Spring 2006 Summit and Fan Faire Final Report
by Loral on April 11, 2006
We return from the towers of the south, leatherbound notebooks laden with rumors and gossip. Today we summarize the knowledge captured at the April 2006 Everquest Community Summit and Fan Faire.
The Twelfth Expansion
During the first Everquest Summit panel, SOE revealed some details on the yet-unnamed twelfth Everquest expansion. This expansion will focus on all levels from level 1 to the max level, likely level 75 - a level cap increase over the current level 70. The expansion will attempt to bring new players to the game by offering entire new lines of content and progression from the very first levels all the way through to the end.
The twelfth expansion will include quests and missions for all levels and will mostly focus on large zones over the smaller instanced missions of expansions like Dragons of Norrath and Depths of Darkhollow. With this focus on larger un-instanced zones, there will be more base content than the last few expansions but with no lack of quests. The intent with this focus is to get more players playing together in the same area rather than separating players out into groups of six and isolating them from other groups.
This expansion will include a full copy of the base Everquest game so with this single purchase alone, a player can begin the game at level one and progress all the way to level 75. The intent of the progression in this new expansion is to even allow this player a chance to reach the highest power and most challenging content of high-end raids. All of this resides in a single package.
The new expansion will also include a new starting city, although no details were available.
This expansion will also include new high-end raid content at and above the current high-end raid zones of Deathknell and Demiplane of Blood. Players of all levels will likely have new hunting areas available to them, regardless of their level.
As mentioned, the new expansion will likely increase the level cap to level 75. This will give high-end players a reason to hunt regularly for experience and will also increase the base power level of all high-end players above current level 70 limits. Content once inaccessible except by those in raid gear will become easier as players increase their base power by leveling to 75.
The expansion will also likely include new sets of Alternate Advancement points to further increase a high-level players power. Because of the abundance of high experience rewarding zones and the ease at which AAs can be earned at higher levels, the costs for these new abilities will likely be higher than previous expansions. One can remember the backlash against the high cost of AAs in Gate of Discord, but Norrath was a different place back then and with AAs coming at nearly one every fifteen minutes in instanced hunting zones like the Nest and the Hive, players will have little lack of places to earn them.
The Progression Server
For the past few months and even years, some players have asked SOE to return them to the older world of Everquest, a world without the Plane of Knowledge and without instances, a world where the economy wasn't flooded with powerful items for low costs. SOE answered this request with a new upcoming "Progression" server.
This server will begin with all expansions disabled. Only the base game will be active, although any changes to the base game such as zone revamps and class changes will stay in place thus making this a "progression" server and not a "classic" server. As groups of players activate certain triggers, such as killing boss mobs in the old world, each expansion will become unlocked. For example, supposing that Nagafen and Vox are the trigger mobs for opening up Kunark, when groups of players kill these two dragons, Kunark will be unlocked. When they kill Venril Sather and Trakanon, Velious may become unlocked.
SOE hopes that this server will give players a new starting ground on even territory. No character transfers will be allowed. Players will earn the low-end items earned seven years ago and be forced to defeat encounters with much lower power than currently available on normal Everquest servers with all eleven current expansions.
It is not yet known whether this server will be popular or not. Even the developers within SOE differ as to how this new server should operate. Will players play in a game with limited transportation and long corpse recoveries? Will veteran players ignore their high-powered characters on normal servers for lower powered characters who fight for days to earn lower powered rewards? Only time will tell.
The Death Penalty
Currently, players who die leave behind corpses wearing all of the character's gear. Resurrections and corpse recovery vendors in the Guild Lobby can help players recover their equipment, but newer players who do not understand these systems or have access to clerics able to resurrect have a harder time with corpse recovery than high end raiders who simply wait for a resurrection or spend a very small percentage of their money for a corpse summon.
SOE plans to look further into this system and possibly develop a new way to handle death in Everquest. Possible changes include optional respawning with full equipment but leaving behind a naked corpse that must still be resurrected for experience, or waiting on a respawn to let a group or raid member resurrect a player without forcing a zone. Details of a new death system are still unknown but expect more information soon.
Downtime
In relation to other current MMOs, Everquest has a large problem with player downtime. Characters who run out of mana or endurance at all levels of the game often have to sit for long periods of time to recuperate. Current games like Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft include a "combat state" system that understands when a player is in or out of combat.
SOE plans to build such a "combat state" system in Everquest. With this system in place, the game could see when a player has left combat and increase that character's regeneration of hitpoints, mana, and endurance to reduce the downtime a player faces when hunting at all levels of play.
Other Topics
SOE revealed more news of note and items of interest throughout the four day event.
With Rytan's departure as the spell guru, Prathun, the SOE designer known for designing high-end raid content, will take over spell development. Oshran, the designer behind Arcstone and the 70 spell missions in Depths of Darkhollow, will focus on new alternate advancement abilities as Rashere focuses on the overall design of Everquest.
Lead programmer Jamey Ryan is working on a dynamic reward system that will help solve the problem of players focusing on only the most rewarding content for experience or shards. As players focus their attention on one particular piece of content, the rewards will lower while the rewards on unused content will increase. This will help push players to try a variety of content rather than focus on only the most rewarding content for the lowest effort.
SOE revealed a new more traditional revamp to Nektulos Forest. Many complained that the existing revamp of Nektulos was too rigid in design, looking more like a movie prop than a forest. The new Nektulos follows the philosophy that a zone revamp should look much like the original. It includes real trees and the same general layout as the original Nektulos zone.
SOE sees the introduction of destructible objects, traps, and auras as the beginning of a more dynamic and interactive world in Everquest. Like the features released in previous expansions, expect to see these features used to create more dynamic and interactive environments, quests, and storylines.
The performance problems found in Elddar forest are due to strange effects of trees. SOE plans to look into these problems and perhaps fix them with a programming change.
Spell Research will likely be further improved to include spells from older expansions such as LDON and Omens of War.
The EQ Players website will likely include many more features. These features include guild roster lists in XML, a better system for guild websites and guild websites for EQ Live, and a new skinnable character page. Other more ambitious efforts were described as well but are likely to come out later as these features require in-game development and further discussions between the EQ Players developers and the EQ Live team.
Throughout the long weekend I sat with many of Everquest's current designers and programmers. They stayed up late and talked openly with their fans about all aspects of the game from large topics such as the new upcoming expansion to small ones such as spell balance between druids and wizards. Once again it was clear how much the SOE development team cares about their game. The Everquest development team continues to make bold and sometimes dangerous moves as it evolves over the years. The mission system, instancing, monster missions, spirit shrouds, the upcoming Progression server, and a new expansion built for players of all levels, all show how far the design team is willing to go to keep this venerable game fresh in the minds of both new and old players.
We have many new adventures ahead of us.
Loral Ciriclight
11 April 2006
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Simkine on April 13, 2006 08:14 AM
It will be interesting to see how one expansion will allow people to go from 1-75 in just the new expansion zones. If by "base" you mean original EQ (+ PoK I guess) there will need to be an awful lot of items dropping to gear people up properly through their levels. Itemization in the old world zones doesn't come close to offset the dps mobs hit for in later expansions. If that's the case, it could be quite interesting and might even bring other players into the game. If it's a situation where they expect people to twink out in bazaar gear just to play their levels, I don't see many new people staying.
It is good they're shying away from instances. I mean, really, instances were brought in to alleviate the content blocking at the highest levels. i.e. When one guild, possibly with a time zone advantage, would kill or spoil the event so that others couldn't continue progression. This type of design was never needed elsewhere and only made the game world barren.
