What keeps you playing outside of raids?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by showstring, Jul 16, 2020.

  1. showstring

    showstring I Feel Loved

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    EverQuest sure has lots of fun things you can do in Norrath. There seems to be a constant influx of new players who will have infinite things to do when gearing up and leveling up their first characters. I'm sure this server is very exciting for the newcomers for their first year or two on the server, and the answer to the above question for those people will most likely be "well, everything".

    I'm mainly wanting to focus on all the veteran players who have been here for years, at the top level of raiding, those whose 'main' chars are well geared up and AAd. Do you play every day? If so, what do you like to do?

    Raiding with your buddies is probably most people's favorite reason to log in, but two years into Luclin and with a very busy and cordial rotation schedule, it leaves a lot of 'free' time to do other things in the game.

    Just curious what keeps other people logging in to keep those server population numbers high outside of raid hours?

    Reason I ask is I'm noticing that a lot of my guildmates seem to only log in for raids, then log off to not be seen again until a few days later for the next raid.

    Then there are hopeless addicts like myself that still play every day. So I will share my favorite activities (other than raiding) that keep me logging in almost every day.

    1. Leveling and gearing up new alts.
    This is the most fun part of the game for me. With new chars, you get to experience a lot of variety in the game. It's fun to powerlevel a new char and acquire new gear. When the char is new, everything is an upgrade! This sure beats waiting 6-12 months for that one elusive raid drop upgrade. Having a new char to gear up adss the most replayability and enjoyment to the game for me. Even though you can only play 3 chars at a time, you can still benefit from having other chars by pre-parking chars at a raid while you work on some quest or farm some item elsewhere. And of course, with more chars you can help the raids when you it requires specific roles, and just plain ole variety is the spice of life.

    2. Getting items to sell/trade and play the market.
    With the ability of 3 boxing, you become quite self sufficient, so you can go camp cool, rare and exciting items to sell and trade with others. Having resources in the forms of plat directly helps boost the ability to create more alts for more fun and variety. The more chars you got, the more stuff you can camp. It's great! You can mix and match your trio to try and defeat tougher bosses, and do all sorts of quests concurrently (such as camping multiple rare spawns at once in different zones).

    Those are really the two main reasons I play outside of raids. The other stuff doesn't particularly excite me. Sadly I'm not a big fan of tradeskills. While I did the tradeskill skillups for Aid Grimel on one char and that was a bit tedious so I won't repeat it. I have more fun doing other things.

    And also I don't enjoy just mindless exp grinding. I always try to combine it with other things such as camping items that I can sell, but pure exp grinding is not fun for me. I grit my teeth and kind of do it here and there to enable me to get that one ability or some such on a 'main' char, but I'm not close to maxing AAs on any one of my chars. Basically, if the exp is quicker it's more appealing to level up more chars. If the exp is slower, this puts me off the main replayability goal of leveling up and gearing new alts.

    The recent exp changes made me a bit sad since it made creating new chars less appealing. I can hear lots of other people in my guild similarly upset, so I'm curious if the exp slowdown has negatively affected others' playtime also? Or if they enjoy the slower pace and will play and log in more as a consequence? Just wondering if slower exp = more replayability, or if faster exp = more replayability?
    Or it doesn't matter since you prefer to do other things not related to exp?

    Would just like to hear what motivates some of the other TAKP veterans to play outside of the raids? Is there anything that can be done to get our server population higher?

    Thanks for sharing.
     
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  2. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    Nerfs are always a hit on numbers.

    I actually quit exping, in the hopes of an un-nerf. Not sounding like it, even after multiple EQ devs disagree with Torven.

    I have been thinking of checking out TLP servers.

    Leveling other chars, trying out other box combos used to be fun. I know the exp nerf was really not that big. It shouldn’t bother me. But now I don’t even log in much other than to raid.

    Maybe its all just in my head?
     
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  3. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

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    Yeah, I know what you mean Haynar. I think I'm waiting to see where all of the xp stuff lands to see if its worth xping for the crappy AA's I have left to get, or to just wait until PoP, to be honest. At this point, I'm pretty bored with Luclin though.

    I'm not into more alts really, I have 6 total characters, only about 4 of which are geared decently. The problem with more alts is all of the extra time that's involved. You need a number of 'required' AA's for the class, then get their keys, in order to get base VT gear. Then I have a habit of getting their shrink wands as well, etc. XP is a grind, but so are all of these rare item or key camps.

