Frustrated with how much time I'm wasting...

[Trensharo]

LFG in the game because itemization progression is completely and utterly broken.  As a new[er] player I don't have a stockpile of alts nor do I feel like going do old raids to farm plat endlessly to buy my way into the higher instances, like in KD.

Any player can farm PQ gear at 86-88 well before they get into the early DoV instances, but the itemization and gear progression is completely broken.  Most people are getting to the higher instances by buying x2 gear in the auction channel, but others have to [Removed for Content] along because there are other priorities (like upgrading spells).  To adorn gear you either have to run a crap ton of SF instances to get lower Yellow adornments, or burn a crap ton of PVS (which no one gearing up will do) for those Yellow Adornments - the Ry'Gorr gear is too expensive seeing as how they are only a marginal upgrade over PQ gear and in many cases poorly itemized by comparison (outside of the Focus effects).

That's not counting the sheer amount of time investment someone just gearing up requires just to get all of it.  53 shards a piece and some of the gems cost as much as 150p on the broker.

I've been factioning and getting upgrades from the Quartermasters.  There is nothing to upgrade PQ pieces in ToFS, Ascent, or Pools.  Rime has a couple upgrades, but melee gear seems to have an 80% chance to drop.  90% if a Monk/Bruiser or Ranger item is on the loot table.

All of the instance upgrades worth looking at drop in the KD instances but people treat CC/CM/Potency like Gear Score in this game, so you're constantly having people ask you for your stats when you are LFG before they'd even bother to invite you - which is fine.  It's not their fault, obviously...

But it pigeonholes people into just a few instances (becuase DoV obsoleted all the older content, except doing easy SF instances for marks for Adornments while you're farming PVS and don't want to spend them) and for 1-3 shards per DoV instance, coupled with the cost of the items and the fact that you're literally locked out of half of them...  The time and effort required to do them + the fact that they drop useless appearance/monk/bruiser/ranger gear 90% of the time compared to the cost of Quartermaster gear...  It's just not worth it.

I want to say the game feels unplayable, but I think that's a bit extreme.  I just know what in 12 hours online there is literally a cap on what I can actually get done in the game, and after the first 3 or so hours it's just an endless LFG with interrogations about my CC/CM thrown in every hour or so.  There is not much room for carrying lesser geared people because most groups won't run without a Tank/Healer/Chanter/Bard (Holy Trinity on crack?) - and I shouldn't expect to be carried, anyways.

Whatever.  I'm babbling.  This is frustrated.  I'm done with this.  Fun factor is in the negatives right now.

[feldon30]

I have to agree with a lot of your points. The race to the finish was initially a player-driven phenomenon but lately, even SmokeJumper seems to be steering players towards level 86-90. As a result, players are concentrated in this narrow band of levels, forcing prices up on crafted spells and armor. Further, Public Quest gear is very good, and Instance gear is braely an upgrade.

Prices on tradeskill rares will be exceptionally high for the next few days/weeks due to the number of alts which were powerleveled this last week of Double XP. And due the influx of Plat into EQ2 (every quest seems to reward 40-70g anymore) and with so little to spend it on (most gear is HEIRLOOM or NO TRADE, and there are very few consumables taking money out of the in-game economy in EQ2) that inflation is really getting out-of-control.

Now, if you are in a raiding guild, even just doing easymode Velious raids, then you should have a lot of loot available to your character. But if you are trying to get in x2 pickups, then I can see the problem.

Itemization in a Class AAA MMO should be a top priority, and a prestigous multidisciplinary position on the team, yet as far as EQ2 is concerned, the official job title seems to be "Whipping Boy".

[Cocytus]

Welcome to EQ2. Here, gear plays the game for you.

[Yimway]

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

[Trensharo]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

I think you're missing the point.

No one raids with PQ-level gear.  You need better, or to spend a crapload of shards/plat adorning every single piece of gear you have to make up the difference, but I don't think there are enough Crit Mit adornments, for example, to make up the crit mit difference between PQ gear and what someone actually needs to raid.

