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I've sat on this for a couple of days, as I'm not entirely sure that I'm qualified to respond. I'm not in T11 yet. I'm not even in T7 yet (almost!). However, you do ask about things on the server that could be addressed. I'm sure you've heard everything across the spectrum, and I wasn't going to respond at all. Then this morning a comment was made in Discord about old content "never being more trivial" in light of current knowledge of the game and server and the availability of end game buffs. As a new-ish player to this server, who has committed a not so trivial amount of time to "only" be T6, I almost walked away from EZ. And that's coming from someone who has enjoyed the server and what it has had to offer. The previous content is not trivial, nor is it not without its faults.
Wings offers a great advantage when it's available. Even with that advantage, T3/T4 you're stuck waiting on token drops and chance drops for characters to gear up and move forward. I don't have the creative brain to suggest a solution, but at some point there's a tipping point where you've "finished" the content and it's punitive to farm the tokens and then have to kill the same NPC 100+ times to get one, singular drop. That's AFTER you've geared 11 other characters fully, with (I wasn't counting) how many other kills along the way. While it's effective at "slowing down" the (apparently trivial) progression through the game, it's also somewhat...unvaried and uninspired.
You've heard plenty on T5. I actually enjoyed T5 and found it a refreshing change in pace from the tedium of T3/T4. It's by far a more enjoyable Tier than T6. However, it leads me to the next point - box/bot management. EZ Server promotes itself as a "Solo boxing server." The wiki says "12 and beyond," but we all know that people are easily running 18. Mage group CoTH is broken, making moving characters around in large zones extremely tedious. For the most part, MQ handles this fairly easily. Occasionally you'll end up with a zone that has broken navmeshes, like Illsalin/Abyss, where you can easily spend several months playing. Without a better bot management system, you're stuck tabbing across 12+ screens trying to move characters "up" over a ledge to get them in line with your primary driver. In game there does exist a mechanic to do this, but it's locked behind a paywall that is reserved for a select few that have been with the server for a period of time, or those who happen to catch a donation window that appears as elusive as the random named(s) in T5. I do not fault bringing down the donation system. However, with group CoTH broken, and no other way at lower tiers to solve this...it's a simple QoL fix that could be adjusted.
Looking forward, I agree with what's previously been said - bane weapons as a whole become a nuisance for a boxing server. Having to keep track of 12+ characters, who has what equipped for which NPC "type" and then switching back, swapping out epic augs along the way, we'd spend more time managing equipment than we would playing the content. Perhaps that's the goal, but if so...it seems less engaging than what I've experienced so far!
I always find the comments/emotes/NPC interactions to be entertaining. Please continue them. As a Type A personality, I know that I could never come up with that level of engagement, so it's fun to see (even the names, like the bosses in T5, were amusing to me). While I don't catch the "lore" behind each tier that I've gone through, I do randomly see the text and get a chuckle the break up the monotony.
Sorry for the gripes - I meant this more as an encouragement that the content itself as presented IS in fact fun and engaging. Each tier has presented new and unique opportunities. Always fun to see some new stuff, and play along with new people.
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