    At this point, I'm just raid logging.
     
  4. Sketchy

    Sketchy People Like Me

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    I log in to mainly screw around. Do some tradeskills on my one char that I will be doing AG, on. Been screwing around in Seb again, one of my favorite dungeons, I admit I don't even look at the AA bar. Plan to hit up PoHate and Umbral next. I too hate mindless grinding though I admit I have enjoyed an AoE group or two in order to get my paladin where it is today. I don't have an endless amount of boxes. Pal/Dru/Ench are my mains and the druid and enchanter are working on getting AA'ed and geared up. I have a rogue and shaman both 60 but they are way on the back burner now. I have never felt the need to accumulate massive amounts of fake money, but to each their own, if it keeps them interested.

    Kinda makes me sad to see people peace out, but sometimes a break is needed really. I know I have needed one before. When PoP comes I'm sure the server will pick up again. We have been in the slowest dullest expansion for 2 years, though, sometimes I do find enjoyment in it. I also find enjoyment in the other players of the community. Raiding can still be enjoyable really for some silly reason.

    Also strange, to me, mysteries. Why was there no Grieg Key mob this reset? How did the Isanity Crawler work? Being able to post a legit bug report is cool too. I also hang around to listen to some of the nerds who know their stuff, because some of the small idiosyncrasies of EQ are fascinating.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2020
  5. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    I've been having fun adapting to the exp changes. I found a few camps where exp is significantly faster than it was before the patch. I'm looking for more of those. The key seems to be finding areas with high densities of level 55+ mobs. Those high-level mobs tend to be deep in high-end dungeons, which is a plus for me as I have fun crawling around those areas anyway.

    I got into tradeskills recently. I never found them particularly interesting in my past EQ lives, but I took the Aid Grimel plunge early in coronatimes and I've really been enjoying it. The clicking sucks, but the logistical challenges are a weird kind of fun. It helps that I can box a very mobile trio that's great at farming lower-level mobs en masse (bard to pull and selo, chanter to stun, wiz to nuke and port).

    Tradeskills cost lots of plat, so I've been burning through savings and looking for ways to earn more. I'm not big on the bazaar game, and I'm not as into selling MQs as I once was, so lately I've been on a quest to find the best camp for raw plat or vendor-sellables (gems, etc.). I haven't made a ton of progress there, but I have some ideas.
     
  6. sowislifesowislove

    sowislifesowislove People Like Me

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    Been loving alts, got 5 toons that I’m concentrating on, the bard and wiz have been newest addition but the nerfs and making 50% of the exp I was has totally deflated me. Might get into some more coldain stuff but just trying to find motivation and time.
     
  7. Yarnee

    Yarnee People Like Me

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    I dont mind the exp grind, when I do get sick of it I take a break and camp some items, do a quest, etc. I hate leveling alts, though I do have many many level 60 chars. Usually I log in and try to commit to just getting "some amount" of exp. I find that it all adds up in the end, if you can only stomach 20% of an AA at a time and that takes you 30min a day and you play 5 times a week its an AA.
     
  8. solar

    solar Administrator Staff Member

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    I think slower exp is better than faster exp in that it takes longer to wear it out and be done, but there's probably some threshold there where if it's too long then people start to give up. If the exp had always been slow I think we would just be used to it, but what sucks is when you've done a bunch of alts and then the next one takes twice as long to level. It depends on your mentality toward it. Are you enjoying the grind, or are you enjoying improving your time to 60 each time and now you've got a setback? I'm not really sure, I don't care if the exp is slow, but I know this is something that is important to a great many players and Sony/DBG/whatever has always used this as bait to get people to play more, or play more in certain areas with a bonus. They still do those bonus weekends to encourage people to return on holidays.

    When I make an alt I take my time and buy all the spells by walking around and it's kind of nostalgic for me, thinking back to how I had no idea how to get to Erudin from Butcherblock. It's always a short lived experience because it doesn't take very long to get up to level 40s and then you can just soak exp and kill with your 60s while the alt goes unused. What if powerleveling didn't work in EverQuest? I'm not talking about changing this server to be that way, but what if it was more effective to simply play your alt normally than to DS tank or PBAOE or whatever else. Would that have created more replay ability?
     
  9. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    Management: Oh look, our numbers are going lower?

    Devs: Slow down exp!!!!

    Players: WTF?!?
     
