Lack of excitment

Vikken · 06-26-2004

I find it sad that lately I've actually had to debate whether or not I should bother even logging in to trader-mode.

I'm not even sure what's changed lately. I have quests I want to complete, but from experience I know that the reward will have little to no percievable impact on my tanking ability. I remember doing my noob armor quests with my druid when I was new to the game. It was an awesome experience wandering around Kelethin and the Faydark looking for components. I couldn't wait to log in each day and work knowing that my time was not wasted on some invaluable trinket. I wore that armor until I was in my 40's, when I started replacing a few pieces with acrylia studded that I made myself through working up my tailoring skill, and then camping in the elysians in the Umbral Plains from my elysian armor, which I still use today.

Contrast that with the fact that the only way I get upgrades now is through the bazaar, both for my warrior and druid. I miss being able to look forward to working (not farming pp) towards my next upgrade.

I'm just wondering, what happened to EQ?

Partha · 06-26-2004

You've hit the ceiling of truly casual content.

As someone else said, once you get Ornate and the best of the Bazaar gear, it doesn't get you any new content, it just allows you to do the older content you were already doing easier. Yawn.

NinjaBurger · 06-26-2004

Yep, you just hit that glass celing for casuals. You'll either do adventures or hope for mudflation to get yourself better gear and more content.

Glatius2 · 06-26-2004

Quote:

Contrast that with the fact that the only way I get upgrades now is through the bazaar, both for my warrior and druid. I miss being able to look forward to working (not farming pp) towards my next upgrade.

I was involved in a really big debate over on Monkly Business about this very topic. The thread is dying now, which is probably just as well since all the important points on both sides of the issue have pretty much been covered. Sometimes very vehemently, the opinions on the topic vary a LOT. But my perception is that SoE has continued to lift the difficulty bar each expansion since PoP without giving the non-raider player a real opportunity to advance appropriately to meet it.

Of course many people pointed to LDoN as the non-raider improvement path. And then we had the non-raider who responded that to get where they felt they had most of the improvements out of LDoN they needed, they'd been working at it for 40 hours a week for 9 months. Hardly something most people are going to be able to reasonably accomplish.

I've left the game myself because I've hit the wall. The point where investing more time and energy into the game gives such minuscule returns that even if you tested before and after, the change falls well within the margin of error. SoE, imho, has really screwed the pooch in that they've tied up the majority of the content, the majority of the worth while items, and the majority of the progress into raiding. It used to be that raiding was an extra added to the game. Something you did when you wanted EQ+. These days it has turned into the game and if you're not doing it you're getting EQ lite.

They've fumbled the ball, badly. It really is debatable whether or not they'll even realize it and pick it back up, in as much as they obviously put a great deal of stock into what the raiding population thinks, and this particular issue is one that doesn't negatively impact the raiding population and many raiders are pretty strongly against changing.

Mokor Leadheaad · 06-26-2004

you could have quested for stuff for the twinks but a few hundred pp and well most of the quested stuff becomes junk due to mudflation.

Vikken · 06-26-2004

Glass ceiling eh? I guess you guys are correct. I just never realized how close I was, especially with Vikken.

Glatius, could you link that thread? Also, I agree, LDoN should have been our (non-raider's) solution to gear progression, but the devs really failed on execution. At 65, LDoN is a major grind for non-raiders even by optimistic, but still realistic, estimates. Its even worse if your are not 65. Vikken spent most of his time leveling in LDoN, but he's just now got to where he can buy the level 45 armor in MM at 55, and that's just one piece, of which he could have and has bought better in the bazaar, for multiple slots. I still believe the point rewards are too little and don't scale correctly with the item costs.

Vikken · 06-26-2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokor Leadheaad

you could have quested for stuff for the twinks but a few hundred pp and well most of the quested stuff becomes junk due to mudflation.

Well, LDoN is a quest if you think about it, but even then I've still ended up buying upgrades instead. LDoN would/should have been the ultimate non-raiders progressive quest. However, since you can't turn the gear back in, there really is no point in spending your much more valuable time earned points for shitty gear when it's best to just buy upgrades hoping one day to be able to spend those points on something worthwhile.

