Loral's Evil Agenda of Spring 2005
by Loral on March 17, 2005
The recent release of Dragons of Norrath makes this the perfect time for a new Evil Agenda. Dragons changed Everquest a lot. We talked about what we liked. We talked about what needed improvement. Now is a good time to talk about what we want in the future. Like previous evil agendas, I will focus on five areas of the game I feel need improvement.
1. Improve the variety of single-group events, encounters, and monsters.
The mission system in Dragons show us what a wide variety of encounters a single group can be given to accomplish within 90 minutes. Improve single-group boss mobs to tap into the creative work used currently for raids. Make single-group boss and named NPCs more interesting than typical mob encounters. Continue to focus on creating new and interesting single-group missions. Add missions that take players to Norrath's old zones.
2. Add new quests, tasks, missions, and mission vendors for levels 10 to 50.
Add missions for each old-world dungeon with a focus on exploration and lore. Offer a new low and mid-level mission vendor with appropriate rewards for these missions. Show new players the strength of the new quest and mission system. Add tasks that focus on exploration and discovery at lower levels. Add in new progressive low-level quests using the new quest journal. Make quests alignment / archetype based instead of race / class to open up each quest to a wider audience.
3. Add a tiered mission vendor loot system.
As players progress through missions and single group encounters, unlock new sets of more powerful equipement on mission vendors. This offers further progression for single group hunters and helps raiders gear up new recruits without having to defeat older content. The difficulty of the encounters helps ensure that players earn equipment they deserve. Ensure that all players have methods to progress through single group item rewards.
4. Continue to improve the Plane of Knowledge.
The Plane of Knowledge is a natural gathering point for players. It is not uncommmon to find hundreds of players within its walls. New players should become aware of its strengths earlier. Add tasks to take new players from their home city to the Plane of Knowledge. Add a level 20 quest for a high casting time, high recast cost recall to Knowledge item to allow all players a quick way to safety when real life requires attention. Rebuild the Plane of Knowledge using the latest features of the New Graphics Engine to show all players how far the look of the game has improved.
5. Improve player communication and group options.
Improve the friends window to allow notes and track the last played date. Allow group member invites from across zones and directly from the LFG channel. "/invite soandso" should invite a user no matter where they are. Add "find PC" as a basic feature of the "find" command. Add players to the "Find" window when activated. Add an email indicator hotbutton to the default hotbox. Add a "new email" text alert. Add more hotboxes to each hotbox page. Add a default "new player" chat channel and autosubscribe new players to this chat so veterans can help out. Add an EQ2 style mentor system to Everquest.
Conclusion
The release of Dragons of Norrath shows a strong new direction for Everquest. The above recommendations will continue to help strengthen Everquest into a wide and entertaining game for years to come.
Loral Ciriclight
17 March 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Trigga on March 18, 2005 10:26 AM
Currently being evaluated
Comment Posted by: Teremar on March 18, 2005 11:19 AM
1? Huge yes.
3,5? Yes.
2,4? Given unlimited resources, sure, these would be nice. But the resources needed to do them are exactly the resources that need to be focused on #1.
Comment Posted by: Perc The Shadow Bard on March 18, 2005 02:16 PM
Currently being discussed over nachos... Might possibly at some point maybe soon to be thought about during game re-invisioning.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 19, 2005 01:06 AM
Nice suggestions, but I think the MMO market is starting to shift, and I'm hoping EQ will follow and effectively return to its roots. Groups in a MMO should happen while you play. You shouldn't have to group in order to play or advance.
If SOE can follow that mantra, people will return in droves. :)
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 19, 2005 01:07 AM
Oh, and regarding #4: When in the heck are they going to rename the grobb stone?
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 19, 2005 08:19 AM
I think there is a danger in focusing too much on solo play instead of finding more effective ways for people to find a group and go on a hunt. There needs to be ways to offer better grouping options instead of just caving in and offering better solo content.
Here's a question, what are people's reasons for soloing? These are some that I know of off hand:
- I'm not sure when I will be logging off so I don't want to commit to a group.
- I am going afk a lot because of a real life commitment.
- I don't like the inconsistancy in groups, some are great and some suck.
- I play at weird times or I don't play very often so pickup groups are my only option and I don't like pickup groups.
Some of these are pretty hard to work with, like the first and second, but the other two people just need to get over and go into the pickup group.
Dragons of Norrath supports pick up groups very well. There is no commitment or dependency beyond completing the mission. Every member gets crystals when they win. The reward is given to everyone at the same time. There is no random loot to distribute to people you don't know.
This is something other games could learn from, especially EQ2 (the only other MMOG I play regularly now). Focusing too much on solo play will lead to 500,000 players in a big chat room playing their own single-player game.
These games are social by design and relying on other people is part of the strengh. Focus too much on soloing and it becomes a problem.
I'll probably write a deep-thinking Caster's Realm article about this soon.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 19, 2005 08:22 AM
So here is an exercise:
1. Come up with reasons that people solo.
2. Think of ways that group content, design, or dynamics can change to work within that reason.
Here's a simple one to start:
Reason: People won't be online long enough to get a good group.
Grouping solution: Offer faster methods to enter a group, have a useful hunt, and leave the group without guilt in under an hour.
Comment Posted by: solo on March 19, 2005 10:26 AM
" will lead to 500,000 players in a big chat room playing their own single-player game"
Forcing a player to group with 5 others to play a game just leads to 500,000 players in a big chat room with 6 people playing thier own game.
In the end ... not really much of a difference. Just an additional burden (and quite a large one) of finding 5 other people to play a game.
The "Solo" experience is so misunderstood. I am not sure why. Perhaps the we must have "grouping" people have some real life issues.
Just last night I logged on and was soloing in Western Plaguelands. A cry comes out from 2 players a Mage has ganked them and is camping thier corpse's. Well no one responds. Basically because the mage probably will move on in a few minutes. Why bother.
Well the Mage doesn't move on. So 4 additional Horde show up (who were all soloing ... doing thier thing) and make short work of the Mage. The players recover thier corpse's and everybody moves on. This is the experience the soloist desires. To "group" when they wish, to play the game when they wish. Its quite simple.
Constantly players will shout ... doing such and such quest ... looking for more. You group if you want ... you don't group if you don't want. Its a good thing.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 19, 2005 11:52 AM
And so much poorer. Just a different public.
Comment Posted by: Moorgard on March 19, 2005 04:03 PM
It's a tough balancing act, this whole solo vs. group thing. Every game team has to address it, especially in the face of increased competition in the marketplace.
Grouping is at the heart of this genre. People didn't play PnP or MUDs alone; they did it with friends, and that's what made them special. EverQuest grew out of a social experience: get together with a bunch of friends, fight big scary monsters, and become a hero.
Developing right alongside MMOs has been the single-player adventure game. Heck, playing Ultima is what drew me to UO and then EQ in the first place. I came to feel that MMOs were a richer experience because I had to rely on other people to realize my full potential. I came to love raiding in a big guild, taking out legendary creatures fighting alongside my allies.
But the genre has changed. Games like CoH and WoW have merged the MMO with the single-player (SPO?) experience. Whether or not you feel this is ultimately good for gaming, there's no denying it has been successful.
So in the face of these new challenges and changes, every game team needs to take a look at its goals. Contrary to what some would think, guys wearing suits and dark sunglasses don't show up at the SOE offices to hand us mysterious mandates to rake in X amount of dollars this fiscal year. This kind of competition actually gives us a certain freedom, in that we are instead encouraged to do whatever we think will make the game better. And trust me, when you have a whole team of people who want to make a better game being cheered on by our bosses to do exactly that, the customer will be the ultimate winner.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 19, 2005 04:45 PM
Nice comments so far.
I can't really speak for all people who like to solo, because there are a lot of different reasons for doing so.
What I always enjoyed about EQ was I could wander into a zone of my choosing and either begin killing npc's, or group up with others who are killing npc's. As EverQuest has grown in number of zones, and shrunk in number of players, it has become much more difficult to play this way. To me, this is a shame. Its fun to be able to log in and seek out adventure, grouping when possible and necessary, but being able to adventure and explore at your own pace as well.
LFG tools are nice, but they ruin both the freedom and immersion of playing a RPG-style game, in that you have to find a group before you decide where you really want to go.
The excercise for me is:
I want to log in and explore a zone or work on a quest. Maybe a DPoC (low level pet focus item) would be nice for my magician. Zone in to NRO. Oh, so sorry, no one goes to LDoN zones any more, no points for joo. Now I can sit around for a while, use LFG, send some tells, and beg a few people to come down and form enough of a group to get an adventure going. OR the game could be modified so people can work on what they want, when they want to work on it.