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  10. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

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    Great question, Rimi! I feel like half the time I just log on to chat with people, the other half I'm running around waiting for something to happen. I don't particularly enjoy just playing my trio and would rather do just about anything else with other folks vs solo boxing.

    I enjoy leveling alts for the instant gratification of it all, but sitting at 16 60's now, most of that charm has worn off. Grinding AAs is just blech no matter how you slice it. I probably have less AA's across all of those toons (MAYBE 300) than some people have in total on a single character.

    Sometimes I log on and remember I have a Trak BP, VS greaves, whatever else sitting in a bag and I do a /who all 20 50 class and go drop some gear / plat on them. Or someone sees my offer of helping with epics, and we go do a bunch of epic fights or whatever. It's a cool community we have here, and I enjoy trying to make someone's day a little more fun.
     
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  11. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    I tend to only have an hour here or there to actively be playing outside of raid times. Most of my time spent online is just AFK. Prior to this year when I had more free time it was a lot of alt creation, epic completion, key quest completion and tradeskill working. However at this point I have an alt of every class level 46+ with epic, about 13~ VT keys, 8~ VP keys and max tradeskills on druid. So beyond this the main thing I want to work on is AAs.

    But sadly the main limiting factor for grinding AAs for me is the time it takes to get to a decent camp with a charmed pet before even starting to kill uses up about half of my playtime and feels hardly worth it for 10% of an AA. In the rare events I have multiple hours to myself though I lose interest grinding the same camp for nothing but EXP after an hour or two anyways. I need some sort of item or quest incentive to keep me interested in a camp for a longer period of time, sadly there aren't many of those left pre-PoP. I'd like a levitate shield from CT but that camp is awful to sit in and clear due to the number of cleric NPCs complete healing through walls. Not sure what else I could try to camp for and earn EXP while I do it though.
     
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  12. MikayahEQ

    MikayahEQ Well-Known Member

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    I haven't been able to force myself to log in because after coming back, hoping to find some grouping going on, I could find very little. I left TLPs because the grouping had dried up there, and I just can't play EQ solo anymore right now. I want to play, but I just CBA to log on and solo/box right now...especially with the exp nerfs. Logged on a couple days ago and did manage to find someone to group with, but in a 2.5 hour steady grind with 3-5 pulls and a charm pet & mage epic pet tearing through DB mobs in Old Seb I barely managed 5-6% exp on a lvl 58 alt and not a full AA on either of my 60s. There were a couple 52-55 toons in the group, so maybe that hurt my exp gain, but to use words used elsewhere in the thread, it was just completely deflating.

    No doubt the community is great on TAKP, and it's been one of my favorite EQ experiences all time in the past 20 years playing this game, but it's just not drawing me in enough to keep me logging on to play by myself session after session.
     
  13. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    It is well understood in game design that, even while a bonus or penalty can be the same thing in practice, how it is presented to users makes an enormous difference in how it is received. WoW's 'rested' exp is a classic example of this: they made it appear as 'bonus exp' instead of what it is intended to be, which is punishing players who play all day.

    Regardless, the last two updates were a substantial INCREASE in AA gains or unchanged for level 60s not doing two things: killing a lot of level 53-54 mobs, PBAoEing.

    I was surprised to even hear that nobody was camping level 55+ areas. Everybody just went to areas with level 53-54 mobs because after two years of the server being that way, they intuitively found out that was the bugged exp range because it was too good and got used to it. Nobody went to the ssra mines for exp after the Sept 4 2002 patch; I don't recall that spot ever being a great exp spot let alone the go-to place, and certainly not Maiden's Eye, which was where the lazy boxers who needed to AFK a lot went as a last resort. I didn't even realize you guys were congregating there; AoE groups went to AC or FG in 2002. I also recall in Sept 2002 everybody was asking where the easiest level 60 mobs were to kill. I even have a quote in one of my logs from that time where I say to my group "this is better than AoE exp". (granted we had a very high DPS group, no charm though) PoP zones have high ZEMs but most of PoP's high experience gain comes from this high level kill (MLM) bonus.

    The data I found is crystal clear and the MLM bonus should only apply to mobs down to -5 levels. This has nothing to do with the Sony dev comments regarding AoE, (I remind you that one of them said he did remember it but all said they were unsure which is hardly conclusive of anything) and you don't do AoE Haynar, so moving out of the mine would result in substantial exp gain for you. There was no opposition to any of my changes in dev chat and you had wanted to nerf AoE for years so I don't know why you want to paint me as the bad guy here.

