@#!~#$&)(*&#$

[Maeryn]

so, i 'finished' all of the 'themes' last night except the last one. i still have a few miscellaneous solo & faction tasks to do, and now that the rush to finish was over i decided to peek through raspers and see what was worth doing.

nada. 2 quest augs that are on par with the hand aug that's like 3 years old, one decent (i guess) quest aug that's no better than the SoF face aug, a clicky familiar that's no match for the naggy & gelaqua familiars, and a timeshear that fucking owns for some classes (hi2u wizards) and is a mother fucking asshole of a piece of shit for others given the time that goes into finishing it. oh, and i forgot the clicky mask that gives necros the same illusion as a spell we cast 10 times a night, yay?

the loot will be upgraded copy & paste versions of what we got last year, and nope, still no cool toy and/or primary upgrade to look forward to. and as far as parses go, i'm neither impressed nor outraged by our spells, i'm just pleasantly apathetic about them. i didn't really set out to xp once i got to 85, but just from task rewards and raid xp i've already bought all of the 'cool' AAs and have lots and lots of defensives to look forward to in the coming weeks.

i could look forward to gearing up my alts, but oh wait, who wants a real cleric when mercs already have rk II gallantry and you don't have to share loot with them! sure they're dumb as fuck, but at least they don't take afks. it's like outsourcing for EQ.

and the raids, what the fuck, seriously. half the expansion is already beaten, and not just by 1 or 2 guilds, but by several. and it would be less frustrating, except for the fact that i know they have the capability to do more shit like epics and bic but don't bother anymore because as we're repeatedly told, "it's too much work". so we get generic all/all mediocre quest augs and sub-par clickies that seem pretty sad when compared to something like, oh, say, the anguish bp. /sigh. it's gonna be a long year =(

[Tryal Anderror]

I think this will be a quick expansion too, a lot of my time will be spent going back to finish things I never did, like the Face aug in SoF.

There looks like thousands of AA to get though, even if most of them suck or don't have a noticable or fun effect.

I do think guilds will be done the expansion by New Year's...though Its hard to judge that by current raids...yes we're "half done" but we know tier 1-3 stuff is basically easier than MMM events, so we haven't really hit the content that's meant to be hard yet. It'd be like doing Steamfactory mobs in SoF and saying you were half done at that point.

It doesn't look like a year's worth of content, but maybe that's a good thing too, given how they stretched out their content in the past, like 3500 point factions in SoF.

[Maeryn]

while i definitely understand the need for content, it just doesn't seem like there's even a marginal amount of quality content. i can't remember the last time i had that OMG I HAVE TO HAVE THAT kick like i did while i was working on bic and my epic. i don't believe in like, 'winning eq', but i miss expansion reveals being about finding that really really awesome new quest everyone was in a rush to do. bp clicks are pathetic, spells are old, i was really looking forward to some of the new AAs but not even nodyin can hold people over for 11 months. i can't remember the last time they really put something 'fun' in a new expansion. sod is a ton of busy work, and very little awesomesauce.

and to be honest, this is what put me over the edge: i was working on finishing up the rathe theme last night, the last one i had to do. there's this task, had something to do with rescuing some idiots that got captured by frogs or something equally retarded, i don't even remember the name. so, i get to this point in progression, and i'm done everything else, but can't finish the arc without this task. and it's in a static zone, and there's already a full group in the zone working on it, because really only FD classes and classes with a mem blur can solo this shit effectively. so, i'm politely sitting there waiting for this group to finish, and it's slow, cause there's six of them and 5 spawns and it's like a 50/50 chance or some shit for their task to update, and it's really not their fault cause the task is absolute ass and they're getting shitty xp killing this shit so i already feel bad for them. SIX HOURS i watched this group do this task. SIX HOURS. for a SOLO TASK that is REQUIRED for progression, that cannot be skipped. not because they couldn't do it, but because that's just how absolutely retarded this task was. it wasn't hard, it was just retarded. retardedtry should not be a litmus test for progression.

[Tryal Anderror]

Retardedtry is a litmus test for a Sony developper unfortunately.

There is a catch 22 in the Truly awesome items...
ie. you simply Cannot be a competitive Necro in this expansion if you do not have the Anguish BP.

I feel bad for anyone without it, because they're losing literally Thousands of DPS.

I'd kind of like an overall thing like the LDoN Charm, which required an absolutely massive number of completions to max out, in the ballpark of like 420 hour long missions.

I did the BiC, but I never liked that type of design, because really only a few people can ever do it, In a guild of 60 you might have 5 do it. simply due to limited drops and the scope of it, as well as raid targets required that a normal raid would never do.

The half-assed augs in this expansion are an annoyance, It sucks to do 20 missions then still be making a trade off to use your reward...
Yes I like a 32AC aug on my shield, and I'll use it..but was it nessary that I lose 25hp doing it? I don't know why they insist on making things 90% good and stopping short.

