EQ2 Producer's Letter. June 2005 edition.

[Almeric_CoS]

Last I heard, there was more to life than raiding.  Are there not areas for GROUPS of level 50s to also go looking for adventure and treasure?

 

Maybe if your guild has too many people on and you're "hurt" by the raid size limit, the other people could ... do something ... different?  EQ2 has raids, but it isn't a raiding game.  EQ1 is a raiding game.  EQ2's goal is to be something different than EQ1, otherwise there would be little point to it existing.

 

Personally, I'm still thrilled I didn't rush to the end game, but that's a topic for another day

[SaeriBr]

PVP leads to Class Imbalance, Class Imbalance leads to hurt, hurt leads to pain, pain leads to suffering.

 

I think SOE should allow a more radical approach to this, I reckon all woodworkers should be able to craft a bat, but not just any old bat, it would be a bat which can be equipped by anyone, allowing it to be swung at anyone and anything.

 

...and thats not all, I reckon the bat should be able to be imbued, for maximum nerfage effect, plus bonuses to stamina, since nerfing the crap out of everyone and everything with be quite tiresome.

[Sartan_Imperi]

Scott,

 

What are you guys going to do to add content to guilds that aren't raiding guilds.  Content with great drops for guilds that can only field one or two groups for events.  I'm a guild that's part of a growing epidemic in EQ2.  It's part of guilds that are dying because the only end game content in the game is for 24 man raids.  Not every guild can field 24 people.  In fact, most can't.  Due to such, guilds are losing people left and right to raiding guilds because that's where the end game content is.  Please balance the end game to consist of both 24 man raid content as well as a lot of lower numbered groups.  It's my plea to you before a lot of guilds are gone.

[Naughtesn]

Scott,

Thanks for your informative letter and you honest replies to earlier posters.

I want to re-ask a question posed several times in this thread, and countless times on these boards:  As an incentive to aid testing, why not allowing copying of live players to test server.

With a level 50 toon and a level 48 toon, I'm a little burned out on grinding experience atm.  With or without a 50% bonus.

Sometimes I feel like I'm paying to test this game on the live servers as it is, why not make it easier for more to participate in the true testing environment.

Anxiously awaiting your thoughtful reply...

[Kazora]

i think x4 being a max size on an epic encounter is killing the game right now, u can only have so much creativity with an encounter if you know ur designing it for only 4 groups. Also having  "too many" or "not enuf" of a needed class is often an issue of only a couple players one side or the other. There isnt much wiggle room and you can easily wildly swing from one extreme to the other in the same day. And what may be the worst thing of all is the x4 limit splits guilds into much smaller chunks, creating a tremendous amount of raid capable units, that there will never be enough content for. I think atleast on the high end encounters should not be locked, instead disruption of zerging should be inherent in the design of the encounters; it should be designed such that "Zerging" an encounter with excessive numbers may actually work against you (rztw's adds for example, before it was gimped)

[Spymast]

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Almeric wrote:

Last I heard, there was more to life than raiding.  Are there not areas for GROUPS of level 50s to also go looking for adventure and treasure?

 

Maybe if your guild has too many people on and you're "hurt" by the raid size limit, the other people could ... do something ... different?  EQ2 has raids, but it isn't a raiding game.  EQ1 is a raiding game.  EQ2's goal is to be something different than EQ1, otherwise there would be little point to it existing.

 

Personally, I'm still thrilled I didn't rush to the end game, but that's a topic for another day

---

"EQ2 goal is to be something different than EQ1". I agree this but please in mind what can you we do with RPG type online game beside level up, quest, trade skill and raiding ? The game run over 7months now. Most players join the game from start already cap both TS and adventure level. How about quest ? I dont see any good quest beside kill 10/20 mob again and again in different level. And the last thing to keep level 50 player to play is raid. Maybe only me think like this. But I have played many other online games and I found out this.

The game already have many content for solo and group and over 2000quests waiting you to do if you are not like raiding and you haven't cap lvl 50 both TS and adventure. It's time to keep the players subscribe else EQ2 just like other online game only can run around 2 years then die.

CL, PF, Feerrott these 3  epic zones can done by 3 groups level 48+ very easy. If your guild can't do that mean your guild really need to do something. If your guild cant find enough guildmate to raid then you need recurit more people that want raiding at level 50. These three zones are best for guild want to start raiding beside see cap xp message at level 50. Unless SoE dont want big guild in game else please start think release the raid size limit and design real epic type end game raid. I think these big giulds players can't wait too long. We already bored since April or much early.

Next expansion rise the level cap to 60. But how long for this honey moon period ? I think max around 1months then all these players capped 50 will cap again and then bored again if still no real raiding thing. I hope just zone in and kill the boss is a temporarily solution for guild that bored in game.

Online Game is a earn money business and more people playing you can earn more. If you cant keep the player playing then you lose. Many guild complain losing raiders, many guild dying becasue they start losing fun. All of them are lvl 50 players and can't find anything to do in game. If the game is just a pure rise level game.  I think it can't keep running too long.

 

Message Edited by Spymaster on 06-22-2005 04:06 AM

[Twoof]

I would like to see the first add-on adjusted so it used the level scaling of the new split paw add-on. That is assuming that it wouldn't be that much work... Furthermore I just hate the 0.0% experience bar. It would have been nice to let us go to 99.9% But on a more serious note, there has to be something added to the game so that lvl 50 characters still have some use for the XP as well... I wouldn't even mind if the bar filled up and then just drops back to 0 when you go over 100%. At least it moves then...

Message Edited by Twoofus on 06-22-2005 04:08 AM

[Feaw]

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Kilox wrote:
Thank you, I only rant because I for one am a fan of EQ2, it has a great foundation, but honestly the end game is so poor atm that unless there is a really really
big revamp coming in the way it works I can see a TON of the player base leaving.  Adding 10 levels is fine, but having more than 50% of your current raid content available only to the 1 or 2 guilds per server that have the time to wait out spawns on mobs is killing this game MAINLY because of the maximum raid size. 