The progression server I think will do fine. No, I don't see new people coming in to play. I also don't see a lot of veteran players quitting their high level toons to start over either. There will certainly be a huge kick off. I'm reminded of the 250+ level 1 Frogloks I met in Gukta when Ykesa came out. Once the honeymoon is over, the sever will stablize though.
It's not a classic server, and in that regard, will eventually become just another server over time. However, it does give a purpose to playing. A game world that will truly evolve, even if you know the outcome. I personally think there are more than enough people who would like to the chance to participate in this to make it function.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on April 13, 2006 11:17 AM
If they are following the example of other games, like WoW and EQ2, they will be adding rare drops that are very good, and a lot of missions that will award the necessary equipment to gear up people.
This equipment will also most likely be no drop, if they don’t want to automatically mess up the entire economy.
I also bet advancement will be mainly based around missioning instead of just pure kill xp.
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on April 13, 2006 11:39 AM
If the new server includes the tutorial, I assume exit will be to the proper starting city? That would be a big improvement over starting the game in POK. We learned our basic class skills in our home cities and newbie areas with others of our class and race ... think N Ro, Everfrost, FOB and Quenos Hills. Running around POK doing little quests doesn't offer the same training and bonding with other players.
It also sounds like the boats won't return. They had their problems but were an exciting part of the game and very beautiful to look at... especially the boat that docked in FV. The shouts of BOAT COMING were part of the character of play in E Fport.
I also wonder if factions will once again be important ....
Comment Posted by: Mecherdon on April 13, 2006 11:03 PM
I for one am excited about the progresion server and I will probly start all over with some of my friends that have moved on or whatnot we all miss the days sittin in turkey town playing. As for the downtime yes I would ineed like to see that revamped(mabey its just cause I am impatient). The new expansion I am not too too interested because atm I am too far behind to start again on my old toons just hope to start fresh on a fresh server
Comment Posted by: erz on April 13, 2006 11:43 PM
"Lead programmer Jamey Ryan is working on a dynamic reward system that will help solve the problem of players focusing on only the most rewarding content for experience or shards. As players focus their attention on one particular piece of content, the rewards will lower while the rewards on unused content will increase. This will help push players to try a variety of content rather than focus on only the most rewarding content for the lowest effort."
All though this sounds good on paper, and the intention behind it is a noble one, I'm cynical towards its implementation. Personally, I see this likely backfiring on SoE in an unexpected way. As it is now, players simply repeat missions such as the Creator, or the Thurgadin monster missions, and so on -- beyond these key missions, it's difficult to group. Introduce lower awards the more one does a mission, it runs the risk of introducting a new element to deciding on groups - multiple players having completed different sets of missions opting out of grouping together on the basis of not getting enough experience.
Further, there's a reason missions such as the Creator are so popular. The other ones are simply not worth the time and or risk involved. Having played through DoN's mission arcs, most of them frankly just aren't that enjoyable beyond the first run. They take upwards of three to four times longer to complete than a Creator mission yet offer only marginal increases in awards. Why sit through a 4 hour mission to receive 11 more crystals than a 15 minute creator run? Why risk a wipe in that four hours that completelty negates a crystal award.
Instead of punshing people for doing missions over and over, give incentives to do other missions. Having these missions give less of an award is a mistake - increase the risk vs reward on the unused missions. Frankly, even if this happened, some of these DoN/DoDH/PoR tasks are so poorly written and implemented I wouldn't do them for a 4x exp bonus mod.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on April 14, 2006 10:27 AM
It sounded like one of the benefits to a dynamic system is that player behaviors don't lie. If the rewards tune automatically, and people are continually avoiding the high reward mission, or are still running the low reward mission, its a pretty clear signal to the devs as to which missions really need to be tuned further.
Rashere noted that they technically follow this approach now, obviously though, they have to wait for a patch and then analyze the results, make another change, etc. Without the dynamic system though, it seems to me like people still find the little RvR niche and stick with it until the next round of changes get made. The dynamic reward system will help get people moving through additional events of similar difficulty, as opposed to simply running one theme all the time.
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 14, 2006 11:00 AM
The difference being right now that new players that want to play DoN are fairly limited to something like Creator because everyone figured that's the easiest way to get crystals and won't do any other. While I'm sure there are missions that are out of whack, there have to be at least SOME missions besides Creator that give decent reward for time and risk.
The best example I can think of is MMs. It was very obvious to see which MM everyone had figured out they could get the most out of. While there were other MMs where the experience was also good and the mission wasn't particularly hard, people flocked to the one MM where they got the most bang for their buck. This is the mentality that I think they want to steer people away from, the "I've learned this and am going to grind the hell out of it and not be available to do ANYTHING else in game."
Personally, I still prefer the giving the extra exp to first timers of an event because it gives someone trying to get a group together some leveraging room and still allows those that want to grind the ability to grind. But if what Naladini says is true, then maybe the dynamic way will work fine. Remember, you don't have to do ALL the missions. People will just have to find the five easiest instead of the one easiest.
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: Naladini on April 14, 2006 11:14 AM
Just keep in mind, I'm putting my own little spin and interpretation on some of those comments.
For the concept to be truely valuable, it more than likely needs to be applied in a situation where all of the missions are supposed to be equal in terms of time and reward. (LDoN and DoN are decent examples)
MM's aren't really perfect in this regard, in that they're not all supposed to take the same amount of time to complete. The rewards were tuned based on how long they were actually taking to complete.
If you have an uneven time duration for the missions, it will skew the numbers considerably if you're talking dynamic awards, because some people will gravitate towards shorter missions solely because they don't take as long to complete.
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 14, 2006 03:13 PM
/agree
My comment on MMs was solely the fact that, at least for awhile, everyone gravitated towards the EASIEST MM with the most exp. There may be 5 or 6 that were not difficult, but you always saw HUGE groups of people at one specific MM. If that MM or Creator mission is so much easier than everything else in game, than they do prolly need to be nerfed or more content needs to be brought to that level. Personally, I feel like everyone figures out where they get the most, and then that particular mission/instance/zone gets all the attention. They need to fix this. It's really a boring game when there's so much content and yet everyone is too concerned about grinding in the ONE easiest place.
Thus, extra exp for trying new things or a dynamic mission system that takes away exp for doing the same thing constantly -- really, it's about making it worthwhile to try different things. I would never suggest people need to do the worst missions. But I'm sure besides Creator there's got to be other DoN missions that can be done in a reasonable amount of time.
I still prefer getting a reward to trying something new as opposed to "punishing" someone who likes to grind. I think Everquest should be about exploration and trying new and different things, and people who have that playstyle should be rewarded for it. Just makes sense to me. Why get the best reward in game for repeating things over and over ad nauseum as right now people do with Creator or certain MMs:( But that's just an opinion....
Oh, yeah, add to that the more difficult Omens runes. Seems like a better way of making these things would be to get no drop items out of a series of zones that are difficult but not extremely rare. This sitting in one zone for months at a time like people do is just not immersive to a good game, IMHO. And, no, I'm not doing them. But some of my friends, they have very valid complaints on this. Come on, developers. You got all this great stuff, this wonderful buffet of content, and everyone's piled up eating the McNuggets in the corner. Bad game design that we really need to get away from. Again, just a humble opinion....
