Avatar gear nerfs

[arant]

SantiagoDraco wrote:

Since, according to the "avatar" guilds, these mobs are the "hardest in the game" how about we resolve this issue by making the Avatars non-contested?  Give guilds that have cores of people that work regular jobs a chance to "prove their mettle".

Nah, I think that won't happen.  We'd see too many "less capable" guilds in Avatar loot much faster than the current Avatar guilds would like to admit is possible

95% of the people not killing avatars still wouldnt be able to kill avatars.. this can easily be seen by looking at their current instance progression.

[hugh1]

SantiagoDraco wrote:

Since, according to the "avatar" guilds, these mobs are the "hardest in the game" how about we resolve this issue by making the Avatars non-contested?  Give guilds that have cores of people that work regular jobs a chance to "prove their mettle".

Nah, I think that won't happen.  We'd see too many "less capable" guilds in Avatar loot much faster than the current Avatar guilds would like to admit is possible

Didnt see anyone on this thread come out and say omg avatars are badass or super hard, the thing with Avatar loot nerf is the time factor, People leave work, make sacrfices in real life to kill them putting over more important things at time or logging in at insane times at night / mornings to kill them. Unlike Instance content it doesnt sit there waiting for your raid to show up, YOU need to put effort into going to there, tracking them/camping and then killing the spawn.

Id hate to know how much time ive spent camping 3 spawn windows in TSO.

[Tehom]

Fyreflyte wrote:

Valanthe wrote:

If anything, the set bonuses are too low. They don't encourage people to use the Avatar Charm 2 sets over the Munzok set. Adding Crit Bonus would make them much more desireable.

The Munzok charms are harder to attain. The majority of raiders will have easier access to 2 avatar charms than to an avatar and a Munzok charm.

This is simply not true from several perspectives. From a difficulty perspective, all the mobs up to and including Umzok, who drops the charms, are far easier than evil avatars, especially when you consider that evil avatar charms need to be combined in a fashion that make sense for specific classes. For example, War only benefits melee and doesn't do anything for rangers. If you ignore difficulty and go by -rarity-, it's much harder to get two charms (1 every 3-6 days) and contested (we routinely race for every avatar on our server), than for Umzok who is instanced to 1 per raid force every 5 days. Ultimately the number of Umzok charms will dwarf the number of evil charms on more populated servers. Frankly, the biggest problem with the Umzok charms is that one of them is dedicated to summoners, which was created a trash item in his loot table. Given how rare summoners already are, it pretty much guaranteed that the item would rot/go to alts almost immediately, which is what it did for us.

Unless you were talking about 'Munzok charms' to refer to charms that drop from Munzok the Corrupter himself that we haven't seen yet. In that case you're certainly right about them being harder to obtain.

As far as specific nerfs go, Necklace of the Plagues really is one of the most unreasonable ones. Players are comparing it to the new mage neck, and for that the range increase to spells is completely meaningless. There's not a fight in the game it matters for (did you know there's player abilities with 50 range if it ever came up? Well, now you do!), so it's not exactly a compelling stat to balance the two. And given how much more rare plague is (a handful on each server, compared to the anashti belts we toss to alts), it's pretty hard to imagine that they should only be 'arguably comparable'. Necklace should be flat-out better, so it should have at least equal the same mage stats and then have the silly range increase no one cares about anyway on it.

[ShamusOB]

SantiagoDraco wrote:

Since, according to the "avatar" guilds, these mobs are the "hardest in the game" how about we resolve this issue by making the Avatars non-contested?  Give guilds that have cores of people that work regular jobs a chance to "prove their mettle".

Nah, I think that won't happen.  We'd see too many "less capable" guilds in Avatar loot much faster than the current Avatar guilds would like to admit is possible

Im suprised it took this long for someone to say omg I have a regular job and they don't.

Also on a side note I could care less if you have the gear too if you stop crying about our loot because you wont get up at 3am to kill a mob.  Or do you work your normal job at 3 am??