A quest I hate in this expansion is Drake Scourge...I've collected the pieces myself solo, then hand them in, and it gives some vague mission target which apparently has a 1% chance of updating and I run out of time and have to start over.

[Meph]

End zone raids should he pretty hard. Lest the one i saw i beta seemed to be a rapist city.

RCC raids seems pretty hard so far too.

[Vinjin]

It wouldn't suprise me if the raiding game isn't all that challenging. It was just 3-4 months ago that they announced the plan to scale raids down from 54 to 42. Yes, people bitched and they later rescinded the direction but I knew in the back of my mind that they would still move that way. So they just design the difficulty around 42-48 man raids but keep the limit at 54.

[Maeryn]

I don't know why they insist on making things 90% good and stopping short.

that pretty much sums up how i feel about the whole expansion, in a sentence. ty.

[Vinjin]

I happen to find this expansion very well done, but also understand that you won't ever please everyone when it comes to MMO design.

The reality that most players don't know about is that game design and programming sucks. It sucks hard in fact. Many players think of these positions as "dream" jobs when nothing could be further from the truth. It's a complete bitch of a life with no real rhyme or reason sometimes as to why.

Why is that relevant to this thread? I suppose it's because I'm of the belief that the design team probably has a list of ideas, concepts, features that they would like to try. And with the proper time and budget, they probably could implement many of them. This just isn't a reality though in game or even software design in general. Some big wig upstairs is looking for revenue and he wants it now. At that point (usually a few months before an expansion is released), these designers and programmers are forced to shelve ideas and just hit "vampire" mode to finish the thing on time. Trust me. It's no dream. It's a nightmare.

The stuff that players care about, like better spell upgrades, new toys, immersive content, etc? That's inconsequential to them. Yet the designers are the ones who pay the price for it.

On the flip side, players that finish a year's worth of content in less than 2 weeks are probably the players that discourage the design team the most. It basically validates the notion that no matter what they do, they cannot create enough interesting content for them to absorb. So why bother, aside from the fact that "it's their job"?

Tell me to fuck off if you like but I say, give these guys a little slack sometimes. You always have the right to cancel your account if it idoesn't feed your addiction anymore.

[Maeryn]

you're kind of off the mark about me on 2 things.

1) you couldn't pay me enough to do game design. no fucking way in hell i'd want that job, i know some of eq's devs well enough to get defensive when i see some of the bullshit the more retarded players heap on them on the boards. i know a lot of them are trying, and do a very good job. i am not talking about prathun and merloc when i say this.

2) i'm not canceling my account, i actually just renewed it for a year. never said i was quitting, just that i find SoD boring and disappointing.

this isn't about cutting them slack, it's about making a good fucking game. the argument that because people were in void F the week after the expansion launches makes developers not give a shit about putting out good content is sad, because anyone that thinks that way wasn't interested in doing a good job in the first place.

what's most disappointing is that i think this expansion could have been awesome. type 3 augs had HUGE potential, and now they're just, eh. those quested items should be MUCH better than they are, and this new value stream of trying to consolidate everything into all/all to make it easier on the developers is watering down the game to the point where it's unrecognizeable. i could quit, sure, but i'm more interested in making the game better than i am in going somewhere else.

[Tryal Anderror]

The customer gets what they will tolerate.

I'm sure the Devs do have a lot of stuff they want to do but they can't because of time and resources... but when you see the misallocation of that time and resources, that's when it becomes frustrating.

Designing new zones and content and mobs and quests...yes that takes time and I bet there's mechanisms they want to put in and it doesn't work.

but Spell upgrades...Items?
Here, I'll design a spell:

resist: Cold
Dmg: 1600/tick
Resist check -150
duration 42 seconds
Mana 1400

There, I just designed a spell.

How 'bout an item:
Death's Fury
Primary 1hb
Race: all Class: NEC
825hp 825 mana +30 all stats + 25 all resists +6 Heroic INT
Focus: Bane of Affliction (DoT Crit 10)
Type 8:
Type 4:
Type 3:
wt 1.0

done.

The coding that goes into a single Quest probably exceeds the coding that goes into All the Spells and Items Combined.
Out of All the AA, I bet 5 or 6 of them require more coding than the other 200 combined.

So my complaint is always...why the hell did they spend 1000 man hours on a mission where you escort villagers at runspeed -5 and then Go and Copy every single frigging spell we have and generically add 25%?

Literally 1 hour of effort would have made them good. 15 minutes of thought could fix our Epic problem.
I'd rather have a functional Primary weapon than a Halloween quest, and the quest probably took 100 times as long.

I don't cut them any slack because their Priorities are whacked up. 20% of the effort would get them 80% of their results...but They tend to work on grand projects like Mercs and leave the very simple things to rot.

The really annoying part is more how close they come to full content and stop short...they just alllllmost get there, then they drop the ball at the 5 yard line.

