Mobhunter

Home > Loral's Evil Agenda, September 2005

Loral would have a much better chance of enforcing his dark will if only he knew how to speak telepathically.
Loral would have a much better chance of enforcing his dark will if only he knew how to speak telepathically.

Loral's Evil Agenda, September 2005

by Loral on September 24, 2005

With the announcement of SOE's latest Everquest Community Summit it was time once again to sit back and ponder the best possible future direction for Everquest. Previous evil agenda covered everything from encounter variety to mentor systems and many of these items are now addressed. With the latest expansion released only two weeks ago, it becomes difficult to say for sure where the future should head.

We begin this Evil Agenda start with four larger areas for improvement and then include a list of a few smaller areas or areas already discussed previously (often at great length). Let us begin.

1. Further Improve Monster Missions.

Monster missions added a whole new gamestyle to this six year old game and it has become a favored style of play for many since its release. Add 18 and 24 person monster raids to give any group of 18 to 24 players a chance to try out the raid style so popular with many higher level players. Offer missions for groups with three players. Continue to use monster missions as a way to experience lore by tying them to old moments in Norrath history.

2. Continue to Tie Future Expansions to Old World Lore.

Many nostalgic players talk about the great days of Kunark and Velious. By making these two older expansions part of the core base of the game, SOE can then base instanced dungeons, monster missions, and even entire expansions off of these older lands. Many players now off in other lands may return if they see "Everquest: Ruins of Kunark II" on the shelf.

3. Improve the Dynamics of Combat.

New AAs like Gift of Mana show a new style of combat where random elements can change player behavior during combat. This leads to new and unique battles instead of typical "Step 1: complete heal, step 2: see step 1". Consider the heroic opportunities from EQ2. Work on encounters that increase difficulty without simply upping the creature's damage.

4. Improve the 20 to 50 Game.

These past six months we have seen a new tutorial, new 10 to 20 missions, and two rebuilt newbie zones. New 20 to 50 missions and tasks will help players grow from these new additions to the later content found in Omens of War, Dragons of Norrath, and Depths of Darkhollow. New mid-level missions, more quests, new armor quests, or even an "epic-lite" quest would greatly improve the 20 to 50 game.

With those four major Evil Agenda points behind us, lets look at a few additional changes that would continue to improve the game:

I look forward to the future of Everquest.

Loral Ciriclight
24 September 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com

Post a new message.

Comment Posted by: vhampyre01 on September 26, 2005 10:05 AM

These are all good ideas.

I personally have said for a long time that they need to add sound notices to a number of events in the game. "Tells" is a good place to start, but there should also be something that warns the player when important buffs (like invis, enduring breath or levitate) are about to fade. Ideally, they should set it up to be fully customizable, and should definitely be something that a player can turn OFF should they choose to do so.

I've also said for a long time that it would be nice if there was a better 20-50 quest arc, something to make these levels a little more fun or interesting, so that players don't feel like they should just rush through them. The thing that has always bothered me about these levels is that you're encouraged to twink and PL through them. That's unfortunate.

I totally agree with the UI comment. EQ's default interface is horrendous! The Escape to Norrath interface is a little better, but the underlying problem is still there; and that is: THERE ARE TOO MANY STINKING WINDOWS! I customized my UI a long time ago, but everytime I create a new character, I'm reminded of just how crappy the interface is. That needed to be addressed a long time ago.

Anyway, you've got my vote, Loral. Get all of this done and then we'll find something else to complain about. ;)

Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 26, 2005 10:22 AM

Agree whit your points, Loral, specially attaching new expansions to old lore.

Now, as a player that still has nice memories of EQ1, and that TRULY would love to go play it again, I have to add these things I feel the game NEEDS too, these are all listed on the order I find they are more important, from more important first and less important last. Note I still feel ALL are very important.

