July Poll

[Juravael]

<p>It's good to see the poll being used again.</p><p>I have a question about one of the choices though for the "What do you think you spent the most time playing in Skyshrine" question. It lists as one of the choices "small group quests and instances". Were these even added to the game? If so, I have yet to see this "small group" content.</p><p>It was the "small group quests and instances" that had me and a few of my friends very excited about Skyshrine being released. We were very disappointed once we got to Skyshrine and tried the districts for the access quests and got our butts handed to us. We duo most of the time, sometimes we'll run a third group member with us. We've not bothered going back.</p><p>There is the Withered Lands timeline which is all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> content.</p><p>There are the three Skyshrine <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> instances.</p><p>Then it goes to the access quests in the outer districts and on to the heroic instances then raid zones. None of which can be done solo or even a small group so where are the "small group quests and instances"?</p><p>** Edited to note that things have changed as posted later on in the thread. Thanks again for the positive replies everyone.</p>

[Shotneedle]

<p>To answer your question, I would count contested and easymode heroic zones as small group content, and the challenge modes as group content.</p><p>In relation to the thread title; It took me awhile to finally decide on Raids for my answer to that question, and only because I don't want to see them stop developing raid content. I think I truly spent the most time doing the small group/group content because the mythicals are better than any drops from raids (and I still haven't even seen one in a chest, I gave up doing them every day awhile ago) on top of I only did the skyshrine raids 4 or 5 times because I have access to Plane of War.</p>

[MrWolfie]

<p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's good to see the poll being used again.</p><p>I have a question about one of the choices though for the "What do you think you spent the most time playing in Skyshrine" question. It lists as one of the choices "small group quests and instances". Were these even added to the game? If so, I have yet to see this "small group" content.</p><p>It was the "small group quests and instances" that had me and a few of my friends very excited about Skyshrine being released. We were very disappointed once we got to Skyshrine and tried the districts for the access quests and got our butts handed to us. We duo most of the time, sometimes we'll run a third group member with us. We've not bothered going back.</p><p>There is the Withered Lands timeline which is all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> content.</p><p>There are the three Skyshrine <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> instances.</p><p>Then it goes to the access quests in the outer districts and on to the heroic instances then raid zones. None of which can be done solo or even a small group so where are the "small group quests and instances"?</p></blockquote><p>Agree 100%.</p><p>I soloed the Tigloth instance for awhile, eventually got bored and have been levelling my Inq.</p><p>DUOed a bit of The Breach, but it can't be done by every small group.</p><p>So where are the instances for small groups? I don't think the contested and access quests are tailored for small groups at all...</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's good to see the poll being used again.</p><p>I have a question about one of the choices though for the "What do you think you spent the most time playing in Skyshrine" question. It lists as one of the choices "small group quests and instances". Were these even added to the game? If so, I have yet to see this "small group" content.</p><p>It was the "small group quests and instances" that had me and a few of my friends very excited about Skyshrine being released. We were very disappointed once we got to Skyshrine and tried the districts for the access quests and got our butts handed to us. We duo most of the time, sometimes we'll run a third group member with us. We've not bothered going back.</p><p>There is the Withered Lands timeline which is all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> content.</p><p>There are the three Skyshrine <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> instances.</p><p>Then it goes to the access quests in the outer districts and on to the heroic instances then raid zones. None of which can be done solo or even a small group so where are the "small group quests and instances"?</p></blockquote><p>the three Skyshrine solo intances can be done by a duo</p>

[Ahlana]

<p>I agree with one of the above posters.</p><p>I duo Covenant, trio lyceum, and can do enough in DP that the access quests can also be trioed. I think they treated small groups ok in this one.</p>

[Onurissa]

<p><cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's good to see the poll being used again.</p><p>I have a question about one of the choices though for the "What do you think you spent the most time playing in Skyshrine" question. It lists as one of the choices "small group quests and instances". Were these even added to the game? If so, I have yet to see this "small group" content.</p><p>It was the "small group quests and instances" that had me and a few of my friends very excited about Skyshrine being released. We were very disappointed once we got to Skyshrine and tried the districts for the access quests and got our butts handed to us. We duo most of the time, sometimes we'll run a third group member with us. We've not bothered going back.</p><p>There is the Withered Lands timeline which is all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> content.</p><p>There are the three Skyshrine <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> instances.</p><p>Then it goes to the access quests in the outer districts and on to the heroic instances then raid zones. None of which can be done solo or even a small group so where are the "small group quests and instances"?</p></blockquote><p>the three Skyshrine solo intances can be done by a duo</p></blockquote><p>Yes but it can be easily soloed, so not much point duoing it. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[TheSpin]

For me, when I read a survey that asks this kind of question I try to read in-between the lines a bit. The question asks what type of gameplay you enjoyed in SkyShrine the most, but the bottom line is that the question is asking what type of gameplay do high level players enjoy. So even if there wasn't any good content for duoing, if that's the content you would like to see I would say that's the choice you should pick.

