Velious xpac opinions

[Alazarz]

<p>I like this xpac so far <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /> (aside from some class changes) Not a carebear xpac for sure. The contested dungeon Kael Drakkel is awsome,great visuals and atmosphere. You actually have to have a decent group to go in there and farm.On nagafen I can already see some great pvp battles fighting for the nameds in there. Looking foward to that. The Great Divide is cool also, has some good visuals and atmosphere. Eastern Wastes is along the same lines aswell.</p><p>What are some others opinions? Im hoping this expansion can bring back some good veteran players.</p><p>Regards,</p><p>Xaviour of nagafen</p>

[Atragon]

<p>They pretty well reset the treadmill.  Everyone is going crazy over OMG THIS LOOT IS AWESOME but when stacked against new mob abilities you're not much further from where you were in SF.</p><p>I like how the overland zones flow into each other.  SF was just islands with no real rhyme or reason as to why mobs are where they are. Comparmentalizing your zones is very limited thinking.  Lots of cool storylines that go with the quests with a great reduction on "Get me X items and then walk back over the zone to turn them in."</p><p>My only complaint is AA curve needs to be looked over again. </p>

[Rijacki]

<p>I'm enjoying the expansion. I love the artwork I have seen thus far. I'm enjoying the quests and the lore. I like the challenges.</p>

[noluuk]

<p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p>

[Alazarz]

<p><cite>noluuk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p></blockquote><p>Were you in beta? If not, how could you even form an opinion about velious? I do own it and i can tell you its already better than SF ever dreamed of being. It's like a mix of RoK & TsO with a little KoS thrown in there.</p>

[Sleap]

<p>Ive done alot of quests (still more to do) and there are a few quests by the umm.. frozen ice cubed coldain/giants that im stuck on. Like finding the unusualy rock.. been all over the area and have found nothing for that quest. It also appears you need to have a good amount of faction to even get quest  updates in City of Coldain.</p>

[Beef_Supre]

<p><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm enjoying the expansion. I love the artwork I have seen thus far. I'm enjoying the quests and the lore. I like the challenges.</p></blockquote><p>This ^</p><p>I'm really enjoying the little of it I've been able to see so far. Been too busy with kids and RL to see as much as I'd like, but I'm pretty sold on the stuff I've seen.</p><p>Though.. 6.0 weapons for Bruisers?! C'mon. 2.5 or 4.0, you! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /> We're creatures of habit, don't mess with our delays!</p>

[Natturabi]

<p>  Mixed bag for me so far.  I enjoyed the Great Divide portion.  Finished about 100 quests, not sure how many I have missed or need faction before advancing.</p><p>  Eastern Divide has been a little frustrating.  Haven't even finished 50 quests and seems to be winding down.  Thats alot of real estate to cover for that payout.  The terrain has me longing for a flying mount, which I don't have yet.  A couple times I have encountered regular ettin creatures that inexplicably destroy me.  Not sure what the mechanic is, if they have some kind of reflect or what.  Some quest where you cure ill orcs, an ettin attacks.  I engage the mob, barely scratching it, and my health went like 50, 25, dead.  Had to run around and get the updates and leave the ettins up lol.  Then another quest in Crystal Caverns spawns a giant with an ettin buddy.  Kill the giant and turned on the ettin, and he smoked me.  I'm definitely developing an unnatural fear of quest update ettins.</p><p>  Checked out the Kael whatever giant contested zone one night.  Originally had a 3 man group.  Took very long time to kill first trash mob, which had a mana drain at end too.  So we were pretty much tapped out on first trash.  So we got a couple more DPS and the mobs went down more reasonably.  My complaint here is the new mechanic on crit mitigation for the mobs.  I had 100% crit with 70 crit bonus going in.  The mobs must have 100% crit mit, because my crit seemed closer to 0%, which effectively made my crit bonus zero.  I think my DPS on one fight was like 5k working my butt off, when I usually hit close to 20k on auto attack lol.  I'm thinking we may as well quit the zone, cause if this is trash, our chances of killing a name are less than zero.</p><p>  So the bit about heroic contested gets me thinking about raids.  Since our old gear seems beyond obsolete, there is not much reason to go back and do hard modes we never did, or try to work through Underfoot depths.  Not much point in upgrading potency by .2 on an item and a couple crit chance when it will get mitigated to nothingness.  Then you find some trashy legendary piece with 40% crit chance.  Like why couldn't we show a little constraint on these new mechanics.  Or just outright nerf the old gear a little I think would have been preferable to making it effectively obsolete.  And I am a little worried about our chances on new raid encounters from a casual perspective.  I can only assume they are going to be like the heroic mobs on roids.</p><p>  Oh well thats enough disjointed thoughts from me</p>

[Sprin]

<p> I decided to make this expansion a bit more challenging and dust off the old Bruiser long since retired after TSO... His gear is ROK/TSO and he gets pummeled in PVP like he was a wet paper bag, but there have been quite a few fights where I killed or came close to killing 90's I know were in full Challenger gear, which made me giggle-like-a-shool-girl at the thought of him in good expansion gear...</p><p>That being said... the mobs hit like trucks and some fo them have a bit too much HP tbh...  quest junky mobs with 260k HP is a bit on the high side when a non DPS class has to kill 10+ of them to update a quest...   seems a bit much...   I do like the fact they arent one shot wonders for sure, but I think you have to cap it at something for non heroic quest mobs and the damage they do.</p><p>I know this isn't the PVP forums, but hey, im on Nagafen, so I give my opinions about the expansion as a whole.. It seems like they didnt think things through much with PVP... every scout with 400+ Multi attack, coupled with flurry if fine with mobs with 2M+ HP, but a PVP player with 40k HP is gonna get rocked pretty fast when getting multi-attaked / Flurried every 3 seconds for 15 auto attacks at a time...   Considering they didnt make the new PVP gear yet, we will have to see how they do it, but Its gonna make or break Nagafen on how they handle the PVP gear release.</p>

[Chakaadizze]

<p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Chakaadizze@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p></blockquote><p>Soloing is much more of a challange to be sure.  I for one am happy with the changes. </p><p>When in the past my Undergeared Necro pulls mobs iin SB the mobs (lv 90^) drop dead before they even run up to me and swing once.  This all happens in 2-4 seconds..  In this capacity quests are unchallenging and on the boring side.  It turns into a loot fest more like im harvesting nodes rather then a playing experience.</p><p>Now when I pull a mob (lv 86) I look and make sure I'm at full health & power and that I'm pulling to a safe spot when I won't get any adds, which I'm always looking out for.  I can cast and recast spells during a fight which have more then a 20 second recast timer. I am much more engaged then ever before and know that as I gear up more and run dungeons the level of my participations will remain high if I intend to do well.</p><p>I'll admit that as a non-soloing type of class, such as a Templier or Troubador (although they may disagree this is only a thought), they might have a harder time.  There is nothing wrong with grouping up to finish quests or un instances.</p>

[Varinn]

<p>So far, I haven't found the right level of content for my playstyle in this expansion.</p><p>I just tried Kael Drakkell, and I got one shotted for over 30k damage.  I imagine I'll go back when they raise the level cap to 100.</p>

[Minorious]

<p><cite>Xaviour wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>noluuk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p></blockquote><p>Were you in beta? If not, how could you even form an opinion about velious? I do own it and i can tell you its already better than SF ever dreamed of being. It's like a mix of RoK & TsO with a little KoS thrown in there.</p></blockquote><p>He's right. It's trashed! I can't even play with my characters under 85 because of the stat/class changes. Seriously, My account will run out in 1 week with no more subscription. If they don't fix this game, I and thousands of others are gone.</p><p>SOE NEEDS to fix the armor stats to match the class, which they do not anymore.</p>

[Kizee]

<p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chakaadizze@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p></blockquote><p>Soloing is much more of a challange to be sure.  I for one am happy with the changes. </p><p>When in the past my Undergeared Necro pulls mobs iin SB the mobs (lv 90^) drop dead before they even run up to me and swing once.  This all happens in 2-4 seconds..  In this capacity quests are unchallenging and on the boring side.  It turns into a loot fest more like im harvesting nodes rather then a playing experience.</p><p>Now when I pull a mob (lv 86) I look and make sure I'm at full health & power and that I'm pulling to a safe spot when I won't get any adds, which I'm always looking out for.  I can cast and recast spells during a fight which have more then a 20 second recast timer. I am much more engaged then ever before and know that as I gear up more and run dungeons the level of my participations will remain high if I intend to do well.</p><p>I'll admit that as a non-soloing type of class, such as a Templier or Troubador (although they may disagree this is only a thought), they might have a harder time.  There is nothing wrong with grouping up to finish quests or un instances.</p></blockquote><p>I haven't done much except get all my characters started on the gryph quest however I am finding myself not wanting to log into game anymore and that is pretty bad when the expansion isn't a week old.</p><p>I do like the kick up in difficulty of the solo mobs. There was a what the hell moment when my partially raid geared assassin unloaded a flurry bowshot and a full fatal follow up chain with assassinate into a yellow^ SOLO mob and it was still sitting at just over 50% health. lol. I promtly died shortly after hehe.</p><p>My main issues are being forced to solo quest to get my crit and crit mit high enough to do the heroic stuff.... then doing the heroic stuff to get flagged to do the x2... then do the x2 to get a ability to do the x4 raids. Along with major faction grinds to get factions for the adorns.... bleh.</p><p>Add to that..... all the gear I have been seeing just seems bland.... yay more blue stats. /rolls eyes</p><p>I will give it a bit longer while I wait for the 4 hour cues to die down over at rift. =P</p>

[GussJr]

<p>I'm a lvl 90 Ranger with all MC/fabled gear and about 185AA (not fond of the pvp with this toon, so i can't comment on that)...So far, after getting my pack pony the first day, and getting my griffon baby, I'm pretty excited about the expansion. I tried to kill a lvl 90 single up arrow Rime, who was tied to 2 others, and got him into the yellow before I died. Made me laugh a little. Just gives me something to work towards! But I like the challange that DoV offers. Even if you have to duo the solo quest line, I like that it <em><strong>encourages</strong></em> grouping. To me, the game is so much more fun when you can plow through stuff with other people.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>Every once in a while, SOE shifts from a linear progression to a "big step up".  And that's exactly what DoV is--from mobs to the gear.  On one hand, it's a bit frustrating to see a non-heroic, blue con mob wailing away on you.  That still doesn't set well with me.  But that's the bar that SOE has raised with this expansion.  On the plus side though, SOE has put in a way to earn some gear that gets non-raiding folks caught up, should they want to enter the shallow end of the pool and begin to try something more challenging.</p><p>There ia a lot of nice things about DoV.  I love the fact that it's non-linear.  The SF expansion had quests that were like a book.  With DoV you can skip around a bit.  Want to start on the flying mount?  Sure, jump right in.  Or alternatively work quests at the docks, or elsewhere.</p><p>The only thing that I don't like is the stinking AAs. The end line ones aren't breathtaking.  But there are some that will have its uses.  And naturally they're slow to earn.  Every expansion I groan when they raise that bar a little higher.  I know I'm going to have to slog my alts through this whole process if I want to keep them caught up.  Last year that's pretty much all I did--screwed around in BGs, getting folks to 90/220ish, and doing the occasional mission.  I'd much rather focus on the content and not worry about AAs lagging behind. </p><p>I have no idea why Waters is so hell bent on making the AAs an arduous process.  When I see someone with 250 AAs, I don't think, "Wow, you're really into this game!  What an achievement!".  Rather, I'm thinking, "Do you have a better method than me for grinding out AAs on the bonus weekends?  I hope it's still around before the devs nerf it."</p>