Better animations
I’m not even asking for new models, I think the current character models from luclien are actually rather good all things considered. But the animations of these kill them. Old classic models had better animations. There is an amazing set of animations on EQ2 I know they can borrow and somehow, with a bit of work off course, apply to EQ1. EQ1 needs this animation change badly, looking at the current animations makes any EQ1 virgin uninstall the game fast.

Offline selling:
I used to be able to tolerate this back on the day, I cant anymore. I don’t know how would it be done, but it needs to be done. I also hate to think they wont do it to retain all the "bazaar mules" paying monthly payments. The bazaar should be replaced by a WoW or FFXI style auction house.

World revamping
I know this takes time, but very visited areas should be slightly revamped. At the very least, trees and common objects should be changed. Add dynamic flora so it all looks better, but as it is now, it hurts to visit most outdoor zones.

Better third person interface:
The point here is to compete. The third person camera system on EQ1 is awful, things like targeting what is just in front of you can prove a disastrous challenge as you will end always targeting yourself. Today every MMO plays on a third person, and it is proven that most people actually like to see their toon while playing any game they are playing, this is something SOE knows and can be seen in EQ2, as it is a third person mainly game. I don’t mean to remove the first person, so no one should jump because I suggest this, I mean to make the third person mode usable. Also the camera needs work, it is just too clunky to use on third person mode.

Dungeon Crawl:
This I am talking out of pure ignorance, I loved DoN, it was my favorite expansion, and it makes the game feel amazingly different, as long were the days of sitting on a spot waiting for a mob to respawn, yet I did not like the extreme centralization of it. I want to do these same dungeon crawls on existing dungeons of the game. One of the things I love of City of Heroes is the dungeon crawl feeling I get on indoor missions. I don’t know if the latest expansions focus are more focused towards this, reason I say I talk on this point out of ignorance. I just know the new starting 1-10 experience does not include any dungeon crawling experience.

Missions:
During the short period I tried EQ again I tried the small new tutorial, and I have to say I loved the mission window, yet I was disturbed by the amount of old fashioned quests included on this new content. The old quest system should be dished from all new content.

Old NPCs:
This always annoyed me, what use is having Luclien models on if my city's NPCs all still look square and blocky randomly?

This are my main issues with the game right now, and the issues I still hear around me from friends that just don’t even want to think about EQ1 any more.

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on September 26, 2005 11:48 AM

New PC models please. Badly.

More top end monster missions: vindi, vulak, tormax, etc vs NPC attackers. It would be great to relive all "historical" top encounters of the different expansion from the npc side.

Less see invis trash (A LOT LESS)

More coherent spell/gear design: caster dps has gone through the roof since DoD. That can't have been tested properly or it's just crazy.

Comment Posted by: Swampfunk on September 26, 2005 12:17 PM

Loral, great stuff here, you are a real gladiator for the non raid crowd!

That being said, a few notes from the high end view...

1) Too many see invis in DoD... I am a berserker, I have to pay out the nose to invis, and I run into sooo many see invis that it makes me cry

2) Levitate... It seems all the new zones require levitate to navigate it properly... this is also an issue for us non-casters

3) Guild Portal to Undershore...

4) Find PC just doesn't work well enough... new content is vast and maze like, a way to get around the zones would make life better....

5) (this is a personal one) Nuker DPS has gone through the roof... wizards and mages are SMOKING melee for DPS parses now... (I'm talking mages doing 1500 dps)

6) Raid content and single group itemization....suckeths.... why don't I see creative items, augs, clicks, and various other nifty things in this expansion yet... albeit... not many are in Dreadspire... I still expected to see some items of value coming out....


Ok, this is just a quick and dirty rant... I have research and proof of anything I said above.. and I speak from my own personal p.o.v.

Hugs!

Comment Posted by: xsi on September 26, 2005 04:00 PM

As ever, new player models and overcoming the limitations of the global memory file are both high on my list of priorities. What's more, I think the two goals could be reached simultaneously. New models would presumably be less resource intensive and therefore would free up a lot of space in that global memory file. The roadblock to increased variety in character appearance, (limited armour textures, etc.) is in fact the bloated luclin player models.