Contested mobs worked so well in EQ1 because well, there was no limit on raid size, so you could easily entertain a guild of 100+ members with the broad scope of options with which to upgrade your character.  Contested mobs, while great in eq2, should NOT be the ultimate source of loot  in this game if you want to KEEP subscribers happy and continuing to log in.   With the rarity of loot drops is it not clear why guilds with large rosters have a ton of people retiring?  It should also be clear why so many people who are retiring due to not being in the top raiding guild, or not being able to get into said guild due to an already overflowing roster.  Upgrades are rare, fine...just give us more to do, and please don't make us wait until desert of flames.

Give raiding guilds other options before your expansion because 3 months is a long time for people to wait that have been supporting SOE and this game since november.

p.s. responding here again even though this thread is regarding spell revamp since I caught a response...thanks for reading

Rint - Guild Leader - Monolith - Steamfont

---

I have to agree with this but also,    I have found my self lately with this nasty feeling of no hope lingering.  If you read a lot of the threads on raids and boss mobs,  some of the posters make it look like the devs are catering to a few very effective guilds and making the raid materal out of reach of the average guilds, but here is the question ... who are these people and how are they really doing it?    If you increase the difficulty of end game materal to the point where people who are professional at exploits, cheats and harsh behavior towards other players are the only one's who can be successful, is that going to be enough accounts to really support a game?   I dont think so.   Some poeple are going to get past anything you do by what ever means it takes to do it.   They play the game of defeating the game and they wont stay longer than it takes for that to happen unless they are exploiting other players for real life money.  They are not however the average player though they will say so.   I really believe the majority of players are not what the "your game is lame" posters are painting them to be.   It gets really old and really hard to get your guild members to want to raid when no matter what we try there is always something that the boss does like a 20k nuke that you cant seem to get past even with 4k+ resist that makes it impossible.  I really dont want to have to be in a guild that carries pagers and plants spys in other high end guild's chat and raids at 2am to monoplize contested mobs.   That's a job not a game.   It shouldnt be necessary to have end game armor and weapons to get the mobs that are leading up to that path unless you expect players to cheat get there.  Do we have to be 100+ member guilds that throw sacrificial tanks at the feet of boss mobs to get past their special skills to get anywhere?  And if so what is the content for the more common player who are in more common type guilds?   Currently non legendary loot is worth so little on the market thats its more profitable to sell it to NPC vendors than make it available for other players to buy, not to mention the now silver coin rewards in EF for quest.    *sigh*   A level 50 player in a mix of ebon and fulginate armor for example should still have a game to play. 

 

 

[Tag]

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Sartan_Imperium wrote:

Scott,

 

What are you guys going to do to add content to guilds that aren't raiding guilds.  Content with great drops for guilds that can only field one or two groups for events.  I'm a guild that's part of a growing epidemic in EQ2.  It's part of guilds that are dying because the only end game content in the game is for 24 man raids.  Not every guild can field 24 people.  In fact, most can't.  Due to such, guilds are losing people left and right to raiding guilds because that's where the end game content is.  Please balance the end game to consist of both 24 man raid content as well as a lot of lower numbered groups.  It's my plea to you before a lot of guilds are gone.

---

My thoughts exactly. EQ2 seems weighted to the low end and high end with almost nothing in between. There needs to be something for groups and x2 groups to do. After a character is level 50 the only thing left to do is make an alt andf level it, when the alt is 50 what next? Make another alt? No thanks.

[Squallaby]

Well I'll be the odd man out.. I LOVE teh 24 person limit on raid size.. Love it love it love it. And yes, I did the High end time/uqua stuff in eq1, and did the old AoW/Tov raids with 60+ people.. and even ol CT and Inno with 50+ people.. and Naggy and Vox.. And I ALWAYS hated doing things in a 50-60 man (or more!) raid.. To many egos, to many afk's, just on secs, LD's, to much whining about this loot or that.. NO THANK YOU. I far far prefer a small 24 or less person raid. Its SO much easier to get things done IMO its not even funny.

[Nurta]

You know people complained about it.... but in EQ1 part of the fun was racing against other guids for PoP targets.  Instances are killing this generation of MMOs IMO. Bring back the competition of guilds running to mobs it's more challenging and fun.  Yes, it's going to cause drama, yes people will complain but it adds another layer to the game.  It causes guilds to compete with one another and makes the reward all the better.  Even if you don't do it for encounters like Darathar you could do it for some of the drakotas, it would make things interesting.

The game is lacking the competition between guilds that EQ1 had.  Yes, you have guild levels but honestly the rewards for guild levels are lame.  People like challenges, I love this game and some of the concepts you guys have going.  I just think if you made it less boring (add some true competition) and less downtime (ie. lock out timers) it would spur more interest.

I miss PoK and PoT and the Bazaar.  We have no where that we can mix and mingle in game like we did in EQ1.  I understand much of instancing was done to reduce lag but surely there is something that could be done to help that too.  With all the instancing I sometimes feel like me and my group or guild are the only people on the server.  This isn't a good feeling in an MMO

[Hun]

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Squallaby wrote:Well I'll be the odd man out.. I LOVE teh 24 person limit on raid size.. Love it love it love it. And yes, I did the High end time/uqua stuff in eq1, and did the old AoW/Tov raids with 60+ people.. and even ol CT and Inno with 50+ people.. and Naggy and Vox.. And I ALWAYS hated doing things in a 50-60 man (or more!) raid.. To many egos, to many afk's, just on secs, LD's, to much whining about this loot or that.. NO THANK YOU. I far far prefer a small 24 or less person raid. Its SO much easier to get things done IMO its not even funny.

---

I'd prefer a 18 person raid, the less the better. The more people you have the greater the chance at someone Leeroy'ing something.

[thepriz]

I look forward to the changes and hope that it doesn't break my character. I am a Guardian and when I was looking for upgrades to my Combat Arts it was kind of depressing to see that not much seems to change according to the discriptions of the Combat Arts that  I was looking at. I don't know if this is due to a discription problem or that the arts don't really scale when you upgrade. As far as high end guilds with large raids, this is not EQ1. If I am limited from content because I have to find 72 people to do a raid like in EQ1 then the game will go on the shelf like EQ1. I run a guild, I look for people to enter the guild so that we can grow. It seems this is impossible with everyone leaving or joining the bigger guilds. It is funny how the bigger guilds complain that they can't get everyone into a raid when this game was designed to have raids of 24 people. Why do people continually try to join a guild that is too full? Look around there are other guilds trying to get big enough to work on the content. It is pretty sad that the populations on the servers have dropped to Light and not many new people seem to be entering the field. Its all good that very few guilds have many members and can do the content, but if they limit my ability to do the content because I don't have a huge guild then as I stated before EQ2 is on the shelf.