[Chakaadizze]

<p><cite>Shimmer@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chakaadizze@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p></blockquote><p>Soloing is much more of a challange to be sure.  I for one am happy with the changes. </p><p>When in the past my Undergeared Necro pulls mobs iin SB the mobs (lv 90^) drop dead before they even run up to me and swing once.  This all happens in 2-4 seconds..  In this capacity quests are unchallenging and on the boring side.  It turns into a loot fest more like im harvesting nodes rather then a playing experience.</p><p>Now when I pull a mob (lv 86) I look and make sure I'm at full health & power and that I'm pulling to a safe spot when I won't get any adds, which I'm always looking out for.  I can cast and recast spells during a fight which have more then a 20 second recast timer. I am much more engaged then ever before and know that as I gear up more and run dungeons the level of my participations will remain high if I intend to do well.</p><p>I'll admit that as a non-soloing type of class, such as a Templier or Troubador (although they may disagree this is only a thought), they might have a harder time.  There is nothing wrong with grouping up to finish quests or un instances.</p></blockquote><p>I haven't done much except get all my characters started on the gryph quest however I am finding myself not wanting to log into game anymore and that is pretty bad when the expansion isn't a week old.</p><p>I do like the kick up in difficulty of the solo mobs. There was a what the hell moment when my partially raid geared assassin unloaded a flurry bowshot and a full fatal follow up chain with assassinate into a yellow^ SOLO mob and it was still sitting at just over 50% health. lol. I promtly died shortly after hehe.</p><p>My main issues are being forced to solo quest to get my crit and crit mit high enough to do the heroic stuff.... then doing the heroic stuff to get flagged to do the x2... then do the x2 to get a ability to do the x4 raids. Along with major faction grinds to get factions for the adorns.... bleh.</p><p>Add to that..... all the gear I have been seeing just seems bland.... yay more blue stats. /rolls eyes</p><p>I will give it a bit longer while I wait for the 4 hour cues to die down over at rift. =P</p></blockquote><p>I remember when I first started playing 2004, things were more difficult then, mobs were harder to kill, there were more aggro-able mobs, over the years they have nerfed a lot of that.  And I have whined and moaned about the nerfing. Back then I had many game friends, I was never solo. All of those friends have left the game, it's time to make new friends but that's easier said than done.  I remember I used to get random tells asking for help, or asking to group, tht no longer happens, I was once in a raid guild, until the main tank quit playing. So, now that I'm solo a majority of the time,</p><p>I'm whining a bit. I love the game I think I always will, I've logged so many hours of my life on this game, how can I not <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  But I still think something is off...I too pull the mobs to a safe place, especially knowing how difficult they are,  I still think something is a bit off, when I'm down to 5% health the mob is down to 1% and I still die. Just a bit off, hey maybe it's just lag.</p>

[Morrias]

<p>I think this is probably the 3rd best expansion SoE has ever done (Under KoS and RoK) it's perfect in every aspect of what an expansion should be at this point in the game except ITEMIZATION IS HORRIBLE.</p><p>I'm not saying that's silius' fault, he seems to be rather clueless about what the stats do in this game but he did just come from another game, so SoE REALLY shouldn't have had him do the itemization in the first place. <img src="/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[d1anaw]

<p><cite>Minorious wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaviour wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>noluuk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p></blockquote><p>Were you in beta? If not, how could you even form an opinion about velious? I do own it and i can tell you its already better than SF ever dreamed of being. It's like a mix of RoK & TsO with a little KoS thrown in there.</p></blockquote><p>He's right. It's trashed! I can't even play with my characters under 85 because of the stat/class changes. Seriously, My account will run out in 1 week with no more subscription. If they don't fix this game, I and thousands of others are gone.</p><p>SOE NEEDS to fix the armor stats to match the class, which they do not anymore.</p></blockquote><p>It's not intended for those under 86. Of course you cannot play with lower level characters. I'm not a raider or a large grouper and I don't chase high end armor and I have been able to dual and sometimes solo stuff though not easily on either. I think they are a bit tough for the solo quests, but they are eventually doable, even if you need a little help. I'm actually glad to see more positive posts for a change.</p>

[Simmeon]

<p>I have a 90 Assassin 250 AA, had Tier 2 Mark armor and a few fabled pieces.  I started swapping out gear to the newer stuff and everything was killing me with no problem.  I was getting frustrated to the point where I was about to quit.  When I had a quest to kill 10 mobs I was like [Removed for Content]! it's going to take forever.  I was dieing all the time and I was NOT having fun at all.  What i didn't realize is that quested gear might be good for instances but my expierence has shown that it's NOT good for soloing.  I switched back to my old gear and am having much much much less problems killing mobs and surviving a LOT longer. </p>

[MurFalad]

<p>Its very early days here, but I'm liking it a lot.</p><p>On the two characters I've brought into DoV I've had two very different experiences.  On Murfalad my level 90 BG/dungeon fable/legendary geared guardian I've been able to plow through quests pretty easily, although I'm aware that I am not invulnerable like I was in SF, so my health bar does move downwards if I pull too much, and elites tend to kill me.</p><p>On Telimur my level 86 T8 fabled/legendary geared ranger its a different experience, a real challenge to kill mobs which is fun for single ones, but when I have no option but to take on a group its almost suicidal.  There I duo'd up with a 89 Beserker in poor gear and we tackled the first few quests to gear up - great fun!</p><p>I have yet to step foot in a dungeon so I cannot comment there, but I have done PQ's, overall they are fun and rewarding.  To summerise so far I would say</p><ul><li>So far its a very good expansion, it feels like a challenge and the quests have had life in them from the start.</li><li>PQ's are good, the scaling is a little wonky (I have been in a group of 4 that got steam rollered, its as if it just did a head count instead of considering our character stats/levels when assinging mobs).</li><li>The server (Splitpaw) is lagging baaadly, this is a big downer, on the UI I get 1-2s lag for each ability.</li><li>The larger servers don't work all that well imo with public quests, the problem being I guess is the older hardware cannot support many people in one instance, hence the population is spread across too many instances (15 of the great divide).  Maybe a mechanism to auto shift players to a few prefered instances for PQ's when they start?</li><li>The gear is ok, but I think it lacks a little imagination.  Others in my guild who have quested a lot more have seen the same identical item awarded over and over with a different name.  How about instead throwing some "trash" stats on there to allow players to customise their characters a little more, e.g. parry, riposte, power regen etc are not really going to change a scout much, but its fun to gear in a certain way to pick these up to give our characters more identity.</li></ul><p>I'm looking forward to getting into the group side of things next, but I just have so much to do still, definitely enjoying myself.</p>

[Dimi]

<p>well as I play on the everfrost server and they cant seem to keep our server up over 5 mins, to early to form an opinion</p>

[Katz]

<p>I like the expansion.  Pretty sure I will enjoy it a lot better whenever the server stops crashing and rolling back our experience. </p>

[guillero]

<p><cite>Minorious wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaviour wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>noluuk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p></blockquote><p>Were you in beta? If not, how could you even form an opinion about velious? I do own it and i can tell you its already better than SF ever dreamed of being. It's like a mix of RoK & TsO with a little KoS thrown in there.</p></blockquote><p>He's right. It's trashed! I can't even play with my characters under 85 because of the stat/class changes. Seriously, My account will run out in 1 week with no more subscription. If they don't fix this game, I and thousands of others are gone.</p><p>SOE NEEDS to fix the armor stats to match the class, which they do not anymore.</p></blockquote><p>This! All our lower level toons are severely nerfed (lost big chunks of health/power, big loss on avoidance, etc) and now have outdated useless gear and items.</p><p>Pretty much all lower tiers quest rewards have become completely useless!</p><p>Even the more recently added lower tier armor sets haven't been updated!</p><p>It's just a shambles and only max level thinking going on at SOE. They do not seem to care about the casual players anymore that do not have fully gear max level toons.</p><p>Simply put. They pretty much wrecked the whole game pre- level 85.</p><p>Whoever accepted these stat changes to go live, without pre- level 85 gear and items being properly updated, should be fired and find a different job!</p>

[Rainkng]

<p><span >"I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game."</span></p><p><span >"I haven't done much except get all my characters started on the gryph quest however I am finding myself not wanting to log into game anymore and that is pretty bad when the expansion isn't a week old."</span></p><p>These two statements pretty much summed it up for me. </p><p>Velious WAS the original EQ for me.  I loved those zones more than any others and spent the majority of the 4 years I played hunting and raiding them.  Since the release of EQ2 I've been hoping to hear that Velious was going to be the next expansion.  After 7 years of playing, needless to say, I was very much looking forward to this expansion finally arriving.</p><p>Well, I personally couldn't be more disappointed and plan on asking SOE to cancel my account and refund the nearly $100 I wasted on a game that I'm having to force myself to sit down a play.</p><p>"Be careful what you wish for," right?</p><p>Right.</p>

[Slowin]

<p>I'm absolutely loving the expansion so far!</p><p>I wasn't excited at all about having a flying mount, but now that i have one i can't even imagine playing the game without one <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>Solo content is such an incredible step up now with the way the map highlights the areas you need to go to to update quests and blue dots for npc's you need to go see. </p><p>Heroic content is great!  Kael Drakkel is such an excellent zone.  The experience gained from killing in there is about right.  My only complaint is that the named are a little stingy on the fabled drops. Killed 8 or so and only saw one fabled.  There is SO much for people to do what with faction merchants with focus effects.  I would be really excited if i were a non raider by the options given to progress in gear.</p><p>Raids so far are good. Every encounter seems to have one trick or another. Looking forward to getting into the hard modes.</p><p>Really not sure how people are having problems with the solo content.  Sure its harder than previous xpacs but intro quest line in [Removed for Content] is super easy and awards a whol set of decent gear with crit mit.</p>