[ShamusOB]

Fyreflyte wrote:

The Munzok charms are harder to attain. The majority of raiders will have easier access to 2 avatar charms than to an avatar and a Munzok charm.

Are you serious about harder to attain? 

There are just less of them because that zone is lame and people don't care to go in there and get it.  Oh yea and they went to everyones alts or got melted for being the suck.

[Ge'Sar]

So I left work today and my Mazda rx8 was gone, there was an old pinto in my parking spot.  I noticed a note on the car, so I read it.  Mazda had taken my car and left me this one.  It seems that they felt this years model wasn't quite as good as last years and they were worried that I wouldn't go out and buy this years model if i still had my old Rx8.  But this note explained how now I got to be excited about working towards a new rx8!

Brillant business plan!

[Quicksilver74]

Fyreflyte wrote:

Hecula wrote:

Since the gear will be getting hammered in the next expansion anyway, why is this [Avatar nerf] necessary? All its going to do is [Removed for Content] people off and make the time drag by even longer until SF.

Shamus08 wrote:

They can nerf the heck out of the gear when the expac hits and everyone has to regear anyways. There is no real reason to do it now. Since the put it off for so long whats it going to hurt to put it off til the expac.

Even with the rating system going in (I assume this is the "hammering" referred to in the first quote), many of these pieces would have been better than the top end loot at level 90. Certain stats like Base Damage were added in such large portions to the avatar gear that a player could max them out, when previously the highest they could hope to attain was ~10-15%. This increase was simply too large, and even cutting it by 3x (the decrease at level 90), certain avatar gear would remain the best piece in its slot.

So lemme get this perfectly sraight....  

  You are telling me, that Current raiders who are avatar geared....   Are so powerful, that if theyr gear was reduced to 33% effectiveness, it woudl STILL be more powerful than end-game lvl 90 gear?  Sounds like you completely screwed up the lvl 90 gear. 

   If we as a playerbase are at our "peak" right now... and can only go downhill from here, then EQ2 is dead.  

[Quicksilver74]

God you gusy screw up itemization so bad and then make us pay for your mistakes!   News flash, WE PAY YOU, which means you WORK for US.  Quit slacking, and just make better upgrades in T9 and you won't have this problem.  Seriously your gonna punish us because you don't know how to itemize properly? 

[Gisallo]

Kiara wrote:

Your facts are incorrect.  Brenlo was never in charge of SWG, my dear.  I think it's great that you want to put him in positions that he never was in.  He was in charge of Community Relations then... HE didn't make the decisions on SWG, nor did he implement them.  All he did was tell you about them.

Which leads me to seriously doubt your other "facts."

Once again.  Opinion and passion are lovely and great things which we encourage here.  However, please have actual facts if you wish to attack any member of my team and retain your posting privileges.

Thank you

One may well be correct in saying that Brenlo was just the messenger with SWG, but at Fan Faire he was pretty clear in saying that he thinks the huge differences between gear, casual vs hard core raider, is wrong and that also the fact that content is scaled along theses lines is also wrong.

I am NOT going to argue whether he is right or wrong in regards to this.  I will also honestly say I have never killed an Avatar so this particular nerf doesn't effect me in the least.  The thing is though NO video game can be all things to all people.  If people want little to no difference between crafted and even the hardest mob drops, they need but go to LOTRO.  If people want easier access to great items (via various mechanics) or the chance to have really great items drop off of less than the hardest mobs they need but go to WoW, or even WAR.  What is clear however is that MANY people play this game because it is not WoW, LOTRO, they play it because its EQ2.

Now yes there are people who complain that there is too much difference between the gear an Avatar Killer has vs a VERY casual person.  That being said if the gear from a VERY difficult CONTESTED mob is not going to be a clear upgrade over everything else in the game why bang you head on teh wall killing Avatars.  If their is no logical reason (beyond saying "the Avatar died to us") then why have the Avatar in the first place?  You can then apply this logic down through the foot chain, progression based x4 raid nameds, x2 raid names, tiered heroic instance nameds etc.