[Exmortis_MT]

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Gallenite wrote:

Quests, Quests, Quests, and more Quests

One of the big things we've been quietly working on in the background is a universal examination of all the quests in EQ2.

As you've seen in update #10, collection quests got their own tab in the Quest Journal, which means they no longer count against the cap of 50 active quests that you can have at once, letting you work on every collection in the game at once if you choose.

Among other things, we're making sure that the level and difficulty (and therefore, experience and item rewards) are appropriate for the challenge provided. As a part of this, we've also been adding new information to each quest that everyone should find really useful.

Soon, your journal will be able to tell you when a quest is Heroic and thus worthy of taking a group or Epic requiring a raid, as well as which zone the different steps take place in (to allow for more types of journal sorting), and lastly when a quest is complete and ready to be taken back to the giver for the reward.

The idea is to make sure that the objectives of the quests themselves are the fun challenge, and to remove some of the "Quest Bookkeeping" that people currently need to do.

 

Excellent work on collection quests, and please keep on working on quests.  Quests are what turn EQ2 XP into enjoyment not the grind, a feeling of continued accomplishment.  Its now summer and I dont play as much, but when its over I am looking forward to a whole new crop of quests to satisfy my play times.  Keep up the good work, So far every change here you have made is for the better in my opinion.

 

Combat and Items: Diversity, Challenge, and Rewards

Class diversity, class roles, and the challenge that the world presents have been major topics that we come back to a lot when talking with people about their experiences in EverQuest II. As many of you know, we're nearly in testing with some pretty large combat and abilities improvements aimed at addressing many of common concerns about what people experience in the game:

• In some cases, classes aren't diverse enough. People get pigeonholed into one of four core roles with not enough useful flavor between the subclasses.
  
• In other cases, a profession's secondary contribution is better than another profession's primary contribution.
  
• In other cases yet, even inside of an archetype, there are distinct differences between people's ability to contribute at the level they're supposed to.
  
• Some combinations of abilities are a bit too effective, causing some of the end-game to get into the realm of trivial and, therefore, boring. This is one of the most frequent causes of burnout at the high end of EQ2. People figure out "the trick" and there just "isn't any challenge left." While issues like this won't impact the majority of people, it should come as a relief to those on the high end.

An update on our progress will be showing up on Test Server for public evaluation some time in the next couple weeks, and we'll be paying very close attention to the feedback of those who've played with it.

One thing that everyone should be aware of: In our discussions with people on this topic, we're definitely aware that there has been a certain amount of apprehension to what we've been doing. Anything that's an unknown that touches a topic like "combat" or "spells" gets people nervous. While there will definitely be some changes, please be assured that we're not looking to drastically alter the fundamentals that make EQ2 fun.

We want to make it very clear that we're paying attention to people's concerns. In everything that we're doing with this revamp, we are proceeding very cautiously, which is why you haven't seen anything rushed out to the live servers, or even rushed out to public test, for that matter.

All of our work in this area can be turned on and off with a switch, as we've been doing on Test Server over the few past updates. When we're in the middle of working on areas that really need to be finished all at once before a part if it makes sense, we just turn it off.

In addition, everyone will be getting the ability to respec all of their traits, traditions, and the like once this update does go live.

 

As with most of the community I am awaiting this change with both excitment and apprehension.  From a EQ2 stand point I give you guys an A- for over all changes for the better, your always seemingly on the right track just dont think every change was a good one.  But regardless, the game is much better now then release day, and your attention to detail, your actioning on bugs (even if they should not have been there day 1) is commendable.

As a melee class I await the changes with excitiment.  Tougher fights, better ability scaling, more inline DPS with other classes, even if overall its reduced.  better buff set that scales not stacks.  all this equates to a better game, a more fun experience and tougher raid and group content. The game should be harder, this isnt kindercraft. 

As a Shadowknight, I stand apprehensive.  Your EQ1 history on my class is dismal at best, and few of our abilities worked day 1, again showing distain and or no care at all for our class.  Right now I have a place due to my decent melee DPS, but with with weak support buffs, weaker tanking skills, SKs are relagated to back filling groups to make 24.  I am hoping that we find a place with the changes, I am not expecting scout DPS, nor guardian midigation, but as it stands we need a place to call home.  We have some flexibility, some utlitiy, but if thats our role, then it needs some work.  We are supposed to be evil reavers of hate and justice, but currently we are little more then a loud squeak.

All the info from media, people who attended fan faire summit and shared their findings (thanks Noah), has been positive.  This is good.  Its nice to hear from a player, though as hardcore as Noah is, he has brought excellent insight to your changes.

Take all the time you need, Id rather wait for a great change, then a good one that must be redone again.

 

What's up with PvP?

With the inclusion of Arena Champions in Desert of Flames, there's been a lot of talk lately about what our plans are for PvP in EverQuest II.

Lots of people remember that before we launched, we had always referred to PvP as "something that won't be in EQ2 for launch," but it's always been something that we wanted to include, just not unless we were able to take the time and do it "right."

That begs the question, "what does 'right' mean for PvP in EQ2?"

We have a lot of spells and abilities in EQ2, and they were all designed to be used in Player vs. NPC interactions.

For starters, 'right' means that we need to make sure that every profession has a role to play in PvP, while at the same time ensuring that no profession has the ability to completely shut down others players' usefulness (and, by extension, fun) in PvP.

There's no question that EQ2 is predominantly a PvE game and that there are people who do not ever wish to take part in PvP, and those people then naturally become concerned that their PvE abilities might be nerfed because of PvP concerns.

Given that, 'right' also means that we needed to make sure that we had a system in place that would let us change any individual ability's PvP effect without changing its PvE effect, which is definitely how we plan to balance PvP abilities.