    Let me spell this out to people again: a white con at level 60 grants 2.6 times base experience. That's what the Sept 4 2002 patch did. Overnight level 60 mobs granted 2.6x the experience they used to on that day. Level 55s grant 1.95x base experience (to a 60). This is a massive increase. My error was to apply this bonus down to -8 levels. (although I did make it reduce faster in that range, it was pretty much a wild guess) So the solution to everybody's problem here is to move to level 55s up from 54s. The entire point of that Sept 4 patch of Sony's was to adjust the risk vs reward and get people into harder areas.

    Furthermore I'll repeat that the experience you guys are getting is (coincidentally) 2.6x that of PC EQ players in Sept 2002 in a group of 6 largely due to AK's bugged group bonus. For every 100 mobs PC players had to kill, you're killing 38 and a half. If you think the game is suddenly unplayable, then imagine what it was like in 2002 near the height of the game's success.
     
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  14. Cerberus

    Cerberus Active Member

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    What keeps player's here outside raiding is ways to upgrade there Char's. So if you look at the numbers when luclin first came out you got a spike because new content and AAs but over time you get player's that get bored because there's only one way to upgrade raids.

    There's a way to get the player's interested again but wouldn't be era accurate.
    By adding in a custom zone and adding augment in game, so even the best geared player's have ways to upgrade there items I would say use a zone like veksar you can use the same mobs there just make them "harder" up the levels and so forth. Take out all the gear drops and then set sections with different augs, set drop rates low maybe 0.5% on all mobs in that section and make name's at 2-4%.
    Also have 9 augs in Total this is a great time sink while also giving things for player's to do.
    Also will give you time to get PoP done then after PoP you can use a next zone with the next 9 augs set for 65 level player's also would give you more time to do whatever custom content.
     
  15. MikayahEQ

    MikayahEQ Well-Known Member

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    Numbers and maths and stuff, but in 2002 there were actually people logging on to play the game and it was much more feasible to be sitting in the higher level, harder content camps that you mentioned, instead of sitting for hours just solo grinding on 1-3 toons. On top of that, you were in a full group of 6 real people chatting in /gchat along with constantly active /gu...at least that's how it was for me. I wouldn't give 2 thoughts to exp gain if I was playing with other people...just playing solo, if the exp is a slog, I CBA to do it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2020
  16. showstring

    showstring I Feel Loved

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    That's what I was kind of asking too. Personally, I don't enjoy 'the grind', and I don't ever really want to repeat the time it's taken me to level my first trio to 60. I don't want to level for months again with bronze and cloth armor. Getting to level 60 over a period of months is something to be done once only. For me, the most fun and replayability comes from using your powerful characters to twink out and PL new chars as quickly as possible to 50+ so you can utilize the cool spells and hunt in the more interesting zones. From what I can see in my history of playing EQ, majority of people are the same. Heck, some don't even gear up their chars and sit them mostly AFK in the exp group until they get to level 60, then they catch up on the empty gear slots and level defense above 10 skill and work on their spells. On TAKP I know of one person leveling only one of their chars 'normally', forgegoing PLing for that one char, mainly because they had a RL friend who they played with and didn't want to out-level. They did this while twinked-out of course. Everyone else that I could see just PLed their new alts as quickly as they could.

    I think quicker progress is the default and preferred method for almost everyone I've come across. But, maybe this is just my own bubble? Hence asking the question. I'll admit to avoiding the grind in Lineage 2 by buying gold via RMT. My friend and I, even though we were students at the time, would rather spent $100 of our pocket money than spend 1 month grinding in-game for the same reward. The irony of using our higher level and better geared Lineage2 chars to then occasionally go and troll and player-kill the chinese gold farmers was lost on me at the time, but that was "fun". Quicker progress seems to provide more fun. I think this is evident by all the micro-transactions in all the mobile games. Do you grind for a week to get your coins, or do you spend $3.95 and buy the gold coin pack in your mobile phone game? As is evident by all the 'freemium' mobile games earning significantly more money through being free to play via the grind option, and offering 'boosts' through paying a few dollars here and there. When you get to near max level, just create a new char and do it again, and buy the same boost packs again!