[Juravael]

<p><cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's good to see the poll being used again.</p><p>I have a question about one of the choices though for the "What do you think you spent the most time playing in Skyshrine" question. It lists as one of the choices "small group quests and instances". Were these even added to the game? If so, I have yet to see this "small group" content.</p><p>It was the "small group quests and instances" that had me and a few of my friends very excited about Skyshrine being released. We were very disappointed once we got to Skyshrine and tried the districts for the access quests and got our butts handed to us. We duo most of the time, sometimes we'll run a third group member with us. We've not bothered going back.</p><p>There is the Withered Lands timeline which is all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> content.</p><p>There are the three Skyshrine <span style="text-decoration: underline;">solo</span> instances.</p><p>Then it goes to the access quests in the outer districts and on to the heroic instances then raid zones. None of which can be done solo or even a small group so where are the "small group quests and instances"?</p></blockquote><p>the three Skyshrine solo intances can be done by a duo</p></blockquote><p>I can solo all three of those including the advanced solo with without using a merc on most, if not all, of my 92 toons. My toons are geared in 91/92 Legendary and a few fabled from the broker since our guild does not do any raiding what-so-ever and I am thinking that may be the issue with us and the districts. None of us are in raid gear, not that we should be. We tried to duo the first quest, The Breach, and we got our butt's handed to us several times so we gave up.</p><p>I would not consider the districts to be "small group content" at all and neither do my guildies.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Aemm@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So where are the instances for small groups? I don't think the contested and access quests are tailored for small groups at all...</p></blockquote><p>All of the EM heroic instances can be duod and trio''d easily if you follow the encounter scripts.  With a full group you can just bulldoze them.</p><p>The real issue is, the challenge versions intended for full groups were not finished and itemized correctly, so they generally aren't too much fun.</p>

[Xianthia]

<p>Maybe the use of "small group" as a term needs to be explained.  (And I don't mean by me, I mean by the devs :p)</p><p>To me a "small group" would be less than 6, maybe 4? Yes a duo or trio can be a small group as well, but was that the intention of the devs when the term small group was used to describe what we were getting with Skyshrine?</p><p>I see folks saying they can duo CD, lyceum; by duo'ing do you mean you do whole zone including named? I've only ever done with full group or four people when some of my static group weren't on.  Doesn't mean we can't do it, just means I havent tried it with my usual group.</p>

[gourdon]

<p>There is no doubt that Velious 2 is better for small groups than Velious 1, though it really isn't any better than Sentinel's Fate.  However, there is still a horrendous difficulty gap between the solo instance Tigloth and a 3 mob trash encounter in contested Skyshrine.  As a result, there is little interesting in Velious 2 for those that have conquered the solo instances and want something that isn't either trivial or near impossible at their power level.  Things would work out better if SOE stopped guessing what configuration the players were playing in and just implemented a smoother difficulty curve.  The only difficulties that need significant effort toward explicit tuning are the easiest and hardest content.  Everything else just needs to occupy space in the middle with measured steps to avoid huge gaps in difficulty.</p>

[apwyork]

<p>Small group is a meaningless term in this game.   If you're a small group of 4 characters using withered land gear vs a small group of 4 using the skyshrine raid gear, you are in two completely different ability ranges.  The biggest problem SOE has is that itemizations are so misbalanced by the quality of gear available to different playstyles.  People who say they solo or duo the harder group zones probably do so, with higher quality gear than people who are unable to do those zones at all.</p><p>There has always been a striking difference between characters purely based on gear and that defeats the purpose of any "small group" content because its normally too hard for the one type and too easy for the other.</p>

[bks6721]

<p>my small group of 3 rarely visit Skyshrine and then its only for a quick solo instance.  We've tried the access quest in the contested area.. it was a bloodbath.</p><p>now i log in once a week to run a dozen toons through SoH...  getting very bored since there is very little to do in a group of 3</p>

[Chronus1]

<p>I'm with Buffrat on this one. Small group content is basically CD and lyceum easymode, maybe DP too. Underdepths and the hardmodes being group content. CD and lyceum are duod by people very often, contested nameds are regularly solod (lakves for fabled cloak SLR mostly). I wouldn't be suprised to see them 4 manned by heroic geared players, which is a small group. I don't have access to plane of war though so I do actually spend some time in SS raids so it was a clearer choice for me.</p>

[Juravael]