And this isn't because the buyable gear in the bazaar is underpriced. IMO, on my server fierce heraldic is right where it needs to be for the income that is attainable by those who would find the gear useful.

Glatius2 · 06-26-2004

Here is the link.

http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusin...ID=46011.topic

Partha · 06-27-2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by crystalmatrix

Glass ceiling eh? I guess you guys are correct. I just never realized how close I was, especially with Vikken.

Glatius, could you link that thread? Also, I agree, LDoN should have been our (non-raider's) solution to gear progression, but the devs really failed on execution. At 65, LDoN is a major grind for non-raiders even by optimistic, but still realistic, estimates. Its even worse if your are not 65. Vikken spent most of his time leveling in LDoN, but he's just now got to where he can buy the level 45 armor in MM at 55, and that's just one piece, of which he could have and has bought better in the bazaar, for multiple slots. I still believe the point rewards are too little and don't scale correctly with the item costs.

It's not even so much that in my eyes - it's then what do you do? If you've done your tour of the lower tiers in PoP and (depending on your guild) tried stuff like Xanamech and Rumblecrush and the like, at some point you're running into the problem that the gear you upgrade may make it easier to do what you're already trying, but there's nothing beyond it. What's locked away is locked away behind timed flag mobs and incredibly long key quests that - even if by some miracle you get your key/flag/whooziz, requires you to have 40-50 (casual) folks to bypass some part of the content, if not more.

Vikken · 06-27-2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glatius2

Here is the link.

http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusin...ID=46011.topic

Wow, thats a long thread. It's gonna take me a long while to get through all that, but the quotes from Absor are disturbing. It's hard to believe that someone could be so out of touch.

Apsu · 06-27-2004

Reading those pages linked above, I just felt like I was reading a dialogue between whiners and realists. I am a casual player, although I do raid often, I'm not uber because we are a small guild. I wasn't "old" for EQ mainstream player base when I first started, but I guess I am now .. do I really need to describe to you the kinds of games my brother and I spent hours and hours on day after day for months at a time on?( Frogger anyone? pacman? or the uber advanced Ms. pacman?) With graphics that basically never changed? If you're bored with EQ --fine, you're bored with EQ -- noone ever said a game was supposed to keep your interest for the rest of your life. But i don't see how this is EQ's fault. A guildy recently linked his fully stacked 1400 or whatever point ldon bp in guild chat and I was imediately pissed that it was so much better than my raided for ornate bp (minus the buff which everyone says is useless anyway, but i love it ) , but I stopped and thought a min about the amount of time and work he put into getting that, and realized he deservered it.

EQ has been a time sink since day one -- since the day I sat my ass on a boat for 30 min just watching the scenery -- then realized I had to make a corpse run on the boat 5 min after getting off it and possibly fail and have to do it all over again, and again, and again. It was true back then, if you don't enjoy riding a boat for hours trying and retrying to retreive your corpse, humiliatingly begging other players for a hand, then so what? don't play. But don't whine to SoE for creating an entirely unique experience which is challenging as hell just because you had a hard time.

That path to progression outlined on the first page of that link is completely viable if you don't want to take it, fine, but it is all one groupable, I'm doing it in weaker gear than the one groupers I see in top ldon gear, but it is a time sink -- it has always been a time sink, and it has always been (especially for warriors) entirely dependent upon the relationships you build in EQ and how much you can do with them. ldon - hard ldon - god is possible ending in time type gear. Raiding will get you superior gear. Both are a HUGE time sink. If you don't enjoy it then you're probably one step ahead of the rest of us irl.

Dakryn · 06-27-2004

Quote:

However, since you can't turn the gear back in, there really is no point in spending your much more valuable time earned points for shitty gear when it's best to just buy upgrades hoping one day to be able to spend those points on something worthwhile.

Hi, raiders dont get to turn in the gear they spent dkp on 2 months ago when they upgrade. Casuals do need to be able *reasonably* keep up with the expansions, and there does need to be content relavent for them.

But whining because "ubers" get to see zones you dont etc is BS. You didnt put in the work,dont complain because you dont have the reward.And saying its not the time but the path is just as much BS.
If I drive for an hour towards point A, and you do the same to point B, dont whine because you arent at point A.