    Even EverQuest did this via the marketplace. Exp potions, etc. All the QoL improvements like mercenaries, and recently just auto-granting AAs to players so they could catch up and have more fun actually playing the game instead of grinding. On the TLP servers when Phinigel server came out, they slowed down the exp significantly compared to Fippy. It was like 3x slower to level. I quit by level 20ish, I just couldn't do it. It was too painful.

    On TAKP I enjoy creating new chars and PLing them up. I did this a lot and had a lot of fun. I feel bad for new players who didn't get around to doing this before all the exp nerfs. I have a lot of level 60 chars that I was going to exp at some point in the future, after I acquired X item, or whatnot. But now the motivation is gone because Luclin exp is terrible, and it just got made a lot worse. Will PoP be better? I really hope so. But then if PoP is going to be so much better and faster, why make Luclin even more terrible in comparison? Why now? Now I'm questioning if PoP is also going to be "slowed down" so people can "enjoy the grind" more. This is making me question continuing to play here. I get that this is the dev's server, dev's rules, etc. But the sandbox is nothing without the players. Players need to have fun too. I'm noticing less guildies playing outside raids these days, and wanted to try and see what the reasons could be. The tedious prospects of grinding make me want to do other non-EQ things also, and that makes me sad.

    The EQMac community is truly special and amazing, and some recent changes that deviate from the re-creation of the EQMac server for the sake of 'balance' and 'longevity' seem to be somewhat counter productive, and most importantly a kick in the nuts to this amazing community. I feel respect and compassion needs to go both ways, and I don't like this recent hostile players vs devs feeling we got going on :(
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2020
  17. Foxboxx

    Foxboxx People Like Me

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    Sit in PoK on my 35 rogue until a level appropriate group forms =P.
     
  18. RichardCox

    RichardCox Active Member

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    Hobzz-Cabbage-Epictetus (60s BST/DRU/SK) here
    I set myself a goal (nearly a year ago) to take down guardian wurms (GWs) in Skyfire Mountains. I created Epictetus (SK) because I didn't think Hobzz' fuzzy body could tank them. I ground Epictetus to 60 and gradually geared her from Bazaar (and a spectacular TS upgrade.) She still wasn't up to the task, so I set my goal on 30 AAs so that she'd max Damage Mitigation and Damage Avoidance AAs.
    With various help, we've taken down GWs with DPS, healing, or three low 50s help. Hobzz is 3 AA away from his max dmg miti/avoid AAs, and Epictetus is 12 AA from hers. I've got about 100 AAs across all three toons (all born at different times, with different levels of focus.
    What brings me back? Dogged determination to 3-box GWs. I set a goal, and haven't given up on it. I want to do it before PoP. I still believe/hope it's realistic.
    Many clerics have gotten their pfrags during my quest. Some have rez'd my corpses as I tried and failed. I hope that, for a non-raiding trio, I haven't set too high a goal.
     
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  19. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

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    This makes perfect sense. PoD underbulks and crap in the court yard made incredible xp up to 62 and then fell flat on it's face, giving almost no noticeable xp. Those mobs top out at 57.
     
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  20. solar

    solar Administrator Staff Member

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    Hey Rimidal, you're a great player and I respect your opinions on this, though I personally despise the idea of creating and playing games that have a way to gain advancement by paying or doing some outside-the-fantasy activity. To me it's like winning a chess game where you're starting with 3 queens.

    In the classic era of EverQuest that we all love, your life in the game world was governed by the same game rules as everyone else's. As much as it was pointless, they did try to crack down on cheating and RMT and things like that in the early days to keep this alive as best as they could because I believe the original designers had the same attitude toward it. If someone is level 50 with full plate armor, everyone knows what they had to go through, the time invested, the skill they probably have to advance that high in progression. If on the other hand it is known that you can buy level 50 characters, then it's assumed that every other person bought theirs, and there's no prestige in having one. Remember that this game is completely contrived and they could have designed it to be more forgiving but we all got addicted to the grind. The grind and frustration is necessary and even more important than the rewards - that's the reason people opt to spend real money, the frustration pushes them into addiction and then they're offered relief for money. I think it's impossible to design a fun game when one of the goals of the design is to get people to spend money. The old version of this is the CONTINUE? 9.. 8.. countdown in arcade cabinet games.

    I see people saying they don't like the grind but I don't think they're being honest with themselves. EverQuest is a game of grinding and clicking, almost exclusively. There is nothing else other than the chat, which is what you do in between and during grinding.