I think SOE has done very well in the past couple of expansions taking the focus off of raiding and putting some real advancement possibilities back in the game for single-group play. Previously, if you wanted to do really well in a group or solo environment, you had to raid to obtain the gear to do so. OoW and DoN have changed the game to allow players to advance their characters, for grouping, by grouping.
Now, I think they should start looking at ways to allow people who want to adventure solo, a means of advancing and improving their characters while soloing.
The example that WoW should provide is that its possible to have a game engineered to allow soloing to the highest level, to also allow grouping and raiding for those who want to pursue that path.
IIRC, the Evil Agenda's purpose was to help attract new players. To me, moving away from "forced grouping" is a very strong way to accomplish this.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 19, 2005 05:02 PM
PS. It should be noted, that despite my position as a vocal soloist, I have no singing ability what-so-ever.
Comment Posted by: BigFoot on March 19, 2005 11:54 PM
I used to play a troll on prexus. I played four years. I went to fan fare. I had fun. Just wanted say good by where I could post for free.
I bought an Xbox and I am having fun. I have been told by friends that Wow is fun. I am not going to spend my money on an other MMopg again for a long while. I think Verant had good ideals.
You know the rank system in Halo 2 is neat. VOIP is good, in Halo 2. If I play a game again NOT A SONY game. If I play a mmopg again it must have VOIP, IM and an active friends list. IF I ever play again it must be very peer to peer friendly with the Verant like company just giving an arcade like access to entertainment.
Good bye all good people of Norrath.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on March 20, 2005 01:20 AM
I've heard this one before: playing WoW is completely anti-social since everyone can solo. Sounds like the same thing is said about EQ2.
Well, I can't speak for EQ2, but in WoW it's really up to you. You CAN solo from 1-60. But once you hit about level 20 (which doesn't take long) you can also spend all your time in groups. Just head for an instanced dungeon appropriate for your level. Yes, there might not always be a group waiting for you, but it's no worse than when I was playing EQ (and from what I hear a lot better than today).
In EQ, if I didn't have time to group, I wouldn't play. Period. In WoW I have a choice. I can play solo, and there is plenty of fun content I can enjoy. Or I can play in a group. Personally I enjoy groups more spend most of my time in them. But I appreciate the choice.
Now that does mean that there are people playing WoW who probably would have quit EQ. And some of them aren't much fun to be around when they do decide to group. I anticipate it will be less of an issue as all the MMORPG newbies hopefully learn what's expected of them. But I'm not willing to say grouping should be enforced just so we drive out the jerks more quickly.
So I heartily endorse making soloing viable in EQ. It's not going to be easy. And I'm not sure it ought to be a high priority--people play EQ today to group or raid and the top priority should be making groups and raids fun. But it's worth pursuing.
Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on March 20, 2005 04:56 AM
Why do people solo? Just like real life.
There are some times where I want to get a big group of friends together and do something big.
There are some times where I want to get a few friends together and just hang out.
There are some times where I just want to chill by myself.
Putting this into EQ context:
#1 is raiding
#2 is grouping
#3 is soloing
By nature I don't usually put much effort into meeting new people. I wouldn't say "antisocial", just not extroverted. In game, just like real life, I tend to chill with my friends, if they aren't on I hang out by myself. If I'm in a group with friends and some new people join in that's totally groovy, and at the end of it I might have a few more friends than I started with. The thought of *having* to find five more people that I don't know to hang out with for two hours isn't exactly desirable. I'd rather farm velium in Velks.
Which brings me to another reason to Solo -
My main is a smith. I'm at the point in my career where I need velium in insane quantities. At my level (60, with only marginal gear) the only place I seem to be able to solo effectively, get more velium *AND* get reasonable XP is Velks. Occasionally a guildie will come by and hang out there with me, but most of them are drawn to higher XP zones or places with better loot. Velks itself isn't very crowded, and the few people that ARE there are usually competing for the same stuff, so for me it works better to solo it.
I know I was dissing tradeskills a few months ago in EQ2, but the more I use the new system the more I realize what the designers were going for. There are a few aspects of it that truly annoy me, but one thing I really like is that farming basic tradeskill components never seems to require fighting grey (eq2's green equivalent) mobs (except for tailoring, where it's an *option* but not required - you can get pelts from "critter" nodes as well as mobs).
If (like what I'm doing) you keep your tradeskill level roughly comparable to your adventure level (I didn't like it to start, but now I think it's bloody brilliant having artisan levels) then the harvesting nodes are guarded by creatures of roughly your ability to fight (within a few levels of you).
If your tradeskill level is significantly lower than your adventurer level, you still have to be in grey mob zones to harvest but you don't have to kill endless streams of no-xp mobs - you just run around the zone, harvest to your hearts' content, and leave the mobs to the newbies that need something to kill because they won't attack you and you don't need to kill them.
If your tradeskill level is significantly higher than your adventurer level, you still don't have to kill mobs (who would undoubtably turn you into a bloody smear) although you have to be cautious about how and where you harvest.
Or you can buy raw materials from other PCs.
However you do it, it's extremely soloable. And if you keep your levels more even, you can group for XP and harvest on the side without driving all your friends/groupmates nuts.
That's the kind of options I wish we'd had in EQ1.
Soloing in EQ2 (maybe I'm not doing it right) sucks. XP is slow, it's somewhat monotonous. Grouping is WAY better. *BUT* - you *CAN* solo, and if you do, you *CAN* advance whilst soloing. In EQ1 any mob that was worth any XP at all in the higher levels would likely turn you into bits of goo (depending on your class, but I played a melee). Sometimes you're working on a quest and you have to kill a mob no one else cares about, sometimes you just have one of the other reasons to not group - so what? You can advance anyways. Grouping is definitely the preferred method, but at least you CAN play differently.
I think the coolest "solo" option (intended or not as a solo option) is that not all the quests involve killing. I play a ranger and god bless Hunt. I have several quests in my journal that are of the "find x in y" variety, where "x" is some object in the environment. I spent two hours in hunt mode exploring stormhold, only died once when something saw through my hunt, and basically had a groovy time using my class's abilities to solve a quest that would have required a ton of time and a full group to do the "conventional" way. More of that, please.
Give classes with stealth missions where they can USE it to avoid enemies, assassinate the bad guy and sneak out. Give healers missions where they have to actually - gasp - heal something. High wizard fizban is captured and unconscious deep in orc territory... take your druid, camo up, help the guy out and let HIM wipe out the orcs that captured him. Granted, not quite as cool as unleashing the slayage yourself, but at least you got to do the sneaking around and healing bits (and any idiot can chain cast nukes anyways).
Why is it that the original rogue epic can be done in three kills (supposedly they're the assassins?) and the druid epic has something like 17 major kills (not counting placeholders and things in the way)? The rogue epic is actually better done than most, since it has pickpocket and some sneaking components (if you do hate that way instead of the fighting) but the point is there.
Rescue missions would be teh cool if you could actually group with the NPC - find him, invite to group then evac. Not sexy in a normal manner of speaking, but it opens up an interesting tactic.
EQ2 doesn't QUITE have it down. But it seems like they've got the right IDEA, and maybe that'll turn into something. Here's hoping EQ1 gets the same clue - Not all missions NEED to involve the thwacky sticks.
As a last thing - I'd imagine that a lot of mmorpg players are also tabletop players so are probably familiar with what I'm about to say. Even if you're only an mmorpg player you still might.
For the tabletoppers - How many stories do you REALLY remember as being COOL (and therefore you relate to other, presumably equally geeky, gamers) that involved you being more uber than the bad dude and beating him down before he beat you down? I'm not talking an encounter where you had to do something cool to win, I'm talking a straight conventional dicerolling fight to the death.
My answer: none. Your mileage may vary, but I've never heard anyone say "I beat the f#$% out of that goblin. He was swinging for 5, I was swinging for 50, three rounds of dice and it was over".
The STORY is what's important to most people. The ability for a few measly seconds to simply be *cool*. I remember running terrified at level 1 through kithicor to try to make it from freeport to qeynos. I remember having bodies deep inside Kael, getting a sow and an invisy and hoping for the best as I ran in to drag my buddies' corpses out. I remember long raids in Kedge trying to make sure to watch out for AFKers losing EB. I remember hunting forever for my corpse in Blackburrow. I remember being seen in qeynos as a Dark Elf and having newbies go "wow... why aren't the guards killing you?? you must be a badass...". And of course I remember the first time I met people from my future Guild, Guild initiations, Guild weddings, and the recent disbanding of the Guild since everyone had left for EQ2.