This is a 5 year old game, with a clunky 5 year old graphics engine, BUT that has been one of the few that actually rewards those who put in the most time and effort.  If you take this away, then one of the main things that makes this game stand out and thus still vital is eliminated. 

I do agree with one thing that has been said.  Some of the end Names in the current raid zones are as difficult as some Avatars (this is told to me from members of a very good WW1st raid guild).  Even with this though there is one IMPORTANT difference; should you not get clearly better loot from a mob that can be ganked from under your guild because they have a better war dialing network, and that you may not see for months, than one you have but to reset the zone timer on to go and kill again at your liesure? 

In so far as suggestions.  I think ti needs to made clear if there are going to be T9 avatars.  I ask this because with whatever gear degredation system that is incoming with the next update, isn't the nerf needless?  The only thing that makes any sense with such a preemptive nerf, which really no other gear is getting, would be because there will simply be T8 Avatars again, else would the degredation system not be enough?  If any proposed degredation system would not be adequete then I think we deserve to be told why.  I recall a Producers letter that stated there would be better communication to prevent fighter 2.0 like debacles.  Knowing these facts would certainly help us in giving some constructive feedback.

[Hecula]

Crabbok@Befallen wrote:

   If we as a playerbase are at our "peak" right now... and can only go downhill from here, then EQ2 is dead.  

It's what happens when a system that is based on hard caps, soft caps, diminishing returns and percentage-base skills gets close to the top of the curve. Everything flattens out. Interesting that when I proposed they work on doing away with this system in favor of a linear one, everyone seemed to think it was a bad idea. I guess these types of "resets" are better.

[Gisallo]

ShamusOB wrote:

SantiagoDraco wrote:

Since, according to the "avatar" guilds, these mobs are the "hardest in the game" how about we resolve this issue by making the Avatars non-contested?  Give guilds that have cores of people that work regular jobs a chance to "prove their mettle".

Nah, I think that won't happen.  We'd see too many "less capable" guilds in Avatar loot much faster than the current Avatar guilds would like to admit is possible

Im suprised it took this long for someone to say omg I have a regular job and they don't.

Also on a side note I could care less if you have the gear too if you stop crying about our loot because you wont get up at 3am to kill a mob.  Or do you work your normal job at 3 am??

I'm on your side to an extent Shamus, even though I do not kill avatars, I do think the gear still needs to be better than the nerf on test.   BUT my normal job has shifts for me that end anywhere from midnight to 8am for a total of 40-60 hours a week depending on current duties and assignments.  Probably best to just focus on priorities than to get caught up in arguments that can be easily rebutted.

[Novusod]

Crabbok@Befallen wrote:

Fyreflyte wrote:

Even with the rating system going in (I assume this is the "hammering" referred to in the first quote), many of these pieces would have been better than the top end loot at level 90. Certain stats like Base Damage were added in such large portions to the avatar gear that a player could max them out, when previously the highest they could hope to attain was ~10-15%. This increase was simply too large, and even cutting it by 3x (the decrease at level 90), certain avatar gear would remain the best piece in its slot.

So lemme get this perfectly sraight....  

  You are telling me, that Current raiders who are avatar geared....   Are so powerful, that if theyr gear was reduced to 33% effectiveness, it woudl STILL be more powerful than end-game lvl 90 gear?  Sounds like you completely screwed up the lvl 90 gear. 

   If we as a playerbase are at our "peak" right now... and can only go downhill from here, then EQ2 is dead.  

I am pretty sure Fyreflyte wants to create a tiered raiding system like we had in RoK. The problem in RoK was that EoF gear was so good high end guilds just jumped over the first tiers and went right into VP and cleared it with few RoK upgrades before getting into VP. It is bad when raid content is cleared a month into an expansion. These nerfs + the item decay coming should prevent that from happening again in TSF. You need to have massive nerfs to current gear for a tiered system to work. Say if TSF has three tiers of Raid gear, then T1 TSF should be better than current gear. But if T1 TSF is better than our best gear now where does T2 and T3 TSF going to going to go? Nerfs now and decay later are the only way to make this work. This is where I beleive SoE is coming from.