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: wiggle on April 14, 2006 05:52 PM
Well, you can blame instances for this problem. If this perfect spot wasn't in an instance you would have 1 or 2 groups there and everyone else would need to move someplace else. Perhaps while doing so, find another area that happens to be just as good.
In a place like Karnors or Velks, there were premium spots and ok spots. People waiting to join groups, people popping in an out. Always lots of chatter and generally a good time by all. Now everyone sits in their single group, isolated instance, and tries to see how many times they can finish it to get as many AA's (or whatever) per hour as possible.
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 15, 2006 02:16 PM
Wiggle, that's a very good point I hadn't thought of. Instances do indeed increase this problem. However, even in the olden times, there were areas completely ignored. I think there has to be a creative way to inspire players to play more of the content, whether it's instanced or zone-based or quest-based or item-based. Not all the content, mind you. As it is right now, if there were numbers on it, I'm pretty sure 95 percent of new content is being ignored by the time a new expansion comes out. But instancing has aggravated the problem greatly. Once someone posts or /tells where the best exp is, there's absolutely no limit on how many people can and will go there.
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on April 16, 2006 12:27 AM
I just think it's sad that now there are so many expansions that are completely ignored. LDoN and Gates and completely barren, Kunark through Luclin are just for like epics and dragon raids and midlevels and stuff like that, I mean it's good though all their great higher level stuff is pretty much ignored completely. I don't know, and with the new tutorial and people popping into Pok, I guarantee you there have to be new players that have gone through most of the game without ever going to their home city. There's just no reason anymore, I mean some cities were always empty like Erudin and Grobb but Kelethin, Freeport, Qeynos... they were always bustling with people. Heck even the other cities had a couple people in them and a number of guys in the newbie zones.... Except for Erudin, Grobb and Oggok really... poor troolz :( Anyway... I'm real interested in the all level stuff that's planned for the new expansion. The DoD big zones are like empty too, it's such a waste.
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on April 17, 2006 03:52 PM
Until the experience and rewards are equal in equal level zones, many zones will remain empty. With no reason to ever visit a starting city post tuturial, these old, interesting cities will remain empty.
Remaking the graphics in Neriak and FreePort is a waste of time because there is no reason to be there. I asked a couple of guildies if they had visited the NEW FPort and the answer was ... only once when we fell off Arc. The city is dead. When it was a true sea port, everyone who wanted to travel had to visit it and WAIT for the boat ... which made it a gathering place as well as a place to shop, quest and bank.
Thinking ahead to the Progressive Server, now that FV is Evil, there will be no place for good races playing in FM or LOIO to bank or shop or meet up for buffs ... so those zones will stay dead. There were often 100+ players in the zones pre Luclin so it was easy to make new friends, find a group and enjoy the /ooc banter.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on April 18, 2006 11:12 AM
Wiggle said "Well, you can blame instances for this problem. If this perfect spot wasn't in an instance you would have 1 or 2 groups there and everyone else would need to move someplace else. Perhaps while doing so, find another area that happens to be just as good."
Or you could look at it from the perspective that you camped a spawn in an open zone, such as Karnors and when the mob popped you had the mob KS'd or you were trained and then KS'd, or you couldnt get to the camp because its camped 24-7 for a group of players. And their alts.
Instanced zones, especially in the GoD/OOW era were tests, to go hand in hand with open content or places to go when good camps were taken. The balance was a good one.
But when DoN and DoD came out the balance changed and it appeared essential for progression to use the instanced content. The open zones, where drops were not as good became abandoned.
I like instanced content, but it didnt kill off open content, bad itemization did that.
Comment Posted by: Wiggle on April 18, 2006 01:37 PM
I wouldn't say instance content killed off open content more that I'd say instance content killed off the game. Hyperbole aside, it certainly was a contributing factor in my opinion.
On paper, I like the concept but when put into use, specifically for anything other than top raid progression content, it wasn't healthy for the game.
No one likes getting KS'd or finding a camp taken but this and other factors contributed to a living thriving game world. It made people travel through the game hunting, meeting new people, learning new areas, gave people rep (good and bad), a sense of community. The bumps and frustration you get make the rewards all the more sweet and the friendships tighter.
LDoN was popular but started a trend that wasn't healthy for the game. The amount of effort it took to obtain rewards was ridiculous. It started off the new game mechanic of standing in one zone and pushing out exp with no connect to the game world or people you played with. Did anyone remember who they grouped with after they finished an LDoN (as fast as possible) and disbanded?
GoD instances were basically top raid level. The others were so out of tune back then that pratically no one did them. In fact, not many even bothered with GoD it was too hard and by the time OOW came out, the rewards weren't worth the bother except for the progression guilds.
OOW instances like the sewers were an idea where you could at least find a spot to exp if various camps were taken. This got taken too far when it was found how to camp the named for runes early on and it became the only place to camp. Once that got nerfed people spread out into the zones and actually brought some semblence of normality back to EQ.
DoN killed that fast. Personally, I think DoN was a great expansion (But I was already a EQ addict) but it did nothing to build upon EQ's immersiveness. It was what LDoN should of been but putting it in the way the did, did not encourage community only 1 night stand like pick up groups. The non instances should of been used better but why bother when you can run a Creator over and over. And again, did you remember who was in your group after it was over?
Monster missions just took anything good about instances and threw it out. They should never of been given the rewards they were for such trivial events. When you can this game without penality and without even playing your actual character, you may as well give us a GOD mode cheat code and get it over with.
Comment Posted by: Fartek on April 18, 2006 07:00 PM
Creators arent only done because of the ease of them. I for one am a Dwarf Warrior, no one does any thundercrest missions on the server me and loral are on except creator missions it seems... I am working on Tradeskilling and attempting to get my gm cultural quest done etc, Creators allow me to do the quest, possibly get to roll on a Metallic Drake Scale and give a decent crystal reward and xp for the time... im not doing it for the xp or the crystals... im doing them for the quest. 14k unbuffed warrior... 900 aas... dont really need the xp or crystals for cash... but damned if i cant get a grp to do any other thundercrest missions.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on April 19, 2006 05:46 PM
"Did anyone remember who they grouped with after they finished an LDoN (as fast as possible) and disbanded?"
This is an interesting complaint: that instances like LDON reduce socialization with your own group. People have said the same thing about WoW. But why would that be the case? It's not merely the fact that it's an instance. Of course that eliminates socialization with people outside your group, but one might think that would increase socialization within it.
Some candidates:
1) The time constraints. There's no time to just chat if you want to finish the mission. (But that's not the case in all instances.)
2) The group is focused on achieving a specific task rather than just killing mobs for a while.
But I'm going to go with:
3) Reduced downtime. Instances typically involve more movement than open zones and less time sitting in one place waiting for mobs to be pulled. But beyond that I suspect people are conflating the tendency toward instances with other tendencies in the game which reduce enforced downtime.
So is Raph right that players really want downtime and they just don't know it? Well, I guess it all depends on your Bartle's score I suppose. I'll take fast-paced exciting gameplay myself.
Comment Posted by: Corwyhn on April 20, 2006 11:59 AM
I think the idea of dynamic experience based on how often a zone is played is an interesting concept but there are other factors that have to be considered. What will happen to tradeskills if playing in a particular zone a lot reduces the exp for it? Creator is a prime source for drake hides and scales. If someone does the mission a lot to get drops for tradeskills should they be penalized by their the amount of exp they get being cut?
I think the idea of SOE being able to adjust exp with the game live as opposed to waiting for a patch would be great to implement. I also think having dynamic reporting would be great also. But I dont think letting the zones automatically change exp based on usage is a good idea. EQ has relatively slower game progression as it is. This would make it even slower.