Who gives a damn about the mobs? No one plays these games to roll dice and watch mobs die. That's what Quake and Halo are for.
EQ needs to get back to the story, the wow factor, the things that make players go "I remember this time when..."
I remember this time when EQ was fun. It was a while back, I'm hoping it happens again.
SFG
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on March 21, 2005 01:03 AM
I'd like to see LDON events and such like soloable with some sort of Time limit increase. Say an extra half hour for every person less than 4. This allows people who Solo a lot like me to have the opportunity to access the better gear offered. It is hard for me to be able to commit a solid hour but it would be nice to be able kill a few mobs. Then do some other stuff while medding and then kill a few more.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 21, 2005 08:54 AM
I'd like to see better progression, larger variety, and better difficulty balancing on tasks. Tasks could have their own set of points and rewards based for solo play.
Comment Posted by: on March 21, 2005 12:44 PM
////////////
The thought of *having* to find five more people that I don't know to hang out with for two hours isn't exactly desirable.
///////////
You know, finding five more people is an adventure in of itself.
If more people gave it as much effort as they do 'farming velium' or other mind numbing exercises, then they might just have *fun* playing and meeting new people who, OMG could become their frieds!
Comment Posted by: Stylx on March 21, 2005 12:57 PM
You're assuming people want more "frieds".
As a cleric, 65 300~AA (Quit at the beginning of Gates) with 8500hp/mana or more...
I ended up making a lot of pickup groups toward the end of my career in EQ. Most were very good. Mainly because I tanked, pull, heal, ect.
The best groups were with a friend who played a bard. We moved faster because she pulled and mezed while we moved.
We did LDONs only, and the other 5 people were there for dps. The only reason I went with 5 people, was because my hammer taunted better with more people in group! (Hammer of Holy Vengence for the win!! GoGo Heal spam aggro! when not even paladins/warriors/SK can out taunt you even 2 seconds into the mob~ Especialy on multi-pulls.)
When I didn't feel like grouping, I soloed' BoT melee/tank style. It was slow, but better than being bored sitting in POTranq chatting.
Hope things are better now in EQ because if I didn't tank these LDONS things would have moved slower and been very painful (read: not fun).
Comment Posted by: on March 21, 2005 02:41 PM
/////////////
You're assuming people want more "frieds".
/////////////
Yes, you are right, I am making an assumption that someone would pay 20 odd bucks a month for something more than an online single player game.
If they aren't, then they are playing the wrong game and have no reason to continue to complain about lack of solo content in a game designed for *GROUPS* and *GROUPS OF GROUPS* (yes I'm referring to raids).
Go solo in wow and gtfo of my game.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 21, 2005 03:13 PM
I got to ask: if someone doesn't like grouping, why play online at all? Can't you have your solo game with solo expansions etc without any player interaction whatsoever?
What's the added benefit of being online if it's not to interact with others at all???
Comment Posted by: Stylx on March 21, 2005 04:07 PM
Well, after 5 years of playing a cleric in EQ... It is nice not to need to have my hand held through every damned step of the way [In WoW].
There was a long period of time when I couldn't get from one side of a zone to another without a great deal of help (Western Wastes during Velious - And getting through Sirens was a pain and a half - though DA/DB helped a ton).
I became as self reliant as clerics can be. 100k Drogmor/Horse, See invis bracer,Instaclick Levi shield, half a dozen instant click invis potions, GVD, ect ect ect.
And things were still an incredible pain, compared to mr. druid or wizard, or hell even warrior with the hundred or so invis clickable items. (clerics get one unlimited charge clickable invis - its a rare drop from Mini Aten Ha Ra and is geared for a warrior. so grats warriors when my guild did that zone~ Oh and now the BP from the Fabled King in Chardok i hear... while supplies [and the huge ass line] last ).
I mean seriously, whats the point of that? Because we can heal well? And I don't mean ourselves. Until they released the proc hammer, I had to RUN AWAY from mobs 20-30 levels lower than me. I was geared through NTOV and decent way through Luclin at the time when they released it, and man, was it god send. I was able to kill Green mobs! Against light blues, was still a problem of course. Even a rog and war were able to stand up to these.
That is the purpose of being able to solo. So you don't have to fear mobs you are many many levels above.
Furthermore, you don't always have time to group. Sometimes I only want to play an hour or two. Those are the times to solo. If you have 3-4 hours? Snag a group! (which is easier in WoW - because you don't have to have any specific class makeup! just a healer [4 classes], tank [4 classes], and dps! [everyone].)
Plus, I have several RL friends, and some friends through EQ(elitests raiders of course) who I've known for years. These people, I enjoy grouping with due to thier sheer skill and ability (and hard earned gear).
I can't keep up with these people anymore though. I have a lot more responsibilities now than i did six years ago. So its nice to be able to solo until I'm able to play with my old EQ friends again.
As for my RL friends, we're on a seperate server leveling up together at our slow leasure'd pace. No Rush, No Hastle. We have an irregular group makeup (Sham/Rog/Druid) on WoW. but we can tackle content pretty well with that! We have fun. End of story!
We can duo, we can solo. We can help out the lowest level in the group (we have a 3 level spread atm) and the lowest person can still contribute to the highest person's fights....
I think you see where i'm going with this.
Solo is fun when you dont have time or want to chill by yourself.
Groups are fine with friends.
Pickup people when you need to!
But Have these functions... unless you want only 14-18 year olds with no other hobbies playing your games(and I was under the impression that 20-28yr olds were the best gaming market).
Comment Posted by: waywreth on March 21, 2005 04:12 PM
Two things -
1. What date are these changes going live? And do we have any idea when they'll address DPS. Talk is cheap... I want action (and I want more pet focus options!)
2. What the heck happened to eqcleric.gameglow?
Comment Posted by: Stylx on March 21, 2005 04:40 PM
bought out I believe. Those that didn't follow Yantis went to a secondary site. www.eqcleric.com i believe? probably linked here somewhere.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 21, 2005 05:16 PM
"You know, finding five more people is an adventure in of itself."
This one brings up an important point. Some say that EQ needs more soloing options because getting into a group, finding a group, or building a group is too hard. It will become even HARDER if soloing becomes a viable option for progression.
People tend to hunt where the odds are best. We don't like inconsistancies. We'd rather hunt down sure things than hunt in areas of unknown peril.
For this very reason, grouping is less desireable than soloing. I know myself. I know how much time I have. I know my skills, equipment, and power. Why take in five more variables, five other group members, who I don't know about? What risk does that add?
For this reason, the groups that risk the most should earn the most and the groups that risk the least should earn the least. Soloers who fight mobs they know they can kill in an easily accessible hunting zone risk far less than the group that goes into the deepest unknowns of the furthest dungeons with five strangers. Thus they should earn less.
If solo experience and loot becomes even close to that found with a group, no one will group. Just like people stayed close to zone ins fighting the easiest mobs for slow but steady progression, they will solo because it is of far less risk than grouping.
Comment Posted by: Logansan on March 21, 2005 06:18 PM
[quote]
Yes, you are right, I am making an assumption that someone would pay 20 odd bucks a month for something more than an online single player game.
If they aren't, then they are playing the wrong game and have no reason to continue to complain about lack of solo content in a game designed for *GROUPS* and *GROUPS OF GROUPS* (yes I'm referring to raids).
[/endquote]
Why can't people understand that many people don't play these games to group, they play them for FUN. What's fun for one person, may not be fun for others.
I've played most of the games out there now, and in all I've did a lot of soloing. I like to solo more often then not. I don’t play these games to make new friends, I leave that to real life actions. But sure along the way I’ve had made heaps of friends in game, most I have never seen in real life (and quite a few I have since done so).
When it comes down to it it’s quite simple…. Most people want to solo, group or raid WHEN and IF they want to. There is no need to force people to choose one over the other and it’s not (regardless what a lot of people may say) impossible to ensure all three are viable paths.
And also 20 bucks a month for many people (including luckily myself) is consider chicken-feed and should not even begin to be considered in this type of debate (that’s a whole another type of debate).
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 21, 2005 06:25 PM
I can't speak for everyone, but I think what a lot of people want are more options when they play. Improving soloing gives more people, more options. I'd imagine that very few people want to be considered a full time soloist, and do group and raid when they have the time to do so.