[Tehom]

Crabbok@Befallen wrote:

God you gusy screw up itemization so bad and then make us pay for your mistakes!   News flash, WE PAY YOU, which means you WORK for US.  Quit slacking, and just make better upgrades in T9 and you won't have this problem.  Seriously your gonna punish us because you don't know how to itemize properly? 

Well, this isn't a good argument - regardless of whose fault it is, it's their job to correct errors. Now, what we can argue, and what I argue, is that they're going about it in a bad way.

To me, the simplest solution is to make the real problem stats - base damage/healing increases, degrade at a faster rate than other modifiers via gear degredation. If you do this, then the problem completely resolves itself with new gear. And why not make this part of the system? We know that all stats are not created equal. Some matter more than others. So why in the world would you have them degrade at the same rate? You want to get rid of the biggest and most disruptive modifiers first so they can't impact future itemization. Even if you nerf avatar gear -now-, you should still make base increases degrade faster to avoid any future problems anyway. Do the same with crit bonus, and you can then use both mods liberally through all current content.

As far as designing new content this expansion, you have to be creative anyway. Do you really think most players will eagerly want to conquer new content just to regain ground they've already lost and erase the massive nerfs to their characters? There's dozens of ways you can make compelling gear to players who are already capped on base modifiers via interesting procs or clicks that we've seen examples of in previous expansions, or with gear designed to counter specific elements of current content. For example, there's no gear in the game that assists with disarms or target locks at present, and anti-status-effect gear for casters is extremely limited. There's very little gear that helps mages with survivability against ubiquitous trauma AEs, there's no gear specifically designed to act as a counter to being one-shotted, nothing to counteract casting speed slows or interrupts, and only two items with the Preparation effect so sought after by sorcerors (none of which are on x4 gear). If you just -asked- players what they specifically would want to see as valuable to them for current content for their given archetypes, players would cheerfully provide you with plenty of examples. They'd need to be designed to degrade as players level up (probably via them only applying to up to level 91 effects, say), but there's plenty of options.

[Ge'Sar]

Fyreflyte wrote:

Valanthe wrote:

If anything, the set bonuses are too low. They don't encourage people to use the Avatar Charm 2 sets over the Munzok set. Adding Crit Bonus would make them much more desireable.

The Munzok charms are harder to attain. The majority of raiders will have easier access to 2 avatar charms than to an avatar and a Munzok charm.

Do you play the same game the rest of us do?

Do you play?

Do you guys have a raid force of testers? I mean munzok is unkillable by people wearing this 'massively overpowered gear' and somehow that's not raising any attention at all.

[Ge'Sar]

Fyreflyte wrote:

arant wrote:

That truely is the best explanation I've gotten to cement quitting the game.  I truely appreciate you letting us know that for the last 10 months we've gotten to enjoy the best the game has will have had to offer over the next couple years.  There truely is no incentive to keep playing or even try out the expansion knowing that there is nothing better to come.

Somehow you managed to interpret what I said with the exact opposite meaning. I explicitly stated that one reason for the nerf was to allow for natural item progression into the next expansion.

No, he got it right on, just because he's not accepting your circular logic is frustrating you.   You're setting people way behind what your new upgrades are going to be and then want people to be excited for an upgrade that is still behind what we have now.   It's laughable that you even think anyone is going to be yay, great plan.

It's like stealing ten thousand from my bank account so you can lend me a twenty.  Thanks buddy!

[Crychtonn]

Fyreflyte wrote:

Crychtonn wrote:

1) Stop hating on ranger already.  Did one steal your girlfriend as a child or something?

2) Add 7 ranged crit and 7 ranged crit bonus to avatar scout BP.

3) Leave Necklace of the Plague as it currently is.  Instance Anashti necks are at 12 base plus they have crit and crit bonus which Plague doesn't.  Plague is also much rarer to get.

4) Add an exchange broker for avatar charms like you're doing for Anashti's mage belt.  Otherwise every scout that took a Bertoxx charm gets 100% screwed over.