[Twizty]

<p>I'm the same, I just can't be bothered to log in since the expansion. I get text messages from friends asking me to log on and go do blah blah blah. It's fun for about 5  minutes then it becomes a grind. I was really looking forward to this expansion but I've been left disappointed. The odd thing is I can't really put my finger on why but I think fundamentally it seems so different from the game I've known and loved since launch. I'm so glad I didn't buy it myself, it was a gift from my in-laws! I pre-ordered rift yesterday and I will be playing that for the next  few months I reckon just for a change plus I have my LOTRO lifetime sub to fall back on. Maybe I'll come back 6 months down the road to see if anything is different. It appears I'm not on my own either, my guild has lost 8 players since expansion launched and a friends guild has lost 14. In the short few hours I've played the expansion, I've seen so many of my friends rage quit in frustration. </p>

[Prestissimo]

<p>I don't have a single problem pulling lots of mobs and killing them. I'm not even in high end SF raid gear. TBH, my paladin is still in TSO gear and not even T4 raid gear at that. My wizzy isn't much better off and she's doing just fine in DoV. My troub's in SF T2 mark and some SF raid gear. My warden's a mixed bag. None of them have any problems at all in DoV with getting killed to fast in solo or heroic, and they don't even have high crit mit (spare the troub). The problem I think is too many people sacrificed survivability gear for dps gear and when all of a sudden survivability was required, they had none. I'm noticing on my healer that I can't keep alot of high dps tanks up and they're getting hit beastly hard (8k-13k per hit, and I just plain can't push that much hps), but my tank who's not as well geared (but is much more defensively speced and whom I pull cautiously and I cycle and time stun attacks) has absolutely no problems against reasonable content.</p><p>I do not like that the numbers have been scaled up as high as they have been or that my troub's abilities are now completely worthless because they STILL haven't been adjusted to reflect the massive boost in everything. It's simply another way to force "moar dps!1" which does not make it "moar fun!1" it just makes non-dps classes that much less important and makes older content that much more trivial and not worth running. No one even runs old content at all anymore unless it's solo or gives phat plat (PR anyone? People can practically solo that now, and I know at least 3 that box it.)</p><p>The new map system is nice for those quests that are not clear, and the fact that the solo quest gear gets people caught up to the current minimum makes it much easier to get alts up to speed without taking a month of vacation and hard grinding 12 hours a day.</p><p>Gear options are very tunnel visioned, unorigional, and were not made for the classes that are designed to be hybrids or non-standard. There was not any form of adjustments done to past tier gear which is seriously hurting lower level players. The old stat and spec system was more difficult than really was needed, but it's also what allowed for great customization (until you reached the point where you were forced to min/max because the encounters were designed for min/maxers). Because of it's removal for "simpler stats" it's pretty much gutted and burried all forms of customization available to classes, and realistically almost every ability and gear option in the game needs to be redone to reflect the new system; otherwise you'll literally have tiers where players are running around basically naked.Melee spec warden? Spell spec warden? Pure heals warden? Only one type now.Dps gear and HPS gear? Only one type now.Hybrid specs and gear or min/max spec and gear? Only one type now.Worth having buffs that give stats or even having stats other than stamina and your primary stat? Not anymore. Might as well delete the other stats from your window.Anything below 90 that can be worn by brawlers to give more avoidance? Nope.Anything designed for individual classes functions outside of the different focus gear simply because the spell names are different? Nope.</p><p>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</p><p>What makes the game fun is being able to do things; being able to run zones, being able to fight mobs that are not auto farm, fighting things that force interaction and proactive and cognitive thought. Knowing there are some places that are garunteed 100% chance for a fabled drop and at least SOMEONE in the group can either use it, someone does not have it, or if it's a BS chest there is at least a few things in it so you can at least have a decent chance of getting a mana from the mute or some coin from the broker.</p><p>Things that don't make the game fun is being able to go into a zone and put peanut butter on my 3 key so the cat can lick it to heal my group through a zone while I go play the xbox, doing an entire zone to get to the last named to get a chance at a fabled chest to get a chance at a drop with a low percentage drop rate and end up getting the same stinking steaming single legendary POS item that no one wants.</p><p>Overall:</p><p>The good - The opening area in DoV gets players up to date gear wise at the docks of the new zone and it doesn't force you to follow the exact same bloody quests step by step by step for several hundred quests in order to move on: you can hit them as you go and can go out of order which makes them tollerable on repeat trips but more importantly: enjoyable the first time since you can go at your leisure and not get punished for wandering. The quests might even possibly be considered relaxing beyond the first time (I'm not willing to admit it yet). The mobs are tough enough you can't just put on "moar dps!1" gear and use dps specs/stances without punishments YET... (once people get to the later stages in DoV though I'm sure that will change). It's much simpler to chose gear upgrades and adornments. The art crew did a great job as always and truely is a group of gifted individuals. They deserve a raise. Again.</p><p>The bad - It's easier to chose gear and adornments because my troub is worthless no matter what she puts on and my warden can only heal tanks that are geared enough and appropriately to take the hits and all other times might as well just /quit since the repair bill will only get bigger without any progression. The itemization in the entire game is now [Removed for Content] literally and can only be fixed with a complete redo of everything minus DoV and some of SF. Customization in class and character builds is burried six feet deep and replaced with adornment a or adornment b on 2 of the same item. Many abilities and achievement options are so badly outdated with this upscaled expansion that they're not worth using. Skills still don't really mater. The graphics mechanics are &%$#ed up: aka patches missing, shader 3.0 [Removed for Content], shadows are moving to random places where they don't belong (had the character model's shadow floating mid screen outside of the dressing room window not even an hour ago). The loot table drop rates are still designed to keep you running the same zones dozens of times which will probably make me rage quit the zone after a couple months. Due to the itemization debacle, BG pvp gear is completely not worth getting for pvp since putting it on is a down grade from mastercrafted gear in almost every case (which is silly since you work for the BG gear and the MC gear is a hop, skip, search , and some plat away or for those with crafters a /log and a bank swap away). The game has become something so different that once again we have to relearn our characters YET AGAIN because what use to be good is now worthless, what was worthless is beyond worthless, and most of the "heroic" aas are just silly temp buffs that largely are not worth spending that much time getting. The endlines add some flavor, but really the entire page is largely a copy paste with a couple of options that are an attempt to use increasing AA levels to address some areas that the classes in general could use a slight boost on with the whole stat inflation and at least half of the endlines are an insult considering they're a "feature" that made it to the bullet list of an entire expansion pack.</p><p>Verdict: More bad than good. Less fail than SF, looks equally as rushed in many places, and unfortunately removed alot of aspects that made EQ2 worth playing and defined it as a game when compared to others. Congrats on becoming one step closer to a failed wow2 and equally closer to bankrupting EQ2.</p>

[dawy]

<p><cite>Orai@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't have a single problem pulling lots of mobs and killing them. I'm not even in high end SF raid gear. TBH, my paladin is still in TSO gear and not even T4 raid gear at that. My wizzy isn't much better off and she's doing just fine in DoV. My troub's in SF T2 mark and some SF raid gear. My warden's a mixed bag. None of them have any problems at all in DoV with getting killed to fast in solo or heroic, and they don't even have high crit mit (spare the troub). The problem I think is too many people sacrificed survivability gear for dps gear and when all of a sudden survivability was required, they had none. I'm noticing on my healer that I can't keep alot of high dps tanks up and they're getting hit beastly hard (8k-13k per hit, and I just plain can't push that much hps), but my tank who's not as well geared (but is much more defensively speced and whom I pull cautiously and I cycle and time stun attacks) has absolutely no problems against reasonable content.</p><p>I do not like that the numbers have been scaled up as high as they have been or that my troub's abilities are now completely worthless because they STILL haven't been adjusted to reflect the massive boost in everything. It's simply another way to force "moar dps!1" which does not make it "moar fun!1" it just makes non-dps classes that much less important and makes older content that much more trivial and not worth running. No one even runs old content at all anymore unless it's solo or gives phat plat (PR anyone? People can practically solo that now, and I know at least 3 that box it.)</p><p>The new map system is nice for those quests that are not clear, and the fact that the solo quest gear gets people caught up to the current minimum makes it much easier to get alts up to speed without taking a month of vacation and hard grinding 12 hours a day.</p><p>Gear options are very tunnel visioned, unorigional, and were not made for the classes that are designed to be hybrids or non-standard. There was not any form of adjustments done to past tier gear which is seriously hurting lower level players. The old stat and spec system was more difficult than really was needed, but it's also what allowed for great customization (until you reached the point where you were forced to min/max because the encounters were designed for min/maxers). Because of it's removal for "simpler stats" it's pretty much gutted and burried all forms of customization available to classes, and realistically almost every ability and gear option in the game needs to be redone to reflect the new system; otherwise you'll literally have tiers where players are running around basically naked.Melee spec warden? Spell spec warden? Pure heals warden? Only one type now.Dps gear and HPS gear? Only one type now.Hybrid specs and gear or min/max spec and gear? Only one type now.Worth having buffs that give stats or even having stats other than stamina and your primary stat? Not anymore. Might as well delete the other stats from your window.Anything below 90 that can be worn by brawlers to give more avoidance? Nope.Anything designed for individual classes functions outside of the different focus gear simply because the spell names are different? Nope.</p><p>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</p><p>What makes the game fun is being able to do things; being able to run zones, being able to fight mobs that are not auto farm, fighting things that force interaction and proactive and cognitive thought. Knowing there are some places that are garunteed 100% chance for a fabled drop and at least SOMEONE in the group can either use it, someone does not have it, or if it's a BS chest there is at least a few things in it so you can at least have a decent chance of getting a mana from the mute or some coin from the broker.</p><p>Things that don't make the game fun is being able to go into a zone and put peanut butter on my 3 key so the cat can lick it to heal my group through a zone while I go play the xbox, doing an entire zone to get to the last named to get a chance at a fabled chest to get a chance at a drop with a low percentage drop rate and end up getting the same stinking steaming single legendary POS item that no one wants.</p><p>Overall:</p><p>The good - The opening area in DoV gets players up to date gear wise at the docks of the new zone and it doesn't force you to follow the exact same bloody quests step by step by step for several hundred quests in order to move on: you can hit them as you go and can go out of order which makes them tollerable on repeat trips but more importantly: enjoyable the first time since you can go at your leisure and not get punished for wandering. The quests might even possibly be considered relaxing beyond the first time (I'm not willing to admit it yet). The mobs are tough enough you can't just put on "moar dps!1" gear and use dps specs/stances without punishments YET... (once people get to the later stages in DoV though I'm sure that will change). It's much simpler to chose gear upgrades and adornments. The art crew did a great job as always and truely is a group of gifted individuals. They deserve a raise. Again.</p><p>The bad - It's easier to chose gear and adornments because my troub is worthless no matter what she puts on and my warden can only heal tanks that are geared enough and appropriately to take the hits and all other times might as well just /quit since the repair bill will only get bigger without any progression. The itemization in the entire game is now [Removed for Content] literally and can only be fixed with a complete redo of everything minus DoV and some of SF. Customization in class and character builds is burried six feet deep and replaced with adornment a or adornment b on 2 of the same item. Many abilities and achievement options are so badly outdated with this upscaled expansion that they're not worth using. Skills still don't really mater. The graphics mechanics are &%$#ed up: aka patches missing, shader 3.0 [Removed for Content], shadows are moving to random places where they don't belong (had the character model's shadow floating mid screen outside of the dressing room window not even an hour ago). The loot table drop rates are still designed to keep you running the same zones dozens of times which will probably make me rage quit the zone after a couple months. Due to the itemization debacle, BG pvp gear is completely not worth getting for pvp since putting it on is a down grade from mastercrafted gear in almost every case (which is silly since you work for the BG gear and the MC gear is a hop, skip, search , and some plat away or for those with crafters a /log and a bank swap away). The game has become something so different that once again we have to relearn our characters YET AGAIN because what use to be good is now worthless, what was worthless is beyond worthless, and most of the "heroic" aas are just silly temp buffs that largely are not worth spending that much time getting. The endlines add some flavor, but really the entire page is largely a copy paste with a couple of options that are an attempt to use increasing AA levels to address some areas that the classes in general could use a slight boost on with the whole stat inflation and at least half of the endlines are an insult considering they're a "feature" that made it to the bullet list of an entire expansion pack.</p><p>Verdict: More bad than good. Less fail than SF, looks equally as rushed in many places, and unfortunately removed alot of aspects that made EQ2 worth playing and defined it as a game when compared to others. Congrats on becoming one step closer to a failed wow2 and equally closer to bankrupting EQ2.</p></blockquote><p>Great post.</p>