Further, putting PvP into a PvE game also complicates the issue of what people's expectations are for their roles are in PvP. A person who is a support class in PvE will likely also be primarily support in PvP. Our goal in this is to make PvP fit into the world of EQ2 in a smart way, which means PvE roles will carry across into PvP. We're not aiming for a world where everyone can compete one-on-one or completely redefine classes based solely on which type of combat they're participating in.

With that in mind, our plan for PvP looks something like this:

Step 1: Dueling. We've made it available on Test Server with the current state of the PvE abilities for those who wish to give it a shot.

Step 2: Balance larger scale PvP fights. Do casters dominate? Do melee dominate? Is there something fun and useful for everyone? What do we do with power regen on casters vs. the autoattack power of melee? We've been testing these kinds of fights internally for quite awhile now, and we need to make sure that we have the ability scaling and effectiveness (using the system I described above) in a place we think is solid. This is the step we're on right now.

Step 3: Release Dueling to the live servers once the first round of PvP settings have been fleshed out.

Step 4: Beta for Desert of Flames and Arena Champions, in which we'll be getting a wealth of valuable information on our progress so far, since Arena Champions exercises different kinds of group PvP combat.

Step 5: Launch of Desert of Flames and Arena Champions.

Step 6: This is when we'll begin discussing our longer term plans for servers based on a PvP ruleset, and will be able to get into more details.

For now, know that it's something that we know people are interested in, and we're looking forward to being able to bring it to you in a way that doesn't adversely impact your PvE abilities.

 

I have said that if PvP is introduced to EQ2 I will cancel my account,  Absolutely nothing ruined the game more then PvP whiners in EQ1.  I dont give a rats petute if a 32 warrior can kill a 34 warlock, All i care is how they together with others can over come the next named in the room with all his buddies.

If you introduce PvP and start changing abilites for it, rather then PvE, I will leave the game.  How ever it appears through some info that you may have a totally different combat system for PvP, you may have just won the big prize, and may prove me wrong that you cannot have PvP in a PvE game successfully.  PvP ruined UO, it ruined EQ1, just took longer.  PvP is why I stopped playing most online games that have PvE style play.  I have limited game time, I enjoy getting a group of peopel together and heading out to acheive a quest, as a team, not as indiviuals, Thats why i play a massively multlplayer online game with hundreds of thousands of people, not to solo.

So please step carefully here, remember that the bulk of the players joined EQ2 for PvE, every PvP thread I have seen gets swamped with no votes, time and time again.  PvP is a dangerous add on to any game, unless thats the game your making, but EQ2 is a PvE game, make sure you never lose sight of that objective, and I am sure I will be here for some time to come.

 

What's this about The Splitpaw Saga?

Amidst all the other talk of things going on in the world of EverQuest II, there are rumors of a long-lost tribe of gnolls resurfacing, allegedly somewhere in the Thundering Steppes. Rumor has it that they bear a striking resemblance to the Splitpaw tribe of old, only much more bold and vicious.

Lots of people liked the idea of having something new to do when we released The Bloodline Chronicles earlier this year, but not everyone was in the right level range to enjoy it at the time. This time, with The Splitpaw Saga, we're trying something a little different.

The dungeons (and rewards) will scale in level, for players level 20-50, making sure that there's something there for nearly everyone, and that as many people as possible can play through the story. We're looking forward to seeing what people think of this new development. Play it through and let us know! The anticipated launch date is June 28th.

And finally, we really enjoyed spending some time with members of our community live and in person at our 1st Fan Faire since the launch of EQ2 last week in Vegas! To everyone who came out, we thank you very much for making our inaugural Fan Faire an even bigger success than any of us could have dared hope. Be sure to check out the wrap up reports, thoughts on the 1st look of Desert of Flames and of course what would an event be without photos!

 

My 20th warlock alt can barely contain himself, new content enwhich to play in to 50 along with bloodlines ( I was too hgih when it came out).  Very excited about this release.

 

Good hunting,

- Scott

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Thanks for the letter, keep them coming.  its nice to feel appreciated as a consumer, a gamer, and a part of the greater community.

[Exmortis_MT]

sry my bad.

 

Message Edited by Exmortis_MT on 06-22-2005 06:25 AM

[Cav]

Scott,

 

My major deciding factor for buying EQ2 and forgoing all of the other MMORPGs out there was the exclusion of PvP.  Sure several other things have made me like the game but I felt that, because there was no PvP and to quote the Beta boards "No plans to include PvP", once I established my character it would be MY character good or bad it would be based on the choices I made.

 

The introduction of PvP and your own statment about balancing PvP based on the current set of skills drives home once again the issues that I fear and that might make this game loose the fun for me. This issue is the change of my character/my character's skills based on the need to balance PvP.

 

There are several examples of this, the most notable in recent MMO history (And the one I fear will happen to my Character) is the nerf in DAOC where the scout classes lost the high damage range attacks because they could put down casters in one shot.

 

Now from a PvP stand point it was perfectly reasonable to change this ablity, however that change was not confined to the realm of PvP. That change made it impossible for any scout to effectively solo as they did prior to the change, because it changed the base mechanic of the ability.

 

I know you have stated that the EQ2 team is trying to make PvP fun and balanced but remember some players do not want to PvP and most likely will never take part in PvP or even Duels.  Any changes that you make to abilities, spells or auto attack can have direct impact on the part of the game people like me consider fun.

 

All that being said I am excited to see the upcoming changes and improvements that you and the EQ2 team are making. One request I have, please allow players to set a flag somehow to ignore all duels/PvP style combat options. Currently it is bad enough when you are running around and get the random nearly full screen message that Person X has invited you to a Group, I can just imagine all the pop ups that griefers will be able to provide should you not allow a global "I do not PvP and Do not want to see the PvP" flag for the characters. I do not want to have to keep adding to my ignore list based on someone just wanting to Duel.