However, I'd imagine that quite a few people would play everquest more often if they could solo when they don't have larger amounts of time to devote to grouping. IF grouping provides a comparable, but better benefit than soloing, AND its more fun, why wouldn't people do it?
Instead, people who fall into the more time-limited categories are encouraged to do something else with their time. As we've seen over the past few years, more and more people have decided to do just that, and hence, subscriptions have dropped.
Comment Posted by: on March 21, 2005 07:47 PM
I'd like to be able to solo in LDoNs (or other missions too.) I'd prefer to group, but people barely want to do LDoNs anyore (and I still want a few things from the LDoN merchants) I wouldn't expect to get as many points as a group adventure, not expect a named to spawn in my adv as frequently as one might in a group adv, but to be able to hunt in my own instanced dungeon would be great:
1) I am not inconveniencing anyone else with my kiting (I'm a wizard)
2) I have a hard time getting groups if friends arent on, wizards don't have great group utility/desireability these days
3) I could still get some exp and possibly some loot (or at least some LDoN tradeskill drops!) if I'm lucky in my limited playtime, and at least I could earn a few points for the spells & augments I want...
re: why play an online game if you want to solo:
1) I don't want to solo ALL the time
2) EQ is much bigger, there's much more variety, so much more to do, than any single person non-online RPG could ever hope to offer
Comment Posted by: Teremar on March 21, 2005 08:52 PM
"If solo experience and loot becomes even close to that found with a group, no one will group." (Loral)
If that were true, no one would group in WoW. People do.
Comment Posted by: on March 21, 2005 10:25 PM
Giving people the option to solo means that the majority will take the 'easy' way out and solo all the way to whatever end.
People are lazy, just look at WOW.
Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on March 22, 2005 01:07 AM
Why would I play EQ if I didn't want to be social?
Maybe because EQ is dozens of times bigger than any single player game on the market.
Maybe because I *LIKE* grouping with friends, I just don't find 5 total strangers appealing. I like meeting new people, I just like it in smaller doses.
MOSTLY, I've said this before and I'll say it again, I play EQ because I love my guild. Having access to guildchat in my guild to me is worth $12/month even if I wasn't actually playing the game. I quit EQ1, not because I was having that bad a time with it, but because I wanted to spend time with my guild.
USUALLY, because I tradeskill and don't have as much time to put in as some of my guildmates, I don't have as much time to group as I could, and as a result I'm usually lower level than them. The mentoring system in EQ2 is really helping with that, but in general if none of my guildmates are available and no one on my friends list is on I'd rather solo while waiting for one of them than risk my neck on some potentially suicidal pickup group mission.
And, for things like harvesting, sometimes grouping is just impractical - how many people in gouping range of a level 60 WANT to hang around hollowshade farming stuff for shadowscream?
Solo options are good. I totally agree that the "best" stuff should be gotten in raids, the "good" stuff should be gotten in groups, but SOME progress should be able to be made solo.
SFG
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 22, 2005 04:54 AM
"For this reason, the groups that risk the most should earn the most and the groups that risk the least should earn the least. Soloers who fight mobs they know they can kill in an easily accessible hunting zone risk far less than the group that goes into the deepest unknowns of the furthest dungeons with five strangers. Thus they should earn less."
Here you go, risk vs reward. For once we think alike.
There's a big difference between providing solo because of the suckfest tradeskills are than providing options when the social fabric is missing in a game. WoW has solo as the norm I hear and group only for specific purposes. EQ is the other way around and frankly I saw a number of people leaving WoW already so I wouldn't swear on the longevity of WoW atm.
Playing solo EQ BECAUSE it provides gobbles of content for GROUPS isn't a reason per se that the game should catter more to soloers. It's a sign of mudflation, that's all.
Having the choice to group or not is fortunately there but should never compete with group xp or rewards. If on the other hand EQ can provide solo quests and content to do when you can't group or seek other activities like tradeskilling, all the better.
But solo isn't the reason why EQ is so vast as far as I know.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 22, 2005 09:57 AM
You're right in that the RvR is a bit out of whack in the current game. Most people who solo are forced to bottom feed off of grouping content.
Solo tasks, solo instances, solo quests, etc could all change this. Soloing doesn't have to be bottomfeeding, and it doesn't have to be a poor rvr. All it takes from the devs is a little time, effort, and imagination.
As I've said before, the biggest problem in EQ stems from "stratified mudflation". Raid gear dramatically increased in power so raiding players could keep up with the rise in power of the mobs they were fighting. Realistically, I don't think there is any problem with this, in and of itself. However, EverQuest is not a raid-only game. When those geared up raiders came back to other zones to join pickup groups, or mow through mobs that people were duo'ing and trio'ing, people started noticing that something was very wrong.
The past few expansions have worked to correct this inequity, as the gap between raid gear and group gear has been narrowed. The "bazaar" gear types have not been as fortunate. The Attunable flag allows some gear to trickle down, but there is still too much emphasis on the NO DROP flag for SOE not to be building solo content.
Notice that people who don't group are still being shut out from their level 69 and 70 spells. A horrible design decision that has yet to be fixed.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on March 22, 2005 11:27 AM
Actually in someways I disagree. Level/Level meaning players of same level it has long been known that, where if you put a group with tanks healers and such, they would not handle the mobs, while Bard, Druids and Wizzards are soloing these mobs fine. In fact quadding them. Colbalt Scar, Plane of Nightmare, HoH, and Western Wastes are good examples. These are examples of where soloing is actually taking down the bigger mobs while groups of the same level can't.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on March 22, 2005 11:43 AM
Let me also add on, that Beastlords, Necro's and Mages to a point can also solo, by over buffing their pets, giving them pet toys, and sometimes using their own kind of kiting. These classes are able to solo fine and can beat out a group in a lot of places.
It boils down to the creation of your toon. Do you want to solo, pick a class that can. If you only want to group, pick a class that stands out doing that.
Soloing is there, and has always been there. The complaints come from people that their Main can not. What I do not understand is, why don't they make an alt that can.
Example, I hop on my Warrior, sitting in the guild hall saving buffs. I am lfg, I look around inquire and check out the grouping atmosphere. If nothing is there, I camp to my Beastlord and go out and have a blast soloing, and doing her secret agent missions. I was in the guild hall the whole time I was on my Warrior, my buffs did not get any older, and they will be just as fresh the next time I log on him.
Comment Posted by: stylx on March 22, 2005 11:56 AM
And to the new player starting today, where is the EQ guide book, or instruction manual, or something that comes with the purchase that says
"If you want to solo, pick one of the following classes: ...
If you want to be demanded by groups, but can't do anything yourself: pick one of these classes.
If you want to solo AND be demanded by groups: pick this class.
If you want to be a buff bot, and really do nothing else: pick this class.
If you want to fight for the sixth spot in a group that 7 different classes can fill, and yet not have a single chance of soloing: pick a rog."
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 22, 2005 12:42 PM
"And to the new player starting today, where is the EQ guide book, or instruction manual, or something that comes with the purchase that says"
On the EQLive Website under "Classes":
http://eqlive.station.sony.com/library/classes.jsp
"With a few exceptions, clerics are dependent on being part of a group. But they are highly desirable group members. An experienced cleric is a great benefit to any group and is an excellent choice for the social player."
and
"Necromancers are a very self-sufficient class and often choose to adventure alone, though they can provide great value to a group as well. The necromancer is an excellent choice for the independent player who enjoys a wide variety of abilities."
I'd like to see these in the descriptions of the classes in-game when you make them.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 22, 2005 01:01 PM
People have hit on an important point: When we talk about class dependency and soloing, gear is a major consideration. My friend plays a Qvic geared wizard who can solo mobs in Vxed by himself. I don't think other level 68 wizards are able to do the same thing.
The discrepency of gear between bazaar / LDON / DON vendor gear and raid gear is so severe that one level 70 with non-raid gear cannot solo where a 70 with raid gear can. The raid geared player also earns experience much faster (it was even faster when Fire was the prime hunting ground).
They will earn crystals much faster, trivial content for them can be impossible for others.
When raiders earn raid gear, they take that gear back into solo and grouping areas. They NEED that gear to progress in raids, but that same gear makes very difficult encounters (like Tipt / Vxed / Riftseekers / MPG trials) trivial. It becomes a monster to balance encounters when the power difference between two level 70s is a gaping hole.
Right now we basically have separate content. Non-raiders hunt in WoS and eventually MPG (maybe). Raiders hunt deep in MPG, MPG trials, and Riftseekers.