    I believe the game was designed with tedious grinding and an intentionally hobbled UI that requires excessive clicking to slow players down and keep them in the world longer. We're still in it 21 years later - the grind became very addicting and kept us subscribed as designed. Raids were added as an afterthought, remember being in the exp group on raids, before raid experience? Remember when airplane and the other old plane raids were added? The raids are great but they're secondary to the grind, and were only intended for the most dedicated players that were REALLY into grinding. Everyone here is from that group.

    It would have been nice if this stuff with the exp fixes happened before Luclin, but it's also nice that we all get to play while even though there are still bugs and the game isn't perfect yet. When I started working on eqemu back in 2001, I was glad to be able to load all the way into a zone and spawn an inert NPC with whatever name/model/size I wanted, and the multiplayer didn't even work. Now we're down to discussing if the exp should be 10% this way or that way. This is pretty cool, that we can replicate the old game so well that we're reliving the same nerfs and all groaning :)
     
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  21. rainessa

    rainessa People Like Me

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    I log in more to hang out with people. Work has me mentally exhausted lately, so I'm more likely to just stand in pok chatting than actually venture forth outside of raids, but it's still nice to be on.
     
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  22. showstring

    showstring I Feel Loved

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    Sorry, @solar I should have been clearer. I also don't like pay to win games. I almost exclusively avoid them. Purely cosmetic in-game benefits I'm okay with.

    I was just using it to illustrate a point. I don't agree with that approach, but I was just using it as example of "people don't like to grind". When there are methods of avoiding the grind, people will pick that route. If the grind is unavoidable and overly tedious, sometimes people just choose not to play. I dislike RMT and prefer when people earn their items. Was just sharing some experiences of skipping the grind.

    Also, you are probably right in some aspects of "despite all the tediousness, we're still hooked and still here!". There is a lot of truth to that. However, for me it's mainly because the risk vs reward in EQ is just so good and pure. I love (and sometimes hate) the harsh penalties of screwing up in this game. You feel like you earned your place, and it takes a while to get there. I also love the small community feel of this server too. I love having to be kind and respectful to others because your reputation matters in this small community, and I love seeing and interacting with the same people every day. I don't think it's the tediousness and the grind that gets me excited, it's what is available once that part is done. And if progress is 'quicker', then that end goal seems more appealing to strive for. If it's too slow, then I give up. It's a tricky balance.

    I was just a bit sad to see lots of upset guildies in discord chat, and seeing people log in less outside raids. Some of the recent changes made me a bit upset and less motivated to play, and wanted to see how others felt. I'm not advocating for one way or another, just mainly trying to see if something can be done to help the situation and/or get people back and eager to play (besides more content). I have just been seeing a bit more hostility lately, and it's not nice because I love this server and the people that play here.
     
  23. Terijan

    Terijan New Member

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    People don't play for the grind/UI but despite it. It doesn't bring people back, it keeps people away and they explain it as such (and get told they they're not welcome). What the grind has to be balanced against is the exertion of effort and immeasurable parts of the difficulty (including things like monsters pathing over walls/onto ceilings).

    The thing about Blizzard and rest exp is true but the person who made that decision wasn't a designer and that story is not shared as a positive example even internally (I worked there; I have given talks about this exact example) but one of executives forcing our hands with so-called "business logic" and it going terrible. It's usually paired with talking about d3 requiring always-online and the auction house, which also blew up.
     
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  24. Walex

    Walex I Feel Loved

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    663
    I don't really log in outside of raids unless it's to trio something difficult, or i'm invited to kill something difficult with a small force. What brings me the most enjoyment is killing very mean monsters with the most lean force possible. Without raiding, my characters wouldn't be strong enough to do a 6-man innoruuk or 12-man cazic thule fight. I love the thought and planning that goes into these encounters: trying to find clever ways to get the bad guy solo, to mitigate that one mechanic that makes him difficult, etc. This translates to raid encounters as well but it's not as applicable because most Luclin content can be brute-forced and doesn't require strategy. Unfortunately, even the solo side of this has staled out pretty hard in Luclin... I think that's just a side-effect of being stuck in a bland expansion for so long: I killed all the mean stuff with a small force. What's next?