Once you're geared enough to raid EM progression takes care of itself.  That's not the issue.  The issue is actually getting there.  And PQs do not get you there, despite what you may have convinced yourself.  It's not like I'm not wearing PQ gear and most of the gear from the Quartermasters (and a PVS piece or two).  There's no way anyone will let me near a raid right now.

From the looks of it I'm looking at a month if not more before I don't have to lie my way into a KD instance...  Nevermind do a raid.

[Velenda]

Meh...as long as they dont start craving out quests and old public instaces I'm in no ruch to level. Even if the game and Mr. Smoke want to to be that way.

As long as I can explore and adventure...I'l quest for 2 copper...and I've got a ton of stuff to do. ^_^

[Talathion]

Velenda wrote:

Meh...as long as they dont start craving out quests and old public instaces I'm in no ruch to level. Even if the game and Mr. Smoke want to to be that way.

As long as I can explore and adventure...I'l quest for 2 copper...and I've got a ton of stuff to do. ^_^

They need to make a x2 raid that drops x2 Armor.

[Trensharo]

Velenda wrote:

Meh...as long as they dont start craving out quests and old public instaces I'm in no ruch to level. Even if the game and Mr. Smoke want to to be that way.

As long as I can explore and adventure...I'l quest for 2 copper...and I've got a ton of stuff to do. ^_^

This isn't about leveling.  This is about gear progression and gear walls at the level cap.  No one cares how long you take to level.  The issue will be awaiting you when you get to 90.

[Hamervelder]

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

I think you're missing the point.

No one raids with PQ-level gear.  You need better, or to spend a crapload of shards/plat adorning every single piece of gear you have to make up the difference, but I don't think there are enough Crit Mit adornments, for example, to make up the crit mit difference between PQ gear and what someone actually needs to raid.

Once you're geared enough to raid EM progression takes care of itself.  That's not the issue.  The issue is actually getting there.  And PQs do not get you there, despite what you may have convinced yourself.  It's not like I'm not wearing PQ gear and most of the gear from the Quartermasters (and a PVS piece or two).  There's no way anyone will let me near a raid right now.

From the looks of it I'm looking at a month if not more before I don't have to lie my way into a KD instance...  Nevermind do a raid.

Atan is correct, actually.  You absolutely can do EM raids in PQ gear.  I did it on my warden for some time, simply because the crit mit and HP was so much better than my T3 Sentinel's Fate raid gear.  In fact, he's still wearing two pieces of PQ gear.  We do EM and HM raids, and I don't have any problem staying alive or doing my job well.  Our new OT was wearing several pieces of PQ gear when he started with us as well, and he had no problems doing his job, either.  You simply need to be smart about how you adorn your gear; put critical mitigation adorns on everything that you can find, and you will do fine until you get some EM raid gear.

[Trensharo]

Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

I think you're missing the point.

No one raids with PQ-level gear.  You need better, or to spend a crapload of shards/plat adorning every single piece of gear you have to make up the difference, but I don't think there are enough Crit Mit adornments, for example, to make up the crit mit difference between PQ gear and what someone actually needs to raid.

Once you're geared enough to raid EM progression takes care of itself.  That's not the issue.  The issue is actually getting there.  And PQs do not get you there, despite what you may have convinced yourself.  It's not like I'm not wearing PQ gear and most of the gear from the Quartermasters (and a PVS piece or two).  There's no way anyone will let me near a raid right now.

From the looks of it I'm looking at a month if not more before I don't have to lie my way into a KD instance...  Nevermind do a raid.

Atan is correct, actually.  You absolutely can do EM raids in PQ gear.  I did it on my warden for some time, simply because the crit mit and HP was so much better than my T3 Sentinel's Fate raid gear.  In fact, he's still wearing two pieces of PQ gear.  We do EM and HM raids, and I don't have any problem staying alive or doing my job well.  Our new OT was wearing several pieces of PQ gear when he started with us as well, and he had no problems doing his job, either.  You simply need to be smart about how you adorn your gear; put critical mitigation adorns on everything that you can find, and you will do fine until you get some EM raid gear.

