rogue does almost as much dps as my UWXI warrior. But even before the UW a rogue will do more single target dps than any other non UW melee once you get a Twhip offhand and max your ninjastrikes (yes, more than the monk).

Zerk dps IS insane, and its smart to make them a major part of your team. MAKE SURE you examine the disc and AA zerks get carefully.....they get some abilities that help their entire group.

As for the spider.....never said she was easy :D She's a gut check, and a rough one. But....put together some numbers and present them to Hateborne. He DOES pay attention to player input, and he will make changes based on such, but you need to be thorough (we get "mob X is too hard!!" all the time from even veteran players here, nevermind new fish :D He has to make certain its a needed change).

I dont think numerical input will really matter.. It's simply the fact Terrorantula doesnt need to be spawning 10 adds at once.. maybe one at a time every 10% or something... You dont see adds like that till qvic/t2 on the progression line and even those dont spawn so many at once.

At the level of progression you face Terror at, you dont have many aggro control tools at the disposal... What Cyclone Blade? I'm not even sure if the AE taunt AA works, and I'm pretty sure a player at that point on the progression timeline doesnt have that many AAs earned anyways. Even if they do there's about 20 things on the AA agenda more useful than a slow cool down AE taunt.

Heck even Master of Weaponry doesnt release that many adds at once. And to those that say this isn't important - I argue the contrary. This is often times the very first thing players tackle after hitting level 70. It's a pretty brutal wake up call. Nothing in Plane of Time or Ldon is that annoying/difficult. People dont register on message boards to suggest a change in this. They simply stop playing and server pop drops off. Just a minor tweak needed, really :)

I couldn't agree more!  The difficulty in Terrorantula isn't with the incoming dmg, it is with the adds running around and eating the healers.  Prior to having Nerds 5, Hatestomp, etc.  Managing that AE threat with a warrior is quite taxing.  Granted, I only wiped on this fight hideously once, and quickly recognized I needed help.

I will definitely agree, when Hunter dropped in the adds on the spider it was overkill. It was challenging enough to new players before.

Why nerf stuff and make it easy...hell use what ya got.  Most EVERYONE on this server rolls a paladin and at lvl 70 you should have Dread Gaze...its an AoE hate....tank the damn spider with your warrior and offtank adds with paladin.  Make it seem like it is an unbeatable feat but its not...just use what ya got.  Hell the paladin will even heal while its offtanking.

Correct, having pally tank it is a simple solution; so it is not an unsolvable problem.  But you are asking player new to the server to convert their healer to a tank for 1 fight in the game.  In content that is below the tiers... That to me seems illogical, but to each his/her own.  Just my 2cp.

You don't have to convert anything...you just use the pally to tank the adds....sheesh even a new player (assuming they have read the wiki and understand paladins are a good, possibly best healing class in the game) to use a toon they should have already made to OFF TANK the adds...hell if you played on live you should know about off tanking.  It isn't rocket science.  Dumbing down SIMPLE content to appease newbies is a waste of time, that could be better spent on say T10 and above. ::)

It's not a nerf, it's a matter of having it make sense and problem solve it. The style of the encounter is far more hectic than anything that follows it.. Plane of Timea is straightforward.. Nothing out of the ordinary in Ldon either.. Even MOW has a more obvious, linear spawning of adds. Thats all i'm inquiring about. To have it make more sense.

Because this is not some trivial thing. This is about the first real hurdle new players have to jump, and it might be a bit too overwhelming. Why should we care? Because new players are the lifeblood to EZ server. People stop playing for X amount of reasons, take breaks, many come back, many don't. But something like this is very important to the future of the server. Players need to be able to do this with a variety of different group make-ups:

P99 is an obvious source of new players, PEQ, Stormhaven, whatever..... Paladins aren't an obvious 'must-have' when someone is making toons and having their first go. Hell I applaud the ones that ask questions in /ooc, and not just because it allows us to make fun of the beastlords. Those are the ones that want to understand, and will likely make it far enough on the trek of EZ to get hooked. They'll get far enough to read the wiki. No one reads the instructions before playing a game. Thats part of the experience. We don't want them hitting the wall before they have the chance to get hooked and do it properly. :)

If i wanted to waste dev time, I'd demand they drop everything and make GSOA's stackable. That would be a total waste of dev time. <3

The posts leading up to this were expressing the same thing. This post is a great example of how to be thorough, opinionated, but not throat f@$%ing me with his/her opinion. For now, the spider adds are disabled.


-Hate

We love you Hate (no homo)  ;D