Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[Craigmandu]

and I think most people on live right now would laugh at that for being slow.

You are probably right...that was with me also looking around, figuring out where I was, since I had never been to mines of gloomingdeep before etc.... And I had no others around to give me any damage shields etc... so yea it probably was relatively "slow"...

But to compare...I started this Necro on 1999 the other day and I'm just now level 6. That is what I missed most about EQ, compared to WoW etc... The investment in your character MEANT something to you. Losing xp, the danger factor...and the fact that regular snakes if they are even/yellow can and sometimes will kick your ass if you don't pay attention.

I like the leveling to be challenging, dangerous, and have penalties for failure...when they started dumbing down the game, putting in graveyards, making it too easy for death not to matter and travel no longer to be dangerous at all, it loses its risk factor.

Velious for me was the expansion the game should have stopped with (even though I know they could never have stopped, it was too much of a money machine).

[Raavak]

Originally Posted by Craigmandu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Velious for me was the expansion the game should have stopped with (even though I know they could never have stopped, it was too much of a money machine).

They could have kept expanding but kept it in theme I think, but kept getting crazier and crazier ideas. Pretty soon EQ wasn't EQ anymore.

[Galelor]

Originally Posted by RiffDaemon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For me, EQLive going wrong is a three-phase deal.

1) PoK books. Those insta-ports completely killed the size of the game and ruined taxi classes.

2) Tiered spells. The Rk. I, II, and III stuff just grates my nerves. If you want the raiders to have higher damage spells than the rest of the rabble, then just do like you did with Ancient spells and such back in OoW.

3) Remodeling old zones. So yeah, you want to progress the game and have the new content be at least comparable to other MMOs; but for the love of the Rathe, leave the old zones alone. If you want to instate some alien demon race that lives in crazy towers in the air, then go for it; if you want their realm to be accessible from Freeport, then go for it; but don't obliterate Freeport for the sake of remodeling it to make it "easier on the eyes" to new players. I doubt PoR brought any new players anyway.


But still I play on ....... *sigh*

Not meant to derail, but point 1 is taken way out of context of the expansion. While the PoK books ruined the 'port for cash', it by no means ruined Druids and Wizards. These classes did very well in those expansions (specifically druids.) Additionally, evac/succor became useful imo.

[RiffDaemon]

Originally Posted by Galelor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not meant to derail, but point 1 is taken way out of context of the expansion. While the PoK books ruined the 'port for cash', it by no means ruined Druids and Wizards. These classes did very well in those expansions (specifically druids.) Additionally, evac/succor became useful imo.

Yeah, I didn't mean to say those classes became useless. I meant to say they ruined the taxi part of the taxi classes.

[Raavak]

Originally Posted by RiffDaemon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah, I didn't mean to say those classes became useless. I meant to say they ruined the taxi part of the taxi classes.

A dev at a fanfaire defended the PoK books by saying the day PoP came out you finally saw druids and wizards drop from being perpetually anonomous.

[acid_reflux]

Originally Posted by Raavak

A dev at a fanfaire defended the PoK books by saying the day PoP came out you finally saw druids and wizards drop from being perpetually anonomous.

I played a druid on live. 02-04. Joined right after luclin released. I did the port bologna for a few levels but i didn't make a business out of it. If I had ported people before then i would port those people on request if i wasn't in group.
When pop came out i wasn't upset about the loss of taxi business. I had more time to do whatever.
I also got some unsolicited business, from people that knew me, to power level alts for whatever they felt like paying me. I did alright by my standard.

