Gear Progression/Overkill gear with GU63??

[Tigerr]

<p>I hardly ever post, and I am definatly not one to start a new thread.. I know there is a "GU63" Gear progression thread but I really feel this should be heard, as that thread went a different direction than I had hoped it would.  When Drunder was released, the base gear from Tower of Tactics ( The Final heroic zone in drunder EOW was added abit later) was +114 to base stats with 5-6.2 CB/potency, depending on the slot.  The easymode Drunder was 148+ to stats and similiar blue stats. It in no way made HM Vanilla gear obselete.. It gave players a choice. ( Especially knowing CM will be lifted) It gave them a yellow and a red slot to play with.</p><p>There are only a handful of guilds that broke into PoW and abunch creeping towards that goal, with GU63, it will make climbing towards that goal pretty much pointless. The guilds that just broke into PoW get to upgrade their brand new pieces with overland quest gear?. Launching this GU63 the way it is right now will completely break any sort of gear progression ( even though it was horrible , atleast there was progression ). Like someone mentioned in another thread, we might as well just stop raiding and wait for the new GU so we could bang out some quests and have gear that is better than PoW stuff. Right now my guild is progressing towards the tougher HM drunder stuff, why should I and 23 other people even bother raiding if it will be upgraded with QUEST gear within 1 month.</p><p>I know someone will chime in and say "well, they always do this with expansions, this is how it is supposed to be"... well, no, it is not. This is not an expansion, we are getting almost the same thing we have gotten with the drunder add on plus an overland zone + contested . There is no reason AT ALL why this gear should COMPLETELY make everything else before it obsolete. There is no reason why some <Random_quester> should log on and be able to obtain the same gear we have wiped and wiped for. Before anyone makes a comment about it, I'm not bitter at all.. I'd love for everyone to enjoy the content without any virtual walls... But that is Sony's fault for not releasing enough content for everyone to enjoy. As of right now, there is no point for myself and ALOTTTT of other people in various guilds ( heck, ALLL guilds) to even keep farming the gear, as it will be rendered obsolete in April.</p><p>The overland gear should be toned down by quite a bit, it should be alittle worse than HM vanilla gear.. Maybe even right on par with HM vanilla stuff.. Taking away from over 40 guilds WW + is just insane. And yes, I do believe that the people that put more time/effort into their character should have access to the better gear, thats how it HAS to work otherwise there is literally no point in trying to progress your toon. It isint a competition, I understand that 100%, but as of right now, there is NO point for 70% of raiders WW to even bother raiding. Please, take a look at the gear and work on it. I know all the casuals are all for equality but I promise you, soon as everyone has the same cookiecutter pieces, most of you that were begging for a smaller gap in raid/casual gear will quit playing.</p><p>Devs, Gear progression is COMPLETELY out of wack this GU. Please take a look at it. The vocal crowd here is literally 5% of eq2. Trust me, I do not agree with ANYTHING some of the vocals have to say.</p>

[Grimtouch420]

<p>I fully agree with tiger on this discussion.  The overkill of gear upgrade in this "Game-Update" which is the key words here is way to farfetched.  I think I can speak on behalf of everyone who progression raids worldwide on how if these gear pieces go through on this update, a lot of the raid populous will be taking extended breaks or possibly calling it quits after years of investment of time and money into this game.  We have worked hard for weeks on end as a collective unit to obtain gear of this quality and then for all that effort to be pretty much washed away by a simple game update which allows simple quest items to render similar gear effects/stats is completely unbelieveable to me.  If this was an expansion which allowed for items of greater quality to be released as well as more extensive raid zones to hold items such as these would make a lot more sense.  But that isn't the case and as a result of this the current end / near end game raid loot should not be in similar comparsion to quests of the caliber of the new content to come. </p><p>People please do respond for either side of the argument and state your points why you feel that way please so the community as a whole gets a better idea of whats about to happen and possibly prevent it before it does...</p>

[Mermut]

<p>I cannot concieve of a single good reason for level 90 quested gear to be better then any level 90 raid gear. Be the raid gear x2, EM or HM.</p><p>The Sentinal's Fate raid zones are dead because the gear in there is completely useless. Adding quests that make gear in DoV raid zones mostly pointless will depopulate those raid zones and, effectively, decrease the useable/used content, not increase it.</p><p>There is no good reason for this GU to add solo content that obsoletes raid content at the same level.</p><p>Editted for typos.</p>

[erratic]

<p>For what it is worth I agree, we have raid zones that we have raid zones that haven't been opened on  many servers that are being thrown away.  Seems like a waste of content due to poor itemization.</p>

[yohann koldheart]

<p>seen a legendary tower sheild drop in skyshrine , 139 str, sta , had a proc called resolute defence II, lasts 10 seconds,procs 2 times per min ,procs off of crit healing spells, crit melee damage, and crit spells. it increases health for 254450.....  yeah thats not going to make every other tower sheild pre GU 63 trash now is it ?</p><p>that same pros is also on a monk weapon.</p>

[Ravensbelly]

<p><cite>yohann koldheart wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>seen a legendary tower sheild drop in skyshrine , 139 str, sta , had a proc called resolute defence II, lasts 10 seconds,procs 2 times per min ,procs off of crit healing spells, crit melee damage, and crit spells. it increases health for 254450.....  yeah thats not going to make every other tower sheild pre GU 63 trash now is it ?</p><p>that same pros is also on a monk weapon.</p></blockquote><p>just a guess, but that proc is more then likely a bug since the procs on all the other items is like 2-5% more then the 1st ranks that red runes give. but i can totally see why you would think 254k HP proc would be real...</p>

[Ogriad]

<p>Why on earth would anyone want to raid if the only reason to do it is to get gear ? honestly raiding should be something you enjoy not something you have to do because you cant get better gear without it.   The fact is . Raiding isn't fun at all.  I am glad SOE is finally breaking away from Raiders and giving us who actually enjoy playing the majority of the game  better quality stuff.</p><p>  Raiders may be the most vocal group in the game but they are far from the biggest.  I say solo options for everything in the game . And further proof of how unliked Raiding really is will be Raiders own comments following mine of how soloable content for the same gear will take people way from raiding . </p><p>Raid if you ENJOY IT not because you HAVE TO(to get better gear)</p><p>Thank you SOE for listening and giving soloers and small groups a better game</p>

[jjlo69]

<p>Players including myself do enjoy raiding but a main part of that enjoyment in raiding is not only beating the encounters but reaping the benifits of receiving satifising loot that goes with that. I see why the opening poster is not happy about loot progression and imho should be looked at seriously before the GU hits or at least have the devs give the player base what there goals are as far as loot progression. Lastly and in all honestly though with 2 level increase I expect to regear everything just due to the shear fact it is not level 92 gear.</p><p>Uncle </p>

[The_Cheeseman]

<p>The overland solo quest gear isn't better than raid gear, as far as I have seen. The stats on the armor are generally better than Ry'Gorr, but with lower mitigation and no colored adornment slots. So far, I have not seen a single item that would replace my EM raid gear. The weapons I have seen are not even as good as drops from ToFS x2.</p><p>The solo quests in Withered Lands will allow casual folks to basically skip all heroic DoV progression up through Kael and most of Drunder (except for the fabled drops). EoW gear is still significantly superior to the Withered Lands solo gear, especially the Hard Mode versions of the former.</p><p>Now, I will say that once you get outfitted in the Withered Lands solo quest gear, it will likely not be worth buying loot auctions to acquire EM raid gear, especially if you don't have access to pure primal shards to adorn it. However, those who are capable of acquiring raid gear themselves will still have access to superior armor.</p><p>Now, I have seen links of items from Skyshrine heroics, and they are crazy. I do agree that mudflation is spiraling out of control, but I just want to make sure people aren't getting the wrong idea. You're not going to walk into Withered Lands and pick up a full set of HM raid-quality gear just by killing 10 rats, so don't expect that. However, you will be getting a set of gear that is equal to, or better than, just about anything you can find pre-EoW without raiding.</p><p>So yes, next month there will be no reason at all to run any of the existing Velious heroic instances except EoW and maybe Drunder for a few select items. As far as raiding goes, DoV EM x4, and all x2 content will be only trivial upgrades and most people probably won't consider them worth the effort. If you can succeed in the Skyshrine heroic content, you may not have any use for DoV x4 HM, or even possibly Drunder HM, though I have not seen enough Skyshrine loot yet to say for certain on that.</p><p>Basically, next month we're going to have the least amount of relevant content in this game we've had in years.</p>

[Onorem]