 

Thank You

Cavel

[Gala]

After level 50.
Allot of people shout out there is nothing to do after level 50. That’s true to the levelling part.
Things you can do more is.
Guild exp / personal exp. Earn enough to have a great mention or guild house or just buy so many books and paintings you got the best house around. And you’ll also make some carpenters happy.
Money makes the world go round Destroy the servers economy by flooding it with rare and get rich by it. Or just farm coin loot. With this cash comes. well stuff. power you name it you’ll have it.
Trades killing Oh yes. Trades killing is there 2. Some level 50 never heard of it before but its there. Its boring you say. ah yes I see your still level 20 in trades killing. if your both level 50 in trades killing as in class level. Well just read on there is more fun to come.
Quests. Oh I just love quests. the more I done the greater I feel. The role-playing part is just after that for me. You’ll not get much good gear but you hear the stories get really in touch with your informant and maybe learn some tricks while your at it.
Raids. ops almost forgot this one. raids are raids.
Ultimate Gear. Having the ultimate gear and having as much special effects as you can have. Even though I’m not a tank in eq2 I love to have haste. To bad I can’t use some great haste items from heavy armour I’m able to do some nice DPS, especially compared to others of my class.
Spells. Be a collector get all adept 3 or master 1 spells you can find. This takes allot and allot of cash if done quickest. Though with each spell you get more powerful even more.
Be the best of the server. Only if your really bored try 24/7 to be the best player of the server or even of eq2 as a hole. You shall have to do all that’s written above.

Of course if you think even harder you’ll find out there is even more to do. At the expansion and everyone is level 60 there is still... even more you can do.

Raids.
I read there are some concerns that there should be more then 4x like having a 6x or 8x even. Note this will make everything for your fellow players on there medium computers completely lag out. As the graphic and UI is completely new compared to eq1 where everything looked simple.

Also i thought of the 2x guilds. These will get not that good loot around as the 4x guilds. I think this is a shame. There should be 2x raid zones around with the same loot as the 4x zones. the only limit is that in the 2x zones only 12 can enter the 4x zones only 24. These zones are as challangeing as the other. Wich should meen they should have the same degree of loot.

Tho i cant say much about this yet. I have not reached even level 50 yet in tradeskill or in class tho if i work hard ill get it in 2 weeks or so. Then for me the exploring of eq2 as a hole shall begin and trying to help other peeple of my guild do the same.

[Noah]

---

Gallenite wrote:

Rint - Excellent rant, friend.  I'm probably a bigger fan of well written ones on boards than most people.  However, there is one thing I do need to point out. 

 

 

The topic in the letter was about the spells and abilities rework.

 

I did not say that the current state of affairs is the "leading cause" of burnout at the high end.  I hope that I didn't even imply that we think this is "the solution" to the issues you describe. 

 

However, as you point out also, it is a factor in what people experience at the high end and was worth mentioning.  We appear to agree on this, which is evident in the fact that it was included it in the writeup.

 

It's one aspect, nothing more, and the folks who realized it learned it to be so by playing the high end game, as they see what's going on in their own guilds. 

 

When people don't feel sufficiently challenged, they get bored and leave.  Obviously, it's our responsibility to ensure that the challenge is present, among the other plans we have for the future of EverQuest II, which were beyond the narrow focus of this single letter.

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to write!

 

- Scott

 

 

(Edit: grammar)

Message Edited by Gallenite on 06-21-2005 11:34 PM

---

The challenge in EQ2 endgame content seems to be getting adjusted.  I'm glad to see this happen but also have a concern of how much this will affect the current problem with raiding guilds in the game.  It kinda seems like when you read a book for the 1st time it is exciting and full of adventure.  After you re-read it a few times....  it gets boring.  Now with the spell/skill changes it would be like flipping everyother word upside-down in that book and re-reading it again!  Same story, same ending....  just harder to put together.  After reading that guys rant, Im wondering how this will affect us "bored" gamers of eq2?  Perhaps it will be the benchmark for up and coming content but with the expansion being months away I have plenty of recruiting nightmares to sleep thru.

Anyway, back on the subject of the tread moreso.... 

Put duel in faster so I have something to do k thx la~~~:smileysad:

 

 

 

[Jeridor]

Scott: You've said that lack of challenge is not the leading cause of burnout, but is a factor - I agree.  But, I'd personally very much like to see a general outline of what the staff feels are the major burnout factors, and some rough idea of priority.  I think that seeing what the staff thinks needs changing in a wide spectrum would help both reassure players, and help us all make sure we mostly agree on at least the major concerns.

[unundindur]

All seems very very good indeed, appart from one little thing, which I find all-important.You wrote "Combat and Items: Diversity, Challenge, and Rewards"The Items part...What will happen? This is in my mind far more important than classes beeing too similar, after all this is what RPG is all about, showing who you/your-character are/is.Not that I really have a clue, but place some 20 people on the task of adding item-models for a month, I am sure that would make an impact. That should be about 100.000$ in vages, sounds good to me Just so I can continue my vile experiements with how much time, effort and money it would take to make great item diversity, can anyone tell me roughly how long 1 person would use to make the model for 1 piece of equipment?Otherwise I am overly happy for the PvP approach, will surely make the game more appealing to the great massess.Keep up the good work!

[Luccull]

Gallenite,

First, allow me to say "well done" for the fine game that you and many, many others have produced.  No, it is not perfect, nor is it likely to ever be.  it is simply... fine, and that is much better than most MMOs, leastwise in my opinion.  Better then the game itself, is your persist efforts at making this game better.  That says more about a group of developers than most players may realize.

Secondly, if I may comment on the bored Raid Guilder's insights, I think that you at SOE are overcomplicating this matter, and are, by way of your own admirable dedication to perfection, making the end raid game more painful for them than it should be.  At times we all, for one reason or another, end up taking the very long route to a very near destination, and in the long walk we all too often, simply get lost in relation to where we were going in the first place.  So then, let's shorten our path, and make the game pleasing for these dedicated, monomaniacal, player-types.  To this end I would simply suggest....

Instead of crafting overly complex instances, tweaked and tworked toward balance among a set number or players with profession X and Y (not to leave out the Z players...)  Just build an island in the midst of the sea...

...Stock the island with 50+ level MOBs that it would take an army to beat.  In the center of the island, build a castle (temple what-have-you) that very few players will ever be able to reach...

...Make the denizens of the castle impossible (literally) to defeat...

...In the center of the castle place a boss(es) that no player will ever see, since they will always die trying to get there.  At any rate, make this boss(es) mathematicaly undeafeatable by use of resistence and resilience...