In DoN, non-raiders hunt in Lavaspinners, Stillmoon, Tirranum's Delve, and The ascent. Raiders hunt in Thundercrest and The Nest.
I go back and fourth on how I feel about this. I hate to see people cut off from single-group hunting areas because they don't have raid gear, but there is a lot of content in the game already. Not hunting in The Nest doesn't rob a non-raider, there are a lot of other places to hunt with good experience and nice rewards.
I guess one solution in my mind (note the weazely qualifiers) is to have gear not matter as much. I like gear, though, so perhaps another solution is to have the power difference between vendor / bazaar gear and raid gear at any particular level not quite so vast. What if bazaar gear was 75% of the power of raid gear. DON gear could be 80%. Random rare dropped no-drop gear in places like The Nest, Thundercrest, Riftseekers, and MPG could be 85%. Raid gear would be 15% better than equivalant level / expansion top-end experience gear.
So lets take a breastplate: The Raid breastplate has 300 hps and mana. The bazaar version would have 225. The DON version would have 240. The high-end single-group dropped one would have 255. Same with DPS or focus or whatever.
The advantage to this is that the developers can scope easy, normal, and hard content around this default set of assumed gear. The disadvantage is that raiders who were out for the stats might not be that interested if they can get 85% of raid gear from single-group encounters.
However, this would also mean that raiders don't have to "Gear up". They can get most of their members geared up to 85% in single-group content. A few of their top guys would be up at 100% with top-end raid gear. When new members come into the guild, the guild doesn't have to equip them, they just have to go hunt for the 85% gear.
I think the gap could be closed a bit further to help SOE balance content without drawing such a wide line between raiders and non-raiders.
Comment Posted by: on March 22, 2005 01:50 PM
///////////
Solo tasks, solo instances, solo quests, etc could all change this. Soloing doesn't have to be bottomfeeding, and it doesn't have to be a poor rvr. All it takes from the devs is a little time, effort, and imagination.
///////////
If soloing got better than poor rvr then everyone would do it, (see post above RE wow) because people are lazy and want the most return for the least amount of effort.
Even if they want more return, they are still lazy and will do the least amount to get by, which means that if solo is viable, then they will chose that, because THAT is human nature.
WoW may be popular now, but so was the cliff when all the lemmings followed each other off.
Comment Posted by: stylx on March 22, 2005 02:33 PM
[quote] WoW may be popular now, but so was the cliff when all the lemmings followed each other off. [/quote]
Yes, well. I guess only time will tell when the 1.5 million current wow subscriptions start dropping off and people start canceling thier accounts.
I mean, its totally not fun at all to level up multiple chars on horde, then go and level up multiple chars on another server as alliance. Who would ever have fun in a situation where you have interesting stories to read in books found in instances?
I think you're right, WoW will die off as quickly as a lemming hits the ocean floor after jumping off the fabled cliff.
(FYI. This post is dripping with sarcasm and is in no way a true reflection of the writer's beliefs.)
Comment Posted by: Brenlo on March 22, 2005 02:46 PM
It all comes down to choice. Right? People should be able to play the way they want to play. If people want to solo, then let them solo. They like large raids, let them play in large raids. However, that does not mean that one game has to offer all of those options but a game that does appeals to more people. Right? Right now WoW and EQ2 offer content for groups, raids and solo. EQ has some solo for some classes and lots of group and raid content. To remain competitive we are looking at changing that. It all comes down to allowing people to play the game the way they want to play, in our world.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on March 22, 2005 03:58 PM
I don't understand why the word lazy comes into a conversation about on-line gaming. Sitting in front of a computer for eight hours covered in doritto crumbs and clicking hotbuttons as they refresh doesn't mean that you are less lazy then someone who wants to play solo for an hour. Its a time issue plain and simple.
Comment Posted by: Stylx on March 22, 2005 04:02 PM
That Visual is incredible. HAHA
Comment Posted by: on March 22, 2005 04:47 PM
lol, that's a virtual kodak moment
Comment Posted by: on March 22, 2005 04:48 PM
Yes, lets talk about choice in a game where the tag line is "Your in OUR world now!"...
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 22, 2005 05:10 PM
Well of course it hits a nerve to say lazy when lazy is the right definition. P))
Lazy as in not socializing
Not grouping
Not gearing up
etc
Or you can try to meet new people, make friends, discover zones rather than stay safely in an outdoor riskfree camp, or raid, etc. Lazy it is.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 22, 2005 05:11 PM
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=TNZ&message.id=164023&no_redir=true
Very nice post from a true newbie discovering EQ now.
Comment Posted by: Logansan on March 22, 2005 09:16 PM
[quote]
Well of course it hits a nerve to say lazy when lazy is the right definition. P))
Lazy as in not socializing
Not grouping
Not gearing up
etc
Or you can try to meet new people, make friends, discover zones rather than stay safely in an outdoor riskfree camp, or raid, etc. Lazy it is.
[endquote]
What's that got do with been lazy or not? Havn't you even read many of the posts above?
And who said Solo equals no risk, a lot of people like to solo (myself included) where there is great risk. Afterall what is the fun in playing if there is no risk at all.
Don't put all soloers in the same bucket as those people that exp grined only in the save areas all the time.
Comment Posted by: Hemdell on March 22, 2005 11:26 PM
I don't understand the why soloing hits a nerve with some people here. If I want to solo, I solo. If I want to group, I group. No matter what people say I'm going to do it MY way. Not the way people want me to play or what game THEY think I should play. I agree with an earlier post that LDoN's should be able to be done with 1 or 2 people. It should be a viable option when one cant group or when friends are not on. I think there is room in Norath for lots of play types.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 23, 2005 05:03 AM
Let's put it this way: if there was no pressure whatsoever to group, there would be no grouping. No grouping, no EQ as we know it. I wish that SOE will be careful at striking the right balance between helping to group and avoiding LFG time as much as anyone. If solo will happen to the detriment of group, there will be problems. A lot bigger than just not being up to par with soloers expectations (if any).
Comment Posted by: Glormane on March 23, 2005 05:37 AM
Of the original list, no.1 and no.3 jump out at me. The current DoN expansion doesnt offer me much in terms of gear from the vendor. I am level 70 and no where near uber, not being ep geared etc.
As for the content, the missions to me are boring. Yes they are a bit more diverse than ldon but I didnt mind ldon. To me the good thing about ldon, was the possibility of a aug drop or a named.
This was further improved in GoD and OOW, where instanced zones offered the occassion named and rare drop. SoE seem to have added the diverse mission type but stripped the drops away. That to me is a backward step.
I like the sound of solo instances. This may be a solution to all class soloing. You could make it so melee take 50% dmg against mobs in their solo content, that mobs dont summon in casters ones etc. XP here should be ok but not startling, and drops maybe quest based, or designed to assist you in solo dungeons maybe dmg mitigation potions or damage shields.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 23, 2005 08:22 AM
As far as soloing is concerned, I think most will agree that there needs to be solo content for those with less than an hour to play or those that have to go afk between battles or a variety of other reasons.
The discussion, however, comes up in the reward. The reward in experience and items needs to take into account the difficulty of acquiring a group, the travel time of a group, the downtime due to afks, deaths, or other circumstances, and the time and cost of recovery. If we add up that time together, the total single-group downtime, perhaps it comes up to an hour for every two hours hunting. That means that what a single group earns in two hours hunting should be greater than what a soloer can earn in three or more.
Perhaps a better way to look at it is to take a class soloing and figure out how long it should take to level up or earn an AA. Then based on that, figure out how much a single group should earn above that including the time it takes to form a group, get them traveling, and the added downtime associated with afks, deaths, and recovery.
Equipment is a bit trickier. I'd say that soloers should earn cash towards bazaar gear. There's enough excellent bazaar gear at just about every level that one can afford from the rewards done soloing.
I would like to see each class have a viable method of soloing including doing damage to a mob and protecting ones self from death. Whether this is root blasting or kiting or just getting up there and smacking it, each class should have an ability to fight a mob and heal their wounds.
I would also like to see better variety and balancing of tasks including progressive solo tasks with nice experience and item rewards similar to the tasks given in Dragons of Norrath. These one-time tasks might walk through a bit of lore and offer up a nice experience jump and reward but only doable once to prevent farming.
Comment Posted by: stylx on March 23, 2005 09:27 AM
Loral,
You've just described both CoH and WoW.
What you suggest would need a complete overhaul of EQ. Is that really worth it at this point?
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 23, 2005 09:56 AM
Honestly, I think a progressive rewards system would be best. If 1 hour in a 6 person group earns you "10 item points", then 1 hour of soloing should earn you 5 item points.