<p><cite>Ogriad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why on earth would anyone want to raid if the only reason to do it is to get gear ? honestly raiding should be something you enjoy not something you have to do because you cant get better gear without it.   The fact is . Raiding isn't fun at all.  I am glad SOE is finally breaking away from Raiders and giving us who actually enjoy playing the majority of the game  better quality stuff.</p><p>  Raiders may be the most vocal group in the game but they are far from the biggest.  I say solo options for everything in the game . And further proof of how unliked Raiding really is will be Raiders own comments following mine of how soloable content for the same gear will take people way from raiding . </p><p>Raid if you ENJOY IT not because you HAVE TO(to get better gear)</p><p>Thank you SOE for listening and giving soloers and small groups a better game</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for registering today and making your point with your first post.</p><p>I do enjoy raiding, and I do enjoy raiding when I know that I'm unlikely to see an upgrade for myself...but that's because I am happy to raid to help my guildmates in that case.</p><p>I'm fine with giving people solo options, but I've yet to understand why you think your solo reward should be on par with the reward that has to be shared by 6/12/24 people.</p><p>Have fun playing your solo game. You don't need to worry about gear progression since you'll never hit the wall that gear progression brings with it.</p><p>Some raids are fun. Many are not. To have simple solo questlines replace raid gear sucks. It used to be that you at least had to visit an instance to replace previous raid gear. That seems far more reasonable to me.</p>

[Onorem]

<p><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The overland solo quest gear isn't better than raid gear, as far as I have seen. The stats on the armor are generally better than Ry'Gorr, but with lower mitigation and no colored adornment slots. So far, I have not seen a single item that would replace my EM raid gear. The weapons I have seen are not even as good as drops from ToFS x2.</p><p>The solo quests in Withered Lands will allow casual folks to basically skip all heroic DoV progression up through Kael and most of Drunder (except for the fabled drops). EoW gear is still significantly superior to the Withered Lands solo gear, especially the Hard Mode versions of the former.</p><p>Now, I will say that once you get outfitted in the Withered Lands solo quest gear, it will likely not be worth buying loot auctions to acquire EM raid gear, especially if you don't have access to pure primal shards to adorn it. However, those who are capable of acquiring raid gear themselves will still have access to superior armor.</p><p>Now, I have seen links of items from Skyshrine heroics, and they are crazy. I do agree that mudflation is spiraling out of control, but I just want to make sure people aren't getting the wrong idea. You're not going to walk into Withered Lands and pick up a full set of HM raid-quality gear just by killing 10 rats, so don't expect that. However, you will be getting a set of gear that is equal to, or better than, just about anything you can find pre-EoW without raiding.</p><p>So yes, next month there will be no reason at all to run any of the existing Velious heroic instances except EoW and maybe Drunder for a few select items. As far as raiding goes, DoV EM x4, and all x2 content will be only trivial upgrades and most people probably won't consider them worth the effort. If you can succeed in the Skyshrine heroic content, you may not have any use for DoV x4 HM, or even possibly Drunder HM, though I have not seen enough Skyshrine loot yet to say for certain on that.</p><p>Basically, next month we're going to have the least amount of relevant content in this game we've had in years.</p></blockquote><p>This doesn't match up with what I've heard from those I trust. Guildmates are replacing their current raid armor and weapons with the first set of solo questline gear. I haven't tested myself. I refuse to since the DoV beta disaster unless they prove they actually care about test feedback at some point.</p><p>If new solo content puts them just under drunder gear, that sounds great. Everyone should have access to at least RyGorr now anyway since they destroyed the lower zones and the market by taking away shard cost completely.</p><p>Destroying the current DoV content is an absolutely horrible decision. Many people have been waiting too long for this content, but if there's no reason to run original DoV content at all, then everyone will get bored even faster with the new...unless it's actually interesting scripts and not bugged broken to throttle progression.</p><p>--EDIT--</p><p>Looks like I, ah, misremembered what I'd heard. Went to test to check it out myself and haven't found anything to replace raid gear yet. Sorry...I was wrong.</p>

[Elskidor]

<p>If you recall the last year it's not much of a difference. Adapt and move on or /ragequit. </p>

[Darkholis]

<p>Alright, I'm leading a casual raid guild on my server and I'd like to share a bit of what I noticed and think.</p><p>1- My guild raids 3 hours per raid 3 days per week which is a BIG 9 hours lol. That being said, besides raiding, there is nothing to do in DoV atm really. See 1.2 and 1.3 for arguments.</p><p>1.2- Groups zones like Pools/Ascent/Fortress and such don't have any loot that worth doing the zone tbh, even the rare named stuff don't worth wasting time there besides SLR it.</p><p>1.3- Drunder zones are nice but again, the loot is worthless once you are raid geared besides those rare necks. Once you have them, what's the interest of running the zone again? to SLR neck? I get much more satisfction earning my gear by killing the mob than buying it tbh.</p><p>2- As I said at the begenning, we are a casual raid guild compared to some hardcore teams out there and I'm 100% sure that no casual team like mine will EVER see PoW content for few reasons</p><p>2.2- We raid 9 hours a week, not 30 or 40+ like some guilds, we can't farm gear for an entire raid force in 2 weeks to be ready for harder stuff, takes much more time.</p><p>2.3- By the time we see those harder zones, new xpac/game update is already out.</p><p>Consequences of this:</p><p>1- You are killing casual raid teams slowly because they need to start from scrath every dang xpack/gu while our hardcore friends already cleared half of the new stuff lol.</p><p>2- Casual teams never gets a chance to see those nice and hard zones like PoW because there our hardcore friends cry for new content already (btw, that's less than 5% of the entire population of the game)</p><p>*I'd personally like to see the results of those poll SOE sent us and confirm/infirm what we know or might know.*</p><p>Game update 63</p><p>Pros:</p><p>- It seems from playing on test and after talking with devs that everybody gotta start from scratch</p><p>- I like the fact that you need new instance gear to meet new raid requirements.</p><p>- New instance gear gives a chance to lesser raid guilds like mine to catch up and to our casual players and tradeskiller friends out there</p><p>- New gear can let lesser gulilds finally visit those hard zones...well, most won't want to waste time there lol</p><p>- With decent rewards in group zones, they are worth doing now!</p><p>Cons:</p><p>- 90 mins reset timers on zones....come on, you're helping hardcore to gear up again in a single week (if the new gear is REALLY intended to replace HM drunder like devs said).</p><p>- Contested mobs are easy but might cause issues we've seen in SF, big guilds gonna farm it and rest of the server will never have a chance to touch the dang mob.</p><p>*BTW, guild camping same mob over and over and doing SLR of that gear, it's called zone disruption. I'm paying for the game, I have the right to take a try at those mobs too, just saying.*</p><p>Conculsion, it's only on test server atm, so everything is subject to change based on our feedback to SOE. If you're not happy of something, pls speak up and let the devs know instead of sitting in a corner and whine all day long. I personally think that all this new gear is a good thing and gonna give EQ2 a second breath after TSO/SF/DoV 1.0 rampage.</p>

[Loldawg]

<p>A huge part of this game is about advancing your character. Raiding gives you an opportunity to advance your character - but it takes a massive investment in time, patience and attention. If the loot that you get from that investment isn't substantially better than solo'ing, then there really isn't a point. The concept is a basic one to every MMO out there. </p><p>MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online. Raiding requires a large coordinated group of individuals to face and overcome a challenge. It makes no sense in an MMO to reward solo play with the same loot that one can receive through raiding. I'll note that in past expansions, previous tier raids dropped best in slot items even after an expansion hit. And as others have noted, this meant those "old" raid zones continued to be run. I haven't seen the loot from GU63, but if it is in fact as good as HM Drunder, then that will turn those zones into ghost towns. </p>

[Onorem]

<p><cite>Meube@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If you recall the last year it's not much of a difference. Adapt and move on or /ragequit. </p></blockquote><p>I do recall the last year. I wasn't a huge fan. There's no room for middle ground or feedback. Shut up and play or shut up and quit. Thanks for the input.</p>

[Davngr1]

<p>yea, i have to agree here. </p> <p> 2 levels isn't enough to warrant scrapping all current progression.    at least make the progression happen in new raid zones for raid gear  ie.  pow will be replaced by a pow like raid zone (high end) released later on.     </p> <p>  also, please make sure that you keep heroic progression linear.  zones don't need gear checks to be difficult.   yes, there needs to be gear requirements but said requirements should be accessible to casual/alts/new players (this is 6 man zones i'm talking about)</p>

[Loco_kano]

