Your thoughts on the current state of the game

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Big ramble follows. proceed at your own risk.

Took yesterday afternoon off as I wanted to get some T4 done on my druid. Headed over to TOSK, 15 people in zone, all named armor droppers camped... ok. Warrens. Same thing. About 14-15 people in zone, everything camped except that monk that pops off the thralls... Didn't try Rathe as I wasn't up for the death run through the see invis. Need to figure a smart was to do that soon. Maybe train them away with monk, and run my boys in.. anyway..

Decided to go after some T5 essences instead. Headed to Bloodfield and watched a couple of the top level guild people training mobs in to the Dragorns and using them as free dps/mercs... Headed to City of Drannik - same thing. One wizard was camping pretty much the lower part of the zone. Would train a named in to the Dragorns and let them tank it while he blew it apart....
Finally just gave up and started running a T5 armor essence instance.


So, the grouping game is good, but there are a few problems. Some exploits and interestingly seeing more and more of the previously steady raiding guilds doing group camps. I asked someone about it and they said that the group armor was good filler till they could get raid pieces and didn't cost them DKP. That makes sense. They pay the same money as me every month, so certainly have as much right to do as they please, but of interest to me is where things are at. Have they gotten a bit carried away with the grouping game gear quality? Is it now better than any prior expac raiding gear?

I am fine with it, just concerned if the zones can support everyone? I've only found one or two instance that seemed good spots to xp casually. (Not counting murdunks in that, as that just seems like going to the gun range. Line em up, knock em down. miss 9 and no kewpie doll for you!). Anyone found a good T4 essence dropping instance? Thinking of giving that piglet one a try, but I don't have enough faction yet. Will have to run murdunks a few times to get my faction high enough I think.

Anyway, that Dragorn thing in Kuaa theme needs to be fixed. I would imagine they are looking at that.

How are things otherwise?

I really like the mercs, as it gives me flexibility, but are they pushing people out of grouping opportunities? I have never grouped much, always preferring to add as many boxes as I can to allow me to do what I want. But with mercs I actually find that I group more now. Not a whole group, but I will pull in 1 or 2 people whereas previously I would not be willing to give up a spot for my boxed, knowing that the box I gave up would fall behind. Now I just suspend a merc so long as the person can fill in as healer or tank, and always have one dps spot open. I am still of a mind that the mercs are a good thing.

I really do think they need some more instances though. I think the competition for good xp spots is going to get worse before it gets better.

Have I missed some good xp instances?

[Funi]

[BrieThecheese]

I haven't explored the SoD zones much, mostly because my 71 necro isn't ready for them, but i can say the majority of EQ population is 70+. Higher end popular zones are chock full, and lower end are empty and forgotten.

Mercs, personally, have helped me a lot. Before i started boxing, alts that i was playing had a horrible time getting a group in TSS. But that's the lower end game. In some cases i have heard that groups won't suspend a mercenary to let another player in. i guess it depends on what kind of people you are grouped with. I don't raid, so nothing to add there.

Just my 2cp

Brie

[Kriyn Nutzforcatnip]

To get into the Rathe Council all you need to do is levitate, and hug the wall around to the entrance. I've done this multiple times without agro'ing any of the see invis mobs.

[Kruzar]

I just know from personal experience that some of this is a bit frustrating, but I also do see some of the point to it.

I know this last weekend was very hard for me to get a decent grind spot in some of the more favored zones: Warrens, CoD, and on up... The reason I saw more than anything was all of the new augments that are just wow. The dmg augments themselves are higher dmg than the Tunat raid augment, and are the idea that these drop from everything is just bringing all sorts of groups out of the wood work in my opinion. I do think that this massive farming will go down over time, but I was also excited to see just the sheer number of people in a particular zone at one time and still able to find some sort of camp. There was one point we were camping in the Warrens, and had over 60 people in the zone.

The other reason that I think you see high end raiders hitting some of these zones harder is that the new armor requires drops from groupable nameds to make the final tier. I think the nameds will be more freed up over time again once a lot of these gear slots have been upgraded and such. It is a similar intersection of the raid and group game that was seen like with FC/AG and needing the upgrade pieces from those zones for the armor.

I am really pleased with where the game is right now. I see a lot of grouping, and have really not spent much time on the LFG...

[HawklordXegony]

They tuned down the dragorns once already. It used to be that they had an equal chance of beating a bad mob. Now they are gimp and die easily. It doesn't eliminate some of the tactics you describe but it does reduce it somewhat.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Funi]

[Tharkis]

I've been mostly retired for hte last 6 months, just using the game to chat and have fun, i'm /almost/ 85 now and havent really ground any of the new aa at all, but i'm still having a great time and think the group game at least is quite fun when i get the time to do things. Mercs have helped me be able to just grab a friend, each pop a merc, and have a viable group to at least do /something/

[Kruzar]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Tharkis]

They fixed on test the bug where you'd sitll get xp even if you did less than 50% of the damage.

[Findlay-The-Faithful]

I think overall things are good, I think to some extent to get people together in the game you have to try and level the playing field some between groupers and raiders. Good group gear drps help get the groupers closer, the raiders need stuff from the group mobs so I see a lot of good gear yelled out for rot.. all day long.

Mercs in my honest opinion do help a ton for people that are stuck soloing or duoing or something like that. I am not sure they actually help the grouping situation, they may be detrimental to a degree. And I don't say that as if I am opposed to them. If groups are not going to happen, then we need mercs. I have pretty much just soloed since Stormhammer died, or grouped with my brother, recently I got into a group and was almost dropped from the group in favor of a merc. Yep, there are people like that still in the game. To me, the biggest thing that effects the state of the game is the culture of the player base.

Back in the olden days, people shouted for group and usually didn't have to wait long because most players where in the same zones, and most players needed other people to help. It was benificial to have more people in your group. To some extent, I think a level of selfishness has entered the culture. Not across the board, but just in a general sense. Instead of one big EQ community, you have guilds and friends that stick togeher (which is not bad), but I think some players tend to get left out at times. The less people you have in your group, the less you have to share. The culture is so based on gear and plat, I believe there are a lot of people that see helping others as detrimental to their goal.

[Ughbash]

Think it sucks to be a monk.

With that said I thoguht the expedition would really suck. I hated Gates, SOE said they learned from their mistakes and were going to stay fantasy and stay away from gates after OOW. Then I heard more Kyvs etc. Could they really be that stupid?

Well despite my misgivings, there really is a good story for this expansion, I think the 1 year cycle paid off.

It's tough being a monk, light blues will beat me in ocean green if I do not either disc or have a merc. It was easier to kill Dark Blues solo in loping then light blues in ocean green (non wimpy mobs). But with a group progression is possible and with enough healing a raid geared monk can tank the group progression. I am still of the opinion I would do better if they just deleted monks from the game but the expansion was well done other then some "balance issues".