5) Tell Rallos Zek to stop hating on rangers.

PS ~ If SOE didn't want so much of this gear in game why didn't they change contested spawn cycles back to 7-10 days when they trippled the number of avatars that could spawn.

1) Rangers are [Removed for Content] homewreckers!

2) Already in the works.

3) Plague also increases CA damage (not just spell) and has a melee range increase (minor for some classes, but awesome for others). The two are still comparable in power.

You can't forget that + base damage no longer effect proc's.  So it your a scout you get the CA base and a mage you get the Spell base.  It's not like they overlap anymore.  And yes the increased range is nice but definitely not huge.  And to get that you have to give up the crit from the Anashti necks.  I think they're all pretty close to being on par with each other.  With Plague being slightly better (current version) but also much rarer and harder to get.  Which is why it should be slightly better.

BTW why does the new mage neck get Crit and Crit Bonus while the melee version only gets to have Crit on it?  If the melee one had the same 7 crit and 3 crit bonus the new mage one has it'd be as good if not better then the current version of the Plague neck.

4) Which charms need this? Is it primarily Disease for scouts?

Disease for scouts and tanks for sure.  The new version would be useless to them.  Rangers would swap to Anashti or Innorruk (sp?) since they'd be the only two evil charms useable by them.  Other melee scouts and tanks could also switch to Rallos Zek as a third option.

PS ~ Add a mage belt to Ykesha already.  I'm tired of listening to them cry about it

[ShamusOB]

I for one am pretty glad that he wants to nerf gear so the upcomming lame gear in the new x4 will be upgrades. I also hope that the new zone is super cool like MMB and totally worth it for people to run it.  So super cool people run it once and dont bother again till they make it worth while.

Im also pretty stoked he told us how lame the gear in the new expansion will be, so once again thanks for saving me the 50 bucks the expac woulda cost and the 15 monthly after the nerf.

[Gisallo]

Hecula wrote:

Crabbok@Befallen wrote:

   If we as a playerbase are at our "peak" right now... and can only go downhill from here, then EQ2 is dead.  

It's what happens when a system that is based on hard caps, soft caps, diminishing returns and percentage-base skills gets close to the top of the curve. Everything flattens out. Interesting that when I proposed they work on doing away with this system in favor of a linear one, everyone seemed to think it was a bad idea. I guess these types of "resets" are better.

The thing is though that the hard cap, soft cap and diminishing returns point goes UP with each level cap rise.  With this in mind there doesn't appear to be a need for SWEEPING changes and over all nerfs.  All that needs to happen is shorten the distance between the tiers (so you don't have people at the hard cap self buffed) of gear but to make sure when you are making the gear that the tiers are maintained.  A raid instance named should NOT drop an item = or > as an Avatar period just as a legendary instance named should NOT drop items = > a Raid instance named.  If you do this and just have the stuff grey out every 10 lvls the problem is pretty much solved.

[circusgirl]

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Crabbok@Befallen wrote:

God you gusy screw up itemization so bad and then make us pay for your mistakes!   News flash, WE PAY YOU, which means you WORK for US.  Quit slacking, and just make better upgrades in T9 and you won't have this problem.  Seriously your gonna punish us because you don't know how to itemize properly? 

Well, this isn't a good argument - regardless of whose fault it is, it's their job to correct errors. Now, what we can argue, and what I argue, is that they're going about it in a bad way.

To me, the simplest solution is to make the real problem stats - base damage/healing increases, degrade at a faster rate than other modifiers via gear degredation. If you do this, then the problem completely resolves itself with new gear. And why not make this part of the system? We know that all stats are not created equal. Some matter more than others. So why in the world would you have them degrade at the same rate? You want to get rid of the biggest and most disruptive modifiers first so they can't impact future itemization. Even if you nerf avatar gear -now-, you should still make base increases degrade faster to avoid any future problems anyway. Do the same with crit bonus, and you can then use both mods liberally through all current content.

