Game cohessiveness

Kunyn Vahl · December 17, 2004, 10:59:37 PM

This is not specifically a Beastlord, post but since i may have the opportunity to have SOE's ear for a moment I hope that this post can be read.
First of all I started EQ before there were any expansions, leveled up a couple characters and retired just before LDoN came out. I have just returned about 2 months ago and now have a level 52 Bst. I'm on one of the new servers and am having a great time.
Before Kunark came out any above level 35 had to go to Guk or attack guards from other cities to have anything to do. The population was leveling up and pressing for more content. SOE responded with Kunark, an excellent expansion. Epics were introduced and more high level zones. The game was a run away success, people were obsessed and the servers were packed. Velious followed brilliantly, from the jungles to the frozen wastelands and you had to pick faction, you had npc allies and enemies and your allies helped you with armor. It was great and it had a story, in the sense of faction.
With the ever increasing high level population each expansion had more high level content than lower and rightfully so, it was needed.
To get to my point, now that my guild, which is mostly people new to EQ, are raiding. I have posted on another thread about traing raids and succession of places to raid. MANY people now, not all, but a kind of general concensus do LDoNs and hot zones to their 50's and then focus on OOW. The whole velious armor progression is irrelevant. Velious had much too much tlc put into it to become obsolete. It wasn't obsolete with Luclin, although Luclin still is valuable and considered in a guild's raid progression. Some posters said bazaar gear to OOW and NToV and SKIP Kael, HoT, WToV , Skyshrine! This is sad but there is truth in it. Each expansion promised greater rewards (for a reason) and older content became more obsolete. The consensus is that NToV is still comparable to other drops. NToV does not have to be fixed. But, Kael, HoT, WToV , Growth and Skyshrine do, IMHO.
If Velious armor quests had a better stats and were augmentable then all these fantastic zones would be used and enjoyed again. It can't be that hard to adjust stats on drops. This could be armor for people from 45-62 and fill in a gap in the EQ experience. If this happens then Velks , Cobalt, and Sirens will be used to farm gems. With the new Hot zones coming in and spreading the population around the different continents I feel that this one change would bring a tremendous amount to the game and make it more whole.
New people to EQ don't know about expansions and just see one vast game. They do ask 'Why go to Velious?'

Thanks, Kunyn Vahl

Hereki · December 18, 2004, 09:50:36 AM

Kael is still important in your scenario for two reasons: learning raiding, and drops.

It's an easily accessible zone from PoK with a few easy mobs - Vindi and Statue, leading to harder mobs Tormax and AoW. Vindi BP is decent, especially for shamans, aggro sword is almost essential for a raiding guild until you can kill RZ.

You can also kill all these mobs with either a low level raid force, or a small one.

Kunyn Vahl · December 18, 2004, 03:52:08 PM

That's true but doesn't address my point that Velious armor, which people used to spend a lot of time on, is obsolete. No one thinks it's worth it and these zones are underused.

Grbage · December 18, 2004, 04:15:59 PM

By today's standards Kael has crappy armor and XP, no reason at tall to go there except to get faction for armor that's not much better. I don't know to many guilds that go to Kael anymore to learn how to raid either. Everyone levels up on bazaar/ldon gear and starts raiding zones with better drops. But, Im sure that if SOE tweaked the stats on drops there to bring them into line with what can be purchased in the bazaar people would once again start going.

Personally I would like to see this done in all older zones. It could break people out of the fast track XP zones for leveling and send them to zones where something useable drops but XP is a bit slower. Lots of people would prefer to hunt level appropiate mobs for level appropiate drops then drop a few kpp in the bazaar for their gear.

Khayden · December 18, 2004, 07:25:06 PM

I agree with the general principle of upgrading some of the older zones, they'd have to upgrade the mobs as well as the drops though IMO to keep the RvR somewhat in line.

Regarding Kael, every guild I've seen work through the raid progression in the game goes there for at the very least a couple of BoCs. Enraging blow on a few of your bigger tanks makes life vastly easier. The exception would be a new guild with some members who've already raided up beyond that or bought theirs.

Khayden

jitathab · December 20, 2004, 12:30:09 PM

HoT was a tedious tedious thing, little was really learned except dont open the door and corpse runs are a bitch.

NToV was fun the first few times, but led to marathon raids of 7-8 hours.
Once you finished that 7-8 hours there was the awesome boss dragon Vulak? you could take on for another 2 hr ring event.

The ring event gives gear almost as good as EP yet no one can be bothered doing NToV for it any more.

ToV - change the ring event so it doesnt summon the named dragons you havent killed, and it will be back on many peoples raid list. The ring is much harder than a lot of Luclin especially the gimp Seru.

Hereki · December 20, 2004, 01:22:59 PM

Vulak ring is very much harder than the rest of NToV - in line with the drops, basically. A guild that can clear NToV is still going to have trouble with the ring. The main differences are tactics and dps - the strategy required is similar to PoP style events, whereas NToV has a lot of similarity with Luclin.

Bheran · December 20, 2004, 02:15:42 PM

Gawd, I loved the Vulak event!

Our guild did it several times, was great fun, NToV was still a decent place for drops gearing up prospects, and most of us still wear what we got offf of Vulak. (I'm still wearing my haste belt from him.

As for Kael/Thurg armor, I'd love for it to be upgraded - I still love Kael, but really can't come up with an excuse to go there other than nostalgia. If it was bumped up to Riwwish difficulty/rewards, I think people would flock back to there again. I would at least.

Dumpty · December 22, 2004, 06:37:03 PM

I have already thought of a simpel way to put soem usefulness back into velious class armora a whiel ago without having to retunre any mobs or content. Even just simply adding click effects = to the kunark armor pieces or similar might at least get some interest in doing thurg and maybe camping pog armors. Making sure each piece had at lesat soem marginal amt of hp would be good also.

Caradis · December 24, 2004, 02:15:04 AM

velious armors do have click effects, like my hot bp ive kept forever for the bramblecoat

Dumpty · December 29, 2004, 09:59:35 AM

only a few pieces have any effects for the different classes , they should be all filled in with the remaining kunark class clicks, or even upgrades to those.

Fin Beast · January 05, 2005, 05:34:30 PM

Its a very good idea/point. With any luck Sony will be receptive to this idea.

IMO and EASY fix that would make people go back to these zones would be adding a 2-3 augment slots to them. They are still low AC stat compaired tot he other gear in OoW and GoD so I wouldn't expect to many power gamers to go back and farm. Yet it would make the casual players that are in small guilds able to end up with decent gear pre 65 without dishing out 100's of thousands of plat.

Choppin · January 06, 2005, 11:25:57 AM

Should increase the points gained via LDoNs too then or lower the prices, the LDoN stuff isnt too hot anymore since OoW is out even for nonraiders I can imagine.