<p><strong>Im so tired of hearing this, this xpac has been so raid oriented its hard to swallow. The majority of player base has yet to see most zones. The player base just isnt there to funnel through raid guilds anymore. If anyone has half a brain cell in business they will start to please the 95% and/or start distributing content correctly 95% overland/instances 5% raid. It also seems to be that the feedback is complety lopsided on the forums, all I see is "i raided this much, so it should be like this". I understand that raiding needs to be address but you cannot vapor-lock old content to make you feel better about your time spend there. You might have a leg to stand on in this argument if I seen tons of 90s looking for guilds, excepting raid schedules and willing to scrap their main class. Got a 90 zerker today, good guy, plays well ran some zones with him to get gear all the while thinking, what am i going to do with him? I have a tank, and with dps checks etc its going to be hard to let him play. As it sits now I am going to be losing some of my best to GW2 at around the same time this releases, it may not last but I still will be stuck with trying to find replacements while they're gone. So leaving things status quo isnt a good option, and a poor business decision. This is a game guys, its suppose to be challenging and fun, it shouldnt be a nightmare to get a group together and go kills stuff and explore. Thats what raid content is for. =p</strong></p>

[Ravensbelly]

<p>ive gone through all parts of the contested killing all the names multiple times, and went through the first couple of instances, havent been into the HM versions yet.with that said i have found that while alot of the gear has some crazy amounts of stats like a helm with 90DPS mod but thats it no other good stats meaning that you will need to have AoD to make all this gear worth it. all the contested/instance armor has 2 white slots and a yellow. with reforging i am able to replace a good chunk of my vanilla EM x4 gear. higher up gear like EoW rare drops, drunder EM stuff though its not as much the case but still replace some of it.when it comes to the weapons, charms, belts and such you lose the red slots and yellow slots, but gain built in procs which doesnt always turn out to be an upgrade. you arent going to find contested/instance drops with warune procs on them, they all have the procs of faction adornments. biggest thing im seeing is along with the 2 whites and a yellow on some armor slots they also have had aditional procs like cyclic battering and the such.but i like replacing gear even stuff i just got a week ago, its part of the game for me. and alot of the drops people are replacing are from zones that have been out for 7 months to a year. and in most games new content that replaces the old usually goes by that time frame, well closer to the 1 year mark</p>

[Yimway]

<p>Dear SoE,</p><p>This GU isn't big enough to perform a complete gear reset, there isn't enough content in it for the entire playerbase to be focussed on just that until your next content update.</p><p>Your itemization though is negating everything else that came before this GU.</p><p>I'm really not sure you know what you are doing anymore.</p>

[Geothe]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Dear SoE,</p><p>This GU isn't big enough to perform a complete gear reset, there isn't enough content in it for the entire playerbase to be focussed on just that until your next content update.</p><p>Your itemization though is negating everything else that came before this GU.</p><p>I'm really not sure you know what you are doing anymore.</p></blockquote><p>This.</p>

[Mermut]

<p><cite>Loco_kano wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong>Im so tired of hearing this, this xpac has been so raid oriented its hard to swallow. The majority of player base has yet to see most zones. The player base just isnt there to funnel through raid guilds anymore. If anyone has half a brain cell in business they will start to please the 95% and/or start distributing content correctly 95% overland/instances 5% raid. It also seems to be that the feedback is complety lopsided on the forums, all I see is "i raided this much, so it should be like this". I understand that raiding needs to be address but you cannot vapor-lock old content to make you feel better about your time spend there. You might have a leg to stand on in this argument if I seen tons of 90s looking for guilds, excepting raid schedules and willing to scrap their main class. Got a 90 zerker today, good guy, plays well ran some zones with him to get gear all the while thinking, what am i going to do with him? I have a tank, and with dps checks etc its going to be hard to let him play. As it sits now I am going to be losing some of my best to GW2 at around the same time this releases, it may not last but I still will be stuck with trying to find replacements while they're gone. So leaving things status quo isnt a good option, and a poor business decision. This is a game guys, its suppose to be challenging and fun, it shouldnt be a nightmare to get a group together and go kills stuff and explore. Thats what raid content is for. =p</strong></p></blockquote><p>The crazy gear inflation isn't just about raiding, actually. The biggest problem with having the solo questable gear in this GU better then 'raid gear' is a matter of degree. Since raid gear is 'the best' gear, it means that the solo quested gear is better then any quested gear, crafted gear or instance gear from before. Consquently, most of the drops in the current zones (overland names, heroic instances, etc) are also being made obsolete by gear that you can easily get by yourself.</p><p>How many people run instances in Stonebrunt Highlands any more? (I mean with groups of actualy people.) Not many, because while it might be fun and get you some xp/AA, your time is better spent in the DoV instances if you want to progress, because the gear in the Odus instances is so outclassed by solo quested gear in DoV. This is a syptom of having quested gear better then or comparable to raid gear of the same tier or just before. It created ghost towns of previous content.</p><p>Maybe this is the 'bright idea' of somebody over at SoE who thinks that the game will be 'healthier' if they cramp everybody into a teeny handful of zones so they're crowded... so we think that the server is super busy or something. The size of the Withered Lands is actually a good example of this. The zone is incredibly spread out.. but it's just one long skinny zone with very little actual 'space'. Even with a small test population, it is nearly impossible to get solo quest updates without 'fighting' 1-5 other people for the mobs you need. Add quests that need 8 of a particular mob, that never has more then 8 up at a time...</p><p>In my opinion, having major GUs/expansions 'negate' time and effort people (be they soloers, instances, raiders or some combo there of) put into the game is an extremely short-sighted decision. It frustrates your veterans and makes the most recent content nearly pointless, turning the zones into ghost towns.</p>

[Loco_kano]

<p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Loco_kano wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong>Im so tired of hearing this, this xpac has been so raid oriented its hard to swallow. The majority of player base has yet to see most zones. The player base just isnt there to funnel through raid guilds anymore. If anyone has half a brain cell in business they will start to please the 95% and/or start distributing content correctly 95% overland/instances 5% raid. It also seems to be that the feedback is complety lopsided on the forums, all I see is "i raided this much, so it should be like this". I understand that raiding needs to be address but you cannot vapor-lock old content to make you feel better about your time spend there. You might have a leg to stand on in this argument if I seen tons of 90s looking for guilds, excepting raid schedules and willing to scrap their main class. Got a 90 zerker today, good guy, plays well ran some zones with him to get gear all the while thinking, what am i going to do with him? I have a tank, and with dps checks etc its going to be hard to let him play. As it sits now I am going to be losing some of my best to GW2 at around the same time this releases, it may not last but I still will be stuck with trying to find replacements while they're gone. So leaving things status quo isnt a good option, and a poor business decision. This is a game guys, its suppose to be challenging and fun, it shouldnt be a nightmare to get a group together and go kills stuff and explore. Thats what raid content is for. =p</strong></p></blockquote><p>The crazy gear inflation isn't just about raiding, actually. The biggest problem with having the solo questable gear in this GU better then 'raid gear' is a matter of degree. Since raid gear is 'the best' gear, it means that the solo quested gear is better then any quested gear, crafted gear or instance gear from before. Consquently, most of the drops in the current zones (overland names, heroic instances, etc) are also being made obsolete by gear that you can easily get by yourself.</p><p>How many people run instances in Stonebrunt Highlands any more? (I mean with groups of actualy people.) Not many, because while it might be fun and get you some xp/AA, your time is better spent in the DoV instances if you want to progress, because the gear in the Odus instances is so outclassed by solo quested gear in DoV. This is a syptom of having quested gear better then or comparable to raid gear of the same tier or just before. It created ghost towns of previous content.</p><p>Maybe this is the 'bright idea' of somebody over at SoE who thinks that the game will be 'healthier' if they cramp everybody into a teeny handful of zones so they're crowded... so we think that the server is super busy or something. The size of the Withered Lands is actually a good example of this. The zone is incredibly spread out.. but it's just one long skinny zone with very little actual 'space'. Even with a small test population, it is nearly impossible to get solo quest updates without 'fighting' 1-5 other people for the mobs you need. Add quests that need 8 of a particular mob, that never has more then 8 up at a time...</p><p>In my opinion, having major GUs/expansions 'negate' time and effort people (be they soloers, instances, raiders or some combo there of) put into the game is an extremely short-sighted decision. It frustrates your veterans and makes the most recent content nearly pointless, turning the zones into ghost towns.</p></blockquote><p>You already have an expansion that only (and im being generous here 40%) get to see most of. Its killing casual guilds like a plague. As it sits now everything is class build for the groups, so if you dont have the class we need sorry for ya. Its sad, if we had a booming population this wouldnt be a problem but it undeniably is. They need to soften the zones in old content so less than optimal group setups have a chance. This action has totaly isolated new players with only 1 or 2 toons. If they ever want to attract new players, they have to bring pug grouping back and quit running every instance in a raid configuration to succeed. At some point you have to quit thinking about what you want, and start thinking what the majority of players and this game needs.</p>