To me, the most important element of an inclusive design would be designing the system so the rewards can be earned and used in multiple situations. The place where I feel most "left out" when soloing, is that other than really bad xp, I'm not earning anything useful for the other areas of gameplay. This is not true of grouping or raiding, where you earn rewards that make you stronger for other areas of play.
To force the players that have to solo more often into bazaar-only gear, forces them into a much slower character progression (which is already slow because they're earning less xp than groups).
To stack the rewards, to give credit for time spent engaged in these activities, provides a better reward, and a better incentive for people to play.
PS. All core spells for a level, still need to be tradeable. :)
Comment Posted by: Teremar on March 23, 2005 11:18 AM
I theory I am all in favor of making soloing viable for all classes in EQ.
In practice, I have to wonder how many warriors are really planning to quit EQ at this point if they aren't given the ability to solo. Or how many people will really say "EQ now lets clerics solo? Forget WoW or EQ2, I'm buying EQ!" I can maybe see some people who used to play EQ coming back, but how many?
The reality is that those who want to solo in EQ have long since either chosen a class who can solo or quit. Obviously that means one priority ought to be not taking away anyone's ability to solo (Hi charm nerf).
But most people who play EQ play it because of what it is--and that's a game to be played primarily in groups and raids. I do not agree that adding the ability to solo would ruin the grouping game. But it's really trying to add a whole new population to EQ, and that ought to take a back seat to improving the experience of the population they have.
In short, more fun group content--and changing classes to make them more fun in that content--should take priority over changing classes to allow them to solo.
Comment Posted by: on March 23, 2005 12:33 PM
//////////
To force the players that have to solo more often into bazaar-only gear, forces them into a much slower character progression (which is already slow because they're earning less xp than groups).
/////////
Uhm, DUH.
Otherwise we could all just solo and play 30 minutes a nite and automatically get 500 hp gear!
On a related note, here's a game that will probly suite a lot of people here.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 23, 2005 12:52 PM
There is some excellent bazaar gear available now. My 25% healing improvement / mana regen 2 shoulder item came from the bazaar.
Technically, DON gear is bazaar gear since the crystals are sellable.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on March 23, 2005 01:05 PM
Exactly, what it takes is only PPs or time. With that and a base HP of 115 or so per item + 50/55hp augments in 10 slots, that's already 165/170 HPs per slot over 10 slots (I'm simplifying a bit for the sake of the argument).
Which brings bazaar players a LOT closer to raiders who often wait ages before filling every single slot with raid drops.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on March 23, 2005 01:12 PM
So if one is not socializing constantly, making groups constantly, and sending annoying spam tells across their server they apparently are lazy and are wasting everyone's time by playing EQ?
I group...one has to group....One wants to group. However, like many people past the age of consent who work and have Real lives... other issues can get in the way of game play.
I squeeze in a few days of game time a week when I can be on long enough to make groups and socialize. The rest of the week I try to squeeze in an hour or two here and there when I can. I don't see how this effects the group purists and raider gods.
When I try to solo with my Pally ... cause my War just can't... I am not expecting to get great gear or fly through lvls and AAs. I just want to progress my lvl a bit and try to keep up with my buddies who have more play time then me.
People in my situtation often see their lvl and abilities quickly outdistanced by their friends due to the time factor.
One should ask how many players we have lost to the fact that they can't keep up with their guilds, friends, and the ever increasing content that they can't access for lack of lvl and ability progression. These players want to play just as badly as the others, they want to interact and group just as much, however if they can't play a little catch up in between their main play nights with the gang... (BY SOLOING) they may not have much of a group to come back to when they do show up to play for the larger more "interactive" block of time.
Just a thought...
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on March 23, 2005 01:23 PM
Just another quick thought...
In all the adventure fantasy stories we have read the characters we most enjoyed were often the self sucfficient adventurer types. They can hold their own well etc. In these stories as with my favorite group memories in EQ ... characters band together through a shared adventure... running into each other in the wilderness etc. not sitting on /LFG becuase they cant do anything by themselves.
One shouldn't become all powerful on there own, but no player should be paralyzed from all progression because they chose a particular class or race to play!
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 23, 2005 04:08 PM
I think you'll find all sorts of group types in fantasy. Drizzt, Wulfgar, Bruenor, Regis, and Cattie Brae if we look at R.A. Salvatores work. Going back to the Lord of the Rings we see the Fellowship, we see Gimley, Legolas, and Aragorn, we see Frodo and Sam. A big theme of these books is ones reliance on others.
Even Conan usually had some scantily clad babe over one shoulder who would aid his battles by crying out loud and falling to the floor when a big demonic ape would crawl out of a pit.
Someone recently reposted my "Why I Play Everquest" article, an article I wrote a few years back about the strengths of friendships and community in a game like EQ, and I realized how much I would have missed if I soloed. It makes me lean back towards my original thought and proposal:
Soloing should be the absolute last resort in a game like EQ. If SOE makes soloing an effective way to level or gear up, they could end up robbing players of the true strength of the game: community.
I would prefer SOE continually look for ways to improve and speed up grouping. Even if its content for two or three people instead of just one, thats a start.
What about low difficulty missions in Dragons that offer 15 crystals instead of 30 but that could be done by a group of three?
Grouping should always be encouraged and the more soloing becomes a more viable option over grouping, the more people will do it. The more people do it, the harder it becomes to find or build a group and the less likely people will see the true strength of EQ: the other players.
Comment Posted by: Loral on March 23, 2005 04:35 PM
Here's another email that came in with some interesting points on gear progression:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Two points: The funnest form of raid progression involves exponential gear upgrades, and most raiding players are not in the current expansion.
Players hate keys and complicated keying mechanisms as a form of raid advancement. Like really hate it, it's an obvious artificial bar on
progress -- instead of feeling challenged, they feel frustrated.
Players like gaining in power until they can finally defeat a tough encounter. Because power upgrades are small and incremental, they can go
and kill a few more lower-teir creatures and finally get their gear up to snuff.
In order for gearing up to be a barrier to progression, you need for each gear level to be exponentially stronger than the previous one: VT gear can't be enough to get into Time, Time gear can't be enough to get into Anguish.
At the same time, guilds are currently raiding as far back as Vex Thall or Planes of Power. This is many expansions ago. If the baseline single-group
gear was above planes of power gear levels, raid content trivialization would accellerate. Depending on the rate which a guild consumes raid
content, they could be in a situation where their gear becomes obsolete about as fast as they can progress through raid content.
If single-group gear hit 80% of current raid gear, that would mean single-group drops in DoN (augmented) would have 240-300 HP per slot.
Single-group tanks would be around 14,000-16,000 HP, and the gear you could get from raiding in even GoD would be out of date.
Hard core raiders can play upwards of 40 hours a week, consuming content at a rabid pace. The rate at which they upgrade gear is way faster than other players. Unless you went back and tweaked old raid reward vs effort, a tide of single-player gear growing at the rate at which hard core raiders consume content would make non-hard core raiding pointless.
There are solutions to this problem. Off the top of my head:
1> Older content starts dropping more items. 1 year old content could drop twice as many items (scaling up as it gets older): this accellerates the raid progression of less hard-core players, helping them move on in time to stay ahead of bazaar-trash gear.
2> Add raid-only stats to raid gear. Add a set of stats, such as:
Hardened Armor (a raid-only +AC type effect)
Wound Resistance (a raid-only +HP type effect: you can do this mathematically without actually giving +HP) Spell Penetration (raid creatures take far less damage from spells: enough spell penetration prevents that) Keen Blade (weapons that do effective damage on raid targets)
Corruption Repair (wounds caused by raid targets are harder to heal: this fights against that)
that have absolutely no effect in single-group content. "raid-target" creatures would pay attention to your (AC+Hardened Armor), and would have massive ATK values that would make the hardening important. Raid gear's
group stats would be 20% higher than single-group-drop group stats at most.
This would allow both raiders and non-raiders to consume the same single-group content.
No encounter designed to require less than 24 people would contain creatures that require raid-hardened armor.
And, if you wanted to be creative, they can pick a few slots (jewelery, for example) where the best drops always come from non-raid gear sources
(including raid hardening). This allows SOE to use mudflation to lower the difficulty of old raids (which is currently going on: as expansions
progress, post-time quality drops trick in via things like Ikkinz trials and MPG trials, making it easier for lower-teir guilds to get into time).
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Some interesting points. I would be the first to admit that my idea of simply closing the gap with bazaar gear at 75% of raid gear isn't perfect.