I'm not wild about heroic opportunities in EQ2, and am not really looking forward to seeing it in EQ, but I agree with the majority of the agenda as it currently stands.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on September 26, 2005 07:13 PM

"Offer missions for groups with three players."

They already have these. The freemind cipher in Undershore has some "1/2 group missions" tuned for 3 players.

I'd like to see an new con color added between yellow and red. Maybe orange for mobs 3-5 levels higher than me. This way I can tell the difference between a high level mob I can still take with a good group, and a high level mob that will wipe the floor with me even if I do have a group.

I am not bothered by the number of windows, but it seems to be a pretty popular issue. They could probably add the LDoN and expedition windows to the quest window, with a few changes, like adding a button for the LDoN leaderboard to the quest window.

I would love to see offline selling. Perhaps you could hire an NPC to sell your items for small percentage of the sales, or something.

I could list monster mission ideas all day, but are a few I'd really like to see:
A mission where players play as members of the Darkpaw family and attack Qeynos.
A "reverse LDoN" where players do the opposite of what they do in LDoNs. For example, you might play as werewolves, vampires and gargoyles in a dungeon filled with weak, friendly mobs. 6 super mobs would spawn at the entrance and start wreaking havoc, and you would have to keep them from killing too many of your allies.
Players playing as rodents and invading a city. Players would try to steal food and such, while dodging exterminators and engaging in fierce battles with household cats.
Muramite monster missions!

Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on September 26, 2005 09:16 PM

What I want to see,which most people will be against is "no more timed group missions/instances" they are killing the social flow of the game. Previously groups have been a fluid thing that ebb and flow over the course of a day depending on who's available. Now if you join a mission group you a locked in. If you leave the mission fails. As a result people can't help each other out anymore. There's no more ducking off to rez a guildy. No more, bailing on a group because a few friends have logged on, and so on.

Get it out of the game, if you are going to force grouping allow it to be flexible.

Comment Posted by: birder on September 26, 2005 09:43 PM

I think these monster missions are flawed. It just seems wrong to not be playing your chosen class while gaining excessive exp (still 8-9% @ level 66 for a 20 min mission). It is very easy to level from 65-70 and never once actually play your real character/class.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on September 26, 2005 10:18 PM

Sunshadow,

You can add or remove people at any time during a mission. There are buttons on the shared task tab of the task window, as well as commands to do it from across zones. You can even remove someone in the middle of an instance to make room for someone else. What you describe was a problem during LDoN, yes, but it was solved when GoD introduced expeditions.

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on September 27, 2005 04:26 AM

Liable for bailing is GOOD (tm)

Everquest needs a real quest / key tracking system. Something to show what flags and mostly invisible flags have been done and which not. It's insanely TEDIOUS to find out that x,y or z has or hasn't got w flag or done this part of the quest. Hell, I forget which mpg group trials I have done on my alt if I hadn't put it somewhere in my note.

More, a LOT more clarity in these things please.

And less travel times. DoD is too much for remote places.

Comment Posted by: Glormane on September 27, 2005 05:17 AM

I think one of the most important things to do (and it seems something SOE do not want to concentrate on in their next summit) is class balance. Having a class correspondent is good, but I think they need to go one step further and assign a SOE employee/designer/whatever to each class to liase with designers/class correspondents and start to explore the class to put right the things that are broken in each class, look at the balance of each class and most importantly - feedback to the class boards.
It seems to me that there is only generalised feedback from SOE and sometimes even that has a spin on it to sell us a new feature or expansion.
So when SOE says nothing about an issue you have seen knocking about the boards for sometime, you start to think they dont care about it. Some sort of honest (as honest as can be) is needed.

I like the idea of zone revamps, new graphics and the likes, but I dont want to see existing zones have their lvls rise. Mistmoore and Splitpaw were wrong moves in my opinion. Leave low level zones to the low levels. Just make the drops a bit better for the lowbies. As someone said, help improve the low level game.