[Gwyrdd]

<p>I agree with the OP.</p><p>I don't know as I can be called a "casual" player, given as much time as I commit to this game, but I'm in a very small guild of friends who aren't always up for grouping, most DoV content I've seen (and it's far from all) has been through PuGs, gearing has been a challenge and is an impediment to my seeing more content until I improve. That is completely fine with me, even if the actual gear progression scheme is messy. Personally, I don't see a good reason why introductory overland quested gear in the new areas should be superior even to Ry'Gorr; perhaps circumstantially better could work, by providing a mix of blue stats that might re-introduce some character customization choice.</p><p>By all means, gear for levels 91-92 should upgrade level 90 material within reason, but obsolescing the rest of DoV is unwise.</p>

[Gwyrdd]

<p><cite>Loco_kano wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You already have an expansion that only (and im being generous here 40%) get to see most of. Its killing casual guilds like a plague. As it sits now everything is class build for the groups, so if you dont have the class we need sorry for ya. Its sad, if we had a booming population this wouldnt be a problem but it undeniably is. They need to soften the zones in old content so less than optimal group setups have a chance. This action has totaly isolated new players with only 1 or 2 toons. If they ever want to attract new players, they have to bring pug grouping back and quit running every instance in a raid configuration to succeed. At some point you have to quit thinking about what you want, and start thinking what the majority of players and this game needs.</p></blockquote><p>That's not essentially a problem of gear progression, which was the point of this thread. Derailing it with you a bit, I agree that encounter design of the mini-raid style is a PiTA, and a rather unpleasant compartmentalization to be forced into when assembling a heroic group. That's encounter design, not gear progression, and I still think that existing Velious content needs to stay gear/rewards relevant.</p>

[CleeGrahamx2099]

<p>This post has nothing to do with the group content but regarding the overland quest rewards. I heard someone earlier say that just the quest rewards will remove the raid equipment, I have done over 20 quests and have not seen it yet. I am seeing stuff with 140AGI and STA, but when you look at the potency and crit bonus and such, its barely at 4 percent so. Anyway, just figured I would throw it out there. The stats look nice but look at the crit bonus and other stats. Again, this is ONLY on the quest rewards, has nothing to do with the group content.</p>

[Landiin]

If you people think the quested gear is going to be replacing raid gear from DoV then I hate to see your gear. Like Clee I've done a crap ton of the quest and nothing I've came across will replace any of my raid gear. What we have is a crap ton of people listing to people that hasn't been play testing the GU or don't have a clue. Yes the gear will be a big upgrade for solo/heroic geared people but that is it.

[Loldawg]

<p>The problem isn't just the overland quested gear. It's heroic gear that will outclass raid gear. That basically puts the rest of DOV 6 feet under. You think there's nothing to do now - just wait a month or two after GU63 when we've all completed everything that's been offered and there's nowhere to go to advance or improve. No one will want to go back and do old raid zones.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If you people think the quested gear is going to be replacing raid gear from DoV then I hate to see your gear.</blockquote><p>Compair Gu63 heroic drops to current DoV raid gear and get back to me on if you see any reason to continue doing any current dov content.</p><p>Then look at the amount of new content in GU63, get back to me on if you see that you'll have anything to do in 3 months.</p><p>Perhaps someone with a little more time can post some screenshot examples to better illistrate it.  I'm using a tablet atm and can't get at the data.</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If you people think the quested gear is going to be replacing raid gear from DoV then I hate to see your gear.</blockquote><p>Compair Gu63 heroic drops to current DoV raid gear and get back to me on if you see any reason to continue doing any current dov content.</p><p>Then look at the amount of new content in GU63, get back to me on if you see that you'll have anything to do in 3 months.</p><p>Perhaps someone with a little more time can post some screenshot examples to better illistrate it.  I'm using a tablet atm and can't get at the data.</p></blockquote><p>These are not my SS ... but they are floating around ...</p><p>X2 mob ..</p><p><img src="http://www.eq2flames.com/attachments/items-equipment/4166d1331923450t-dov2-items-dov2_1.png" width="290" height="343" /></p><p>95^^^ mob</p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/3kbMW.png" width="305" height="574" /></p>

[Geothe]

<p>the entry zone quest in witherland lands gives a scout helm that has +21 AE Autoattack and like ~150 Agi and Sta.</p><p>Yeah, gear progression is all screwy</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Itemization screwed up?  Par for the course the last 12 months.</p>

[Loldawg]

<p>those mage hands are better than HM Drunder... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Rageincarnate]

<p>i suggest playing on test.  To see if the stats fits the content, then decide.</p><p>Before you emo, someone link the parse of trash having 250 million hp. </p><p>I don't think some of you have a whole picture and are comparing to what you know which is current game.</p><p>Yes, i think power should go down a bit as mob hp should go down as well.  Just want people to think a little about it.</p>

[Darkholis]

<p>Here is the tank BP I got on my guard from Hexapola 96x4 in WL</p><p><img src="http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z358/Darkholis/gu63bp.png" /></p><p>It's much better than most tank BP available atm</p><p>**we took the mob down in 17 secs with 1.86 million dps LOL**</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>i suggest playing on test.  To see if the stats fits the content, then decide.</p><p>Before you emo, someone link the parse of trash having 250 million hp. </p><p>I don't think some of you have a whole picture and are comparing to what you know which is current game.</p><p>Yes, i think power should go down a bit as mob hp should go down as well.  Just want people to think a little about it.</p></blockquote><p>The whole pictue is that DOV 1.0 is being made completely irrelevant when >50% of the players haven't experienced a great deal of it and from DOV 2.0 forward anything below Drunder x4 Hm and MAYBE EOW HM heroic will not be run any longer.</p><p>I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to replace 2 overland, 13 Heroics, 2 Raidx2 and 6 Raid x4 with 1 overland a handfull of heroics ahd raids that will be burnt up in 3 months time.</p><p>Does anyone really thing that after a gear reset from DOV2 that people will actively run DOV1 zones any longer other than the 2 or 3 viable zones left with special rare gear drops.</p>

[Rageincarnate]

<p>your right .. i'm sorry.  I do want to do drunder hm and pow ALOT but..</p><p>I'm just worried that if we ask for nerfs to gear.  Current raid mobs are tuned to the op gear.  Then we have to wait for nerfs to raid mobs.  That's my only thought.  Shutting my hole now.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>your right .. i'm sorry.  I do want to do drunder hm and pow ALOT but..</p></blockquote><p>It doesn't look like there will be any reason to do so after April 17th.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>Seriously,</p><p>Who is even supposed to be in charge of Itemization and zone progression?</p><p>I've seen absolutely zero feedback on either for a long time.</p>

[Landiin]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If you people think the quested gear is going to be replacing raid gear from DoV then I hate to see your gear.</blockquote><p>Compair Gu63 heroic drops to current DoV raid gear and get back to me on if you see any reason to continue doing any current dov content.</p><p>Then look at the amount of new content in GU63, get back to me on if you see that you'll have anything to do in 3 months.</p><p>Perhaps someone with a little more time can post some screenshot examples to better illistrate it.  I'm using a tablet atm and can't get at the data.</p></blockquote><p>Last I checked overland quested gear isn't the same as heroic gear. But maybe to you it is to you? /shrug</p><p>I am not saying gear prog isn't messed up, but you are not going to got WL and do quest and replace raid gear like some people are trying to make out. True some of the quested items might have jacked up main stats but things like pot, CC, Multi is super low and lacking red and or yellow adorn slots. So you are not going to be replacing your raid item with these phew items.</p>

[Darkholis]

<p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>True some of the quested items might have jacked up main stats but things like pot, CC, Multi is super low and lacking red and or yellow adorn slots. So you are not going to be replacing your raid item with these phew items.</p></blockquote><p>True, the quest gear won't replace EM gear but gear from heroic zones/contested and raid contested will without any doubt.</p>

[acctlc]