    That's probably why I get really excited when a new PoP zone is announced... I love testing those -- I wish I had played on AK so i could contribute more meaningful feedback... Anything I can do to hurry the process along. I haven't done an XP group in quite some time so i can't honestly say i'm bothered by the xp changes... other than that they take precious time away that i wish was more focused on PoP development. I understand why these things need to be refined, and I know it's all in the name of AKuracy... I just wish the devs didn't waste so much time sleeping so PoP could be here already.
     
  25. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    I've explained this several times. The answer to 'why now?' is I had recently found a virtual treasure trove of old EQ packet sniffed data on an old message board that allowed me to fix our experience model. The data was collected mere weeks before AK forked. It was very a very fortuitous discovery. (at least from the perspective of somebody who cares about accuracy) This had absolutely nothing to do with 'wanting people to grind more'. I'm personally getting annoyed at all the distractions from working on PoP content, but if I find serious mechanics problems then I'm going to fix them. Something like this is best fixed as soon as possible because the resentment only gets worse the longer it's left in; not to mention it would harm the PoP launch experience.

    I can tell you what does not enter my mind when I'm trying to recreate EQ: 'will adding this make our CCU go down?' I'm not writing this code just for this server, I'm writing it for all the servers that will use it in the future.
     
    Dairmuid, Vince987, scombden and 7 others like this.
  26. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

    Messages:
    333
    \

    I love what you're doing. I was in Skyfire earlier today wondering how many clerics you've helped get their epics. Just imagine. I'm sure you're not keeping count, but I bet it's a lot.
     
  27. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    2,742
    The funny thing about WoW is it kept trying to 'fix' EQ and still turned into a game where people played for a month then quit and waited for the next expac/content update. I'm not sure how leveling super fast solves this problem when WoW has it. Now Classic WoW is as popular as retail WoW, (maybe more?) go figure. Every time I log into retail WoW (which I assure you is very brief/rare) I get serious 'WTF is this?!' moments.

    Actually I kinda liked the D3 AH. (disclaimer: I made money off it) The problem with it, in my opinion, was that it should have had an automatic pricing tool. Removing trade in the game made it worse. (again this is opinion) Path of Exile refused to disallow trade and tried to remain more like D2 and wouldn't ya know, it's more popular than D3. To be fair I did enjoy both games.
     
  28. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    3,627
    One of the common issues on TLP servers when they are fresh is the lack of reasonable level 45-50 content because most everything is blue or light blue in classic for those level ranges. People are forced to stick to either Ghoul Lord, Frenzied or Efreeti mostly.

    Similar situation in Luclin, most group content is actually level 55 and below. There aren’t many exceptions to this. The areas that have 55+ mobs generally speaking were designed as raid content and are a fairly small subsection of the zone.

    Sebilis Juggernauts/Reets
    Veeshan’s Peak
    Dragon Necropolis bottom
    Temple of Veeshan HoT
    PoMischief AiW4, Chessboard and Sphinxes
    Umbral* (All the mobs have level ranges 53-57ish so most mobs you will pull will be under 53)
    Seru Houses 3rd floor (though one 3rd floor is 66 which apparently won’t count)

    Typical grind zones like Sebilis, Chardok, Charasis, Velketors, Akheva, Acrylia, Ssra are all 55 and under for regular trash mobs. Some like Seb and Ssra have very specific limited camps with 56+ mobs.

    It’s really just poor game design by the developers and is one of the reasons enchanters are so strong. All the group zones feature 55< Mobs which make them ripe for Dazzle and often Boltrans.

    This is why PoP is so much better group content. The content is actually designed at character level and the exp is not mindnumbingly slow. Also the raid unlocked exp areas are actually designed with groups in mind.
     
    Slayzz, Cadsuane and Mokli like this.
  29. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    Continuing this semi-derail, I would say that a big challenge to MMORPG design is finding ways to make the mid-game more engaging such that users do not feel compelled to rush to the level cap. Were I to make a custom server I would put a lot of effort into that. Emus have the problem of being VERY top heavy and that's bad for the game. It's silly to have all these mid level dungeons and nobody goes into them. The game should be fun at all levels.
     
    Cadsuane likes this.
  30. Tyrion

    Tyrion Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    188
    I login primarily since I have far too much time to play between work stuff. I have many alts and they’re all aa fiends so I must do as many as possible before pop drops. I would argue that the risk vs reward circle kiting tons of mobs is skewed, I die plenty, it’s not safe by any means. Will I stop? Yes as soon as I get 26 more since bard will be maxed. Then I’ll have to work on terribad AG for cleric I suppose.