I'd like to see more quests. I think they have done the armour quests to death (Velious, Luclin, POP, GoD, OOW all had them), something new for each class.

Comment Posted by: Quesci on September 27, 2005 01:25 PM

Even granting the premise that caster DPS has grown too much (a premise I certainly do NOT grant), that tends to be a common situation when new expansions are released.

Top end casters get their spells relatively early in an expansion. Melee classes (especially the top end) have to wait until the end-zone raids are unlocked and beaten. In OoW, casters were getting glowing runes in the first week, but it wasn't until Anguish that weapons better than Tacvi were available.

DoN was an anomaly, as caster spells were not a huge DPS increase (unless you count Panther as DPS for the shaman).

Once the Dreadspire weapons start dropping, we'll see melee DPS blow casters out of the water, again.

Comment Posted by: Mage on September 27, 2005 01:46 PM

Were you parsing experience group mobs? Mages don't do 1500 dps, even in endgame gear/encounters with full DoD spells.

Comment Posted by: Loral on September 27, 2005 03:14 PM

You have to factor in end-game focus gear for casters as well. They may get their spells earlier (although I sure didn't) but they don't get better foci until the same last zone that melees get weapons.

I tend not to worry about such details. For me, its fun to just go on an adventure with friends and enjoy my hunting. I have Saroc to worry about my class issues (turn undead was finally fixed! Yay!).

I'd rather find new ways for everyone to enjoy the depth and breadth of this game.

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on September 28, 2005 04:47 AM

Things I like in DoD:

missions are non trivial. You can and will screw up if not carefull or if you don't have ALL the information needed.

Class make up for instances is relatively flexible despite the difficulty of the content.

I always advocate the real danger of falling of bridges and geometry. You sure as hell can fall off and die from high places in DoD. A lot.

They have put some thought into the geometry. Zones are very different from each others.
Missions tie together to some extent.
There is some extent of lore.

Yet, RvR is abysmal so far.
MPG trials are still more fun and less downtime and better RvR.
Putting levitate requirements to some instanced content the way they did is sick. Not wrong. Sick.

Comment Posted by: Loral on September 28, 2005 09:37 AM

"Class make up for instances is relatively flexible despite the difficulty of the content."

I've noticed that with non-raider groups on "normal" (not Hard) missions, that you really need a cleric. I just fought in an instance last night off of Stoneroot where the base mobs hit for 1700 and the boss hit for well over 2k. I don't know how you could do that with druids and shamans healing unless they were extremely well equipped.

I agree with you about the loot. After fighting in the mission above, we received 120 130 hp mana gear. In two missions not a single person got a reward they could use.

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on September 28, 2005 10:20 AM

Maybe I have a simplistic view of the players but I don't understand why SoE would bother creating convoluted single group content with geometry, fights, etc to ruin it with poor RvR.

I have the impression that they wanted to experiment with a new type of loot distribution (everyone gets something according to class) which is pretty sofisticated in a way but completely wasted in practice. On that regard DoN point system seems much superior to this idea of players' reward.

They could have done this by tieing intelligent item progression to the success of the different mission arcs. That would have given true upgrades, to all participants, while respecting some kind of progression and worth.

Instead they designed intelligent items that are in fact downgrades for a good while (slow to xp I'm told) to achieve their final stats. That's a pity.

Comment Posted by: Swampfunk on September 28, 2005 01:42 PM

Tornt: Mage in Club Fu.

I'll be parsing his DPS specifically tonight during Anguish...

The last time we parsed he was 1498 for a 3 minute fight....

that is very high... compared to a few weeks ago.

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 28, 2005 05:24 PM

YES !! YES !! YES !!