In the Arcstone zones you can get some nice armour drops but they can require a lot of camping to get. People may not be doing it for the exp and at level 70 its nowhere close to fast exp as it is. Will it be nerfed even further? Spell runes for 69 and 70 spells. Again they can sometimes require a lot of camping. Will the cost of that be reducing exp for the players who need these items? I have spent a lot of time helping guild members get spells there. Should I be penalized for spending a lot of time in a particular zone?
With the exception of the programming to make it happen dynamic exp seems a great idea. A lot less work for the design staff of eq to be sure. But its not the answer because there are a lot of reasons for people doing content other then the fast exp.
I think the ideal solution is to build a system that will alllow greater and more accurate dynamic reporting of zone usage AND that allows more *live* tweaking of various things to balance out zones. By various things I mean that the what is used to balance out zone usage has to be more then just adjusting exp. Adjusting mob difficulties, the loot that drops, access to the zone etc.
Players do not like to be forced into certain content and not everyone does content based on the exp rewards. I did a certain amount of highkeep MMs but probably far less then many players did. The answer to that was not a dynamic exp system it was being able to make live changes to the exp reward when it was clear it was far in excess of what was intended. If the exp adjustment had happened much more quickly for that MM there would have been far less whining about it.
Comment Posted by: Skuz on April 20, 2006 05:12 PM
There seems to be so much negativity going on here, "Dynamic REWARD" .....if you are pessimistic that means nerf the hell out of stuff if you do it often.
I like to think a cup is half full not half empty, to my mind a "Dynamic REWARD" would mean that those who choose to bottom-feed will be no worse off than they are presently, so ts etc blah de blah are not made any more tedious than they already are, but that you get a "BONUS" for looking at other missions, and thus SoE are giving an incentive to try the rest of the stuff rather than just do the easiest.
Seriously, bunch of moaners!
Comment Posted by: erz on April 20, 2006 07:01 PM
Skuz,
it's a penalty system thus far. I'd agree with you if the baseline didn't change, however as taken from this article
" As players focus their attention on one particular piece of content, the rewards will lower while the rewards on unused content will increase"
The more you do it, the lower the rewards. That's punishment.
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 20, 2006 10:01 PM
I still like the simplicity of giving extra exp for doing new stuff. While the "dynamic" concept seems interesting, I do feel anytime there's a perceived feeling that something is being "taken away" people are going to be unhappy. Don't take away. Just give extra for those that actually do different things, those that walk the untread path. Put more questing and exploration back into the game by having a reward system for those that don't want to repeat a formula but want to try different things.
Come on. Say it with me. Double exp for doing new instances, zones, quests, missions for the first 1, 2, or 3 times. You'll suddenly have people trying something new if they want exp, not sitting in an MM forever.
I disagree with taking away from the people who are comfortable repeating Creator or anything else. If that's what they like to do, I harbor no ill will towards them. But for those that do it just because it's the easiest experience, give an alternative that doesn't just move everyone to the next easiest zone, but has them moving through a much broader amount of content to get their double exp. It's simple. Don't make it complicated.
Taking away always leads to unhappiness among your population. With the ease of MMs and the amount of time extremely easy ones were allowed to exist, SOE has shown that it doesn't care all that much how quickly people level. If you can do it with MMs, do it with this. Maybe it's me, but it really seems simple....
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: Glormane on April 21, 2006 09:06 AM
I think its just different points of view (to Wiggle). I dont think instanced zones killed off the game. I enjoyed LDoN and think they helped me form groups, something, I think others would rather have their eyes gouged out, than do. I think many see the original EQ through rose tinted glasses, and forget the timesinks, cockblocking and massive downtime.
Like I said before especially with DoD, the itemisation was off. We killed a mob in Stoneroot that was tougher than the boss in a few of the missions, and got a drop that was 40hps/mana/end less.
Another part of the problem may be SoE's lack of policing of static zones.
People describe the training and killstealing by Pharmers and Greedy Uberguilds as a part of the perils of the zone, not a persistant problem.
When the Fabled were around, our guildleader camped the Fabled King in Chardok for a few days. When it popped, another guild, who were without a rogue to open a door our guild was past, sprang a trap,which pulled the king and wiping both raids. As they had a cleric camped they recovered quicker and took the spawn. The word on my lips wasn't 'thriving'.
SoE's response was for the two guilds to enter into mediation. As you can imagine we are still waiting.
I happen to like a purpose to my mission, I'm not so keen to just clearing a static spawn. I rarely group with different people anyway, but I do have the occassional guildy different in my group, and yes I remember all their names.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on April 21, 2006 01:21 PM
The problem with just giving a reward to unused content but not giving penalties for doing the same content over and over is that it wont change much. All that will happen is that maybe people will keep doing the same content over and over and once in a blue moon, once they see the bonus for an undone mission is at it's peak, they will do it once, and then go back to the repetition.
Problem with it?
Some have noted it before here: If you truly want to do a different thing you just cant because no one wants to do anything but Creator or whatever is the most rewarding for the less amount of effort at the time. This is a huge issue that those who say "just reward whoever wants to do something else and leave us alone" ignore.
As for people farming a mission for things other than the final reward:
1) we don’t really know if this will be global or personalized to the character
2) They are doing the mission for farming so the lowering of reward may not really affect them that much (as they would do the content even if there was no reward)
Also we don’t know what reward will be lowered, if XP per enemy per enemy or just the final crystals earned for competition, but I guess it will come in the form of final mission bonus, not per kill xp penalty.
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 21, 2006 06:57 PM
Correct me if I am wrong but they already have this dynamic reward system to a degree. It is just now it is implemented from within the patch system. Take the Monster Mission system. People went to certain easy ones; those easy ones got their rewards adjusted down. People went to the next easier one, same thing happened. The harder ones still give much better rewards if you can finish them, however you are pretty bloody unlikely to find anyone to go try them. The end result is people going elsewhere and a huge drop in anyone doing them.
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 21, 2006 08:14 PM
Ogulbuk wrote: "The problem with just giving a reward to unused content but not giving penalties for doing the same content over and over is that it wont change much. All that will happen is that maybe people will keep doing the same content over and over and once in a blue moon, once they see the bonus for an undone mission is at it's peak, they will do it once, and then go back to the repetition."
I beg to differ. I think more likely the people who truly want easy exp will repeat Creator or whatever. I think the people who want to level the fastest will quickly learn to que up 3 to 5 fairly easy missions and round up groups to do them. What's the difference? Well, at least 3 to 5 missions that were untouched before will now be played, and possibly more. Because instead of everyone going to Alla or whatever their favorite board is and learning that it's a waste to do anything but Creator, there will suddenly be some INCENTIVE to learning other missions.
This will suddenly allow those who desire fast experience to link with those who want to try something new. I find this preferrable to:
Double Exp weekend and HHK leading to people playing the same thing over and over and over and over to level their character up. With a system that rewards people for doing ANY new mission, you would have people playing Mission A, C, M, X, and Z. I tend to think groups walking away from this experience are having a "truer" EQ experience than sitting in HHK MM for 3 days straight. One experience you prolly want to forget, while the other is something you hopefully will enjoy remembering:) (and double exp may be too much, but something noticeably better than sitting in Creator would be preferrable)
And I'm not against dynamic experience. I'm just concerned that if you take away people's ability to play in a way that they're used to, they will quit the game. It's not the way I prefer to play. I consider myself an explorer/quester type more than anything, but I respect other people playing the game in a way which they enjoy.