[Lathain_Sarathai]

<p>I dont like velious. Not because it's stronlgy bugged (several quest cant be completed, or need tricks to be done. Public quest both bugged</p><p>Not etheir the dramatic nerf on green stats, with an dramatical increase of blue stats</p><p>The poor armount of quest ? less than 200. Most of them are so quick they should not count</p><p>Almost no quest give level 90 gear ?</p><p>The number of token need for a full set ? just crazy</p><p>How the previous gear become useless in just one load. Even T3 SF raid gear is craps in velious. My tank cant handle a solo (heroic) name level 91 with that gear, mob multi attack and critical hit every time even with 100 in crit mitigation. I was forced to come close to 200 crit mitigation for ... be able to play, just to be allowed to play ! And for this i was forced to remove the whole armor, with huge lost on key stats.</p><p>AA look so poor</p><p>Flying mount omg ! .. joke they are nothing for me, we was not in need of travel facilities, really. All i see is the poor path griffin station use...</p><p>I dont like velious because everything is fail.</p><p>The design of Tower of frozen shadow ? i saw up to floor 3 and they look small and not interesting.</p><p>I hope they ll work better next time with less fluffy and more consitant thing.</p><p>PS : Why god so many stair in a dwarf city ? since when dwarf with there small leg love stair so much ?</p>

[screenid]

I give the expansion 4.5 out of 5 It has something for every play style and even make it easy for a solo player to step up and start grouping (by getting them geared up quickly for entry lvl instances) Flight - amazing This is a great expansion - I think more will agree as they play in velious Velious is finally taking off the training wheels. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Rainkng]

<p><cite>Orai@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't have a single problem pulling lots of mobs and killing them. I'm not even in high end SF raid gear. TBH, my paladin is still in TSO gear and not even T4 raid gear at that. My wizzy isn't much better off and she's doing just fine in DoV. My troub's in SF T2 mark and some SF raid gear. My warden's a mixed bag. None of them have any problems at all in DoV with getting killed to fast in solo or heroic, and they don't even have high crit mit (spare the troub). The problem I think is too many people sacrificed survivability gear for dps gear and when all of a sudden survivability was required, they had none. I'm noticing on my healer that I can't keep alot of high dps tanks up and they're getting hit beastly hard (8k-13k per hit, and I just plain can't push that much hps), but my tank who's not as well geared (but is much more defensively speced and whom I pull cautiously and I cycle and time stun attacks) has absolutely no problems against reasonable content.</p><p>I do not like that the numbers have been scaled up as high as they have been or that my troub's abilities are now completely worthless because they STILL haven't been adjusted to reflect the massive boost in everything. It's simply another way to force "moar dps!1" which does not make it "moar fun!1" it just makes non-dps classes that much less important and makes older content that much more trivial and not worth running. No one even runs old content at all anymore unless it's solo or gives phat plat (PR anyone? People can practically solo that now, and I know at least 3 that box it.)</p><p>The new map system is nice for those quests that are not clear, and the fact that the solo quest gear gets people caught up to the current minimum makes it much easier to get alts up to speed without taking a month of vacation and hard grinding 12 hours a day.</p><p>Gear options are very tunnel visioned, unorigional, and were not made for the classes that are designed to be hybrids or non-standard. There was not any form of adjustments done to past tier gear which is seriously hurting lower level players. The old stat and spec system was more difficult than really was needed, but it's also what allowed for great customization (until you reached the point where you were forced to min/max because the encounters were designed for min/maxers). Because of it's removal for "simpler stats" it's pretty much gutted and burried all forms of customization available to classes, and realistically almost every ability and gear option in the game needs to be redone to reflect the new system; otherwise you'll literally have tiers where players are running around basically naked.Melee spec warden? Spell spec warden? Pure heals warden? Only one type now.Dps gear and HPS gear? Only one type now.Hybrid specs and gear or min/max spec and gear? Only one type now.Worth having buffs that give stats or even having stats other than stamina and your primary stat? Not anymore. Might as well delete the other stats from your window.Anything below 90 that can be worn by brawlers to give more avoidance? Nope.Anything designed for individual classes functions outside of the different focus gear simply because the spell names are different? Nope.</p><p>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</p><p>What makes the game fun is being able to do things; being able to run zones, being able to fight mobs that are not auto farm, fighting things that force interaction and proactive and cognitive thought. Knowing there are some places that are garunteed 100% chance for a fabled drop and at least SOMEONE in the group can either use it, someone does not have it, or if it's a BS chest there is at least a few things in it so you can at least have a decent chance of getting a mana from the mute or some coin from the broker.</p><p>Things that don't make the game fun is being able to go into a zone and put peanut butter on my 3 key so the cat can lick it to heal my group through a zone while I go play the xbox, doing an entire zone to get to the last named to get a chance at a fabled chest to get a chance at a drop with a low percentage drop rate and end up getting the same stinking steaming single legendary POS item that no one wants.</p><p>Overall:</p><p>The good - The opening area in DoV gets players up to date gear wise at the docks of the new zone and it doesn't force you to follow the exact same bloody quests step by step by step for several hundred quests in order to move on: you can hit them as you go and can go out of order which makes them tollerable on repeat trips but more importantly: enjoyable the first time since you can go at your leisure and not get punished for wandering. The quests might even possibly be considered relaxing beyond the first time (I'm not willing to admit it yet). The mobs are tough enough you can't just put on "moar dps!1" gear and use dps specs/stances without punishments YET... (once people get to the later stages in DoV though I'm sure that will change). It's much simpler to chose gear upgrades and adornments. The art crew did a great job as always and truely is a group of gifted individuals. They deserve a raise. Again.</p><p>The bad - It's easier to chose gear and adornments because my troub is worthless no matter what she puts on and my warden can only heal tanks that are geared enough and appropriately to take the hits and all other times might as well just /quit since the repair bill will only get bigger without any progression. The itemization in the entire game is now [Removed for Content] literally and can only be fixed with a complete redo of everything minus DoV and some of SF. Customization in class and character builds is burried six feet deep and replaced with adornment a or adornment b on 2 of the same item. Many abilities and achievement options are so badly outdated with this upscaled expansion that they're not worth using. Skills still don't really mater. The graphics mechanics are &%$#ed up: aka patches missing, shader 3.0 [Removed for Content], shadows are moving to random places where they don't belong (had the character model's shadow floating mid screen outside of the dressing room window not even an hour ago). The loot table drop rates are still designed to keep you running the same zones dozens of times which will probably make me rage quit the zone after a couple months. Due to the itemization debacle, BG pvp gear is completely not worth getting for pvp since putting it on is a down grade from mastercrafted gear in almost every case (which is silly since you work for the BG gear and the MC gear is a hop, skip, search , and some plat away or for those with crafters a /log and a bank swap away). The game has become something so different that once again we have to relearn our characters YET AGAIN because what use to be good is now worthless, what was worthless is beyond worthless, and most of the "heroic" aas are just silly temp buffs that largely are not worth spending that much time getting. The endlines add some flavor, but really the entire page is largely a copy paste with a couple of options that are an attempt to use increasing AA levels to address some areas that the classes in general could use a slight boost on with the whole stat inflation and at least half of the endlines are an insult considering they're a "feature" that made it to the bullet list of an entire expansion pack.</p><p>Verdict: More bad than good. Less fail than SF, looks equally as rushed in many places, and unfortunately removed alot of aspects that made EQ2 worth playing and defined it as a game when compared to others. Congrats on becoming one step closer to a failed wow2 and equally closer to bankrupting EQ2.</p></blockquote><p>Well said, Orai.  Thank you for taking the time to write that.  It sums it up perfectly imo.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Rainkng wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Orai@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't have a single problem pulling lots of mobs and killing them. I'm not even in high end SF raid gear. TBH, my paladin is still in TSO gear and not even T4 raid gear at that. My wizzy isn't much better off and she's doing just fine in DoV. My troub's in SF T2 mark and some SF raid gear. My warden's a mixed bag. None of them have any problems at all in DoV with getting killed to fast in solo or heroic, and they don't even have high crit mit (spare the troub). The problem I think is too many people sacrificed survivability gear for dps gear and when all of a sudden survivability was required, they had none. I'm noticing on my healer that I can't keep alot of high dps tanks up and they're getting hit beastly hard (8k-13k per hit, and I just plain can't push that much hps), but my tank who's not as well geared (but is much more defensively speced and whom I pull cautiously and I cycle and time stun attacks) has absolutely no problems against reasonable content.</p><p>I do not like that the numbers have been scaled up as high as they have been or that my troub's abilities are now completely worthless because they STILL haven't been adjusted to reflect the massive boost in everything. It's simply another way to force "moar dps!1" which does not make it "moar fun!1" it just makes non-dps classes that much less important and makes older content that much more trivial and not worth running. No one even runs old content at all anymore unless it's solo or gives phat plat (PR anyone? People can practically solo that now, and I know at least 3 that box it.)</p><p>The new map system is nice for those quests that are not clear, and the fact that the solo quest gear gets people caught up to the current minimum makes it much easier to get alts up to speed without taking a month of vacation and hard grinding 12 hours a day.</p><p>Gear options are very tunnel visioned, unorigional, and were not made for the classes that are designed to be hybrids or non-standard. There was not any form of adjustments done to past tier gear which is seriously hurting lower level players. The old stat and spec system was more difficult than really was needed, but it's also what allowed for great customization (until you reached the point where you were forced to min/max because the encounters were designed for min/maxers). Because of it's removal for "simpler stats" it's pretty much gutted and burried all forms of customization available to classes, and realistically almost every ability and gear option in the game needs to be redone to reflect the new system; otherwise you'll literally have tiers where players are running around basically naked.Melee spec warden? Spell spec warden? Pure heals warden? Only one type now.Dps gear and HPS gear? Only one type now.Hybrid specs and gear or min/max spec and gear? Only one type now.Worth having buffs that give stats or even having stats other than stamina and your primary stat? Not anymore. Might as well delete the other stats from your window.Anything below 90 that can be worn by brawlers to give more avoidance? Nope.Anything designed for individual classes functions outside of the different focus gear simply because the spell names are different? Nope.</p><p>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</p><p>What makes the game fun is being able to do things; being able to run zones, being able to fight mobs that are not auto farm, fighting things that force interaction and proactive and cognitive thought. Knowing there are some places that are garunteed 100% chance for a fabled drop and at least SOMEONE in the group can either use it, someone does not have it, or if it's a BS chest there is at least a few things in it so you can at least have a decent chance of getting a mana from the mute or some coin from the broker.</p><p>Things that don't make the game fun is being able to go into a zone and put peanut butter on my 3 key so the cat can lick it to heal my group through a zone while I go play the xbox, doing an entire zone to get to the last named to get a chance at a fabled chest to get a chance at a drop with a low percentage drop rate and end up getting the same stinking steaming single legendary POS item that no one wants.</p><p>Overall:</p><p>The good - The opening area in DoV gets players up to date gear wise at the docks of the new zone and it doesn't force you to follow the exact same bloody quests step by step by step for several hundred quests in order to move on: you can hit them as you go and can go out of order which makes them tollerable on repeat trips but more importantly: enjoyable the first time since you can go at your leisure and not get punished for wandering. The quests might even possibly be considered relaxing beyond the first time (I'm not willing to admit it yet). The mobs are tough enough you can't just put on "moar dps!1" gear and use dps specs/stances without punishments YET... (once people get to the later stages in DoV though I'm sure that will change). It's much simpler to chose gear upgrades and adornments. The art crew did a great job as always and truely is a group of gifted individuals. They deserve a raise. Again.</p><p>The bad - It's easier to chose gear and adornments because my troub is worthless no matter what she puts on and my warden can only heal tanks that are geared enough and appropriately to take the hits and all other times might as well just /quit since the repair bill will only get bigger without any progression. The itemization in the entire game is now [Removed for Content] literally and can only be fixed with a complete redo of everything minus DoV and some of SF. Customization in class and character builds is burried six feet deep and replaced with adornment a or adornment b on 2 of the same item. Many abilities and achievement options are so badly outdated with this upscaled expansion that they're not worth using. Skills still don't really mater. The graphics mechanics are &%$#ed up: aka patches missing, shader 3.0 [Removed for Content], shadows are moving to random places where they don't belong (had the character model's shadow floating mid screen outside of the dressing room window not even an hour ago). The loot table drop rates are still designed to keep you running the same zones dozens of times which will probably make me rage quit the zone after a couple months. Due to the itemization debacle, BG pvp gear is completely not worth getting for pvp since putting it on is a down grade from mastercrafted gear in almost every case (which is silly since you work for the BG gear and the MC gear is a hop, skip, search , and some plat away or for those with crafters a /log and a bank swap away). The game has become something so different that once again we have to relearn our characters YET AGAIN because what use to be good is now worthless, what was worthless is beyond worthless, and most of the "heroic" aas are just silly temp buffs that largely are not worth spending that much time getting. The endlines add some flavor, but really the entire page is largely a copy paste with a couple of options that are an attempt to use increasing AA levels to address some areas that the classes in general could use a slight boost on with the whole stat inflation and at least half of the endlines are an insult considering they're a "feature" that made it to the bullet list of an entire expansion pack.</p><p>Verdict: More bad than good. Less fail than SF, looks equally as rushed in many places, and unfortunately removed alot of aspects that made EQ2 worth playing and defined it as a game when compared to others. Congrats on becoming one step closer to a failed wow2 and equally closer to bankrupting EQ2.</p></blockquote><p>Well said, Orai.  Thank you for taking the time to write that.  It sums it up perfectly imo.</p></blockquote><p>I was in beta and the first week of my beta time was better then what it is now.</p><p>I didnt craft in beta, so i took my time now and did all crafter quests and the solo timelines. Read the quest texts and enjoyed every bit of it. So far Velious is great.</p><p>Unfortunately Orai is right on many points. Since DoV was released i was able to get into exactly 0 groups. We have double xp and there is no grouping. I am almost sure most serious players left EQ2.</p><p>The PQ's arent worth anything. I like the concept, but it is slow, trivial and boring. No matter what i do, solo, group or even epic, i get the same loot over and over again. Maybe bugged, dont know. It tells me i can choose from a set of armor, but it only offers gloves or bracers. I dont know why people farm them for hours...probably because they are trivial. Rahotep was like 100 times better then those pq's...</p><p>The solo token quest is bugged and offers only heroic quests. Quests i d love to do if there was a group to heal. I could live with the stats changes if there was a group to progress with. I like thr heroic AA for both of my 90's if i could find a group to gain AA.</p><p>I dont know why i do the daily quests for faction, because i have nothing to adorn. Next question would be why i should log in.</p>