<p><cite>Nrgy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>i suggest playing on test.  To see if the stats fits the content, then decide.</p><p>Before you emo, someone link the parse of trash having 250 million hp. </p><p>I don't think some of you have a whole picture and are comparing to what you know which is current game.</p><p>Yes, i think power should go down a bit as mob hp should go down as well.  Just want people to think a little about it.</p></blockquote><p>The whole pictue is that DOV 1.0 is being made completely irrelevant when >50% of the players haven't experienced a great deal of it and from DOV 2.0 forward anything below Drunder x4 Hm and MAYBE EOW HM heroic will not be run any longer.</p><p>I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to replace 2 overland, 13 Heroics, 2 Raidx2 and 6 Raid x4 with 1 overland a handfull of heroics ahd raids that will be burnt up in 3 months time.</p><p>Does anyone really thing that after a gear reset from DOV2 that people will actively run DOV1 zones any longer other than the 2 or 3 viable zones left with special rare gear drops.</p></blockquote><p>I probably dont have the opinion of most chiming in on this but personally I can't see anything more healthy for the game right now that a complete do-over of content.  Will 63 have enough to keep ppl busy?  Probably not.  But honestly the raid content up to this point has been a disaster.  The only reason ppl are finally going somewhere in HM drunder and beyond is they finally fixed it to the point of being semi doable and for a lot its still more trouble than its worth. </p><p>They came up with content that makes tanks and healers want to ragequit and go play star wars, plain and simple. For the rest of us the difficulty in the progression has freaking skyrocketted for gear that is .1 % better.  How is this fun?  I see more ppl quitting and no people left to fill the holes.  Thats already a reality and its *not* because there isn't plenty of content to progress into, but because its so broken or requiring such specific setups that its outside the grasp of most.  Spring is coming and it will only get worse.  If whats coming in gu63 is nerfed down to the point of uselessness compared to existing stagnant zones then what's the point?  Personally I'd rather see them re-evaluate the direction of this game because if they continue to design content weighted heavily with the "hardcore" mentality in mind, it will be the death of this game. Most those hardcore players aren't even still playing btw.  The hard as nails raid encounters wasn't enough to keep them from disbanding their guild and going to other games.</p>

[Talathion]

<p>29% AE auto on a piece of gear...</p><p>My Mythical is becomming more and more bad <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />.</p><p>I think they should redo some of EoF/KoS to be level 95 and add new quests to it.</p>

[Chronus1]

<p><cite>Darkholis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Here is the tank BP I got on my guard from Hexapola 96x4 in WL</p><p><img src="http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z358/Darkholis/gu63bp.png" /></p><p>It's much better than most tank BP available atm</p><p>**we took the mob down in 17 secs with 1.86 million dps LOL**</p></blockquote><p>Lol, Inb4 10 second long server first kills. The potency on that is very, very low but still amazing, however it does scare me as to what the mage bp will be, I hope not huge spell weapon stats and then high potency and pathetic crit bonus or somthing.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Compair Gu63 heroic drops to current DoV raid gear and get back to me on if you see any reason to continue doing any current dov content.</p><p>Then look at the amount of new content in GU63, get back to me on if you see that you'll have anything to do in 3 months.</p></blockquote><p>Last I checked overland quested gear isn't the same as heroic gear. But maybe to you it is to you? /shrug</p><p>I am not saying gear prog isn't messed up, but you are not going to got WL and do quest and replace raid gear like some people are trying to make out. True some of the quested items might have jacked up main stats but things like pot, CC, Multi is super low and lacking red and or yellow adorn slots. So you are not going to be replacing your raid item with these phew items.</p></blockquote><p>The issue isn't about the quested gear vs the raid gear. </p><p>The issue is, the entire itemization level trivializes any reason to do any content outside of GU63.  GU63 in itself isn't enough content to keep people busy until the next content update.</p><p>If you look at where we are in progressing current DOV content, the vast majority of the player base isn't even in PoW, there is still alot of potential progression to be eeked out of the current DoV release.  Even with the level cap increase, it could take months (3+) for the median population to complete the DoV timeline. However releasing GU63 itemization pumped up as high as it is, negates the need to continue any current DoV content.</p><p>I'm not sure how I can more accurately describe the problem, but its a brick wall and they are racing towards it.</p>

[Darkholis]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If you look at where we are in progressing current DOV content, the vast majority of the player base isn't even in PoW, there is still alot of potential progression to be eeked out of the current DoV release.  Even with the level cap increase, it could take months (3+) for the median population to complete the DoV timeline. However releasing GU63 itemization pumped up as high as it is, negates the need to continue any current DoV content.</p></blockquote><p>You perfectly described the issue =)</p>

[Tigerr]

For those claiming that this is a reset of gear and this is just a "start over" you guys really have no idea what you are talking about. This new inflated quest/contested dungeon gear isint going to let you experience all of GU63..Just like DoV1 there will be a gear progression.. Just because this gear has much bigger stats than in DoV1 doesnt mean you will experience all this new content. Casuals will remain casuals and the hardcore will obviously progress faster. This inflated gear from the quests/contested drops is the same thing as Othmir gear. Would you go into Drunder with Othmir gear?.. I feel like the majority of the people really have no idea what they are saying. All this gear is , is well... inflated gear that is killing off everything under Skyshrine. It will NOT help you do high end NEW content nor will it even help you kill stuff you were never able to kill. If you were a casual, you will remain casual with this update. The stats on the gear make NO difference. Some of the events in drunder require people that KNOW their class in and out. The reason people are against this is not to hinder 's progression ( or ability to have "fun") All it is doing is making content obsolete. Stop thinking that with Skyshrine gear, casuals will be able to stroll into current content that they have wanted to experience and start taking stuff out. The gear is inflated, that is ALL it is. You will still have to WORK hard to get into END content thats included in GU63. Like I said, Casuals will STILL remain casual and the hardcore will be steps ahead regardless, only difference is, the content before GU63 is just gone. There are people that play 2 ( two ) days in a week. For them, logging on, getting quick gear and killing stuff is extremely fun. They get more done and since they arent on as often, they care less about competition and being the "best". Since they only log on 2 days a week, this content lasts them for a VERY long time. If the game were to be built around this, there would be nobody playing. What if everyone had the EXACT same gear (just like most of the complainers want, but do NOT understand the consequences) and we ran dungeons all for "fun".. Trust me, that idea/plan will NOT last long. Right now, I currently play eq2. I RARELY log into eq1. Since I do not play it everyday, I'd loveeee to have some GM gear that I can summon at will, I'd LOVE to be able to experience content that I never have before, and since I would be a casual to eq1, I wouldn't care if I had the best gear in the game just by clicking a button , because well... It'd be fun. But, what that would do is COMPLETELY kill game progression. If there are no goals to achieve for other players, it would be a dead game. It'd be GREAT for myself to log in and play a few times a week without putting time and effort into it but it would wreck entire progression. This is why content is balanced the way it is. There is raid content and heroic content. It is NOT the "hardcore" population's fault that sony does NOT put out enough content. When the "casuals" finish pools/ascent/spires/dable in drunder, they get bored and guess what, they want to try the raids. When they form up and realize that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do without knowing your character IN AND OUT ( those folks play for fun, not to learn), they come to THESE VERY FORUMS and ask for nerfs because well, for THEM content is extremely hard. Point is, due to lack of new content, the casuals are trying Drunder and getting slapped back to Kelethin. There is more heroic content then raid content. To say "Oh, the content that is designed for the hardcore 5% ( which btw, is NOT 5%) isint fair and we should be able to access it too" is just silly all together. The casuals that play even LESS than twice a week and only for 1-2 hours want to try raids but they cannot as they do not have the knowledge to do it. (Before you guys all chime in and say "IT SHOULD BE FUN MR TIGER, ITS NOT ABOUT BEING THE BEST" you really need to understand that it would BREAKKKK bridging the gap between raiders and casuals) The reason the game is SOMEWHAT balanced is because of those "smelly raiders". Remember, the hardcore WILL give the better feedback ( Not because they are BETTER but simply because they have more time invested in XYZ class). The feedback from the "raiders" is the reason why your 12th berzerker alt does not have nukes and why your Wizard does not rez. Do not take it as an insult, it is just the way it is. The casuals suggestions are fine and all but, in the end, they would completely mess everything up. The raiders/hardcore do not ask for anything to make THEM more powerful, most of them want balance, hence why they ask for less inflated gear. Either way, they'd be at the top of the food chain, and skill wise, still be "better" . They ask to stop this gear inflation because it will BREAK THE GAME. This skyshrine gear that you guys think will help really isint. All it would do is bork the entire game Please, I am not trying to insult anyone. I am for casuals AND the hardcore. Understand that... Devs, please look into this

[Tigerr]

Also, quick note The quested gear should probably begin right around ToTactics( +114 ) stat...Need to keep it in check. There is no way Devs can make DoV1 irrelevant. The funniest thing is, even with the 180+ to all stats x2 or whatever it is gear, people will obviously still have a hard time and complain and ask for nerfs because they cannot progress (heroic). 180 stat gear doesnt mean content is going to be all like Pools or Ascent. Inflated gear= harder content.. The gap is just wayyyy out of line right now. X2 stuff atleast needs to be DoV HMish