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on April 22, 2006 10:20 AM
Well i have seen extremely worse nerfs than these and altough you see people scream doom, they dont quit at all. I highly doubt this dynamic reward thing would make people go away. Maybe some may stop playing for a week but not much else.
As for the people just looping the 3 easiest missions, thats asuming how the system will work. We dont know if its a per week counter, or a counter that will go down every time you do a diferent mission forcing you to do at least 50% of the missions in the full arc to be able to once more get full reward on that mission.
Comment Posted by: Corwyhn on April 23, 2006 10:59 AM
Some of the comments here are interesting. It seems some players who want to try lots of new content are in favor of a system that forces people who like to do the same content over and over into trying the new content. Why should someone be forced,prodded or pushed into doing something other then what seems to be giving them the most fun out of the game? I have led a guild for several years and one of its major tenets is that each player has a right to have fun the way they enjoy the most as long as it is not causing harm to others.
I recall Ultima Online and how they said players wanted to police PKers themselves and that it would bring them together and balance out the PK activities. UO told us how we wanted PKing (non conensual PVP). Funny thing is most of the people didnt want it, never enjoyed it. It wasnt about equal contests or fights it was mostly about 5 guys ganging up on Bon out cutting wood or Joe exploring a dungeon on his own. SOE should learn that you cant force people to do what they dont want to do.
Forcing people to go to new content based on exp is not the answer. Give them reasons to go to it, balance it out with other content. But if two zones were created unequal simply shifting the exp awards around does not fix the problem unless that was the only issue to begin with. This assumes that difficulty, drop rates, drop types, quality of drops, difficulty of encounters, access, zone art, lag rates, and a myriad other factors arent to blame. The ONLY way a dynamic exp reward rebalancing would work is is exp rewards were the only reason some zones were more popular then others.
The other problem that this exp balancing could create is that for non instanced content it will spread the player base out far too much. Right now people complain about not being able to get groups for content they want to do. Some thing forcing people into the content they want to do is the answer. Well at least atm SOME non instanced zones have a healty player base from which to get groups. Spread that out and among more zones and you will get less chanes for groups but in more places. Not the answer either.
Maybe SOE has taken all these things into consideration. But I would like to hear more on how they think this dynamic exp will work. I jus think that there are far too many factos they may not have considered.
And as far as new content most of the LFG activity seems to be based on what quest people are doing not the best exp. At least the activity I have seen myself.
Comment Posted by: Velorek on April 24, 2006 07:58 AM
"The ONLY way a dynamic exp reward rebalancing would work is is exp rewards were the only reason some zones were more popular then others."
That's just it...exp rewards are the primary reason why some are more popular than others (with loot being a very close second). Most players want the best exp in the quickest amount of time with the least amount of risk.
I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand here. They have tools to monitor who is doing what instanced content. They can build a dynamic system that will slowly shift exp rewards one way or another depending on use. Everything has a base exp reward and goes up or down from there over time. Thus, Creators and Blackwing missions will slowly give less exp rewards since everyone seems to gravitate towards them. Meanwhile, other, lessutilized instances will slowly see their exp rewards increase.
People state that players don't do these missions because there is not enough incentive. Well what do you think dynamic rewards is intended to do? Create that incentive.
I do agree that along with the system, the devs may want to review every mission for overall balance. Perhaps increase the drop rates of scales/hides in other missions over Creator, or add a few more rare drops to them, as a means of creating extra incentive to do those missions that require 3 or more hours to complete, even by a very good group.
Personally, I'm not totally in favor of dynamic exp rewards because there are a few missions that I really do enjoy grinding to. However, I also think that a dynamic rewards system is needed for the overall health of the game.
Comment Posted by: Corwyhn on April 24, 2006 03:01 PM
"People state that players don't do these missions because there is not enough incentive. Well what do you think dynamic rewards is intended to do? Create that incentive."
What I don't understand is that if the amount of exp is the only difference between the missions and people just want fast exp why do we care if they are doing the same mission over and over as oppposed to doing different missions? Why does it matter if one instance is done ad finitum as opposed to 10 instances being done a 10th as often?
If there were 10 zones or instances that gave exactly the same exp rewards there would probably still be some reason some were more popular. Why we would want a system that will push people away from that doesn't make any sense.
I think that with overall player levels on somewhat of a decline that we would be better served concentrating on fewer higher quality zones instead of trying to spread the player population out amongst more zones.
Of course I know little of how the actual system will work and so all my comments don't really mean much until we see details on such a system. I just know that for myself there are a lot of factors that come into play when I pick where I want to fight and exp is not the primary one all or most of the time.
Comment Posted by: Hemdell on April 24, 2006 06:41 PM
I totally agree with the above post. Why should it matter to anyone what I do with my time. To me it goes back to the selfishness of certain peeps. The, "I want to do all missions and I want SOE to force peeps to do them with me so I have a group" crowd. Very Bad Idea!! It is and should stay like Wall Street - Let the market decide what is to be played.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 24, 2006 10:55 PM
the only thing I see that could potentially happen is someone could find 2 relatively easy Monster missions.. do one till they get a max bonus.. then kick off the second one for a huge bonus creating a system that encourages people to just go between the 2 easy monster missions so they could maintain a bonus between them.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on April 25, 2006 08:21 AM
I would say you were right about Creators and DoN instanced zones. Doing DoN’s hits all the developmental needs of a character.
1. XP
2. Skill increases – both built in skills like 1 h s, conjuration etc and game smarts, i.e. how to play ones class.
3. gear upgrades – either through crystals or tradeskills or the sale thereof.
One could argue that the routineness of the same thing over and over again doesn’t teach a player about how to play his class, but there are still bad pulls etc.
Apply the same theory to Monster Missions, and only 1 of the above criteria is satisfied. Players doing the same MM over and over may get 1 or 2 pieces of loot as an upgrade, but that’s all, and no skill upgrades. In the cases of the HHK MM’s you had people gaining literally dozens of levels and the skills gap when they tried to play there own class. I wouldn’t call this selfish to want people to develop fully there character, but a desire to ensure the player base on the server you played on didn’t contain such a deficiency, so that, if you group with someone at lvl 70, they know how to play and don’t fizzle a complete heal.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 25, 2006 10:05 AM
No one is stopping you from doing what you want to do in the game. If you want to sit and do the same mission over and over and over and over a thousand times, and that is what you like to do, then go for it. Any system that balances reward will not affect that at all. You should still be able to get the same enjoyment from the game.
I think it ironic that someone who claims that any of these changes would ruin their play would call other people "selfish." What they are saying is that they want their stuff. They want it now. Don't you dare change it. Anyone who disagrees with them is "selfish." I consider that to be pretty much the most self centered attitude there can be.
What monster missions proved was that the only reason these missions are so popular is that the rewards are so out of sync with the rest of the game as to make them the prime spot to play. If the rewards are modified to be consistant with the rest of the game, then they are no longer popular. That says that people don't do them because they are fun. They play them purely since the reward is much much better than anywhere else.
