Originally Posted by pasi
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Luclin ended up being a really solid expansion - it just sucked at first. Anyhow, long post incoming.
I'd go as far as to say the modrod change was the greatest change to raiding in EQ's history. If you have never raided Velious or Luclin before the change - you basically have magicians face a wall and throw 100s of modrods to the floor so the CHeal rotating clerics never go OOM as your DPS autoattacks whatever bad dude that can't possibly kill your tank getting CHealed every 2 seconds. Post rod change, everything got huge HP nerfs and modrods received a cooldown.
Bazaar > EC. I guess there's some people that enjoy the people aspect of EC, but I liked being able to PvP (arena in bazaar) while buying/selling. I enjoyed being able to leave a second account online selling stuff, but I'm someone who would rather play outside of EC.
The whole cats on the moon thing is overblown since Shar Vhal is way the fuck in the middle of no where. I think I went there twice over my entire course of EQ live.
The spires shrinked the world, but using them was still far less desirable than getting a port. It took up to 30 minutes to go from one limited destination to another.
Like every expansion, itemization was fucked at first, but ended up being great. The AC/HP/Mana difference between Luclin and Velious was very small, but the difference was focus effects, more available ATK gear, and more FT gear. Basically, gear became a lot more attractive for non-tanks. Contrast this to Kunark where I choose to gear my 5th alt over my main because a Crude Stein at 20pp is 95% as effective as an Insignia Protector at 150k.
The concept of elemental and bane damage is interesting, but never fully realized. Elemental damage was generally regarded as 1/3rd as effective as weapon damage; however, the aggro per swing of elemental damage is the same as weapon damage. In other words, they could have made proc-less weapons desirable by tanks but not DPS.
Luclin started to modernize raids. You started to see encounters that weren't just a hitbox with an AOE. I posted about this before, but I think the reason Velious encounters are so well received compared to the more complex Luclin encounters has to do with the NPC models being the same and the bleaker environment. If you're not sold on that idea, go look at how well Gates of Discord was received from an aesthetic standpoint.
SSra Temple was one of the better raid zones EQ ever put out. Every encounter there was quality with the exception of Xerkizh the Creator who was basically a Velious-era fight carried over.
I never did Acrylia 1.0 outside of the Ring of Fire and Burrower. Ring of Fire was an amazing fight when it actually worked. I think only Ring of Valor ever ended up doing Inner Acrylia. There was the whole Grimling War raid that never got done much until EQmac years later.
Vex Thal was a huge disappointment outside of the loot. I'll give this point up to the Luclin haters. So. much. trash. The zone was pretty, the loot was awesome, and blinding Eoms were hilarious, but still a piece of shit zone.
Toward the end of Velious, you started to see a return to groupable gear not being terrible with the revamp of Chardok. This continued in Luclin and probably culminated with the revamp of Cazic Thule. Cazic Thule post-revamp was fucking awesome as an exp zone.
AAs give people progression outside of gear (raiding).
And for the first time in EQ's history, the developers tried to give a fuck about balance. Druids become ok again, rangers stop sucking, paladins get something to do on raids, mages stop being vending machines, necros become a real DPS class, wizards stop sucking in sustained fights, etc.
Luclin, fuck yeah.
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08-13-2013, 04:02 PM
Linear Mode