Yes, people hate keys. We all hate keys. Flagging should die and never come back. Things like Anguish are ok, I don't mind a final raid zone being locked. I also don't mind locking raid encounters like DON does.
Recent raid encounters are based less on pure statistics and more on strategy and tactics. This helps get away from raw DPS requirements that require such powerful gear.
All newer expansions made previous expansions obsolete. The gear now available in Dragons and Omens is far better than any raid gear pre PoP.
Old content is old content. If people can gear up with bazaar gear and defeat Rallos Zek, so be it.
Here are the problems as I see them:
- The gap between raid gear and non-raid gear make it difficult for the developers to balance content. This leads to situations where a group of level 70 players has no chance of defeating The Nest missions because they do not have any raid gear (I don't know if this is true, I haven't tried one yet).
- The gap between raid gear and single-group gear gives raiders a much higher rate of advancement in AAs and levels - something not tied to raiding. Again, when SOE determines how much experience it takes to get to level 70, they are not able to come up with a time frame suitable to both raiders and non-raders. Non raiders in Slaughter earn experience at half the speed of raiders in MPG or Riftseekers.
- The power gap between raiders and non-raiders at the same level makes it very difficult to balance out a group when you aren't sure what their real power is. Some level 70 tanks have 8000 hps, some have 16000, this doesn't show up on the LFG list.
- The DPS and hitpoint differences between groups again makes it very hard to balance an encounter so it is challlenging to both groups. In many cases, like LDON hards, an event is impossible for non-raiders and too easy for raiders.
The only solution I see for this is to offer alternative methods of acquiring gear at 75% to 80% of the power of raiders. This way SOE can assume a defined set of gear and base encounters around that. Right now the gap is too wide to have any idea how to balance an encounter.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on March 23, 2005 04:42 PM
Loral wrote:
"gear is a major consideration. My friend plays a Qvic geared wizard who can solo mobs in Vxed by himself. I don't think other level 68 wizards are able to do the same thing."
Using Vxed as an example. Gear is great, but for those that have to rely on witts instead. I know an Enchantress that at level 65 she was solo'ing Vxed with so so bazaar gear. Now this was before OoW came out. Well my fiance decide that if the enchantress could do it, so could she. Her druid solo's Vxed also, again before OoW came out. In our guild We have wizards, Mages, Druids, Clerics and Necro's that have solo'd through out their levels, with non raid gear. How? By Witts, cleverness and AA.
As some of you know that post here, my guild is about as far away from the leading edge gear as the South pole is from the North pole.
*******
Another thing, people use the term Group, and from what I see it means 4 or more people. If SONY wants to get new people interested, then they need to look into the DUO content. I know a lot is there, but two people playing together are blocked by a lot of things, such as LDON. My fiance and I duo constantly. I can off the top of my head name 20 to 30 couples that spend a lot of time duo'ing. Some met on EQ, some were couples before. You have two working people that want to spend their relaxing time together, and their choice is EQ. It is their chance to escape the real world together, and become that person they want their loved one to see them as.
I FEEL strongly about this. Yes when the game started out, very few couples played. Now days you find Real Life couples everywhere. Sony should look at that, and see what they can do for a very fast growing population, THE COUPLE.
I will stop for now, but if people feel left out because they want to be alone, and not much is there. Well THE COUPLE are left out also.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 23, 2005 05:46 PM
The raid-only benefits is an intriguing one. Brenlo also hinted at some solo-only possibilities in his dev corner post. I know that when charms were introduced, they did have some code available to scale effects based on group size, halfings in group, gnomes in zone etc etc.
Since the game is balanced primarily around gear, allowing gear (or spells, or discs) to scale based on your surroundings sounds like a great way to approach these issues, provided the gear is available.
More attunable items and fewer NO DROP items would have to be a strong part of the approach.
As an example for spells/discs, giving warriors a heal/regen ability which would scale inversely based on group size (eventually dropping to nil if there were 4 or more people in group or raid), would be a nice start.
Comment Posted by: on March 23, 2005 05:47 PM
Loral said, "Someone recently reposted my "Why I Play Everquest" article, an article I wrote a few years back about the strengths of friendships and community in a game like EQ, and I realized how much I would have missed if I soloed. It makes me lean back towards my original thought and proposal:
Soloing should be the absolute last resort in a game like EQ. If SOE makes soloing an effective way to level or gear up, they could end up robbing players of the true strength of the game: community."
Yes, I personally completely agree with these comments. Of course I may not agree with a lot of your other ideas and articles, but this is the very foundation of the game, and to weaken is surely to weaken the very life of it.
Loral also said, "- The gap between raid gear and non-raid gear make it difficult for the developers to balance content. This leads to situations where a group of level 70 players has no chance of defeating The Nest missions because they do not have any raid gear (I don't know if this is true, I haven't tried one yet)."
Yes, raid gear and AA's at a given level make huge differences in a (group of) players ability to handle content appropriate the the level.
You would not want a level 70 tank with 3 aa and kael arena quest armor tanking level 70 exp mobs would you?
"- The gap between raid gear and single-group gear gives raiders a much higher rate of advancement in AAs and levels - something not tied to raiding. Again, when SOE determines how much experience it takes to get to level 70, they are not able to come up with a time frame suitable to both raiders and non-raders. Non raiders in Slaughter earn experience at half the speed of raiders in MPG or Riftseekers."
This is not necessarily true at all, I know many non-raiders that have and earn more AA's than quite a few of my own guilds raiders.
These raids simply don't have the time or motivation to grind out aa's anymore (if they ever did).
The people who can grind out mass aa's are the same regardless if they are considered a raider or not... is the people with the time, and motivation to do them, and the social connections to make/maintain groups to do the exp camps.
"- The power gap between raiders and non-raiders at the same level makes it very difficult to balance out a group when you aren't sure what their real power is. Some level 70 tanks have 8000 hps, some have 16000, this doesn't show up on the LFG list."
Your right, this is a huge issue, and its directly the fault of the developers (passed and current) that allowed the situation to develop and continue.
"- The DPS and hitpoint differences between groups again makes it very hard to balance an encounter so it is challlenging to both groups. In many cases, like LDON hards, an event is impossible for non-raiders and too easy for raiders.
The only solution I see for this is to offer alternative methods of acquiring gear at 75% to 80% of the power of raiders. This way SOE can assume a defined set of gear and base encounters around that. Right now the gap is too wide to have any idea how to balance an encounter."
See the previous comment, this is directly responsible to the developers.
I don't think its necessarily an itemization issue, as much as I believe it is simply a difference in priorities and motivations for different segments of the gaming population.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
You can add 1000 aa's to a class, but you can't make the player grind them out.
You can put good equipment in appropriately challenging content, but you can't make the players do it.
You see, the player(s) have to have the time and motivation to do it themselves.
Some do, many do not.
Comment Posted by: on March 23, 2005 05:54 PM
If they removed direct hp, mana and endurance from every item in the game, the disparity between the extremes would be reduced incredibly.
Of course this would require retuning nearly all content from late kunark to the present.
The remaining stats and effects of raid equipment vs non-raid equipment would sufficient differention to separate the raiders from non-raiders while making it much easier to balance content designed to fulfill both ends of the spectrum.
Comment Posted by: wormy on March 24, 2005 10:09 AM
EQ has 16 classes - a group has 6 spots.
There is far to much content, that can be done with "a perfect group"(c) only.
This leaves 10 classes in the dust. Some are able to solo apropriate content, most are not.
Sony ignored those facts far too long.
WoW gave them the final wake-up call, maybe Sony will be able to learn from their mistakes...
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 24, 2005 11:58 AM
I also think it is very important to a game like EverQuest that the players be able to dictate their own "script" for adventure. Roleplaying your character should lead you anywhere you want to go, as all zones should be somewhat populated.
Since all zones aren't populated, we wind up with a couple of options to remedy the situation:
1) Enhance LFG Tools to drive people to where the population is. Drawback: Destroys a major immersive element of the game, freedom.
2) Improve the raw solo ability of all classes, so they have the freedom to explore and adventure where they want to (obviously, we're not talking about single players taking down raid mobs here).
3) Add some NPC grouping functionality to the game, so that a player who is headed off on an adventure to a sparsely populated region can bring some extra muscle, healing power, or nuking power with them (warrior, cleric, and wizard NPCs would be the logical and easiest to implement, with a control window similar to the pet bar). The NPC's will eat an appropriate share of the experience gained, and will leave your group once it picks up a certain number of players.