<p>In looking at the EQ2U sig's from Chronus and Gourdon I can see why we are having troubles in SS. Both of them (Assassin and Warlock) have more health, crit chance and potency than my best geared character which is my Shadowknight. My SK is sitting at roughly 51k health with 290 CC and about 180 potency. That is from wearing the quested/dropped WL legendary gear and some odd WL fabled bought off of the broker.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In looking at the EQ2U sig's from Chronus and Gourdon I can see why we are having troubles in SS. Both of them (Assassin and Warlock) have more health, crit chance and potency than my best geared character which is my Shadowknight. My SK is sitting at roughly 51k health with 290 CC and about 180 potency. That is from wearing the quested/dropped WL legendary gear and some odd WL fabled bought off of the broker.</p></blockquote><p>Even so, CD, Lyceum, and most of contested SS is doable by 3 players like yourself and their mercs.</p>

[Gilasil]

<p><cite>gourdon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is no doubt that Velious 2 is better for small groups than Velious 1, though it really isn't any better than Sentinel's Fate.  However, there is still a horrendous difficulty gap between the solo instance Tigloth and a 3 mob trash encounter in contested Skyshrine.  As a result, there is little interesting in Velious 2 for those that have conquered the solo instances and want something that isn't either trivial or near impossible at their power level.  Things would work out better if SOE stopped guessing what configuration the players were playing in and just implemented a smoother difficulty curve.  The only difficulties that need significant effort toward explicit tuning are the easiest and hardest content.  Everything else just needs to occupy space in the middle with measured steps to avoid huge gaps in difficulty.</p></blockquote><p>+1</p><p>This is desperately needed in EQ2.  Make the hardest REALLY hard, the easiest fairly easy, and let people jump into the progression wherever they can i.e. they may skip the easiest content and never do the harder content and that should be ok.  Difficulty becomes player tuned to a degree. Naturally rewards would have to follow difficulty.</p><p>And if they implement a smooth progression, don't keep the it a secret.   I know the more hard core players keep track of progressions, but many casuals don't.  You don't want anyone guessing.</p>

[alaplayer]

<p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>And if they implement a smooth progression, don't keep the it a secret.   I know the more hard core players keep track of progressions, but many casuals don't.  You don't want anyone guessing.</blockquote><p>Putting HM instances of the Drunder raid zones apparently isn't goon enough for not keeping it a secret because there is already another thread where someone is whining that with the re-itmeization of HM Drunder more 'casual' forces can't do the content because it is too hard. It is as if the Challenge mode or hard mode shouldn't even be there the gear that comes in the boxes is what they feel entitled to, and they can't even do it now with 2 extra levels, new prestige abilites and gear far better than what those that were doing HM Drunder before Skyshrine.</p>

[Gilasil]

<p><cite>alaplayer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gilasil wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>And if they implement a smooth progression, don't keep the it a secret.   I know the more hard core players keep track of progressions, but many casuals don't.  You don't want anyone guessing.</blockquote><p>Putting HM instances of the Drunder raid zones apparently isn't goon enough for not keeping it a secret because there is already another thread where someone is whining that with the re-itmeization of HM Drunder more 'casual' forces can't do the content because it is too hard. It is as if the Challenge mode or hard mode shouldn't even be there the gear that comes in the boxes is what they feel entitled to, and they can't even do it now with 2 extra levels, new prestige abilites and gear far better than what those that were doing HM Drunder before Skyshrine.</p></blockquote><p>Calling something hard mode or challange mode certaily identifies it as coming after something called easy mode, but how does dungeon X rate vs dungeon Y vs dungeon Z?  Back when progression was determined entirely by level it was all straightforward.  Not so nowadays where everything is the same level but with big differences in difficulty.</p><p>Just for the sake of argument I'm thinking 100% of heroic content.  Some heroic zones are much easier then others.  The same could be said for raid or even solo I suppose.</p><p>I don't think everyone should expect to be able to do the hardest zones.  In fact it's better if few if any can, although I'm sure people will always complain.  By making it so very few people can do them it gives everyone else room to grow.  Just make sure that the progression is fairly fine grained. People should never be at a point where the current level is boringly easy but the next is impossibly hard.</p>

[Juravael]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Glenedhel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In looking at the EQ2U sig's from Chronus and Gourdon I can see why we are having troubles in SS. Both of them (Assassin and Warlock) have more health, crit chance and potency than my best geared character which is my Shadowknight. My SK is sitting at roughly 51k health with 290 CC and about 180 potency. That is from wearing the quested/dropped WL legendary gear and some odd WL fabled bought off of the broker.</p></blockquote><p>Even so, CD, Lyceum, and most of contested SS is doable by 3 players like yourself and their mercs.</p></blockquote><p>Thanks for the responses Atan, and others. We went back today to give SS another try. We had not been back since the first week or so that it was live and we were very skeptical but we gave it a shot. Myself on my SK and my friend on her Inq and we did just fine. I do not know what has changed since our initial attempts but things went much better this time around. We managed to duo quite a few of the access quests, clear plenty of trash, killed 4-5 named and got quite a few nice upgrades along the way. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p>