[Ciara52]

<p><cite>Chakaadizze@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p></blockquote><p>Pretty much sums it up for me  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  I was happy about the xpac until I got there.  So guess I paid $60 for house and mounts.</p><p>Went back to my lvl 66 warlock and well she sure isn't what she was. </p><p>Guess I'll just wait a bit here and see what happens. </p>

[Pakhet]

<p>So far I am liking the expac. The mobs in the overland zone aren't getting one shotted which is a plus. My boyfriends tank made it really easy, but given they are solo quests that is a given. Haven't tried the dungeons or instances yet though, but the AA choices for my class are nice. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Edit: not sure why so many are having trouble solo... solo I did up to thurgain with my coercer and only died when I was being stupid (pulling mobs without root with only 20% HP instead of waiting for the HP to regen). Haven't even been root nuking or stun locking mobs much. And my toon is only wearing 82 MC/treasured from SH. She is 90 though.</p>

[Katz]

<p><cite>d1anaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Minorious wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xaviour wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>noluuk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont even own it and my opinion is that its screwed up a bunch of things that were non-issues before. Just sad.</p></blockquote><p>Were you in beta? If not, how could you even form an opinion about velious? I do own it and i can tell you its already better than SF ever dreamed of being. It's like a mix of RoK & TsO with a little KoS thrown in there.</p></blockquote><p>He's right. It's trashed! I can't even play with my characters under 85 because of the stat/class changes. Seriously, My account will run out in 1 week with no more subscription. If they don't fix this game, I and thousands of others are gone.</p><p>SOE NEEDS to fix the armor stats to match the class, which they do not anymore.</p></blockquote><p>It's not intended for those under 86. Of course you cannot play with lower level characters. I'm not a raider or a large grouper and I don't chase high end armor and I have been able to dual and sometimes solo stuff though not easily on either. I think they are a bit tough for the solo quests, but they are eventually doable, even if you need a little help. I'm actually glad to see more positive posts for a change.</p></blockquote><p>I think you are entirely missing the point.  The poster is saying that the changes in stats has rendered the low level gear useless for the most part.   It has always amused me that they removed the isles "because it wasn't a good experience for new players" and yet having crap gear is?   You were on the isles how long compared to how many tiers of gear that is ...well kind of meh when it comes to matching stats with classes?</p>

[LardLord]

<p>(Hard mode raid mobs are a huge part of my playstyle, and I can't comment on them yet, but on the subject of everything else...)</p><p>This is easily my favorite expansion since T7.  The blend of content is far better than previous expansions (RoK = solo'ers, TSO = group'ers), and the fact that we have relevant contested heroic content as well as public quests gives us more options than previous expansions. </p><p>Will it get boring for high-end raiders in a month or two? That happens with every expansion for every game.  Hopefully the GUs add more fun, but just judging what we have so far, I'm impressed.</p>

[Liavy]

<p>Solo:</p><ul><li>Less quests, longer and more meaningful objectives</li><li>Can't basically semi-afk your way through the solo mobs, have to actually pay attention</li><li>Flying mounts are cool, they have their uses and as far as I'm concerned are only a good feature</li><li>The quest rewards from the solo quests are only slightly worse than T1 SF raid gear in terms of quality, critmit is the same afaik</li><li>Overland zones are cool to look at, perform a hell of a lot better than SF, and PQs at least give bored players a reason to go out and mingle with the general population. You should take some time to go through and implement these through some older contested zones too just for fun</li></ul><p>Heroic:</p><ul><li>Instance sizes are pretty reasonable</li><li>Mobs aren't always pushovers</li><li>Heavy use of scripted encounters means I don't fall asleep halfway through like SF</li><li>Drops are pretty good based on my observations for the challenge offered</li><li>Each zone is relatively unique in terms of looks and layout, which makes it clearly better than just about all previous expansions</li></ul><p>Raid:</p><ul><li>I've not yet experienced any of the raid content</li><li>However, I thought the flagging quest series was pretty awesome and kept me interested. It's cool for people to actually have some incentive to do instances other than "zomg I'm bored".</li></ul><p>Overall:</p><p>Probably the best expansion to date imo. It's fun, relevant, easy to look at, and for once we get to have stuff that looks pretty awesome without paying SC. Keep it up.</p>

[spaarrow]

<p>This xpac is great...at first i  died a ton...lvl 90 swash...until a friend pointed out that my avoidance was in the red at around 6600...i went to defense stance instead of offense...my avoidance is over 10k now and im surving...try the defensive stance out guys.</p>

[drevid]

All I can say is mob hp is huge and they hit like tanks. The xpac is from barable to fustrating. lag does not help either. Solo is not fun at all. Sure I can solo on my well geared main. I did not find the xpac overal enjoyable.