PLEASE fix the 3rd person view and get rid of the clunky, disfunctional F9 system ..

and .. make all the missions easier to find so figuring them out doesn't take weeks of surfing independent web sites !! or shouting for info and instructions in POK. Does it make sense to put the new Naggy quest giver by the evil side of the Broodlands? Or the Pirate ship to EFport in Butcherblock? And that's just the EASY to find ones!!

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on September 29, 2005 01:18 AM

"Does it make sense to put the new Naggy quest giver by the evil side of the Broodlands?"

Lavastorm, not Broodlands. And yes, it does.

"Or the Pirate ship to EFport in Butcherblock?"

Um, where are they supposed to put it? On land?

"And that's just the EASY to find ones!!"

Two of the NPCs in Undershore are on Find. For the two in Nektulos, one wanders from near the instance zone entrance to very near the instance zone entrance, and the other stands near the commonlands zone. How much easier do you want it?

Comment Posted by: Loral on September 29, 2005 07:37 AM

Dev chat goodness:

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Crier&message.id=197&highlight=loral#M197

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on September 30, 2005 04:45 AM

I expect some backfire on one missguided idea:

intelligent items that take weeks to level and have subpar stats all the way till the end: that's a begging to ignore them.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on September 30, 2005 09:43 AM

"intelligent items that take weeks to level and have subpar stats all the way till the end: that's a begging to ignore them."


Yeppers. Just imagine. In order to be useful, it has to be good enough that it will make it worth while for you to you intentionally use a lesser item for months, and you don't get a better item in that spot in the meantime. Why, you could give up 100 hp/man stats and resists for months only to find a nicer item in that spot just before it becomes useful. Sign me up today.

Comment Posted by: Tedar on September 30, 2005 09:50 AM

I would love to see home towns rewarped , or at least put the ones that are multble zones together - zoning 3 times to get out of Neriak is just too much imo.

Comment Posted by: Loral on September 30, 2005 10:05 AM

Put high enough stats on the end-version and people will do it. People will farm the same mob for two years for a high-stat item.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on September 30, 2005 10:24 AM

Here's the rub with evolving items. If it is truly intended that it take weeks to level an item, then that makes the reward totally unpredictable. In weeks, I plan to turn over all my items and be wearing better. I don't know how much better, but I expect to move from 100-150 items to 150-200 items across the board. In fact, I plan to have many of the pieces from the MPG trials.

If I find an evolving item I plan to use, it had better have a final version that is 200+ or I'd better be able to level it inside a couple of weeks. Otherwise, I'm going to be looking at selling it to the highest bidder.

In other words, the final version cannot be slightly better than what I have. It has to be better than what I expect to have when I level it.

Comment Posted by: brew on September 30, 2005 06:17 PM

Hopefully some other items that are under consideration:

1. Get all keys on keyring. Anything that opens a door needs to get on keyring. Including odd items. Have a keyring, but still carrying keys...

2. Convert some old quests requiring many no-drop items into tasks. Luclin shards. Anguish items. GoD progression items/runes. Tons of no-drop stuff that you can barely remember what it is and have to use spoiler sites to clean out bank. At least convert some of most common ones that use up 9-10 bank slots. Much harder on mid-tier guilds that are juggling all this stuff, versus the guilds that are done with it all.

3. Time on LDs. Keep working to cut this down. Seems to always take 3-4 minutes now. Best of all, you always come back to a dead corpse and tells that you charged into a camp of 10 mobs after you un-equiped your weapons and meleed yourself to death using your hands. If LD on zone, shouldn't die.

4. Clarifications on Epic 1.5 spawns. Multi people in the zone and ready for same mob. Seems that person can not loot item and can not figure out who can (or someone who is already done with that stage). Prime example is Druid final stage. Zone emote of who the mob is trembling for would help and reduce CS/GM issues.

5. GoD spawn rates. More and more contests over the mobs as more guilds are able to get into this content. Larger guilds also going back to gear up alts. Bump respawns from 6hrs to something less. Let people get through and catch up on next expansions without having to rotate with 10x as many folks making it that much slower. Many guilds would likely just ask for instanced versions if they could and avoid the political messes anyways.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on October 1, 2005 03:13 AM

Or a mosnter mission where you play as pets and you have to do random things for your master.