There's a difference between being carried and being ready.  In WoW you can take low-geared players into a raid if a majority of the raid is actually ready for the content.  I've done half of Icewell Keep and aside from bosses like Tormax it's not hard to carry someone with relatively bad gear through some of the bosses there.  However, since many of those groups are filled with players like me (that no decent group will take, e.g.) there are showstopper and fights that just aren't possible to kill due to stat deficiencies (AoEs critting and 1 shotting people, DPS not being high enough due to low crit, etc.).

Furthermore, are the raids a pre-req for the instances, or vice versa?

I've already touched on the adornments and stuff like that.  Go over the thread, it's not that long.

In any case, I just wanted to vent some frustration.  I'm pretty much done with it.  It's not fun and there are other games to play, where I don't spend 90% of my in-game time LFG (no I'm not rolling an alt to do carbon copy content that people try to pawn off as different just because the scenery changed).

[Corydonn]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

This. The best way to approach Velious is to ignore all the heroic content. It's just not worth it.

[Felshades]

What about those of us that won't be raiding?

We're supposed to level to 90 and not do instances or heroic instances at all because we don't need the gear since we won't be raiding?

As for the whole PQ > EM progression idea.. if you're not raiding with your guild and trying to pug the x2 raids, no one is going to take you unless you're already in raid gear.

That's just how it seems to go here. They want you either at or near max AA already, and they want you in EM raid gear.

[Trensharo]

Sakiri@Crushbone wrote:

What about those of us that won't be raiding?

We're supposed to level to 90 and not do instances or heroic instances at all because we don't need the gear since we won't be raiding?

As for the whole PQ > EM progression idea.. if you're not raiding with your guild and trying to pug the x2 raids, no one is going to take you unless you're already in raid gear.

That's just how it seems to go here. They want you either at or near max AA already, and they want you in EM raid gear.

Exactly.

[Trensharo]

Corydonn wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

This. The best way to approach Velious is to ignore all the heroic content. It's just not worth it.

All that does is make the point that I made in the OP.  Either you're getting carried in raids, or you're hitting several road blocks.  The Heroic content actually has upgrades, so it's not a waste of time for someone who wants to progress through (instead of skip) that content.

The issue with the lower instances is that the loot is all rot by default except a few off-pieces.

Why would I run SC/Ascent/Pools when I can buy better off a Quartermaster for 5-15p?  For a few PVS?  Is it really worth the amount of time it takes to run those instances?  Not really.

It still doesn't change the fact that by now no raid guild is recruiting PQ geared players unless they are desperate for something like a Support/Healer/Bard/Chanter class.  A decent gear progression is needed.  They need to fix it.  I'm not going to pay to work around something that is obviously broken.

[Velenda]

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Corydonn wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

This. The best way to approach Velious is to ignore all the heroic content. It's just not worth it.

All that does is make the point that I made in the OP.  Either you're getting carried in raids, or you're hitting several road blocks.  The Heroic content actually has upgrades, so it's not a waste of time for someone who wants to progress through (instead of skip) that content.

The issue with the lower instances is that the loot is all rot by default except a few off-pieces.

Why would I run SC/Ascent/Pools when I can buy better off a Quartermaster for 5-15p?  For a few PVS?  Is it really worth the amount of time it takes to run those instances?  Not really.

It still doesn't change the fact that by now no raid guild is recruiting PQ geared players unless they are desperate for something like a Support/Healer/Bard/Chanter class.  A decent gear progression is needed.  They need to fix it.  I'm not going to pay to work around something that is obviously broken.

I see what your saying now. Hmm...what if they made a vendor who had some gear that was goodf for the newest raids...and you got that gear by getting tokens from doing older heroics and content. Then everyone could be on the level in a timely manner.

[Trensharo]

Or they can just fix the broken loot progression in DoV zones and call it a day, instead of wasting even more development time adding in yet another tier of shards to the game.