[Odys]

<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span >The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p>I haven't log my warden yet.</p><p>When expansion came out EU launcher was broken and i has to reinstall 13GB, took 4 days. Now i simply don't feel like killing mobs with 300 000 hps with my pathetic solo 10K dps.</p><p>The fact that quested stuff is better than SF raid item is another reason, when SF came out only high end legendary was better than TSO raid stuff and i kept my mix of TSO 2 heroic/WOE fabled till 90.</p><p>The fact that the numerous class issues were not adressed.</p><p>The PQ system that probably compute contribution according to DPS.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Odys@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p>I haven't log my warden yet.</p><p>When expansion came out EU launcher was broken and i has to reinstall 13GB, took 4 days. Now i simply don't feel like killing mobs with 300 000 hps with my pathetic solo 10K dps.</p><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Warden works perfect <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span></p><p>The fact that quested stuff is better than SF raid item is another reason, when SF came out only high end legendary was better than TSO raid stuff and i kept my mix of TSO 2 heroic/WOE fabled till 90.</p><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">A myth from early beta. SF raiders have enough crit. mitigation plus all the procs. Quested items give only crit mitigation. No procs, no nothing. </span></p><p>The fact that the numerous class issues were not adressed.</p><p>The PQ system that probably compute contribution according to DPS.</p></blockquote>

[JoarAddam]

<p>I love the added challenge, and scripting on non instanced/overland zone mobs...   I wish the PQs were working properly, but even when they don't, I enjoy doing them. </p>

[Lethe5683]

<p>I give the new zones, graphics and quests a 8/10, the quests and zones are very creative and fun but armor and weapon appearance is lacking as usual. I give the new stats and mob balance 1/10, solo mobs are [Removed for Content] and the itemization and stat changes screwed everything up not to mention they were pretty stupid in principle. Overall the score was 4.5/10, not very good at all. </p><p>In comparison SF I gave the zones, graphics and quests a 4/10, all of which were extreamly generic and linear.  I gave the new stats and mob balance a 7/10. Overall SF was a 5.5/10 slightly below average.</p>

[Ealthina]

<p>Flying is cool, but other then that it's pretty much the same as the last two expansions in a new wrapper.  The new mobs and scritping make quest my Templar almost impossible.  So over all im dissappointed.</p>

[GussJr]

<p><cite>Nandeanna@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have a 90 Assassin 250 AA, had Tier 2 Mark armor and a few fabled pieces.  I started swapping out gear to the newer stuff and everything was killing me with no problem.  I was getting frustrated to the point where I was about to quit.  When I had a quest to kill 10 mobs I was like [Removed for Content]! it's going to take forever.  I was dieing all the time and I was NOT having fun at all.  What i didn't realize is that quested gear might be good for instances but my expierence has shown that it's NOT good for soloing.  I switched back to my old gear and am having much much much less problems killing mobs and surviving a LOT longer. </p></blockquote><p>Really? lvl 90 ranger with 190 AA and I have been able to solo just fine. Takes a bit longer to kill mobs, but the gear is WAY better than my T9 mc that I had previously...the full set that you get from the Othmir and the Gnolls...</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>GussJr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Really? lvl 90 ranger with 190 AA and I have been able to solo just fine. Takes a bit longer to kill mobs, but the gear is WAY better than my T9 mc that I had previously...the full set that you get from the Othmir and the Gnolls...</p></blockquote><p>The quested gear is terrible for everything except taking less damage if that is a problem.  The crit mit from legendary SF gear was more than enough for soloing and switching to the new equipment did not help my survivability at all but did significantly lower my DPS.  I found that even with my level 89 BG character who has 0% crit mit that the quested gear was still worse for soloing than the BG/legendary gear mix I already had.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>With exception to public quests, and the damage tuning of the intial raid mobs, I'm enjoying this expansion so far.  I'm honestly surprised the QQ isn't higher from people used to easyquest.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>With exception to public quests, and the damage tuning of the intial raid mobs, I'm enjoying this expansion so far.  I'm honestly surprised the QQ isn't higher from people used to easyquest.</p></blockquote><p>I  knew the expansion was for min/maxers.  So I am trying to refrain from saying anything really about the new expasion.  A once a day quest for 5 days for people with limited play times means no flying mounts for a couple weeks which sucks hard.  The fights are not 'hard' just long in DoV solo, Kael Drak in last expansion T1 is uhm interesting.  XP is not effecient in DoV because the fights take too long with too much down time in between to recover.  I can burn down twice the xp in SF with no danger and little down time.  I don't mind harder fights, but i would say the mobs have 25% more hit points than I would like to see, the fights run just a little too long.  I haven't really seen any more of the expansion.  Except for the one dungeon we went in and made it to level 3.  'disruptive students'  are the suck.  All the shard zones are broken and I am so tired of the portals in Paineel being broken.</p><p>Basically It's an over correction from SF, but hey flying looks like it will be kewl  I should have a mount by the end of this week.</p>

[Lodengarl]

<p>Being from a casual raiding guild, a lot of people are extremely frustrated that the last year+ of 6 hours a week raid progressing has gone out the window with a few quest/instance drops. It would have been easier to swallow if there was a level increase like SF, or if they worked stat changes on pre-DoV items. The fact that gear that took 24 people months to get, that is for the most part useless compared to the most introductory of gear (and not even level 90), is hard for people to accept and want to jump in and start over. The named wandering Ry’Gorr in Great Divide drops nicer charms than most mid-range SF raid gear/instance end-boss squizzy chests, and those are now going for 50 gold on the broker a week after the expansion came out.Having finished every solo, tradeskill and mount quest timelines in the game, I am left to work on grinding instances for the next year. I have no reason to ever do another SF instance (or raid) again. Hoping the instances will drop enough gear to progress quickly, but taking 35-45K shots from early named mobs or grinding 15-18 million health trash mobs in an instance is just not that fun for something to do repeatedly. Lore is cool, graphics are cool, flying mounts are fantastic (love the freedom and exploration capabilities), but feel a bit of an emptiness when I look at tank/dps gear I have and am wearing that took hundreds of hours, marks, seals, to progress and is now just waiting to be replaced. I would almost rather they stripped your gear and you started over as almost a 0 level 90 that needs to rebuild than to see everything that took so long to get so worthless. It makes you realize, if this is the way it is ‘supposed’ to be that playing the game is truly an exercise in masturbation, except orgasms come once a year, and with a lot of remorse.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>With exception to public quests, and the damage tuning of the intial raid mobs, I'm enjoying this expansion so far.  I'm honestly surprised the QQ isn't higher from people used to easyquest.</p></blockquote><p> XP is not effecient in DoV because the fights take too long with too much down time in between to recover.  I can burn down twice the xp in SF with no danger and little down time. </p></blockquote><p>If you are killing mobs to get XP, you're honestly doing it wrong.  Solo kill xp is worthless post level 70 regardless of where you are.  Quests is where the xp is at.  As far as grind xp, unfortunately duoing in the hole is still faster grind xp than doing a group in KD.  This is more due to how group xp works, than the xp rewards of the zones themselves.</p><p>SoE really needs to fix it so that full groups earn more xp than smaller ones, rather than the other way.</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If you are killing mobs to get XP, you're honestly doing it wrong.  Solo kill xp is worthless post level 70 regardless of where you are.  Quests is where the xp is at. </p><p><span style="color: #008000;">For a solo player, yes, I agree.  Quest or go home.  Better yet, find a group.</span></p><p>As far as grind xp, unfortunately duoing in the hole is still faster grind xp than doing a group in KD.  This is more due to how group xp works, than the xp rewards of the zones themselves.</p><p><span style="color: #008000;">The thing here is that you need to look at how long it takes to defeat one mob and get to the next.  In the Hole, this time is minimal if you can get the right spots.  In Kael?  It takes a LONG time (comparatively) to kill one mob and a not insignificant amount of time to get to the next.  The XP in Kael is just too low with all factors weighed.</span></p><p><span style="color: #888888;">SoE really needs to fix it so that full groups earn more xp than smaller ones, rather than the other way.</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000;">Yes, ffs, a thousand times YES.  XP should never be divided.  It should be awarded.  Period. You killed the mob.  I should never find myself thinking:  "Well, yea, bringing this guy into the group will help us go a little faster, but we'll actually gain less XP because he'll be taking a share".</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000;">Unfortunately, I found myself thinking that EXACT thing numerous times this weekend.</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000;">Terrible.</span></p></blockquote>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="color: #008000;">  I should never find myself thinking:  "Well, yea, bringing this guy into the group will help us go a little faster, but we'll actually gain less XP because he'll be taking a share".</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="color: #008000;">Unfortunately, I found myself thinking that EXACT thing numerous times this weekend.</span></blockquote><p>Yeap, hopefully we can get some attention from their designers to reconsider this mechanic.</p><p>If nothing else, award a cumulative bonus for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th group member added.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>Agreed kill XP for solo is worthless.  Quests are still more effecient in previous zones, for the same reason.</p>

[Obadiah]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="color: #008000;">  I should never find myself thinking:  "Well, yea, bringing this guy into the group will help us go a little faster, but we'll actually gain less XP because he'll be taking a share".</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="color: #008000;">Unfortunately, I found myself thinking that EXACT thing numerous times this weekend.</span></blockquote><p>Yeap, hopefully we can get some attention from their designers to reconsider this mechanic.</p><p>If nothing else, award a cumulative bonus for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th group member added.</p></blockquote><p>Killing mobs for XP is only good during bonus weekends because double really means quadruple still and we now have the numbers to prove it. And honestly during bonus weekends it's hard to imagine doing anything else for that reason.</p><p>Wasn't this the case (i.e. more members=more XP) at least in certain zones once upon a time?</p><p>It's crazy how during bonus XP time the game becomes a solofest because you can find encounters that reward 5-6% XP and your only limitation in quantity is how far you can go before they will leash. But if you add that 2nd or 3rd person it all goes to heck. I'd be shocked if any Fighter that wanted to be isn't 90/300 after Saturday, and certain other classes too.</p>

[Amanathia]

<p>Velious is great so far, soo much better than SF....honestly, some people just like to whine nonstop.</p>

[Lathain_Sarathai]