[Morsakin]

Honestly I think it came down to the apparent fact that they realized the success of the game in the Velious-era, and attempted to expand and "improve" the game with an unnecessary and poorly implemented graphics overhaul, combined with derp-level extravagance (see: cats on moon with snake men and VT, which had next to no interwoven-lore before hand, almost as if they wanted to keep it some surprising yet secretive zone), all the while throwing content out that stressed time sink after time sink. (VT key, and once you finally get in....clearing VT trash for hours)

There was also a noticeable transition in the way raid encounters were mechanized, in that they became more focused on error correction or outright prevention to the point that you simply needed to find a strat to negate a particular trait of the encounter you were raiding, and the rest was cake. I believe Thott phrased it correctly when he stated that prior to Luclin, the aggregate hp levels of a raid would fluctuate based on AE's, adds, etc. to a much higher degree than they did once Luclin gear, spells, and the aforementioned boss mechanics were introduced.

Mobs began having ridiculous amounts of HP, yes, but the raid as a whole was exposed to less individual danger, lessening the likelihood of someone dying because they didn't have their resists at or near cap, or because the individual was an inbred degenerate who couldnt stay out of AEs and such. The only thing that increased was (typically) damage to the MT and a few individuals dealing with adds, with a possible quirky effect thrown in (Aggro reduction spells on Emp, for example, forcing you to pick up aggro on the fly). Other than that, I think most of you can agree that killer AE's (like VP AE's relative to kunark gear) had gone the way of the dodo at this point, with lower thresholds being created to prevent the thin line you'd otherwise walk when it came to simply being able to effectively engage raid targets. (Oh nos guys, an AE G. Flux in end-game Luclin that doesn't even possess a dispel or noticeable damage component.....how will we survive against this overgrown CoM goo?)

In short, end-game raids became dull and uninviting, with little room for ingenuity or creative adaptation. The only fun part was dealing with encounters that had previously been untouched or at the very least weren't well documented, as is the case for everything in the MMO communities these days. If I hadn't been raiding in such a setting with TR, I would've lost interest long before I did.


I will admit that there were some "fun" encounters post Velious, but nothing in Luclin stands out in my mind as particularly challenging or difficult, aside from gear, retardation, and patience (pre-nerf Seru~~ FU 2.5 hour CH rotations) checks.

[acid_reflux]

One clear through vhex thal with some mage coth mules in tow trivialized the time sink. The coth mules were placed out if line of site of various boss mobs... full raid forms up behind a pillar stacked on top of each other... whamo boss dead.. rinse repeat. Tank puts atten ha ra next to a wall. Melee dps push her into the wall. Cone shaped aoe nullified... burn. That place was autopilot. The key quest was more difficult.
Exploitation of game mechanics in luclin was the problem imo. If you tried to tank 'n spank em out in the center of the room you got yourself a game.
After getting one character elemental flagged via pug raids wore me out. I felt i beat the game right there... and the raids were conducted without vent or ts. I could not stomach one plane of air raid. Dropped the game shortly after g.o.d. was released. Mudflation sux.

[Daldaen]

Eh too many people here seem to think time consuming = challenging.

Mindlessly killing hours of trash in Vex Thal isn't challenging. Nor is running across 20 zones that are all green cons to you.

Generally speaking I like games that challenge me, not ones that I zone in with a max force and 1 shot every single raid mob. Raid events that make me think outside the box, on tanking, healing, positioning, CC, etc.

And Classic - Velious raiding isn't that at all, its stack on resist gear and corner tank. Luclin introduced more interesting events, where you needed bane weapons or there is a sequence of killing you need to do to unlock the boss and whatnot.

Planes and Gates both expanded on that and made raids actually challenging which I liked. But I may be alone in that :/.

Mudflation, meh, its just gear. While I understand not looking at EVERY piece of the gears stats is upsetting to some, most of it was just a transition. You no longer needed to try to max out your main stat in PoP... but now had Mod2s and foci to worry about, etc. It always transitioned into a new piece of gearing that you needed to focus in on as older ones like stats / resists were obsoleted.

[Deadmantis]

I actually enjoyed Luclin, PoP, LoY and LDoN. I kept playing after GoD came out but did not partake in much of the content, it felt like they were getting too far from the original. OoW pretty much did it for me, never went back after that.