Glatius2 · 06-27-2004

I think that the point was, not that raiders will have a select few zones that only they gain access to, but that a substantial portion of both PoP and GoD have been locked behind flagged zones. And the very people who argued that this was a good thing because it excluded the idiot non-raiders (of course they never admitted that it did nothing to exclude the idiot raiders, and there are plenty of those as well) also claimed that the quests involved in getting the flags outside of a raid were relatively trivial. If they're so easy, why do guilds continually back flag? Why do guilds set up flagging agreements with other guilds? I guess the quests must not be all THAT easy.

Understand this, if the majority of people reach a point where they feel their play style isn't supported adequately by the game, they're going to leave. And that is going to impact SoE and anyone else left in the game. While people may disagree as to whether or not the majority of people feel their style of play is or isn't supported, the numbers don't lie. If subscriptions are going down, there is a reason for that. People who have been playing this game for years are leaving. If the game could hold their attention for 3 and 4 years, yet now they're suddenly deciding to leave, why is that?

Oh and raiders really really need to stop referring to everyone as whiners who doesn't raid and feels that the raid game is over supported in comparison to the player base that it represents. Raiders want their benefits for putting up with raiding, I think everyone knows and understands that. But using that as justification for supporting a status quo that seems to be driving people from the game in droves just cuts off your nose to spite your face. And setting up 1/2 to 3/4 of an expansion behind locked doors is not player friendly. It may be raider friendly, but it most certainly is not player friendly.

Now, if SoE wants to keep moving EQ into the all raid all the time mode, fine, more power to them. Just don't expect to keep people like me as customers. If our happiness as customers is less important than raiders' happiness as customers, I imagine that people who feel like I do will do what I've done, take their money elsewhere.

If people are whiners because they don't want to make a "leisure" activity a second job and commit 40 hours a week to it to still not feel like they're making good progress and have places to go, then so be it. Obviously EQ is becoming a game that is primarily for people who can either focus huges amounts of time on it as a non-raider, are willing to commit almost all their time to raiding, or a accepting of piddly ass progress that isn't even a noticable improvement after months of work. That doesn't strike me as a really "big" draw on people's interest.

Frostpaw · 06-27-2004

I have been both raider and non-raider in EQ (am currently unguilded non-raider), and I just wanted to comment on the issue of time sinks. "Time sinks" and "grinds" keep getting brought up in regards to the non-raiders path through LDoN, GoD, etc. I want to make sure we are all clear about the amount of time sinks and grinding involved in raiding. Emp Keys, Emp Bane, Seru crap, VT Key, BoT access parts, BoT Tower keys, PoP progression Flags, etc..

I am not even close to being one of the hard core raiders that frequent this board, and I have killed some of the mobs in Kael, Ssra, VT, and lower tier PoP dozens of times each in the process of getting people flagged, geared up, etc. The "grinding" you speak of is not limited to the non-raider paths in EQ...IT IS EQ.

On a side note Im not sure I agree about where you say the glass ceiling is in EQ. In my opinion you aren't even close to that glass ceiling with Vikken. Yoiu can level to 65, get many more aa's in a wide variety of places, Improve your gear significantly with just single group stuff, and do a great deal of progression through early PoP, LDoN, and then GoD. Anyway, not saying a ceiling of sorts doesn't exist for non-raiders, but I dont think you can claim to have hit it at level 55 with no aa's.

Glatius2 · 06-27-2004

Quote:

Hi, raiders dont get to turn in the gear they spent dkp on 2 months ago when they upgrade.

Well it seems to me that if acquiring the gear in LDoN was so easy that people should be expecting to gain the same points 2 and 3 times in order to buy the mid-level upgrades rather than waiting on the best possible purchase, then raiders would be plowing through LDoN and purchasing their upgrades as well, right? Wrong. That's not what's happening. Why is that do you think?

Could it be because a raider in the amount of time it would take them to purchase the very best LDoN has to offer can get two or three upgrades for the same slots by raiding? If that's not true, if raiders aren't gaining better gear faster by raiding than by doing LDoN, why aren't more of them doing LDoN?