As far as designing new content this expansion, you have to be creative anyway. Do you really think most players will eagerly want to conquer new content just to regain ground they've already lost and erase the massive nerfs to their characters? There's dozens of ways you can make compelling gear to players who are already capped on base modifiers via interesting procs or clicks that we've seen examples of in previous expansions, or with gear designed to counter specific elements of current content. For example, there's no gear in the game that assists with disarms or target locks at present, and anti-status-effect gear for casters is extremely limited. There's very little gear that helps mages with survivability against ubiquitous trauma AEs, there's no gear specifically designed to act as a counter to being one-shotted, nothing to counteract casting speed slows or interrupts, and only two items with the Preparation effect so sought after by sorcerors (none of which are on x4 gear). If you just -asked- players what they specifically would want to see as valuable to them for current content for their given archetypes, players would cheerfully provide you with plenty of examples. They'd need to be designed to degrade as players level up (probably via them only applying to up to level 91 effects, say), but there's plenty of options.

Wow...I think Chath pretty much hit the nail on the head here, and has a solution that pretty much solves your problem.  If the issue is that item decay alone is not enough to make T9 upgrades desireable, then simply adjust how decay works to affect high-impact stats like base damage and crit bonus more.  

I think the fact that stats are not created equal needs to be taken into account when rebalancing avatar gear as well.   For example, just about every blue stat that previously was +10 on an avatar BP has been changed to +7.  However, stats like +base CA damage are generally overpowered, wile things like +10 base taunt value are quite underpowered (since they're impacting underpowered abilities, and aren't raising the cap for another stat like base damage does for +CA damage).  To nerf both by the same amount is wrongheaded.  10 base CA damage does not equal 10 base taunt value, why treat the two stats as if they're the same when reworking avatar gear?

[Gisallo]

Novusod wrote:

I am pretty sure Fyreflyte wants to create a tiered raiding system like we had in RoK. The problem in RoK was that EoF gear was so good high end guilds just jumped over the first tiers and went right into VP and cleared it with few RoK upgrades before getting into VP. It is bad when raid content is cleared a month into an expansion. These nerfs + the item decay coming should prevent that from happening again in TSF. You need to have massive nerfs to current gear for a tiered system to work. Say if TSF has three tiers of Raid gear, then T1 TSF should be better than current gear. But if T1 TSF is better than our best gear now where does T2 and T3 TSF going to going to go? Nerfs now and decay later are the only way to make this work. This is where I beleive SoE is coming from.

You are giving them far more credit than many of us are.  I remember hearing from Fan Faire things about "going after WoW" how some people not being able to have access to content and gear wasn't right etc.  All of this makes me fear something, but its because I read WAY to much.

There have been studies of the MMO industry that include raiding going back to 2006.  All of these studies note that the reason that WoW does so much better than EQ and EQ2 in terms of subscribers is because while raiding is integral to both of them, WoW is simply eaiser.  Getting the gear is easier because the raids are more about the strats.  Progression isn't as important as knowing the particular line dance for a mob.  Once you get the line dance down the mob dies.  In EQ which is focused on "high end" raiding, you need to go through progression to get gear, then once you get the gear you learn the line dance, BUT you need to gear everyone out before you move on to your next dance instructor or your dead.

When you take what has been pointed out in the industry as the thing that has ham strung EQ's subscriber base AND put that together with the statements from fan faire and the proposed actions for gear I am fearful this game is going the way of WoW.  Aeralki himself said that its really only % based things, read procs, that w2ill decay, +CA will not according to a post about degredation on either the Itemization or Gamplay forum.  You really only get heavily into procs at the higher end.  So its the higher end that will take the lion share of the degredation system if its level by level.  Its all well and good, if SOE thinks this will bring more subscribers (I doubt it because its a 5 year old game with graphics to match) but at least be honest about it then and say "we are trying to level the playing field across all tiers.  as much as it stinks for our business model we think mediocrity is better for our cash flow."  

[Somatic]

Salarionn wrote:

Dear Kiara,

                  I am writing you this letter based on facts not passion or anger.