A system that will balance the reward vs. effort should be good for everyone. It will make it so you can go play the missions that are fun and know that the reward is balanced with the rest of the missions. You'll be back to playing the game to have fun instead of just milking some boring mission for a reward.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Hemdell on April 25, 2006 05:50 PM
It seems to me that if the majority of the player base is playing a certain way and a few are playing another, then it is the Minority that is to change. If that is selfish, ok then it is lol. That is how this world works Majority rules, unless the courts force something else down yer throat ;-)
I also would like someone to define. "You'll be back to playing the game to have fun instead of just milking some boring mission for a reward." What if that is some peoples way of have FUN? Please dont post to tell others how or what is fun I am sure we are all big enough boys and girls to know how to have fun playing EQ.
I am not saying I dont like idea of giving more xp to people who do more different missions. I am saying that getting less XP because I dont want to do other missions is CRAP. LOL
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 25, 2006 05:58 PM
Glormane wrote: I wouldn’t call this selfish to want people to develop fully there character, but a desire to ensure the player base on the server you played on didn’t contain such a deficiency, so that, if you group with someone at lvl 70, they know how to play and don’t fizzle a complete heal.
---
Considering this is a game you can choose to play any way you want. if someone didnt develop their character exactely the way you want you have the right to not group with them. but you dont have the right to spank them and say, now go and do it the way I tell you to.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 25, 2006 06:03 PM
Keisa wrote:I think it ironic that someone who claims that any of these changes would ruin their play would call other people "selfish." What they are saying is that they want their stuff. They want it now. Don't you dare change it. Anyone who disagrees with them is "selfish." I consider that to be pretty much the most self centered attitude there can be.
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so you dont consider it selfish to force people to change content just because you think they are overworking certain instances?
my opinion of selfish is when someone looks at a group of content people doing content and say. but I want to do this other content, no one wants to do it with me. can you please nerf that content so they will have to do this other stuff?.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 26, 2006 10:12 AM
Armarant wrote: "so you dont consider it selfish to force people to change content just because you think they are overworking certain instances?"
It doesn't matter what I think, because I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I have no control over what SOE does. It is their game and under their control what happens to it. Furthermore, if this is implemented, no one will be forced to do anything. The same missions will still be there, just at a lesser reward.
Aramant wrote: "my opinion of selfish is when someone looks at a group of content people doing content and say. but I want to do this other content, no one wants to do it with me. can you please nerf that content so they will have to do this other stuff?."
Wow, I don't even know how to respond to this. If enough players were indeed playing any mission to the exclusion of all other content in the game then by all means it would need to be changed. It isn't a case of whether someone can't find a group or not. If you cannot admit that such a thing would be bad for the game, then we have precious little common ground to debate on. 200-300 people crowded into HHP cramming one mission over and over should set off warning flags somewhere. You can't honestly tell me that you think they were there because that mission is so much more fun than any other mission, especially since almost no one does it anymore.
There was one and only one reason that all those people were there. The reward for that mission was so out of whack with the rest of the game that people were willing to do it over and over for that reason alone no matter how boring the mission is. Eliminating places in the game where the reward is so out of whack as to cause a feeding frenzy is good for the overall health of the game.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Corwyhn on April 26, 2006 11:28 AM
I think this is where we need more information. My main question would be how far reaching would a dynamic exp system be? If it was just used for monster missions or just instanced zones as a whole or does it include static regular zones?
I could see it being effective if limited to MM type missions. You are not collecting drops from them, exp is for the mission as a whole not per creature grinding, your reward is received once.
MMs are probably the simplest form of exp'ing and best illustrate the issues. But it would seem to be the dynamic exp system would be a bandage fix for MM's that get designed with loopholes that let them be completed too easily. Balancing out the exp between MM's sounds good but it also encourages design laziness to some extent and one would hope that redesigns or fixes would still be implemented for MMs that end up being far easier then intended. One could argue this makes it easier for SOE because if a mm is published that is far too easy its exp bonus would drastically drop and when a fix was put in there would not be a big stink made about it because by then it wasnt giving good exp anyway.
I think the fact that MMs are about a one time reward, exp and playing an interesting storyline lend them to a dynamic exp system.
But I will be honest my own personal concern is not about MM missions but the use of the system in other types of instanced zones or in regular static content. I don't play MMs for a specific reason. I just enjoy playing my character not a variety of monsters or NPCs. I only played MM's for exp (not nearly as much as many) and for the item reward (and only did that twice).
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 26, 2006 02:45 PM
Keisa wrote:There was one and only one reason that all those people were there. The reward for that mission was so out of whack with the rest of the game that people were willing to do it over and over for that reason alone no matter how boring the mission is.
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its easy to assume people were there for that reason, but people were also there because for once they could have a reliable chance at attaining a group without having to wait a hour LFG. sure the zone could have used some better balancing.
overall there were alot better places to get experience from then that one monster mission during the double experience weekend, people were grabbing nest missions left and right getting alot of AA from there but you have yet to hear anyone call for a nerf to the nest.
---
Keisa wrote:If enough players were indeed playing any mission to the exclusion of all other content in the game then by all means it would need to be changed. It isn't a case of whether someone can't find a group or not. If you cannot admit that such a thing would be bad for the game, then we have precious little common ground to debate on.
----
I beleive that this is just that.. a game. no one should have the right to dictate how one can level up. what zones they visit. what raids they do. or even when they can play. once you get into dictating how people should be playing the game, you have lost all aspect of a game and created work.
while I do beleive that the HHK monster mission did need tuneing. I also beleive that what they did was overkill in response to all the negative posts.
there is one thing for certain though, it showed how little opportunity there is for new players to break into the game now. and how it will only become tougher as monster missions become tougher to complete and people only feel safe with a veteran player in the instance.
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 26, 2006 02:56 PM
> 200-300 people crowded into HHP cramming one
> mission over and over should set off warning
> flags somewhere.
You are so right, this shows just how far out of whack things are. Not in the mission, but rather in the rest of the game. I can get double the exp of that MM (pre nerf) in a good RSS group. With people of my AA and gear level there is also almost no risk and much better loot rewards. Many classes can solo in PoF for better exp again with little or no risk if they are flagged and geared. Even the AFK exp in an RSS, Fire, swarm kiting bard, 69.1 kiting group is better if you can find a group that will let you afk. So what gives?
No everyone has my gear, flags or AAs. This is the most exp they can make regardless of gear. Many tanks cant tank in RSS, many people are not flagged for fire. This is the ‘best’ they can do with there time in terms of progression. Yes some may be lazy people who could go elsewhere for similar gains but that is far from the whole picture.
I will admit that there is a disconnect for AFKers. In a regular group you are punished more if a person is not contributing (Not as much exp and the exp is spit an extra time for the person…). Yes I know the 6th person does not impact the exp split, but the argument still stands. Exp is given equally regardless of contribution or lack thereof.
The real issue is relative reward elsewhere. No MM ever generated more exp than could be found elsewhere given the right conditions, class, flags and gear. The nerfing of these is just the forcing them not into more risk, more exp as they are not geared to be able to take advantage of it. It is rather a pushing back down of people who cannot fully exploit the current high end high reward content even in open zones.
If you want people to ‘return’ to grouping normally, taking away the ability to solo for meaningful exp would be much more effective. Make all mobs have a random chance to summon or randomly unsnarable (and not flee on low health). Make it so the less geared can exp for more meaningful gains. MMs were a symptom of the problem; they were not the problem itself. Fix the problem not the symptoms. If MMs were the best exp to be had in the game it would be a different story, but they are and were always far from it.
I don’t do MMs, I can get and do get better exp and rewards elsewhere. So I do.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 26, 2006 03:50 PM
Philomath,
What exactly do you think is broken? Are you saying that everyone should have the capability to get the same experience regardless of their equipment, AA, and flags? If that is the case, then what incentive would there be to get new equipment and earn AAs or flags?