...Ignore all the complaints that will flood the boards about the impossibility of defeating this island, and simply allow the great guilds to decend upon the landmass, in swelling numbers, over and over again.  No group/raid number caps.  Let them all chew on this toy until the expansion is realeased.  By which time...

...Some players, I am certain, will have already defeated this undefeatable island.

Here then is an untimed, work on it all night everynight, funland for all the bored elite.  It would always be there ready to recieve any and all challengers at any time, day or night.  It would gender need for massive coordination (though all efforts would fail of course).  Small raids can battle on the outer fringes of the island, large guilds can penetrate the interior, and armies could perhaps even breech the walls now and then.  In fact, guilds could send their armies in waves onto the shores to effect a multi-staged effort.  Well, only a thought friend.  Do keep up the good work please.

Message Edited by Luccullus on 06-22-2005 08:07 AM

[unundindur]

Just a reply to htose who said its sad how Everquest hurts due to WoW, and the pricedrop that have resulted. Now I quite agree, but taken the nature of Online games into context, it is really strage that these games cost much at all initially. After all the main stream of money comes from long-term subscriptions (5 months equal at least the game itself). I cannot recall any online games that only take subscription, and sell the game itself for free, would surely make it popular =)

[Silversnow]

---

unundindur wrote:Just a reply to htose who said its sad how Everquest hurts due to WoW, and the pricedrop that have resulted. Now I quite agree, but taken the nature of Online games into context, it is really strage that these games cost much at all initially. After all the main stream of money comes from long-term subscriptions (5 months equal at least the game itself). I cannot recall any online games that only take subscription, and sell the game itself for free, would surely make it popular =)

---

You obviously have never played iRO then. Unless they changed it the client was free to download.Anyways. To the guy a page back that was flipping out over the PVP being added and it's effecting his soloing ability. And anyone else who needs to buy a clue. Please please please read the notes the dev's have posted numerous times on the fact that while the pvp and pve both use the same skills the effects are both totally different in how they scale/work.If you toggle the pve Uber Damage skill it'll hit for 1k on Skellie_Unit999 but the same skill in pvp will maybe hit for 200 or whatever gimptastic value they set it in pvp to ballance it. Totally seperate variables are used so any kind of tweak they do to pvp will in no way effect the pve game.I dont even do pvp... i'm just tired of uninformed crying.

[Ashlian]

---

Silversnow wrote:

Anyways. To the guy a page back that was flipping out over the PVP being added and it's effecting his soloing ability. And anyone else who needs to buy a clue. Please please please read the notes the dev's have posted numerous times on the fact that while the pvp and pve both use the same skills the effects are both totally different in how they scale/work.

If you toggle the pve Uber Damage skill it'll hit for 1k on Skellie_Unit999 but the same skill in pvp will maybe hit for 200 or whatever gimptastic value they set it in pvp to ballance it. Totally seperate variables are used so any kind of tweak they do to pvp will in no way effect the pve game.

I dont even do pvp... i'm just tired of uninformed crying.

---

Hear, hear. Think of it like how they can reduce your stats and armor for mentoring, except on a one on one skill/spell basis vs overall. When you're in duel mode, your skills and spells will be in a special mode that has been tweaked for pvp. When you're not in duel mode, they revert to the pve model. This gives us, and SOE, the best of both worlds, since they can adjust pvp skills and spells to their heart's content without affecting pve players at all. So please.....if you didn't understand what they meant, take the time to consider this and stop worrying.

Ashlian Liadan, 40 Fury, 32 Tailor of Mistmoore

[lyonel]

Hello,

 

One of the huge things I like about this game is the fact you only need 24 people to raid,I for one hope this is the one constent in this game.For those of you that miss your 100 + man guild raids please go back to eq1.The huge guilds really have no need in this game,I really dont see why there are guilds out there with 300 plus members.It makes me think they moved from eq1 and did not adapt.

[RafaelSmith]

---

Gallenite wrote:

There's been a lot of focus lately on Desert of Flames, our first major expansion to the game due out this fall. While we're extremely excited about this first expansion, I wanted to take some time to talk about a few things that will also be coming up for EverQuest II.

Quests, Quests, Quests, and more Quests

One of the big things we've been quietly working on in the background is a universal examination of all the quests in EQ2.

As you've seen in update #10, collection quests got their own tab in the Quest Journal, which means they no longer count against the cap of 50 active quests that you can have at once, letting you work on every collection in the game at once if you choose.

Among other things, we're making sure that the level and difficulty (and therefore, experience and item rewards) are appropriate for the challenge provided. As a part of this, we've also been adding new information to each quest that everyone should find really useful.

Soon, your journal will be able to tell you when a quest is Heroic and thus worthy of taking a group or Epic requiring a raid, as well as which zone the different steps take place in (to allow for more types of journal sorting), and lastly when a quest is complete and ready to be taken back to the giver for the reward.

The idea is to make sure that the objectives of the quests themselves are the fun challenge, and to remove some of the "Quest Bookkeeping" that people currently need to do.

Combat and Items: Diversity, Challenge, and Rewards

Class diversity, class roles, and the challenge that the world presents have been major topics that we come back to a lot when talking with people about their experiences in EverQuest II. As many of you know, we're nearly in testing with some pretty large combat and abilities improvements aimed at addressing many of common concerns about what people experience in the game:

• In some cases, classes aren't diverse enough. People get pigeonholed into one of four core roles with not enough useful flavor between the subclasses.
• In other cases, a profession's secondary contribution is better than another profession's primary contribution.
• In other cases yet, even inside of an archetype, there are distinct differences between people's ability to contribute at the level they're supposed to.
• Some combinations of abilities are a bit too effective, causing some of the end-game to get into the realm of trivial and, therefore, boring. This is one of the most frequent causes of burnout at the high end of EQ2. People figure out "the trick" and there just "isn't any challenge left." While issues like this won't impact the majority of people, it should come as a relief to those on the high end.

An update on our progress will be showing up on Test Server for public evaluation some time in the next couple weeks, and we'll be paying very close attention to the feedback of those who've played with it.