<p>Yesterday i saw something very nice in velious one single thing, that was the first cool thing... the only one.</p><p>I have finished all outside quest,Flying is cool, but we cant change apparence when ground mod and cant be hide for raid, no stats so useless for fight. That do a lot of negative factor that make the cool one, little less cool.</p><p>Sadly i cant remember what was so great and nice :p</p><p>I m very negative, there is several nice feathure but they are way not enough good to even come close to all the negative one. It's a wait and see hoping hard than next gu will clean that trash.</p><p>I still cant accept than 6 month of hard work can be deleted in five min by dev. I can understand the need of change gear, but work to get a full set of mark of manaar gear take 1300 token, like ... let say take 150 token for one single item</p><p>i cant accept than a quest where i have to kill 6 little thing easy soloable done in 2 min can give reward 10 times better than something i take 2 month of hard work to get, just on previous step.</p><p>And the 300 new tolen for new item when i know 2 month later a new quest where i will have to kill 6 mob i will get better... Way over priced.</p><p>Without say there is almost one bug every feet in velious.</p><p>whine ? yes, thing are not working... it's normal :p</p><p>Better than SF ? if they revert stat consolidation like they have done with resist in SF AND if they fix half of the bugs, perhaps but not befor.</p>

[Atragon]

<p>It is getting frustrating with the amount of fail groups.  Guild groups aren't always possible so I have to look to level chat. I think I'm going to take a break and come back when peoples crit mit isn't 50% and getting one shotted in the easier DoV zones.  Absolutely zero fun as a healer trying to keep everyone alive who shouldn't be there to begin with.</p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Atragon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is getting frustrating with the amount of fail groups.  Guild groups aren't always possible so I have to look to level chat. I think I'm going to take a break and come back when peoples crit mit isn't 50% and getting one shotted in the easier DoV zones.  Absolutely zero fun as a healer trying to keep everyone alive who shouldn't be there to begin with.</p></blockquote><p>This.  Just its not about fail groups, but about no groups at all. Crit mitigation is one of the biggest nails into the coffin ever.</p><p>I am a fan of the expansion but have no reason to log in. Can it get more weird ? I am just curious if this was the result of a dev meeting/brainstorming or the idea of some faction out there ?  I cant help myself, but the situation has the same odor then the early Sigil beta forums had.</p>

[Alazarz]

<p><cite>Lathain_Sarathai wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont like velious. Not because it's stronlgy bugged (several quest cant be completed, or need tricks to be done. Public quest both bugged</p><p>Not etheir the dramatic nerf on green stats, with an dramatical increase of blue stats</p><p>The poor armount of quest ? less than 200. Most of them are so quick they should not count</p><p>Almost no quest give level 90 gear ?</p><p>The number of token need for a full set ? just crazy</p><p>How the previous gear become useless in just one load. Even T3 SF raid gear is craps in velious. My tank cant handle a solo (heroic) name level 91 with that gear, mob multi attack and critical hit every time even with 100 in crit mitigation. I was forced to come close to 200 crit mitigation for ... be able to play, just to be allowed to play ! And for this i was forced to remove the whole armor, with huge lost on key stats.</p><p>AA look so poor</p><p>Flying mount omg ! .. joke they are nothing for me, we was not in need of travel facilities, really. All i see is the poor path griffin station use...</p><p>I dont like velious because everything is fail.</p><p>The design of Tower of frozen shadow ? i saw up to floor 3 and they look small and not interesting.</p><p>I hope they ll work better next time with less fluffy and more consitant thing.</p><p>PS : Why god so many stair in a dwarf city ? since when dwarf with there small leg love stair so much ?</p></blockquote><p>There are plenty of quests that give lvl 90 gear. Infact you can fill every slot with decent gear through quests. There are whole armor sets with critbonus, potency, critmit, mitigation, crit chance, multi attack,dps mod, attk speed, reuse, casting spd, main stats ... stuffs better for survivability and in some cases dps than T3 raid armor . Also the legendary quest jewlery is insane "entry lvl gear" tbh. pretty nice Neckslots, ears, rings, wrists, charms, waist can all be had through questing. </p>

[jaelithe]

<p>My first 90 was just at 88 when the expansion came out so I had no raid gear to be obsoleted - but I feel your pain.</p><p>Many nice things for those of us who like to quest and aren't looking to have the best gear in the game - just adaquate gear. Two full zones of 86-90 quests to supplement the older zones - no more running out of easily soloable quests in the 80s.</p><p>I agree with multiple comments above that fights just drag on too long. Once I geared up on the initial island I could kill things without much risk if I was careful but killing a same level or +1 mob just takes so long. I would prefer mobs that do more damage and die faster - even if that increses the risk of MY dying occasionally.</p>

[stormkiller]

I only have one question.Was Velious worth my money? Oh yes and then some. Its not perfect but to my mind the devs have done a good job with this expac

[schizmark]

<p><cite>Chakaadizze@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I have died so many times in DOV...solo doesn't work well. The level 86 single mobs can kill me no problem.  I think their a bit off.  It should maybe be a bit difficult but seriously, level 90 monk killed quite regularly by level 86 single mob even after using my heal.  Frustrating and there's no way I'm going to accomplish much solo.  Solo is no longer an option in game, for the most part, seems everything is geared to large groups and raids.  Maybe that's why all my guildies have left the game.</p></blockquote><p>I think the big problem for monks and bruisers is that agility is no longer a factor, and the avoidance numbers don't look good (do they even get parry?). Monks are <em>supposed</em> to be agile.  I'm sure they're going to have to redo whole sections of the tailor and provisioner crafting tables as well, because many of those items were based on the old stat system. There is so much food and drink that amounts to a single-stat buff (because the stat paired with the useful one no longer matters) that I don't even know what will sell anymore, and I don't know where to begin on the leather and cloth armor.</p><p>Now that my complaints are out of the way, I really do love the expansion, and it's ALL ABOUT THE FLYING <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />.  Yeah, the mobs are tough and there are some bugs to work out, but I haven't found anything about the expansion itself that isn't fun.  For any of you who really want to get the best out of the flying mount, buy and learn to use a Marble Mouse (the one with the ball in the center, not the thumb kind). Most awesome, inexpensive implement ever invented for a gamer.</p>

[Laiina]

<p><cite>Orai@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I do not like that the numbers have been scaled up as high as they have been <strong><em><span style="color: #ff0000;">or that my troub's abilities are now completely worthless because they STILL haven't been adjusted to reflect the massive boost in everything.</span></em></strong> It's simply another way to force "moar dps!1" which does not make it "moar fun!1" it just makes non-dps classes that much less important and makes older content that much more trivial and not worth running. No one even runs old content at all anymore unless it's solo or gives phat plat (PR anyone? People can practically solo that now, and I know at least 3 that box it.)<p>The new map system is nice for those quests that are not clear, and the fact that the solo quest gear gets people caught up to the current minimum makes it much easier to get alts up to speed without taking a month of vacation and hard grinding 12 hours a day.</p><p>Gear options are very tunnel visioned, unorigional, and were not made for the classes that are designed to be hybrids or non-standard. There was not any form of adjustments done to past tier gear which is seriously hurting lower level players. The old stat and spec system was more difficult than really was needed, but it's also what allowed for great customization (until you reached the point where you were forced to min/max because the encounters were designed for min/maxers). Because of it's removal for "simpler stats" it's pretty much gutted and burried all forms of customization available to classes, and realistically almost every ability and gear option in the game needs to be redone to reflect the new system; otherwise you'll literally have tiers where players are running around basically naked.Melee spec warden? Spell spec warden? Pure heals warden? Only one type now.Dps gear and HPS gear? Only one type now.Hybrid specs and gear or min/max spec and gear? Only one type now.Worth having buffs that give stats or even having stats other than stamina and your primary stat? Not anymore. Might as well delete the other stats from your window.Anything below 90 that can be worn by brawlers to give more avoidance? Nope.Anything designed for individual classes functions outside of the different focus gear simply because the spell names are different? Nope.</p><p>The biggest problem I have with DoV is the fact that it's 100% about more dps. More dps MORE DPS. MOAR DPS!1 I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole childish and immature thought process that bigger orange numbers with more digits makes the game more fun. It doesn't. Being a healer, I feel very largely unimportant once people have gotten the gear needed to trivialize the content (give it about 3 months). Being a troubador, I actually get told that my troub is "not needed; (they) only benefit (1 or 2) of the toons present and the troub doesn't bring enough to justify the spot".</p><p>What makes the game fun is being able to do things; being able to run zones, being able to fight mobs that are not auto farm, fighting things that force interaction and proactive and cognitive thought. Knowing there are some places that are garunteed 100% chance for a fabled drop and at least SOMEONE in the group can either use it, someone does not have it, or if it's a BS chest there is at least a few things in it so you can at least have a decent chance of getting a mana from the mute or some coin from the broker.</p><p>Things that don't make the game fun is being able to go into a zone and put peanut butter on my 3 key so the cat can lick it to heal my group through a zone while I go play the xbox, doing an entire zone to get to the last named to get a chance at a fabled chest to get a chance at a drop with a low percentage drop rate and end up getting the same stinking steaming single legendary POS item that no one wants.</p><p>Overall:</p><p>The good - The opening area in DoV gets players up to date gear wise at the docks of the new zone and it doesn't force you to follow the exact same bloody quests step by step by step for several hundred quests in order to move on: you can hit them as you go and can go out of order which makes them tollerable on repeat trips but more importantly: enjoyable the first time since you can go at your leisure and not get punished for wandering. The quests might even possibly be considered relaxing beyond the first time (I'm not willing to admit it yet). The mobs are tough enough you can't just put on "moar dps!1" gear and use dps specs/stances without punishments YET... (once people get to the later stages in DoV though I'm sure that will change). It's much simpler to chose gear upgrades and adornments. The art crew did a great job as always and truely is a group of gifted individuals. They deserve a raise. Again.</p><p>The bad - It's easier to chose gear and adornments because my troub is worthless no matter what she puts on and my warden can only heal tanks that are geared enough and appropriately to take the hits and all other times might as well just /quit since the repair bill will only get bigger without any progression. <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><em>The itemization in the entire game is now [Removed for Content] literally and can only be fixed with a complete redo of everything minus DoV and some of SF</em></strong>.</span> Customization in class and character builds is burried six feet deep and replaced with adornment a or adornment b on 2 of the same item. <strong><em><span style="color: #ff0000;">Many abilities and achievement options are so badly outdated with this upscaled expansion that they're not worth using.</span></em></strong> Skills still don't really mater.</p><p>...</p><p>The game has become something so different that once again we have to relearn our characters YET AGAIN because what use to be good is now worthless, what was worthless is beyond worthless, and most of the "heroic" aas are just silly temp buffs that largely are not worth spending that much time getting. The endlines add some flavor, but really the entire page is largely a copy paste with a couple of options that are an attempt to use increasing AA levels to address some areas that the classes in general could use a slight boost on with the whole stat inflation and at least half of the endlines are an insult considering they're a "feature" that made it to the bullet list of an entire expansion pack.</p><p>Verdict: <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><em>More bad than good. Less fail than SF</em></strong>,</span> looks equally as rushed in many places, and unfortunately removed alot of aspects that made EQ2 worth playing and defined it as a game when compared to others. Congrats on becoming one step closer to a failed wow2 and equally closer to bankrupting EQ2.</p></blockquote><p>It almost sounds like we are the same person. One of the first things I noticed was that my troubs' songs did NOT scale up like they should have with the Velious mobs and gear. Even with partial upgrades to some better DoV gear, I am seing little - if any - improvement in my troubador. I agree with about 95% of what you say, especially the highlighed portions.</p><p>The same can be said for my Templar to a large extent. It seems that while heal amounts went up a very small amount, the damage taken has gone up a LOT more. She is doing OK for now, in places like TOFS and Pools, but at higher level instances and raids, I have serious doubts about it. We may end up seeing the return of 3-healer MT groups like were once common in EQ1. A couple of our furies have noted that they are now having to stay in heal only spec/stance in many zones.</p><p>On the other hand, my Conjuror made out - for the first time in years it is actualloy viable raid dps and is no longer the lonely stepchild. Until they nerf her in a couple of weeks at least <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Positives:</p><p>Compared to SF I think it is a lot better. SF was far too much cookie cutter quests - the quests lines in DoV seem to be much better done, and many of them actually tie together across zones. Also SF was far too EZmode, mobs in DoV are actually a challenge.</p><p>The storylines are much better in DoV, as are many of the tradeskill additions.</p><p>I am hoping that some of these negative issues will start getting resolved soon - and not just by using the nerfbat and dumbing down content - actually FIX things like the cookie cutter itemization.</p>