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 26, 2006 06:28 PM
Of course not.
I put a lot of time and effort into my gear. AAs, flags and the like. Because of that I can already do better than MMs in all respects. I can already do content which results in much better gear, much better exp and progresses me in ways not open to them. I think the issue is that for many of the 200-300 people in HHK at the time (not all), that is the best they can do for themselves where they are at. It just illustrates the gap in a profound way. I don’t think the amount of exp or gear given in those is anywhere near exploitative as everyone at my level or higher receives so much more benefit than MMs ever got for the same time given.
I agree with the premise that my rewards should be greater than someone doing lesser content. How much greater should be my rewards? Should they be profoundly better in all areas like they are now? I already get much better gear then they could ever dream of for my efforts? Should I also be getting more exp and AAs than they could ever dream of for the same time invested? I don’t have a good answer for that, but I will say that the result of it currently working that way keeps the gap growing. I am just lucky enough to be on the reward receiving side of that gap.
I honestly believe the popularity of the MMs were only a symptom of a larger issue, as was the reaction to it.
Comment Posted by: bonkers on April 26, 2006 10:02 PM
Well, I remember when the werewolf MM was going, probably similar to the HHK one but I quit by then. I was getting 100+ AA a day. People were leveling level 1 toons to 70 because any level with any gear could join.
Without it nerfed anyone, anyone who wanted, would have max AA in weeks.
That doesn't sound....wrong?
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 27, 2006 12:15 AM
bonkers wrote:Without it nerfed anyone, anyone who wanted, would have max AA in weeks.
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Obviously it should not give you tremendous amounts of experience. and if I am right that was before they put in the 45 minute timer right?. so if it where in now you would get 64 AA a day max. and that is if you were at your computer for the full 24 hours. and thats considering the MM gave 2 AA per 45 minute round and you would be ready for another go right away (no one from group leaving)
in the same 24 hours in a nest mission you could get around 120 AA in a 24 hour period if you keep killing constantly for 24 hours straight and maintain 5 AA a hour. (with 4 kills = 1 AA during double experience weekend)
Comment Posted by: bonkers on April 27, 2006 06:04 AM
But with MM you didn't need anything but a pulse to get massive exp. For the Nest example, you need several other well equipped people. For MM, you need only draw from the other 95% of the EQ population, no level or gear required. There are possible a few zones where similar exp can maintain a group or two, not 300-400 people at once.
And with the timers, people just leveled up their alts.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on April 27, 2006 08:13 AM
Armarant wrote "Considering this is a game you can choose to play any way you want. if someone didnt develop their character exactely the way you want you have the right to not group with them. but you dont have the right to spank them and say, now go and do it the way I tell you to."
Absolutely right, as long as the same people dont, once reaching lvl 70, max AA's complain they cant handle zones like RSS/Nest/DoD missions because their spells are fizzling or they cant hit a mob because their weapon skills are too low.
It has been well advertised that Monster Missions were designed for people of class or level that were finding it difficult to get xp and or groups. It allowed 6 people who would not normally be able to group to grind out a little xp/aa.
Now by accident or design, the xp level got blown up out of all proportion. SoE have said themselves that MM's were not supposed to give out rewards better than normal play.
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 27, 2006 11:14 AM
Doing PoF tables,RSS, Nest etc for 24 hours a day will give you more exp than doing MMs all day (after lockout was added). Should we drop the experience given for those by half to put them in line with other sources of exp so people don’t get to the AA cap? I bet removal of the exp bonus for fighting mobs near or above your level would fix that. Before MMs existed people PLed alts to 70, epics and 100s of AAs in a week, was this different cause you didn’t needed boxes do it? You need 3 to get a MM...shrug.
The experience is not better than can be had elsewhere.
The loot rewards are far worse than can be had elsewhere.
A player does not have to do them.
If someone levels up here and has level 40 gear and skills, how is that different than being PLed by a bard or kiting group like people did before then?
I doubt anyone (after lockout) was getting over 2 AAs an hour, which for 24 hours would be 48 AAs a day or 336ish for a week of no sleep. To get to max would take a month of never sleeping.
This seems to be more of an issue about people who can do better in terms of exp and loot worrying about the lesser players catching up, in my opinion.
> But with MM you didn't need anything but a pulse to get massive exp.
Just like the PoF tables or kiting Nest or 69.1. In fact I would say the MM takes much more interaction than those.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 27, 2006 11:51 AM
Philomath Wrote: "This seems to be more of an issue about people who can do better in terms of exp and loot worrying about the lesser players catching up, in my opinion."
I view it more like broken rules in a game. Assume you are playing basketball, and all of a sudden, if anyone throws the ball out of the end of the court, it counts gives two points. Now all skills the players trained up are trivialized by a much simpler system that gives the same reward. Why try to put the ball in a little hoop when you can get good rewards for doing something that requires no skill at all? You can argue that there are better points that can be earned (three point shots/plays), but it pretty much trivializes the game.
Honestly, I don't care if Joe Blow gets to 70 with 1500 exp. I could care less how he does it. I'm not in competition with Joe. What I like is a game that has a consistent play environment. MM rewards destroyed all semblance of order in the game.
Consider this. When a new server is released, make a new character in Rivervale. See if someone hasn't pulled an NPC to zone so they can run the same mission over and over. See if you can even click on either of the NPCs due to all the people standing around them. Why do you think all those people are doing that? It is because the reward for fetch and carry between two characters is so much better than competing with 50 or so people for the few bugs and bixies that are spawning in Misty Thicket. It's an aboration of the environment. It has nothing to do with playing the game and everything to do with gaming the system.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 27, 2006 12:46 PM
I agree with you in principal however I think you are vastly overstating the effort required to quad at the tables, kite the nest or 69.1 or what used to be swarming HoH basement.
I would like to point out that the argument has now changed not to the amount of experience but rather the ease of getting it. Many methods of grouping are much easier than doing a MM and give much greater rewards. Should we take away quading, agro-kiting swarming? Even in traditional groups of tank slower healer, almost all the high reward group content is trivial especially is just trying for experience.
Amount of experience has almost never been a true reflection of effort but rather a reflection of class and gearing level. Anyone of those three can make a huge difference. If you are a Necro or Bard or Wizzy you can solo for exp that exceeds MMs even with crappy gear. If you have Good gear on you can plow the Nest, RSS and other exp hotspots with no risk.
So perhaps the argument is not the amount of exp nor the ease of getting the exp (as many methods currently exist that exceed it and are easier) but rather the ease of lesser-geared people in getting similar but lesser experience.
If your argument about the basketball is one of saying experience should always reflect effort, I can agree with you. To do that would remove almost all forms of kiting, soloing and force better geared people into ‘hard’ versions of missions, I have no objections. That said EQ is not basketball in basketball even if you played 24/7 365 days a year, most people would never make it even onto there collage teams. Skill plays a role, but not even close to that of a real sport.
Misty thicket questing. I serious doubt anyone can quest there whole way to the upper levels of the game in this game. It just seems like a different form of instancing when the artificial environment cant support the amount of people; they do tasks that can be done in parallel instead of directly competing for an almost non-existent resource. Pulling it to the zone line, /shrug perhaps it is bad design of the quest. I doubt they will get to 70 doing it.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 27, 2006 04:28 PM
The ability for certain classes to solo has alway been a part of the game. Some classes are just better at soloing than others. As a beastlord, I am able to solo some content that a wizard, druid, or necro would find increadibly difficult, though I doubt bards would have much trouble with it. I don't think that is the source of the issue you are raising.