Fact #1:  Brenlo's great ideas and insight helped SWG go from 200k subs to about 20k in a few short months.  I realize maybe my numbers are not 100% accurate, but that facts they discribe are, he killed SWG with his changes.

Fact #2: You let the nerf/change monster loose on EQ2 and im afraid he is doing this ( KILLING IT) to our game as well. GRATZ, GG SOE!!!

Best post.  It's almost like maybe they want it to die and they have called in the kill squad. 

I read Kira post also... i guess maybe he is not the squad he is just the messanger of the killer squad.  What a interesting job position.  Very clever killer squad to not show your face.

[Ge'Sar]

Ashmen_Skimmerhorn wrote:

GeSar wrote:

Third 5000k = Crappy wizard and not skilled at all.

5000k

k = 1000

so; 5000k = 5000 x 1000 = 5,000,000 DPS

That would be the best wizard anyone has ever seen!

I'm just joking around of course, just trying to lighten the mood.

ya, I just noticed that myself the other guy started

[Kiara]

Folks.  I recognize, better than you think, that this is not a happy situation.  None of us likes having to nerf anything.

However I will not permit people to break the rules.  There is no excuse.

Please get civil again and treat each other and us with respect.

We want and need the feedback to tune these changes and find the middle ground where the game isn't broken and you aren't totally [Removed for Content] off at us.

We cannot do that if all we get is a boat load of hate and nastiness from you guys.

[Mordicus]

Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:

Novusod wrote:

I am pretty sure Fyreflyte wants to create a tiered raiding system like we had in RoK. The problem in RoK was that EoF gear was so good high end guilds just jumped over the first tiers and went right into VP and cleared it with few RoK upgrades before getting into VP. It is bad when raid content is cleared a month into an expansion. These nerfs + the item decay coming should prevent that from happening again in TSF. You need to have massive nerfs to current gear for a tiered system to work. Say if TSF has three tiers of Raid gear, then T1 TSF should be better than current gear. But if T1 TSF is better than our best gear now where does T2 and T3 TSF going to going to go? Nerfs now and decay later are the only way to make this work. This is where I beleive SoE is coming from.

You are giving them far more credit than many of us are.  I remember hearing from Fan Faire things about "going after WoW" how some people not being able to have access to content and gear wasn't right etc.  All of this makes me fear something, but its because I read WAY to much.

There have been studies of the MMO industry that include raiding going back to 2006.  All of these studies note that the reason that WoW does so much better than EQ and EQ2 in terms of subscribers is because while raiding is integral to both of them, WoW is simply eaiser.  Getting the gear is easier because the raids are more about the strats.  Progression isn't as important as knowing the particular line dance for a mob.  Once you get the line dance down the mob dies.  In EQ which is focused on "high end" raiding, you need to go through progression to get gear, then once you get the gear you learn the line dance, BUT you need to gear everyone out before you move on to your next dance instructor or your dead.

When you take what has been pointed out in the industry as the thing that has ham strung EQ's subscriber base AND put that together with the statements from fan faire and the proposed actions for gear I am fearful this game is going the way of WoW.  Aeralki himself said that its really only % based things, read procs, that w2ill decay, +CA will not according to a post about degredation on either the Itemization or Gamplay forum.  You really only get heavily into procs at the higher end.  So its the higher end that will take the lion share of the degredation system if its level by level.  Its all well and good, if SOE thinks this will bring more subscribers (I doubt it because its a 5 year old game with graphics to match) but at least be honest about it then and say "we are trying to level the playing field across all tiers.  as much as it stinks for our business model we think mediocrity is better for our cash flow."  

WoW has plenty of encounters that are gear checks, i played all of the content through Sunwell.

The one thing that makes WoW so much easier is DBM, a UI mod that tracks every mobs abilites and gives you on screen warnings as to whats going on in the raid. There are also a ton of How-To videos for all of the mobs so you dont need to spend a ton of time figuring strats out for yourself, you watch the video and know exactly what to do.