[Andok]

<p>Here's my short opinion of the expansion -</p><p>It is full of irritating bugs and changes that I don't like, but it is still fun and I look forward to the next time I can log on and play.</p>

[Alazarz]

<p><cite>Andok wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Here's my short opinion of the expansion -</p><p>It is full of irritating bugs and changes that I don't like, but it is still fun and I look forward to the next time I can log on and play.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, alot of bugs. Bugs can and hopefully will be fixed in a timely manner. Other than that DoV has ben an awsome experience for me.</p>

[Mesiya]

<p>Pve content is good so far. (have yet to raid properly)</p><p>The Great divide is an amazing zone</p><p>PVP, unfortunately, is bunk. AA's and flying mounts were designed with no consideration to pvp imo. hopefully it can be fixed.</p>

[Teufell]

<p>Play a wiz, warden, sk and monk as 90's and have 6 90 crafters on Naggy.</p><p>What I do like:</p><p>Seems to be more challenge to mobs, they hit hard and I like it</p><p>Zones are beautyful and i'm enjoying to move around in it</p><p>Quests are ok, some are funny some a bit too easy but overall ok</p><p>Flying mount is fun and I like it a lot</p><p>What I dont like:</p><p>Dumbing everything down to main stat and Sta. This simplifies way too much and cut off so many options to gameplay.</p><p>You really need to look on gear pre-85 to match the new simplification or you'll loose that whole segment of players. I really dont play that lvl much but its just obvious.</p><p>Dont like having to mentor down to avoid getting ganked in dwarf city, just because want to do crafting quests. How about making dwarf city pvpfree and save me the trouble of mentoring down?</p><p>Last thing.. PvpMeh, feels strange atm..It seems the wizard has been made more of a glasscannon which I like, even to I hardly pvp on him. Pureheal warden can really heal good but not that many other options. SK, I like that he doesnt feel so op anymore. I do not like that sk seems to be dependant on ranged and not close melee anymore..</p><p>I guess I need to see what happens when people get geared out and find their footing on the archetypes of chars but I wish there was more room for hybrids</p>

[Pacinamac]

<p>There is a lot of negativity on here, which suprises me.</p><p>They probably could have done a better job with the tiers of equipment but what do you expect? Loot in any expansion in any MMO will always be considerably better. What is the point of having an expansion if there is not a large jump?</p><p>Anyway, the sense of awe and wonderment is something I have not felt since the first EQ. A certain feeling of grandeur(sp?) that I have not felt in quite some time. I find the DoV to be much more immersive. I love the fact that it is more dificult, the game has been far too easy as of late and it's nice to have a greater challenge. It makes players work together to achieve their goals.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>schizmark wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think the big problem for monks and bruisers is that agility is no longer a factor, and the avoidance numbers don't look good (do they even get parry?). Monks are <em>supposed</em> to be agile.  I'm sure they're going to have to redo whole sections of the tailor and provisioner crafting tables as well, because many of those items were based on the old stat system.</p></blockquote><p>Actually it did not make much difference for brawlers (at least at high levels) and of course brawlers get parry. I lost about 5% avoidance on my bruiser which is significant but nothing compared to how much ever other non-scout class lost.</p>

[Jeepned2]

<p>Umm you guys aren't making it sound too good for my troub. No scout is worse at solo fighting then we are.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>Jeepned2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Umm you guys aren't making it sound too good for my troub. No scout is worse at solo fighting then we are.</p></blockquote><p>I think troub is betetr than dirge and my troub solos ok.</p>

[Elwin]

<p><cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jeepned2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Umm you guys aren't making it sound too good for my troub. No scout is worse at solo fighting then we are.</p></blockquote><p>I think troub is betetr than dirge and my troub solos ok.</p></blockquote><p>Same, omg someone else with two bards.. I've always found soloing on my troub easier than dirge.</p><p>For the first time ever I'm enjoying doing the craft quests. I'd say craft for me is the highlight of DoV.</p><p>I hate the stat simplification, it wouldn't be so bad though if they adjusted the stats on drops in SF instances to make them still worthwhile. We still need those zones for enervated, they still need to be run, but who's going to want to go there?</p><p>As much as I don't intend to lvl another 90 I'd hate to be getting from 80-86 now and spending 6 levels getting totally worthless muting fodder on the way.</p>

[Ciara52]

<p><cite>Baubo@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I hate the stat simplification, it wouldn't be so bad though if they adjusted the stats on drops in SF instances to make them still worthwhile. We still need those zones for enervated, they still need to be run, but who's going to want to go there?</p><p>As much as I don't intend to lvl another 90 I'd hate to be getting from 80-86 now and spending 6 levels getting totally worthless muting fodder on the way.</p></blockquote><p>I have a lot of alts and I log in and realize what good will it do.  I wanted to upgrade my epic on my conj but ya who will want to go there.   I'm glad so many like it.  I feel I wasted my $60 bucks.  my choice and I don't cry over spilled milk.</p><p>Think I'll take a break for a couple months  I'll probably think clearer then.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[Gilasil]

<p>I like the tougher mobs.  At least they're a challange.  SF solo mobs bored me to death.  Consequently SF bored me to death.  I'd solo in the Hole just for something where I at least had show SOME amount of care.</p><p>On the other hand, I'm still really [Removed for Content] at SoE for the way I wasn't able to play for the better part of a week because they couldn't keep EF up.  I'd have had my griffon mount by now if not for them.</p><p>I don't have a lot of time to play and when someone pisses away what little time I do have like they did with the server down almost every freaking night, it just drives me wild.</p>

[Elwin]

<p><cite>Ciara52 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Baubo@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I hate the stat simplification, it wouldn't be so bad though if they adjusted the stats on drops in SF instances to make them still worthwhile. We still need those zones for enervated, they still need to be run, but who's going to want to go there?</p><p>As much as I don't intend to lvl another 90 I'd hate to be getting from 80-86 now and spending 6 levels getting totally worthless muting fodder on the way.</p></blockquote><p>I have a lot of alts and I log in and realize what good will it do.  I wanted to upgrade my epic on my conj but ya who will want to go there.   I'm glad so many like it.  I feel I wasted my $60 bucks.  my choice and I don't cry over spilled milk.</p><p>Think I'll take a break for a couple months  I'll probably think clearer then.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> </p></blockquote><p>You'll get your update I'm sure there will be a lot of people in the same position. It will probably just take longer now than it would of a couple of weeks ago.</p><p>You must have it on your summoner! You simply must!</p><p>Good luck <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   </p>

[789mkii]

<p>DOV is very good expansion more than the expectation.My short reviewFun Quest : There are some surprises and programmed events during story.Fun Dungeon : There are good difficulty and tactics.Fun Feature : Flying Mount and Public Quest and Hint MAP and Depth of Field.DOV is worth playing. Many thanks DEV.</p>

[Zonavar]

<p>Following the disappointing, tedious and major letdown that SENTINEL FATE was (i.e. The Hole) I was wary of the new expansion because I was expecting the 2 Overland zone and instances motif (not to mention going through the cynical rhetoric at EQ2 Flames) but I was pleasantly surprised at the scope of the zones and the tough challenges, as well as the brilliant Griffin quest and the item itself - loved the non linear aspect of the expansion, jump into Griffin quest, do some Rime, go to Iceclad do some Othmir and so forth, it's a lot of fun.</p><p>Once in a while I get hit by an emotional jolt, like when I ventured out of Thurgadin through the waterfall, really took me back ten years to another day and age, what a great expansion Vellious was in EQ1. In this one, there are a couple of home runs like the huge Kael Drakkar - really impressive zone which I am looking forward to working on.</p><p>It's not perfect but I am enjoying it so far and think it is miles better than SF and ROK, there are occasional bugs but that is to be expected, overall I think everyone at SoE needs to be congratulated on this - we're going to be very busy with runes, factions, raids and so forth.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I like the tougher mobs.  At least they're a challange.  SF solo mobs bored me to death.</p></blockquote><p>There are about 2 different types of solo mobs that are a challenge and that is only because they have incredibly OP spells.  The rest are just brickwalls and even more boring to fight than SF mobs because they are just as harmless but take 10x as long to kill.</p>

[Aurorrae]

<p><cite>Jeepned2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Umm you guys aren't making it sound too good for my troub. No scout is worse at solo fighting then we are.</p></blockquote><p>Take heart troubs!.. one of the things that I love about this xpac is that crowd control is back... our troub dusted off all his CC spells and was absolutely invaluable in instances.</p><p>I think people aren't loading up on the crit chance enough, not realizing that they need to to be at 100% to be even with the mob.  It's hard to sack raid gear for quest or instance gear, but if its got 30% crit chance, do it.   As a templar, I've seen a huge difference in heals going from 120% to now close to 200%.</p><p>Oh, and you can solo as a templar.  Get an AA mirror, make a dps spec (i know, templar dps spec - HA), and find those spells that stun and stifle and daze (yes, you have them... you just haven't used them for a while).  It's slower going than our dps and tank friends, but it just means the xpac lasts longer for us!</p>