[Thulia]

<p> don't you remember how crazy the gear was DoV or drunder first came out, everything always gets nerfed down the road</p>

[Onorem]

<p>Thank you Tigerr for your completely random opinion of who and how many people do anything. Your insight is very useful.../sarcasm</p>

[Darkholis]

<p>Wow, just wow, Tigerr, you pretty much insulted the entire EQ2 gaming community by saying that casual players suck.</p><p>You know what, it's FALSE!</p><p>Casual players are casual because there is many things in their live that is much more important than a video game. We don't all have 40+ hours a week to spend on a video game, we have a job, we have a familly, a real life. </p><p>How can you even argue that casual don't know how tho play their toons? What's your argument based on?</p><p>Playtime? More playtime mean you know stuff?</p><p>Gear? A geared player mean he/she did stuff and that he/she know stuff?</p><p>You're also saying casual can't clear zones? based on what? Less amount of play time mean less experience?</p><p>For your own personnal information Tigger, I started to tank raids 12 years ago in EQ1 on my sk and guess what I'm still raiding on a sk nowadays in EQ2. Does that mean I'm the best sk worldwide because I'm a 12 years vet? Heck no.</p><p>I'm a casual raider in EQ2, does that mean I suck, I highly doubt it. My guardian Vanuk is atm in the top 10 guardian of the Crushbone server with EM gear, what's that mean? It mean that the player 6 inches behind the screen is more important then gear or class or time you spent in game.</p><p>Based on what you're saying, hardcore raiders are the only ones SOE should listen. You know that because of those hardcore guilds you love so much, 80%+ of the player base is not seing 40% of an xpac because it's raid oriented. I have to admit it, I'm a raider, but a casual one and I admit I think DoV is boring once you're geared, do that mean I have the right to cry for new content while others have not done half of it?</p><p>Tbh Tigerr, hardcore guilds are a plague in MMOs, they limit the casual player base to a certain amount of content. Of course there is a gap between die hard raiders and casual players but seriously, are you raiding for gear only? are you raiding to say after, ''hey, I have gear, you all suck''? As a raider, my fun and goal is to 1-kill the hardest ugly and nasty monsters out there and 2-be the best at my class I don't care if casual have gear similar to me, I'll still have the satisfaction of saying ''I did it! I earned and looted my gear of the dead body of xyz boss!'' If you look at the defintion of raid, it's a regroupement of players taking on a harder encounter. I never saw the ''we are hot'' part in any serious defiition of the term.</p><p>The conclusion of my long post is that yes, there is a gap between casual players and raiders and even hardcore. It also mean MMOs designers have to consider everybody in the balance while creating content, but remember folks, this is a video game, it's meant to have fun, for all type of players.</p><p>***I really want to say I'm not here to start a war in between casual and raider playerbase, it's not my goal, I'm here to talk about what I see in new GU in the most neutral way possible. I'm just dead tired to see those knives flying all around towards casual and or raiders, we should work together, not against each other**</p>

[Hamervelder]

<p><cite>Onorem wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ogriad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why on earth would anyone want to raid if the only reason to do it is to get gear ? honestly raiding should be something you enjoy not something you have to do because you cant get better gear without it.   The fact is . Raiding isn't fun at all.  I am glad SOE is finally breaking away from Raiders and giving us who actually enjoy playing the majority of the game  better quality stuff.</p><p>  Raiders may be the most vocal group in the game but they are far from the biggest.  I say solo options for everything in the game . And further proof of how unliked Raiding really is will be Raiders own comments following mine of how soloable content for the same gear will take people way from raiding . </p><p>Raid if you ENJOY IT not because you HAVE TO(to get better gear)</p><p>Thank you SOE for listening and giving soloers and small groups a better game</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for registering today and making your point with your first post.</p><p>I do enjoy raiding, and I do enjoy raiding when I know that I'm unlikely to see an upgrade for myself...but that's because I am happy to raid to help my guildmates in that case.</p><p><strong>I'm fine with giving people solo options, but I've yet to understand why you think your solo reward should be on par with the reward that has to be shared by 6/12/24 people.</strong></p><p>Have fun playing your solo game. You don't need to worry about gear progression since you'll never hit the wall that gear progression brings with it.</p><p>Some raids are fun. Many are not. To have simple solo questlines replace raid gear sucks. It used to be that you at least had to visit an instance to replace previous raid gear. That seems far more reasonable to me.</p></blockquote><p>Spot on.  There's no logical reason for anyone to believe that their reward for doing a solo quest should be of  similar or better quality as the reward that 24 people have to share for spending hours doing much more difficult content.</p>

[Tigerr]

<p><cite>Darkholis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow, just wow, Tigerr, you pretty much insulted the entire EQ2 gaming community by saying that casual players suck.</p><p>You know what, it's FALSE!</p><p>Casual players are casual because there is many things in their live that is much more important than a video game. We don't all have 40+ hours a week to spend on a video game, we have a job, we have a familly, a real life. </p><p>How can you even argue that casual don't know how tho play their toons? What's your argument based on?</p><p>Playtime? More playtime mean you know stuff?</p><p>Gear? A geared player mean he/she did stuff and that he/she know stuff?</p><p>You're also saying casual can't clear zones? based on what? Less amount of play time mean less experience?</p><p>For your own personnal information Tigger, I started to tank raids 12 years ago in EQ1 on my sk and guess what I'm still raiding on a sk nowadays in EQ2. Does that mean I'm the best sk worldwide because I'm a 12 years vet? Heck no.</p><p>I'm a casual raider in EQ2, does that mean I suck, I highly doubt it. My guardian Vanuk is atm in the top 10 guardian of the Crushbone server with EM gear, what's that mean? It mean that the player 6 inches behind the screen is more important then gear or class or time you spent in game.</p><p>Based on what you're saying, hardcore raiders are the only ones SOE should listen. You know that because of those hardcore guilds you love so much, 80%+ of the player base is not seing 40% of an xpac because it's raid oriented. I have to admit it, I'm a raider, but a casual one and I admit I think DoV is boring once you're geared, do that mean I have the right to cry for new content while others have not done half of it?</p><p>Tbh Tigerr, hardcore guilds are a plague in MMOs, they limit the casual player base to a certain amount of content. Of course there is a gap between die hard raiders and casual players but seriously, are you raiding for gear only? are you raiding to say after, ''hey, I have gear, you all suck''? As a raider, my fun and goal is to 1-kill the hardest ugly and nasty monsters out there and 2-be the best at my class I don't care if casual have gear similar to me, I'll still have the satisfaction of saying ''I did it! I earned and looted my gear of the dead body of xyz boss!'' If you look at the defintion of raid, it's a regroupement of players taking on a harder encounter. I never saw the ''we are hot'' part in any serious defiition of the term.</p><p>The conclusion of my long post is that yes, there is a gap between casual players and raiders and even hardcore. It also mean MMOs designers have to consider everybody in the balance while creating content, but remember folks, this is a video game, it's meant to have fun, for all type of players.</p><p>***I really want to say I'm not here to start a war in between casual and raider playerbase, it's not my goal, I'm here to talk about what I see in new GU in the most neutral way possible. I'm just dead tired to see those knives flying all around towards casual and or raiders, we should work together, not against each other**</p></blockquote><p>I never said Casuals suck, I never said casuals do not deserve anything lol..... Every single person, regardless of what "position" they are in are being LISTENED to ( Actually, right now, noone is being listened to). You are 100% right.. DoV is boring, especially after you run out of content to do. The casual player base has the majority of the content heh... Every...single.....person in this game can RAID and do ANY content they like. Their progression in the GAME is based on their playtime, its a very simple concept and it has worked this way forever. You being a veteran from eq1 ( I played eq1 for about 10 years on a druid/sk) should be familiar with this. Everyone has their own form of playstyle and noone is dissing how ANYONE plays this game. </p><p>You asked me why I raid.. Is it for gear, is it for fun. Everyone obviously raids for their own reason but, the majority of the people that put in the hours and the time obviously want to be rewarded for it. Raiding for me is fun, I get to get together with my buddies 4 times a week and I love it. Alot of people love the competition, if there is no competition.. for them there is no point of playing. You said there are all types of playstyles, and why should sony pick which gets worked on more than the other. But at the same time, you just said that competitive raiding should not exist. With that said, people asking for similiar gear with less amount of effort is completely ruining the game for the people that enjoy competitive raiding, but some people want that difference bridged so they can enjoy it THEIR way, and since they do not have the time to get the gear, they obviously want an easier method of obtaining it, and I completely understand that.</p><p>Do you see where I am trying to get at?.. basically, casuals are getting offended at the fact that players are saying that the more work you put in, the better the gear should be. Since they are limited in their playtime, they obviously have an issue with that. Noone is bashing anyone... I mentioned that a few times in my post.  There are people who log in 2 days a week just because they like to go to Sebilis, kill some frogs and log back off. The reason alot of people are against this gear inflation is not because we are bitter that casuals get good gear. It is REALLY not about that at all. Down the road, it effects everyone. A good majority of the people on this forum understand that this new GU63 gear is just plain overinflated and WILL have an impact. The "hardcore/raiders" arent saying this because they want casuals nerfed. That is NOT the case.</p><p>Right now, alot of people log in for acouple of hours on a saturday, run Pools/ascent/spires and log back off. They have fun, there are people doing the content ( Not tooo many but there IS a population). When this inflated gear hits, there will be nobody in those zones. Everything Pre-GU63 will be rendered useless.  Not only is it to the raiders benefit that this stuff gets toned down, it is also to the benefit of the casuals.  The casuals on this forum seem to take great offense at the smallest things. Noone thinks anyone is better than anyone lol. The reason ANYONE brings up stat inflation is because down the road, it WILL have effect on every...single...person... playing this game.  This is not a debate about Raider VS Casual. Sony needs to add more content period, there is content for people who like to group/raid/whatever. There is ALOT of easymode content that is open to the casual playerbase. With this gear, the progression guilds ( that are filled with CASUALS) will have no reason to do the zones other than for the fun factor (Alot of those people enjoy it, believe it or not).</p><p>Point is, it effects everyone. The new gear should atleast start from x2-DoV vanilla HM level... not where it is now. In the end DoV1 is old, not alot of people will run those zones, but making it obsolete with the quest gear from skyshrine with this JUST being a GU ( not an expansion ) is just way too much. Right now, there is content that isint even finished ( guess whos fault it was for making majority of it wayy too hard) yet we get gear that is better than HM vallons. It just doesnt make sense. The guilds that just broke into PoW will probably replace all those pieces with the heroic gear from Skyshrine lol.. Then they gonna skyrocket through to the end content and then once again, we will ALLL be in the same boat, with no content. Atleast with drunder, people used to be able to go back and forth from Vanilla to drunder and still use some stuff from all those zones. Now, you are just limited to Withered Lands and up. I dont know about you but, I dont want content obsolete within what?, 6 months ( drunder) of comming out.  </p>