I think most classes could have their 'Top 10' issues addressed in a single day if someone was so motivated. Most requests are simply the retyping of numbers, not the re-coding of everything.

Pet doesn't tank well enough? Delete AC = 1500 Add AC = 1800

Mage want to be able to target someone and summon an item directly to that person's hands....That coding already exists, just change the spells to do it.

Every single Caster damage spell in SoD is a +25% copy of the old one...Change them!

It's baffling to see what they do change vs. what they could change which is much easier.
Instead of coding some spells, they add a little man who holds onto the 57 quest items we have? How much time did that take to code vs. retyping some numbers in spell data files?

[Tryal Anderror]

And I'm not cancelling My account, or probably my Warrior's account...but I will be cancelling my Bard's Account and Aryse's account.

Bards got it way worse than we did, so they're basically useless now, and adding Mercs just means I don't need 3 to start an instance anymore, so 2 get cancelled and 2 stay active.
Didn't lose my business, but they lost half of it.

[Tryal Anderror]

Rant #3:

The other big thing Is this 'Mudflation' crap...So I've got my main character, He's Good. Then I have a 2nd Necro Geared up to about TSS, then a Warrior Geared to Demi-Level, and an SK in Mild SoF group stuff and orum crap, and a Bard Geared mostly in Bazaar bought things.

Now that group drops are 700hp, they all might as well be naked. I expect the content to go up...but to go up to a point that the 450hp gear is complete garbage in just 1 expansion cycle is crazy and again just makes me look at them and not care.

I could Level and AA a new Equally geared Warrior in 4 weeks and 500kpp no problem.

[Vinjin]

you're kind of off the mark about me on 2 things.

1) you couldn't pay me enough to do game design. no fucking way in hell i'd want that job, i know some of eq's devs well enough to get defensive when i see some of the bullshit the more retarded players heap on them on the boards. i know a lot of them are trying, and do a very good job. i am not talking about prathun and merloc when i say this.

2) i'm not canceling my account, i actually just renewed it for a year. never said i was quitting, just that i find SoD boring and disappointing.

this isn't about cutting them slack, it's about making a good fucking game. the argument that because people were in void F the week after the expansion launches makes developers not give a shit about putting out good content is sad, because anyone that thinks that way wasn't interested in doing a good job in the first place.

what's most disappointing is that i think this expansion could have been awesome. type 3 augs had HUGE potential, and now they're just, eh. those quested items should be MUCH better than they are, and this new value stream of trying to consolidate everything into all/all to make it easier on the developers is watering down the game to the point where it's unrecognizeable. i could quit, sure, but i'm more interested in making the game better than i am in going somewhere else.

I wasn't necessarily directing this at you. However, judging from your response, I'm not sure you really read it right either.

You all are citing valid recommendations that would improve our class, and perhaps even across all classes. The point I am trying to make is, at some point, someone above the design team tells them, they're not interested in that shit. They just want them to finish the job and they don't care how it's done.

If your boss approached you and said the same thing, what route would you take?

a) well, the customer would really appreciate it if I did [insert something here] for them but it will take much longer to do
b) what is the easiest, quickest way to please my boss, even though the end result won't necessarily make my customer happy?

In the demanding world of IP development, option b rules all. And Copy+Paste is arguably your greatest ally in achieving that goal. Not to mention job security.

It's admiral of you to say you want to stay and help them improve the game. What I'm saying is, I think the devs also want that. They just aren't allowed their creative freedom to do so due to suits with financial agendas.

[encephalitis]

What it boils down to is return policy, meaning that because we can't return the product for refund due to dissatisfaction, there is no accountability to the management-driven development agenda to which you are referring.

[DeadLikeMe]

What it boils down to is return policy, meaning that because we can't return the product for refund due to dissatisfaction, there is no accountability to the management-driven development agenda to which you are referring.

BINGO

If you take a look at any item on Lucy using the raw data link you will see that items have about 224 fields. It's possible that some of those fields are not used, but creating a new item is not as simple as providing a few stats and class restrictions.

Any change no matter how small can break the program. Even if the program was written modularly at the beginning with intent to make changes in the future easier, I would think that after 8 years, the code is very unwieldy.

Of course this doesn't stop me from dreaming of a better EQ. As was suggested on another thread, I wish they would hold competitions for user-inspired content/quests/raids and then take our suggestions to heart. I wish they would let us programmers write some of the code. I mean small portable snippets that couldn't be corrupted with "if player = Gandolf then ...". I wish they would make a quest arc where you needed every single class at least once.

I wouldn't mind if they turned our epics into evolving items so that depending on what mobs you beat, it would unlock more HP/Mana. Example: You beat Aerius who drops the icy dirk of meditation, you can now level your epic to have 690 HP and 735 Mana (I randomly chose 10 points less than the dirk). I have no idea what kind of coding this would entail.

I tried coming up with a new spell I thought a necro should have and I couldn't think of one.