Comment Posted by: on March 24, 2005 12:28 PM
The NPC "helpers" in some of the LDON adventures was a neat and interesting idea that I haven't seen used since.
Could be cool to see that more fleshed out, although I'm sure that some folks would consider the idea the same as a 'walk the gnome' thing, if the npc's were helpers only and it didn't matter a lot if they lived or died so much instead of instant fail if they do die.
Comment Posted by: on March 24, 2005 12:31 PM
In fact, I bet that could be a neat idea for missions/expeditions, where you can ask the mission giver to assign you a helper if you need one... this could make it possible for a duo to have the 3rd person be an npc helper...
or 4th, 5th or 6th as needed for less than full groups...
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on March 24, 2005 12:45 PM
Loral, yes those epic stories all had adventurers banding together for the E-P-I-C struggles. But Aragorn could still woopp azzz on his own too. Now he didn't take on an enitre army by himself, but I bet he could kill a few blue mobs on his own if he wanted to.
Should the one ring come to him as a soloer? No.
But he should be able to make his way in the wilderness never the less.
My Paladin C-O-U-L-D do a Norm LDON (esp. in BB with all the undead) by himself when his pac pull is working and if time permited etc.
Groups should be the core of the game for true character advancement, but to totally diregard solo play as an option seems a bit too purist and high minded when you consider people throwing around the words lazy in a discussion. This is a passive sport. We aren't exactly athletes here.
If people want to be less lazy they should pick up a rock and hit the court for some B-ball. Me, I'll be covered in doritto crumbs and half in the bag from Killians in front of my Computer screen. I spend my entire day being un-lazy at work, when I play a game I just want to enjoy myself.
LOL.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on March 24, 2005 01:24 PM
Naladini wrote:
"3) Add some NPC grouping functionality to the game, so that a player who is headed off on an adventure to a sparsely populated region can bring some extra muscle, healing power, or nuking power with them (warrior, cleric, and wizard NPCs would be the logical and easiest to implement, with a control window similar to the pet bar). The NPC's will eat an appropriate share of the experience gained, and will leave your group once it picks up a certain number of players."
GREAT idea, they already have NPC's in LDON's that appear when you hit a tree and say "follow me". They will follow you around and help you fight mobs. I could see great potential on this, especially for tasks and small quests.
Picture this:
Warrior (level 60) needs to complete a certain quest in order to progress. He teams up with a level 52 Halfling Druid NPC, She/He needs help with something. The NPC Druid has Superior Heal and maybe Sow. Yes the NPC stays in background during the whole quest, except in battles, and may start Healing say when Warrior is down to 20% and stops say at 60%.
The codes for things like this are already in the game.
1. Pet already follow commands
2. NPC's already interact with you when you talk to them
3. Mob/NPC's know when you are low on health (high aggro) also they know when to heal. (how many times have you fought a mob and it receives a complete heal from the Cleric mob 3 rooms away)
Wow this has great potential.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 24, 2005 02:19 PM
It could even borrow a bit from WoW, and include controls for the Player to tell the NPC when to heal vs nuke. ;)
Naturally, there's probably one of those evil marketing-types over at SOE who will complain that this will cut into their revenue because people playing multiple accounts might give up a few subscriptions, but honestly, I think its wrong for classes and abilities to be balanced around that concept in the first place.
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on March 24, 2005 03:45 PM
Quote: "I would prefer SOE continually look for ways to improve and speed up grouping. Even if its content for two or three people instead of just one, thats a start." -Loral
/agree. some people have hit on it - that the LFG doesn't indicate HP/AC/MANA/AA/etc. ever invite a (non-elite) bazaar-level geared tank to GoD or even WoS? he gets beat down pretty fast.
i think that if you could add functonality to the /LFG tool to either lookup or filter-out desired stats might help. i.e. double-click someone's name to see vitals - HP/AC/MANA/AA or a separate tab where you can only look for tanks that have more than 8K hp's and 1200 AC. this might allow would-be groupers to help find other chars that fit their power-level??
Quote:"EQ has 16 classes - a group has 6 spots.
There is far to much content, that can be done with "a perfect group"(c) only." - Wormy
how many times has a group failed to form because they didn't have: tank/healer/slower? no tank - but there are 14 ranger's LFG!!
is it a bad game because rangers can't tank the mobs for your group? or is it a bad game because you found 4 others but that one necessary class was unavailable while you were online? or was it a bad night, bad luck?
for me, the 'slower' spot became a pain in the arse in newer content. you "HAD" to have a slower otherwise you got trounced, either because the healer ran out of mana or the tank didn't have sufficient HP/AC. sometimes group invites would be declined due to a lack of a slower.
i'm kinda out of the loop but isn't the holy trilogy still preferred? SOE can't make you play a cleric or warrior. it would be nice if all of the classes had a way to somehow deal without having an optimal group or could fill a gap?
throughout the 20's - 40's i was able to do ldon's and group content without a cleric or plate tank. because we didn't "need" a certain class - groups formed faster, exp flowed, fun was had. was this imbalanced? was this newer gear making older content trivial?
i don't know the answers but i like some of the suggestions, from players and SOE, that i'm seeing lately.
Comment Posted by: stylx on March 24, 2005 04:13 PM
Rangers used to be one of the best tanks... ... ...
Comment Posted by: Striken on March 24, 2005 05:13 PM
First mistake EQ made was putting gear into the game that actually could change a classes role in a group. For example:
When you have wizards with more HP's than warriors, your game is broken.
When you have rangers who tank better than warriors, your game is broken.
When gear can replace skill, your game is broken.
All these things happend near the end of Kunark/Beginning of Velious. People spoke up, but nobody listened.
Comment Posted by: Striken on March 24, 2005 05:22 PM
And as far as grouping.. its a crapshoot.
Back during kunark and before, people learned to play their classes, period. You needed to know how to play to survive in CT or Mistmoore. Thats all a thing of the past though.
Everyone knows the horror stories, the healer who only used divine light, or the warrior who hadnt trained taunt. The list goes on and on... Yeah, I can post about the few times I met people who played their classes extremmely well as a rebutle (sp?), but peoples behavior proves that more people have bad times in groups than good times! Else people wouldnt have such an aversion to them.
Remember when your reputation mattered in EQ? And I dont mean Freeport Militia faction. Remember when people were black-listed for ninja looting? When you wouldnt help that necro because he would FD train people on the frenzy camp? All that stuff disappeared with Luclin too. Why? Because one thing mattered from Late Velious on... it was played time.
If a guy was an ass, trained, or ninja-looted from other people, nobody cares! You need people who can log in 10 hours a night 6 days a week, period.
Skill...? read above. You have some of the crappiest clerics ever in EQ now. They have 18k mana, 12k HP's, and couldnt keep a group alive in the GEB camp.
Guess I'm done, take care =)
Comment Posted by: on March 24, 2005 05:41 PM
Another idea would be for instanced dungeons to spawn based on the type of group that enters.
No slower in group: Mob output is reduced to compensate
No cleric: CH heal pattern changed to alternate
If done well, a group of any 6 players (within some reason) could enter a dungeon and not feel like they must have a slower/cleric/defensive MT.
Also allow a rez ability for other classes to use within these instanced dungeons in the event that a non-rezzer is not present in the group.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on March 24, 2005 05:54 PM
And that's where the dilemma lies. There are a lot of potential paths to take with the design of the game, and only so many hours to do it in.
Solo instances were proposed quite a while ago, and the comment from the dev team at the time was that it would be too time consuming to figure out and design for all of the possible permutations for the different classes (alongside the dungeons scaling by level). A similar comment was made about the complexity of scaling instances based on the size of groups, classes within groups, or gear/aa "levels" within groups, there's just too many possibilities to do this effectively.
At the time, some ideas had also been brought forward about "helper" npc's, tanks for clerics, healers for tanks, etc, but it was thought the AI would have to be fairly complex to build this in.
Adding a NPC control window, with limited control over what types of spells the NPC can cast would be the best possible way to limit the amount of design that would have to go into these situations (as well as add an element of skill for the players controlling the NPC). Ranged DPS classes and Rogues would be the most difficult to account for in this idea.
Comment Posted by: on March 24, 2005 06:06 PM
I dont think we need a separate 'npc control' window, just merely having an npc 'helper' respond to basic commands like, follow, heal, attack, backoff would be sufficient and make it so that it was not just one person in control... ie anyone in the group could /say command and the npc would would it.
This also prevents any arguements over WHO gets to control a helper in a pickup group or whatnot.
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