One thing that everyone should be aware of: In our discussions with people on this topic, we're definitely aware that there has been a certain amount of apprehension to what we've been doing. Anything that's an unknown that touches a topic like "combat" or "spells" gets people nervous. While there will definitely be some changes, please be assured that we're not looking to drastically alter the fundamentals that make EQ2 fun.

We want to make it very clear that we're paying attention to people's concerns. In everything that we're doing with this revamp, we are proceeding very cautiously, which is why you haven't seen anything rushed out to the live servers, or even rushed out to public test, for that matter.

All of our work in this area can be turned on and off with a switch, as we've been doing on Test Server over the few past updates. When we're in the middle of working on areas that really need to be finished all at once before a part if it makes sense, we just turn it off.

In addition, everyone will be getting the ability to respec all of their traits, traditions, and the like once this update does go live.

What's up with PvP?

With the inclusion of Arena Champions in Desert of Flames, there's been a lot of talk lately about what our plans are for PvP in EverQuest II.

Lots of people remember that before we launched, we had always referred to PvP as "something that won't be in EQ2 for launch," but it's always been something that we wanted to include, just not unless we were able to take the time and do it "right."

That begs the question, "what does 'right' mean for PvP in EQ2?"

We have a lot of spells and abilities in EQ2, and they were all designed to be used in Player vs. NPC interactions.

For starters, 'right' means that we need to make sure that every profession has a role to play in PvP, while at the same time ensuring that no profession has the ability to completely shut down others players' usefulness (and, by extension, fun) in PvP.

There's no question that EQ2 is predominantly a PvE game and that there are people who do not ever wish to take part in PvP, and those people then naturally become concerned that their PvE abilities might be nerfed because of PvP concerns.

Given that, 'right' also means that we needed to make sure that we had a system in place that would let us change any individual ability's PvP effect without changing its PvE effect, which is definitely how we plan to balance PvP abilities.

Further, putting PvP into a PvE game also complicates the issue of what people's expectations are for their roles are in PvP. A person who is a support class in PvE will likely also be primarily support in PvP. Our goal in this is to make PvP fit into the world of EQ2 in a smart way, which means PvE roles will carry across into PvP. We're not aiming for a world where everyone can compete one-on-one or completely redefine classes based solely on which type of combat they're participating in.

With that in mind, our plan for PvP looks something like this:

Step 1: Dueling. We've made it available on Test Server with the current state of the PvE abilities for those who wish to give it a shot.

Step 2: Balance larger scale PvP fights. Do casters dominate? Do melee dominate? Is there something fun and useful for everyone? What do we do with power regen on casters vs. the autoattack power of melee? We've been testing these kinds of fights internally for quite awhile now, and we need to make sure that we have the ability scaling and effectiveness (using the system I described above) in a place we think is solid. This is the step we're on right now.

Step 3: Release Dueling to the live servers once the first round of PvP settings have been fleshed out.

Step 4: Beta for Desert of Flames and Arena Champions, in which we'll be getting a wealth of valuable information on our progress so far, since Arena Champions exercises different kinds of group PvP combat.

Step 5: Launch of Desert of Flames and Arena Champions.

Step 6: This is when we'll begin discussing our longer term plans for servers based on a PvP ruleset, and will be able to get into more details.

For now, know that it's something that we know people are interested in, and we're looking forward to being able to bring it to you in a way that doesn't adversely impact your PvE abilities.

Help us Test, earn Bonus XP!

If you want to help us test the latest things we're working on before the general public sees them, you're always welcome to check out EQ2's Test Server by looking in the TestServer directory under your EQ2 install and reading the instructions in the TestServerHelp.txt file.

We've made a couple changes to Test Server lately that we're hoping bring more eyes on the things we're looking to release.

Test Server now has an optional 50% experience bonus that people can use to help grow new characters faster, as well as its own full time liaison and guides to help make sure that even more bugs find their way to us.

As always, characters that you make on Test Server don't count toward your Live character maximum of 6 slots (or 10, for Station Access members).

What's this about The Splitpaw Saga?

Amidst all the other talk of things going on in the world of EverQuest II, there are rumors of a long-lost tribe of gnolls resurfacing, allegedly somewhere in the Thundering Steppes. Rumor has it that they bear a striking resemblance to the Splitpaw tribe of old, only much more bold and vicious.

Lots of people liked the idea of having something new to do when we released The Bloodline Chronicles earlier this year, but not everyone was in the right level range to enjoy it at the time. This time, with The Splitpaw Saga, we're trying something a little different.

The dungeons (and rewards) will scale in level, for players level 20-50, making sure that there's something there for nearly everyone, and that as many people as possible can play through the story. We're looking forward to seeing what people think of this new development. Play it through and let us know! The anticipated launch date is June 28th.

And finally, we really enjoyed spending some time with members of our community live and in person at our 1st Fan Faire since the launch of EQ2 last week in Vegas! To everyone who came out, we thank you very much for making our inaugural Fan Faire an even bigger success than any of us could have dared hope. Be sure to check out the wrap up reports, thoughts on the 1st look of Desert of Flames and of course what would an event be without photos!

Good hunting,

- Scott

 

---

Hello, I have been reading all the discussions about the proposed changes to EQ2.  Some sound good some sound not so good.  I think one common factor in just about every "problem" that the game currently has is that there is no "middle ground"...Mobs either dont hit you or kill you in 3 shots,  gear comes in 2 forms..common stuff everybody and their brother can have and ubah rare master drops that only the top of the top can get...there is nothing in the middle.  I recently made level 50 and was amazed at how much of a "downer" it was.  Part of what I enjoy in these games is having "goals" and always trying to advance my character in some fashion.  For me I hit level 50, ive saved/harvested to get Rare crafted gear.  So I say to myself...ok now its time to set new goals and try to improove the character both in gear and game knowledge....But sadly there is none of that unless I want to commit myself to the ubah raid guilds.  There is no "gear" better than Rare crafted that I can either try to get with my friends or try to earn the money to buy.  I think in the last 3 levels I have yet to see anything in terms of Armor better than the Ebon I have available on the broker.  My quest journal is mostly a blank slate...i have a few heritage quests yet to finish, etc but based on my experience thus far 95% of the quests out there only reward EXP (which i dont need anymore) and useless loot (which is only good to sell for $$$ which again I dont need anymore, why do i need money when there is nothing to buy?).  There needs to be more in terms of "reward" besided EXP and cash to make quests worth doing.  Some enjoy doing quests simply for the sake of doing them...but thats not for me. If the level 50+ game is all about raiding then I can accept that but i had hoped EQ2 wouldnt go down that path like they did in EQ1.   But everything I have seen thus far indicates they have.  I know im rambling but its hard to put into words what my actual dissapointment with the game is... Simply put the first 5 months of playing the game were fun and provided me and my playstlye alot of stuff to do.  But I now have this overwhelming feeling of "Game over".  I used to log on and always have something I coudl do that progressed my character is some way...the past few weeks I struggle to even find a reason to log on let alone find something to do when I do log on.  Telling me to wait for the expansion doesnt really help much and in fact just serves to further my dissappointment.