Not only will we have to farm boring DoV lower dungeons that drop rot loot and appearance gear, we'll also have to farm tons of easy old content that drops even more rot loot for trivial shard farming to get gear that is superior to DoV heroic instance gear...

That makes absolutely no sense...  To say "gear progression in the new expansion is broken, so let's just totally let people avoid doing half the content in the expansion by farmin gold content for DoV entry-raid loot" is kind of laughable...  Is DoV an expansion or an Adventure pack?

But hey!  Anything to make alts easier to gear, right?

The point isn't to avoid the content or do it only when it's trivial.  It's for SOE to fix obviously broken gear progression and allow players to "gear level" through the content without excessive investment or Auction Camping, which is what most players now are doing (or getting carried through EM raids and claiming that everyone can just go to them in PQ gear like some people are suggesting).

[Velenda]

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Or they can just fix the broken loot progression in DoV zones and call it a day, instead of wasting even more development time adding in yet another tier of shards to the game.

Not only will we have to farm boring DoV lower dungeons that drop rot loot and appearance gear, we'll also have to farm tons of easy old content that drops even more rot loot for trivial shard farming to get gear that is superior to DoV heroic instance gear...

That makes absolutely no sense...  To say "gear progression in the new expansion is broken, so let's just totally let people avoid doing half the content in the expansion by farmin gold content for DoV entry-raid loot" is kind of laughable...  Is DoV an expansion or an Adventure pack?

But hey!  Anything to make alts easier to gear, right?

Ok ok...take it easy.

I was just making a suggestion...I'm sorrry.

[Trensharo]

Velenda wrote:

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Or they can just fix the broken loot progression in DoV zones and call it a day, instead of wasting even more development time adding in yet another tier of shards to the game.

Not only will we have to farm boring DoV lower dungeons that drop rot loot and appearance gear, we'll also have to farm tons of easy old content that drops even more rot loot for trivial shard farming to get gear that is superior to DoV heroic instance gear...

That makes absolutely no sense...  To say "gear progression in the new expansion is broken, so let's just totally let people avoid doing half the content in the expansion by farmin gold content for DoV entry-raid loot" is kind of laughable...  Is DoV an expansion or an Adventure pack?

But hey!  Anything to make alts easier to gear, right?

Ok ok...take it easy.

I was just making a suggestion...I'm sorrry.

I edited my post.  I took issue with it because it was obviously bad and putting way too much work into an obvious issue that can be fixed with a minor game update

I've been LFG for 12 hours and the only group invites I got were for ToFS:SC, and I'm not doing that anymore.

Going play WoW.  Good night.

[Ryai]

Loot is broken for a simple reason, there's none that is interesting. There are no choices to be made. Adorns don't count. Every class has their own set, every archetype gets the same jewelry. It's BORING. As it stands, you get your hardmode armor set, good job, you win the game. At least before there were at least options. Cross archetype gearing for different results, different stat boosts, etc. But seriously, velious items make me want to /wrist. Everyone is pigeonholed. But lol@not being able to em raid in pq gear. Tell that to the entire raid forces that were raiding in it.

[Ryai]

I forgot my point. Instances need unique fabled items with unique effects to be relevant. Until then, they're a waste of time.

[Talathion]

Cyan@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I forgot my point. Instances need unique fabled items with unique effects to be relevant. Until then, they're a waste of time.

I agree, instances need effects like stonewill III, VI.

Instances need Effects that raise damage or MA.

Fighter Jewelry needs more MA and less DPS Mod (LOL)

[Loldawg]

Agreed gear progression is messed up - but find it hard to believe a casual raid guild won't take you.

I'd forget about saving for shard gear - like you said - too much effort for what you get. Instead - I'd work on getting the chest piece out of either the x2 or the heroic zone (forgot which one drops it - but it's a very nice piece).

[Ryai]

SF had it figured out not because of the ridiculous procs. But because in many cases the rare fabled drops weren't replaced until you went through hardmodes. As it stands, every single instance drop gets replaced immediately by easymode drops, which is wrong from a design standpoint.