I think the most significant issue has to do with the fact that the level has been capped for so long, and level 70 serves a wide range of players. At the low end, we have the new level 70 character with a handful of AAs and mostly store bought equipment. At the other end, we have a raider with at least double the hit points and mana, lots of focus, 1000+ AAs and access to a wide range of content that the other player does not have access to. Both of these players gain the same reward for killing a level 70 mob. To one, the mob is trivial, while it may well be a challenge for the other.
I remember a time when my buddies and I first poked our noses into RSS. It was an even toss up as to whether we could get to our camp, and once there, we incurred lots of downtime ressing in people that died while we killed the mobs. Now, we cut through that stuff like hot butter, same group, better equipment, AAs, spells and abilities. Before, our HP on our tank yoyo'd like crazy when he tanked stuff. Now, my beastlord tanks it without a sweat. Before, we barely got an AA or two for the entire night (none on a really bad night), now we can get 3-4 AAs in an hour. I really don't see anything wrong with that. We went to a place that was hard for us, we garnered the skills and equipment to play there, and it is now easy. That's the normal progression of the game, it was that way in Lower Guk, then Dragon Necropolis, then RSS, now Rage. That's progression.
If there is a breaking point, it is that levels stop at 70, but player progression does not. Therefore, SOE has to develop different levels of content for level 70 characters. Content made to be a challenge for a newb 70 group that gives them mediocre rewards will be dirt easy for a veteran 70 group and give them insanely good rewards. Content made for veteran 70 groups will blow away newb 70 groups.
When everyone was divided by levels, then as you passed up content, the reward started shrinking. A level 70 doing level 50-60 content gets less experience per mob. While there is a sort of optimizing process you can do where killing more lower level mobs may give a better reward than a few higher level mobs, eventually you get to a point where you get so little reward for each mob that it is meaningless.
So, the issue is that we have one size fits all reward system. The problem is that the system doesn't work all that well. I don't know of any way to fix that other than add more levels, and SOE apparently doesn't either.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Philomath on April 27, 2006 05:17 PM
> So, the issue is that we have one size fits all reward system. The problem is
> that the system doesn't work all that well. I don't know of any way to fix that
> other than add more levels, and SOE apparently doesn't either.
I think they have made strides. I think DoN was a move in the right direction. One could earn crystals to get decent gear (Time-ish or a bit better). I think that a tank decked out in DoN gear fully auged could probably tank Nest or RSS. I think the balance was much better than LDoN where the amount of time to get anything meaningful was prohibitive.
I think the worst thing they ever did for this issue was the cursor loot from DoD. When ever has the balance been so messed up. You can be added to a task in the last minute and get a 200hp plus item given to everyone in the group. This is not earned. This is a reward better than any other place in the game for the effort given. Six cursor loot plus at least one guaranteed drop and the ability to give them to anyone via a quick invite even if they are in the guild hall. I can’t think of many individual raid targets that give that much (or of that quality until QViC+). Granted I am passed that point now, but talking about a gear grab.
I want people to earn what they get. I want people to earn their AAs. I want people who have better gear to be able to do bigger and better things for bigger and better rewards. I think MMs were not the problem, they were just a symptom.
Comment Posted by: Qvichell on April 27, 2006 06:25 PM
If the goal is for players to push into newer content, designers need to consider many players desire to finish off older content and gear up. Some content in the game is bottlenecked.
For example, our guild just made it through UQUA to find ourselves in QVIC. Great? Hardly. Numerous guilds and alts of uber guilds kill the named constantly taking or destroying backflags along with the loots. In over a month, we have yet to obtain a backflag and have dealt with intentional training, petitions, and ninja looting. This is how many guilds quickly geared up - but with 10x the people and 10x the alts, it is significantly harder.
Suggestions:
1. Decrease spawn time on named. It was one thing when 1-2 guilds had access.
2. Increase number of backflag drops on named in QVIC.
3. Add backflag drops on first 1-2 mobs in Inktu'ta. If guilds never find mob up in QVIC (we have yet to see him), at least we can backflag the stray members that missed UQUA.
4. In addition to regular zone, add an instanced zone with 4+ hour timer. At least this would allow backflags/loots for all guilds at this level.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on April 28, 2006 08:44 PM
Philomath wrote: “I think the worst thing they ever did for this issue was the cursor loot from DoD. When ever has the balance been so messed up. You can be added to a task in the last minute and get a 200hp plus item given to everyone in the group. This is not earned. This is a reward better than any other place in the game for the effort given. Six cursor loot plus at least one guaranteed drop and the ability to give them to anyone via a quick invite even if they are in the guild hall. I can’t think of many individual raid targets that give that much (or of that quality until QViC+). Granted I am passed that point now, but talking about a gear grab.”
I would adamantly disagree with you on this one. Our group of adventurers busted our butts for months doing DOD missions. We started out a bit underpowered for DOD and worked our way through each mission. We died night after night until we learned which missions we could break and which ones we had to defer until we got a bit more power. Sometimes, we felt lucky if we completed a single mission in a week. I feel that the rewards for the missions were fair.
Yes, I’ve heard raiders complain about how it destroyed incentive for people to raid, but I think that is bunk. A raiding guild absorbed our guild just before POR came out. I was almost done with the DOD mask quest. I had all my DOD spells. Since joining a raiding guild, I have found that comparable loot requires significantly less effort to obtain though it does require a raid.
Furthermore, all that loot that I busted my butt for in DOD didn’t ruin my raiding experience. If anything, it enhanced it, because I felt like I was productive when I joined the guild. I had a lot of comparable equipment to the other people in the guild, and I didn’t have to scarf up a lot of rot loot to be useful to the guild.
I also rather doubt that bazaar equipped non-raiders are milking these missions sitting in the guildhall. The players who are doing that need connections to people who do the missions over and over, and the only people capable of doing that easily are raiders. They may be equipping their alts, but I doubt they are spamming out free loot to non-raiders. At least I never had anyone I didn’t know invite me into a group for some freebies. I think your fear in that regard are unjustified and imagined.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 29, 2006 07:24 PM
Keisa wrote:Furthermore, all that loot that I busted my butt for in DOD didn’t ruin my raiding experience. If anything, it enhanced it, because I felt like I was productive when I joined the guild. I had a lot of comparable equipment to the other people in the guild, and I didn’t have to scarf up a lot of rot loot to be useful to the guild.
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for some guilds that is part of the reason it destroys the raiding incentive, because for some guilds if loot rots people dont get DKPs for that encounter, so if your not scarfing up rott loot and loseing DKP to it then the top dogs in the guild cant save up their DKP :)
though that wouldnt apply to all guilds it does apply to some. but I would tend to agree with you that single player loot as it stands does not hinder or stop raid enjoyment for people or the ability to progress further.
Comment Posted by: wormy on May 1, 2006 07:23 AM
Monster Missions killed EQ!
They where introduced as a cheap way out of Class Balance Hell - it worked, for the devs.
Many posted here "with a good group I get more XP/items/what ever" - and that's the biggest problem in EQ now. Any class that does not fit the common believe of a good or even perfect group setup is forced to solo (if possible at all) or do those f'ing MMs.
And why should I play a Fairy, when I created a Rogue?!
Game over - chose next game!
And btw. SOE will offer a new $99/year subscription soon - they are already losing customers fast.
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