[Graton]

sure wish they'd tell us if splitpaw is going to scale up to lvl 60 or only lvl 50.

[CoebyWu]

---

Luccullus wrote:

...Stock the island with 50+ level MOBs that it would take an army to beat.  In the center of the island, build a castle (temple what-have-you) that very few players will ever be able to reach...

---

Very nice post Luccullus, and I completely agree.

 

Why are we even talking about guilds with 50+ members?  Last I knew, this game was about guilds with 24-30 members.  It really is beyond me why SOE continues to cater to those people who chose to play the game with one intention: reach 50 and raid.

 

Nothing is more annoying than seeing "uber" players post here, about how easy raiding is, and how they've nothing to do.  Everyone forgets the fact that all content is easy for them, because they cheated themselves by racing to 50 and have all the easy and best gear.  Simply put, they are riding the wave.  They'll always have the best and easy gear, because they are the first to conquer (abuse) the new content and get the quick and easy gear.  For everyone else, the content gets fixed, tweaked, itemized and harder before they even reach it.

 

Whatever happened to this game being all about small, focused guilds, who play the game on all levels.  Adventuring, Crafting, Questing, Guild Level, Harvesting?  Nothing has been less rewarding than playing EQ2 the "right" way.

 

As far as I'm concerned, those huge raiding guilds can be discontent, and leave.  None of this discussion should be about them, because this isn't their game and they can go back to EQ1. 

 

I understand there will always be players who race ahead, but what I don't understand is how that is defined.  The guild that I have worked hard with since start, along with our great members, have done very well in all aspects of the game.  I honestly feel WE have succeeded, and raced ahead of those that just focused on adventuring.  However, from watching the forums, it always seems that we (and the others that have played the game on all levels) don't appear to be the ones SOE is catering to.

 

SOE, it's time you got back on track.  "We" are your target audience.  The guilds with 24-30 members, that have done lots of quests, near or just recently at adventure level 50 and crafting level 50, near or at guild level 30, max'd harvesting.  Wasn't that what the game is about?

[Almeric_CoS]

---

Spymaster wrote:

I agree this but please in mind what can you we do with RPG type online game beside level up, quest, trade skill and raiding ?

 

How about this:  What if there was NO raiding?  If I wanted an MMO experience that most closely resembled all the awesome times I had in my younger days with tabletop RPGs ([expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] I miss those days sometimes), then I would chose an MMO that had absolutely no raiding whatsoever.  Stick a limit of maybe 8 people for a group, and that's that.

 

I was actually quite disappointed when SOE announced they were bumping the original plan of an 18-person raid cap to 24, because the effect that would have on guilds was clear from the get-go.  If you want to guarantee yourself the ability to field 4 groups for a raid on any given evening, you need a roster of 48-72 active players, though in reality you probably want  closer to 100 unless everyone you recruit is hardcore enough to max out their levels asap.

 

The patron system calculates guild exp the way it does because EQ2 is supposed to be designed around smaller, more family-atmosphere guilds, very much UNlike EQ1 where only huge, bloated organizations were going to see the endgame.  With a raid cap of 24 and a lot of developer focus going into creating new raid content for those who blast through most of the world with only the endgame in sight, small guilds are collapsing left and right, and the mentality of the uber guild is taking over.

 

 

I dont see any good quest beside kill 10/20 mob again and again in different level.

 

I don't think you're looking hard enough.  I'm a quest fiend but I've still only seen under half the quest content out there (server top 100, but not serverwide).  There are lots of great quests that involve exploration, searching, harvesting, crafting, racing, and reading.  Are the Kill X quests the most prevelant type?  Yes.  But if Krugup is any indication, there's a lot of great stuff to come.  The logic puzzle alone was an absolutely incredible display of what EQ2 has to offer, and I hope they keep up the good work.  Still, even at this stage, there's plenty of quest content that isn't JUST Kill X tasks.  Go find them

 

I think max around 1months then all these players capped 50 will cap again and then bored again if still no real raiding thing.

I have zero sympathy for anyone who races from 50 to 60 in a month or less and gets bored.  Just the little previews are showing so much content in Maj'Dul that I can't fathom how I'll find the time for doing tasks for all those different factions.  If you plow through and trivialize all the level 50-55 content because you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BE LEVEL 60 NOW NOW NOW, that's your problem.

I play a LOT.  I'm on nearly every night for at least a few hours.  I explore the world, do all the quests I can get my grubby little hands on, spend a little time crafting, get exp for my guild, and help my friends with their tasks.  I've played since launch, spent a miniscule amount of time on any alts, and yet last night I dinged a mere level 41.  I've never been on a raid of more than 2 groups unless you count a grey/green Cauldron Hollow event, and yet I've NEVER been bored.

EQ2 is positively perfect for gamers like me

Message Edited by Spymaster on 06-22-200504:06 AM

---

[fatredfr]

"Last I heard, there was more to life than raiding.  Are there not areas for GROUPS of level 50s to also go looking for adventure and treasure?"

 

That's another part of the problem.  There's maybe 1 semi-challenging single group zone in the game, that being the CT instance.   Unless they've added something challenging in the past 2 months (have no played), there's really nothing challenging for a single lvl 50 group aside that one zone.   And once you've done that one once, it's not hard at all. 

Message Edited by fatredfrog on 06-22-2005 12:20 PM