Someone brought up the point of casual vs hardcore, LOTRO vs EQ, and really thats the best question of all. What is your vision? What do you want EQ2 to be? ATM it doesnt seem like you have any vision or mission at all. If you want to move toward the casual end of MMOs why are you doing it in your 5th expansion? You cant expect to pull a complete 180 and have your subscribers be happy with it.

[Ge'Sar]

Fyreflyte wrote

) Plague also increases CA damage (not just spell) and has a melee range increase (minor for some classes, but awesome for others). The two are still comparable in power.

But they shouldn't be!

And if they must be.. the edge should be the avatar one.. and it's not!

[Gisallo]

Kiara wrote:

Folks.  I recognize, better than you think, that this is not a happy situation.  None of us likes having to nerf anything.

However I will not permit people to break the rules.  There is no excuse.

Please get civil again and treat each other and us with respect.

We want and need the feedback to tune these changes and find the middle ground where the game isn't broken and you aren't totally [Removed for Content] off at us.

We cannot do that if all we get is a boat load of hate and nastiness from you guys.

Kiara I agree things need to remain civil and we need to give constructive ideas BUT when one doesn't even know what the problem is with Avatar gear we have to scratch our heads. 

Are there going to be level 90 Avatars?  If yes then why was the proposed degredation system not seen as adequete and instead an immediate nerf put into place for the Avatar gear? 

Are there NOT going to be level 90 Avatars for whatever reason and so the gear had to be nerfed to give an incentive to go and contest them in the next expansion?

We want to give all of the constructive ideas in the world.  BUT without knowing all of the whys it really leaves WAY to much room for speculation AND means we really can't give constructive ideas for alternate solutions because to give a solution you need to understand the problems these solutions were address.  I will keep harping on the Producer letter where it was not only stated our feedback would be taken more seriously but where there would be A LOT more information coming from the devs to us so we could give such feedback in an informed fashion.  I really haven't seen much more in the way of information from the devs other than "well there are some generic problems due to the upcoming expansion so we made these changes."  This is status quo and not the increased dialogue we were promised.

[Kriptini]

Let's give all casuals their myths while we're at it! Waitta minute...

[Gisallo]

Merovius@Butcherblock wrote:

Someone brought up the point of casual vs hardcore, LOTRO vs EQ, and really thats the best question of all. What is your vision? What do you want EQ2 to be? ATM it doesnt seem like you have any vision or mission at all. If you want to move toward the casual end of MMOs why are you doing it in your 5th expansion? You cant expect to pull a complete 180 and have your subscribers be happy with it.

That was me too .  I did btw over simplify the WoW comparison.  Yes there are gear checks BUT you can heal a raid (10 or 25 man) with a level 80 restoration druid wearing heroic and faction drops.  Eventually you will hit a gear check mobs, BUT its still not as hard as it is in EQ2 by a long shot imho. 

[Kiara]

Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:

Are there going to be level 90 Avatars?  If yes then why was the proposed degredation system not seen as adequete and instead an immediate nerf put into place for the Avatar gear? 

Are there NOT going to be level 90 Avatars for whatever reason and so the gear had to be nerfed to give an incentive to go and contest them in the next expansion?

These are good questions and I'll try to get answers for them when I am back in the office tomorrow... Unless someone can post answers tonight.

[arant]

Kiara wrote:

We want and need the feedback to tune these changes and find the middle ground where the game isn't broken and you aren't totally [Removed for Content] off at us.

Years of feedback was given on itemization that it was broken. It was for the most part ignored.  This was not a new topic. There are many broken elements of the game that truely need fixing that just keeps getting bandaid patched.

It has been repeatedly asked that any major changes that will happen to happen at an expansion change.  Progression this expansion was messed up when guilds acquired crit mit gear on the original broken avatars. You didn't fix it then when it really mattered to the community, why try to fix it now when all it does is make them truely upset.

Also there just seems to be a waste of resources in the effort to implement these nerfs on what affects less then the supposed 1% of the population.  Statistically speaking its insignificant.