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 1, 2005 04:29 AM

A /Petition system that works since there is no other way to get a GM these days.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on October 1, 2005 02:51 PM

I honestly don't see where all the complaints about petitions come from. Whenever I had a problem that I needed to file a petition about, it was solved pretty quick.

Comment Posted by: skuz on October 2, 2005 11:09 PM

Quote.....5. GoD spawn rates. More and more contests over the mobs as more guilds are able to get into this content. Larger guilds also going back to gear up alts. Bump respawns from 6hrs to something less. Let people get through and catch up on next expansions without having to rotate with 10x as many folks making it that much slower. Many guilds would likely just ask for instanced versions if they could and avoid the political messes anyways.

Have to say I agree, there are so many guilds wanting to kill these mobs (I am thinking you refer to the Msha's in Qvic) for guilds just having beat uqua and gained entry, current guilds gearing up and progressionally older guilds twinking alts etc, it's just getting silly, either the mobs need shorter respawns, to be in mini instances on normal timers or introduce more mobs in the zones to drop the armors.

On Antonius Bayle it's pretty chronic atm, 4 servers merged together and a good amount of the guilds are at this stage of progression.

I agree risk vs reward for missions is fubar, the gear that you need to be in to beat these things as they stand is far better than the "rewards", a reward that you find useless is not a reward its a bin-filler, wtf is the point of that? having said that though the actual design of the reward system i like, just the itemisation is way off par atm.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 3, 2005 08:16 AM

Well I am back and laden with notes for a report. I hope to write it up today and get it out by tomorrow morning. In the mean time, read the three most excellent EQ Vault reports:

http://eqvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=11495
http://eqvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=11494
http://eqvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=11491

Samana's report from the Spirit Realm is also online:

http://crucible.samanna.net/viewtopic.php?t=908

Gemdiver posted the first pic I've seen so far on the front page of Caster's Realm with two of my favorite quotes. Zajeer's quote was in response to one of my ideas so I'm particularly fond of it:

http://eq.crgaming.com/default.asp

http://applets.crgaming.com/images/DDR2-vi.jpg

In the pic from left to right: Gemdiver in the white golf shirt, Loral in the black shirt behind, Rashere the lead designer to my left, Merloc and Gloriana playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Yes, I have a lot more than just us running around playing games.

If you find other reports, please post them here.

Comment Posted by: Aethn on October 3, 2005 10:25 AM

Loral,

Did they even discuss TEST SERVER at all??? We Test players asked to be represented and SOE said no. WTF?? They said no!! The Test Server is dismal and disfunctional. We have less then 200 people at primtime, NO ONE IS FLAGGED PAST QVIC!!! Tier 3 DoN hasnt been accessed. Not one single MPG raid can be killed. Its not lack of skill at all. Its lack of bodies. We raid 54 man content with 25 people and sometimes wint, most of the time lose.

What are they going to do about Test Server population and to make it a viable testing platform to give you live guys better patches??

Comment Posted by: xsi on October 3, 2005 02:41 PM

Looking forward to your report, as I am not getting much out of the other ones posted so far. It truly does seem like every other summit, where specific questions get vague replies, and the populace is largely high level and raid-centric.

You and Gemdiver seemed like the only two interested in bringing up some of the issues in the game that actually impact me, so hopefully you both will have more to say.

Comment Posted by: xsi on October 3, 2005 02:52 PM

Oh and Zajeer and Rytan consistently come off as incredibly inflexible and unwilling to listen, even at summits which are supposedly specifically designed for that purpose. Is this just a misperception?

Comment Posted by: Voidus on October 6, 2005 02:08 PM

Great job Loral...

One of the keys to improving LDoN is adjusting the amount of experience earned to make it consistent with experience at other levels.

Post a new message.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.