[Corydonn]

Cyan@Antonia Bayle wrote:

SF had it figured out not because of the ridiculous procs. But because in many cases the rare fabled drops weren't replaced until you went through hardmodes. As it stands, every single instance drop gets replaced immediately by easymode drops, which is wrong from a design standpoint.

SF had it right because gear wasn't bland and straightfoward. You actually had choices since alot of gear was sidegrades or gave you different procs for different situations. You also had stats capping which imo, Was great because usually heroic zones had a 9 crit and 9 Double attack ring while the raid zones had Potency Crit Bonus and Ability mod when you were capped on crit from the raid gear and couldn't benefit from the heroic ring anymore.

[p3t3rl1]

Itemization is messed up. No doubt about that. It wil be interesting to see how Drunder changes or mess up things. 

[Trensharo]

Lolkat@Nagafen wrote:

Agreed gear progression is messed up - but find it hard to believe a casual raid guild won't take you.

I'd forget about saving for shard gear - like you said - too much effort for what you get. Instead - I'd work on getting the chest piece out of either the x2 or the heroic zone (forgot which one drops it - but it's a very nice piece).

Spire. I was lfg for it for 18 hours...  No luck.  People tend to avoid that instance quite a bit here. 

If I was a support class I'm sure the guilds desperate fir one would recruit, bit dos is dime a dozen and double XP week only made it worse.

[Crismorn]

p3t3rl1 wrote:

Itemization is messed up. No doubt about that. It wil be interesting to see how Drunder changes or mess up things. 

Gear has a 0% chance of being cool/fun/interesting until next xpac and then the odds jump to the 10-20% range imo.

[Seliri]

iunno why be devs ignored feedback to assign the lost casting speed & multi attack from PQ gear to T3 DoV Legendary.

they've also seemingly ignored the suggestion for a rare drop, class-focus adornment box (7 choices for each class) that could be looted from contested dungeons, to apply to the rest of t2-t3 DoV Legendary without taking up a yellow adorn slot.

but yeah, it's clear that most here are dissatisfied with DoV heroic itemization.

[thegriss]

Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

The intended gear progression for DOV is:

PQ -> EM raid gear -> HM raid gear

The player is showered with gear with little effort in taking this path.

The alternate path involving heroic content is a long slow haul that is replaced rapidly with EM raid gear.  You can replace 40 hours of heroic work in 10 minutes of EM raiding.

What grossly unbalances everything is the PQ gear.  If it was removed, things would fall in line. But since a viable set of gear is available with extremely little work in, the only minorly upgraded legendary gear from other sources is _purely_ optional.

I think you're missing the point.

No one raids with PQ-level gear.  You need better, or to spend a crapload of shards/plat adorning every single piece of gear you have to make up the difference, but I don't think there are enough Crit Mit adornments, for example, to make up the crit mit difference between PQ gear and what someone actually needs to raid.

Once you're geared enough to raid EM progression takes care of itself.  That's not the issue.  The issue is actually getting there.  And PQs do not get you there, despite what you may have convinced yourself.  It's not like I'm not wearing PQ gear and most of the gear from the Quartermasters (and a PVS piece or two).  There's no way anyone will let me near a raid right now.

From the looks of it I'm looking at a month if not more before I don't have to lie my way into a KD instance...  Nevermind do a raid.

In full PQ/Quartermaster gear you should be able to raid EM.  My guild started raiding EM the 1st week of the xpack with PQ/t2 raid gear (from SF)  When we bring in new recruits / returning old players the 1st thing we do is make sure they are wearing PQ or old raid gear so they can raid EM.  You have not found the right guild is my guess. A full suit of PQ gear should be enough to start EM raiding.

[Griffildur]

most guilds on all the servers starting either directly with sf t1, t2 gear or pq gear.

That being said, there is a certain crowd on these forums that complain all the time, while others play and enjoy the game. Guess we know to which particular crowd the op belongs to ...