[Darkholis]

<p><cite>Tigerr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Now, you are just limited to Withered Lands and up. I dont know about you but, I dont want content obsolete within what?, 6 months ( drunder) of comming out.  </p></blockquote><p>I 100% agree with you there.</p><p>As a matter of fact, my raid team is finshing EM DoV atm and we're getting our very first kills in HM =) Just kills me to know all efforts we've put in the last year are....dust. I personally think GU63 raids/groups should be an alternative to complete what we have atm. As an example, we all want drunder instances neck, we could want let's say earing from skyshrine, you know what I mean =)</p><p>New zones should have items to grab our interest, not forcing us into them and after playing 4 days on test, I did 3 of the 4 zones (Underdepths having serious zone-in issues atm) and 2 of them HM.....already bored lol. Yes loot is crazy but heck, if raid zones are based on group instances....people will be dead bored of that burning/destoryed bulding look. So far, only Underdepths group/raid interest me visually.</p>

[Landiin]

<p><cite>Talathion@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>29% AE auto on a piece of gear...</p><p>My Mythical is becomming more and more bad <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />.</p><p>I think they should redo some of EoF/KoS to be level 95 and add new quests to it.</p></blockquote><p>Welcome to everyone elses myth...</p>

[Landiin]

<p><strong><em>n/m not worth it...</em></strong></p>

[Aerinn]

<p>There's a fundamental difference between a single-player game and MMO that seems to be lost in the casual, raider, hardcore, etc. debate.  Solo games are meant to be played, won (maybe replayed to see the alternate ending) and put aside.  You could play EQ2 like this, playing up different alts, but essentially finishing the solo content, hitting max level, whatever the end point might be.  The MMO bit, though, is what puts the Ever in ever quest.  Including more and more people makes larger tasks possible, and vastly more difficult.</p><p>Some poster made a comment that people hate raiding because they wouldn't raid if they couldn't get better gear.  I suppose that's accurate from the perspective of a single player mindset, but it's incredibly ignorant and made me chuckle.  I could apply the analogy of a sporting team.  Kids play for fun, but parents still keep score.  Why is that?  Because people are instinctively driven to socialise, but hate it at the same time.  Most people would play this whole MMo without relying on anyone else if there was no good reason to, but the fact that some achievements DO require others that the community/groups form.  Groups form from necessity to gain mutual benefit.  What benefit is there in EQ2 other than acruing a stronger power base?  Developing and growing your character (like a chia pet!) gives people pride for work they've put in.</p><p>For people who want to swoop in occassionally and tap in their God mode command, maybe you should hang out in Skyrim.  It's prettier and you'll have fun that's not at the expense of others.  If, instead, you want to 'grow' a toon, realise that you'll solo some....you'll group a bit to built it up more, then when the game feels "over" for you...you get to start all over as a raider.  It's replayability that's new every time, and luckily you don't have to replay it in that way if you don't want to.  You can roll an alt and go check it out on your own again.</p><p>There ARE ways to keep ALL content in the game relevent...but it revolves around making ALL content necessary to maximize your power/capabilities.  Just like shortcut parenting, you can either put in the time to get the best possible outcome, or you can park your kid in the corner and hope he stops eating paste by the time he moves out.</p><p>People who rarely play may have taken Tigers comments to say that "you suck", but you read into it what you wanted.  If you weren't already thinking that, then perhaps you'd have read that people who live in EQ2 are going to understand and care more about it becoming a ghost town than those to trip in an hour or two per week.  You may be the uber gamer who can pick it up and do amazing stuff (which isn't THAT tough anymore, let's be honest with ourselves) with no time invested, but chances are most can't.  I'd go so far that most don't know what they don't know...but that's a post for another time.</p><p>Play how you want, but spend some SC on a clue if you think for an instant that anyone has an entitlement to have something others have put their life (time) into earning.</p><p>FYI, I'm a casual who raids. ;p</p>

[Tigerr]

Rofl, I just checked out the gear that is obtainable through crafting... Just wow.. just shows if you complain alot with no reason, you can get what you want, even if it is in the wrong direction. Devs, this stuff really needs to be looked in, these items are not balanced at all.. All you are doing is rendering content USELESS pre GU63... Why would you do that when this is not an expansion?. Stop listening to the people that play once a month, seriously. This game is going to take an interesting direction very very soon. Alot feel it comming, It feels like you try to mesmerize people with the shiny lootz, make them forget about Gear progression and hope that you have enough content to distract them for 2 months without thinking of the future AT ALL. The feedback on these boards is only 2% of the population, wonder what many will say when they realize this gear OBSOLETES CONTENT ONLY 10ish GUILDS WW FINISHED... Take a look into this, stop listening to the people that complain/whine/carebear all over this forum. There are some of us that are worried about what is going to happen with this game in the long run. DEVS.. TAKE A LOOK AT THE GEAR PROGRESSION, IT IS OUT OF WACK, even crafters have stuff that (somehow) makes Plane of War stuff look like garbage... Really? lol, you guys had one chance to make it right with Gu63 and you completely went TOO far. Dont let this launch the way it is.

[Morghus]

<p>I have to agree. The stats on the new crafted stuff is pretty hilarious, and clearly out of line unless the material comes from the hardest new hard mode zone. Pieces that obsolete stuff from Plane of War is ridiculous considering the zone hasn't even been cleared by anyone yet.</p><p>The new gear's stats overall are too much for only a 2 level increase in my opinion.  It's like you people (itemization devs) have no idea what you are doing, and haven't for a while now.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Morghus@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The new gear's stats overall are too much for only a 2 level increase in my opinion. </p></blockquote><p>If you feel various Test items will be obsoleting PoW drops, then post screenies of each to compare and explain your concern so that the Devs can look at fixing it before it goes Live.</p><p>Vague generalizations about something that is somehow sometimes somewhere will get nothing adjusted.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Chronus1]

Did a skyshrine: betrayl in the underdepths x4 raid and the mage helm that dropped was worse than hard mode yet alone drunder hard mode. So what are we going to do if current raid gear is not meant for raiding in for gu63 when the skyshrine and skyshrine raid gear is worse? Also putting a bunch of the raid gear into ts components is just a total cop out on removing heirloom/no-trade while making it more annoying.

[jjlo69]

<p><cite>Chronus1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Did a skyshrine: betrayl in the underdepths x4 raid and the mage helm that dropped was worse than hard mode yet alone drunder hard mode. So what are we going to do if current raid gear is not meant for raiding in for gu63 when the skyshrine and skyshrine raid gear is worse? Also putting a bunch of the raid gear into ts components is just a total cop out on removing heirloom/no-trade while making it more annoying.</blockquote><p>i was on that raid and it is true mc > raid gear atm</p>

[Regolas]

My opinion is that SOE really got it wrong from the start of DoV and now they can't change it. From a casual/heroic only point of view, we went from + 60 on stats in SF heroic to + 118 stats with Rygorr without any level increase. Making SF obsolete. I'm sure raid gear had similar jumps (doubling stats) This gear was given to allow us to kill pumped up mobs in DoV. If more consideration was put into the encounters, maybe the extreme gear increase wouldn't have been needed and we'd have a better progression curve. If the GU63 gear comes in as is said, there's even more of a gap. In one expansion (DoV), we will have a trebling of stats on gear, just because it's easiest to do. But it's killing older content at a much faster rate than ever before.

[Sulaimon]

<p>   I'm not sure how anyone could think that the quested legendary gear from withered lands is better than DOV1 gear. Who cares if the gear has higher green stats? Those alone don't make the gear better. No yellow adorn slots, lower blue stats, and considerably lower mitigation values (which have become an actual stat once again) are lower than Ry'Gorr gear on all the pieces I have seen thus far. </p><p>   The gear progression from the original DOV content is still utterly ridiculous. Having some decent gear for people to solo quest is not going to wreck the game...all it will wreck is certain peoples' ability to SLR gear from some zones. Even if you can get a piece of gear from a solo quest that is better than some previous heroic or raid content...it does not mean that content is obsolete...only the reward might be (and again, better is subjective - absolutely opinion driven) - so yeah, if the only reason some of you go in a zone is to get loot, then you will have less fun. But you are still the minority.  </p><p>   The only reason I can see for someone to whine about the state of any of the new gear, is that they know they won't be able to SLR the older stuff - which means they might actually have to go back to paying real money to play the game, instead of selling platinum for SC or real cash. The ability to sell heirloom loot should be removed entirely, in my opinion. If someone is not present when the chest drops, they should not get the loot. Period. </p><p>It's funny how the "hardcore" raid population is a vast minority in the game, yet they tend to whine the loudest. </p>

[Loco_kano]

<p><cite>Sulaimon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>   I'm not sure how anyone could think that the quested legendary gear from withered lands is better than DOV1 gear. Who cares if the gear has higher green stats? Those alone don't make the gear better. No yellow adorn slots, lower blue stats, and considerably lower mitigation values (which have become an actual stat once again) are lower than Ry'Gorr gear on all the pieces I have seen thus far. </p><p>   The gear progression from the original DOV content is still utterly ridiculous. Having some decent gear for people to solo quest is not going to wreck the game...all it will wreck is certain peoples' ability to SLR gear from some zones. Even if you can get a piece of gear from a solo quest that is better than some previous heroic or raid content...it does not mean that content is obsolete...only the reward might be (and again, better is subjective - absolutely opinion driven) - so yeah, if the only reason some of you go in a zone is to get loot, then you will have less fun. But you are still the minority.  </p><p>   The only reason I can see for someone to whine about the state of any of the new gear, is that they know they won't be able to SLR the older stuff - which means they might actually have to go back to paying real money to play the game, instead of selling platinum for SC or real cash. The ability to sell heirloom loot should be removed entirely, in my opinion. If someone is not present when the chest drops, they should not get the loot. Period. </p><p>It's funny how the "hardcore" raid population is a vast minority in the game, yet they tend to whine the loudest. </p></blockquote><p></p><p >Yeah from what I have seen is less mitigation, potency, crit chance, no yellow adorn. Its hard to say the gear is superior. Now I do think its funny, we have removed crit mit, put<span>  </span>instances on a 90min timer and gives quest gear good enough stats that people wont spent major plat in SLRs. Maybe we can get back to playing an mmo instead of a penny auction site? One can only hope.</p>

[Vaelaen]

<p>i dont remeber having these hardcore vs casual debates in eq1... maybe because you werent limited to 24 people in a raid.... i totally think there should be some zerg style raids <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" />... like the pq's, but with actual gear/ shards.</p><p>this expansion (AoD), should be much better then the DoV expansion.. i mean, its all in how you look at this.. the way i see it is this GU is just the rest of the AoD expansion... and with every new expansion, there tends to be a bump in gear.. like going from sf to dov. the real problem is that there isnt much of a level increase... level 92 gear is just going to be better.. not sure why, (it should have been lvl 95 or 100) but for whatever reason we have to deal with just the 2 levels. when going to dov from sf, there wasnt any level increase.. thats why there was a problem with gear becomming obsolete. you have to look at it this way... sf is lvl 90 gear, dov is lvl 100 gear, and aod is lvl 110 gear. without increasing the levels, everything has been thrown out of whack.</p><p>the only way to right this is to fix the reasons we cant increase the levels cap when needed, and re-allign the gear so that at the appropriate levels, it will be right.</p><p>look at it this way... if dov had a level increase, wouldnt sf gear still have meaning for levels 80-90? wouldnt it make sense that dov solo and heroic gear would be slightly better then sf raid gear? i know people dont like grinding out levels and such, but it makes gear progression just that.. a progression. i think all efforts should be to fix the level increaseing problem for future expansions, and reallign gear of the previous expansions to allow that progression.</p>

[Luterin]

<p><cite>Vaelaen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>this expansion (AoD), should be much better then the DoV expansion.. i mean, its all in how you look at this.. the way i see it is this GU is just the rest of the AoD expansion... and with every new expansion, there tends to be a bump in gear.. like going from sf to dov. the real problem is that there isnt much of a level increase....</p></blockquote><p>Except that you are wrong. This GU is part of DoV and have nothing to do with AoD. You need to own DoV to be able to go to the new areas, owning AoD does not help. So no, it is not a new expansion or even a part of the latest expansion.</p>

[Vaelaen]

<p>it doesnt really matter what is an expansion, and what is needed to have this update. every gear progression should come with a level boost, or it will kill off portions of the game... we didnt need a level boost with aod because there wasnt a gear progression. dov should have been lvl 100 and gu63 should have been lvl 110. with the max level restriction, we are going to have these issues of people talking about how item progression is messed up and parts of the game being made obsolete...</p><p>my point is that the gear isnt "overkill", its that we are under level and the gear should be a tier up. getting these 2 levels really isnt enough, and if the game is going to continue on, they will have to fix the max level problem... it should be the focus going forward.</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>Well with a week to go and ZERO response from ANY dev in ANY of these gear question threads in the MONTHS since this went to test... I assume we are going live with this itemization.   /SHOCKER</p><p>At best we have more mudflation with gear of better green stats (agi/sta, etc), better high tier blue stats (mutli attack, dps) but lower mit, crit and pot/c.bonus</p><p>Again I assume this is meant to allow a progression from solo/group/challenge/raid/raid-challenge where you don't need the later until the endgame while the former is needed/helpful from the start.</p><p>Honestly, I think that the mid-gear people that will get screwed.  People who intend to raid fairly early in the update and are clearing EZ mode and some HM currently.  They will be seeing 'upgrades' from solo and heroic zones that will hurt them in the new raid zones (if the raid zones are geared that way).  </p><p>Solo/heroic people will be getting outright buffed, the HM clearers should at least have EZ 63 on farm out of the gate taking what upgrades form there and working on HM in the first week or so (though at a heavy price of time/effort)</p><p><strong>P.S. I think everyone assumes HM 63 will outgear all current gear in-game... including PoH, which is sad - they really should re-close PoH, rework the loot table post63 and put it back in IMO.  </strong></p><p><strong>It can be the first 1st GU63  HM, or parallel with it... doesn't need to be endgame 63, but it would be such a waste to leave it as is.</strong></p>

[Kryvak]

<p>Despite all the doomsaying about "tradeskilled gear being better than PoW," I think they did well with itemization this time. The gear isn't ridiculously overpowered compared to the current raid gear for the difficulty level. The better-than-PoW gear is crafted using a tradeskill apprentice that is received from a quest which requires you to kill the final boss in Underdepths raid, so it isn't like everyone's going to be looting and crafting ridiculous gear as soon as the update comes out. I do wish they would scale back the raid apprentice gear, and keep Plane of War gear relevant, considering most guilds haven't even had a chance to peek inside yet.</p>