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And all our plans were going so well until you blasted kids had to show up and gain access to the elemental planes!
Oh well, we moved on to Time for the most part...can't say as I miss any of the little people who we stepped on to get where we are today...the elementals are all yours! ( for what it's worth )
I think what Torrid is saying is that its not so much impossible to do a hard level without the "key" classes, but that it is impractical and inefficient. Sure, you *can* but would you really want to?
People who are competitive 'power gamers' don't want to just 'get bye' they want to 'get bad as fast as fucking possible as much as possible with all the resources and tricks available to them'. If you find that the characters whom you are pretty much enbonded too over your 500 days of playtime aren't cutting it, there's no real easy option of re-rolling and starting over. You suck it up and complain about the problems and hopefully VI listens. Without bitching, EQ would still be a very bad game heh
Concerning the MMORPG stuff and how it is better to play in a bubble - I like the idea of LDoN. It gives people the option of seclusion and a challenge without the added factor of other players, which I always think is nice. But EQ in many respects has had its classes balance and spells designed around player competition and conflict and the idea of respawns (meditation, camps, and respawn being the key examples of game mechanics designed around a stationary group even if the designers didn't realize it).
I just wish this type of expansion was around for me when I was really looking at itemizing my character. To those in mid-range guilds, this is truly an awesome expansion.
Save up, and grab something that you have worked on for several weeks. This is much better than treking down into Sebilis and hoping that you will get the mythical haste cloak that drops about once every 24 hours of continual killing. You also don't have to roll amongst classes that will not use your item. These ideas are great. They would have been incredible if this was implemented back when RoK was released.
Here you don't have to sacrifice exp for gear, or gear for exp. Same amount of time nets you a very nice balance.
On the other hand... when the only real risk here is failure to complete a trial, it isn't that much fun. The current expansion is no where near the difficulty of PoP groups, which is a bit of a shame. I was under the impression that the "normal" mob for a level 65 group would be hitting like Bastion of Thunder mobs, not like... Ilis Knights in Sebilis.
The only real gripe I have is that I don't really have a lot to gain (at first glance) from buying this expansion. There is no real difficulty from the normal setting, and why would I run the hard setting if I can still gain quite a bit more from the normal setting? I can run up 1000's of adventure points for the dungeons, but none of the augments worth saving for can fit into elemental or potime armor. I assume that the raiding-style LDoN will get us the augmentations that will fit in our current slots, but then - what is the point of building up adventure points, when all of the augments we will be using will be drops and not purchased? The make-your-own bp I had in mind will increase my current bp by 30hp-40hp, and maintain the wearable effects that I already have. The item problem is insignificant compared to the difficulty problem.
Traps are implemented and they are still REALLY hard to disarm and pick for a grandmaster rogue. It was a nice idea, but it really came too late. With the timed setting of the adventures, why does my group want to sit and wait 3-4 minutes for me to open a chest that gets us the same amount of platinum from killing one monster (that we could kill in under 30 seconds)?
The functionality of the expansion is there, and it is probably more complete than any previous expansion to date, but the balancing is SEVERELY lacking. Balance this expansion up and it will be great. Keep it at its current state, and it will not be very entertaining.
The solution to your questions will probably come when Verant reitemizes and balances this expansion like they do EVERY time ;)
but it is usually in opposite fashion!!
I would really like to see how much budget spending they allocate for development on an expansion after it has been released... :p
I fail to see the rational explanation for penalizing you if you happen to have put the effort in to obtain PoTime or Elemental gear. Why should we not be able to upgrade our wepaons like anyone else? So Time weapons are already powerful, adding a relatively piddling augment isn't going to throw the balance of power any more askew than it already is... relatively speaking, the bang I'd get for adding a +300 hate modifier to a time weapon is less in magnitude than someone adding a +300 hate to a Copper Hammer... go ahead LET ME DO IT DAMN SONY
I'd love to really use a decent augment, does this mean I have to do a 36 person raid on hard setting to get a 1/36th chance at a yet to be published slot 8 aug? (given the reports of even normal setting 36 person raids are v. poor at risk vs. reward.... oo I know I just get all warm and fuzzy over the thought at spending 2+ hr to get 30 ap !!)
... damn it I wanna be able to use that type 4 or 5 aug in my type 8 slot!!!!
- Card
If elemental were my own instance Andaas couldn't accidentally train the pheonix's on me that evil druid.
The mission we completed in 50 minutes was a kill x mobs in y minutes. When we hit the y number of mobs dead we were only halfway through the dungeon. An assassination of the same level of difficulty would have more than likely run us out of time. This with a hoss group including a monk, rogue, cleric, bard, warrior, wizard.
Parses post fights are consistantly showing hoss rogues doing in the area of 250k dmg and hoss wizards at 150ish. The tuning on hard makes it even worse as the mobs are much more resistant.
I have tried 4 hard missions now with groups varying from random pick up groups to hoss stacked groups. The over all impression is without a fairly well decked out group and hte proper mission type you aren't going to win a hard. The AP rewarded is too low for the risk required.
I haven't noticed an increase in drops or worth of drops in the hard vs the normal level either. I think this should be tuned.
As to the instancing, I think they could have fixed something like this to allow for a lower guk which only let 30 people in before reinstancing or 6 groups etc. MMRPG's create areas that can be over crowded for the amount of space allowed. I think the massive idea is fun but at the same time where is the mystery and excitement in crawling through sol B when every spawn point is camped by a group (no I don't mean area I mean every single spawn, original release pre Kunark this occurred.)
All in all I'd have prefferred to see more thought out dungeons in the same locations with a solid storyline that was non static. Allowing for groups to gain fire ish xp but having the dungeons of a difficulty that made risk vs reward mean something. Of course this isn't the game Everquest was created as. EQ has never been a "dungeon crawl" its been a character developing kill them all let the server sort them out adventure.
I think its too late to try to introduce a dungeon crawl environment and what we are really seeing is experimentation for EQ 2.
Joshua
aka Sexy Lexi da SUPER gnome!!!
I dunno why I bother replying, its clear you don't have much experience with this expansion.Quote:
I guess neither of us is seeing the point of the other. I am saying that if you could complete the mission with ANY combo, meaning the best combo, and it take only 50 minutes then the time limit is fine. I cannot imagine substituting out a warrior for that rogue, or a wizard for that rogue, and the disparity in dps being larger than 40 minutes causing you to fail. In fact, you claim you were never even in any danger while rolling through the dungeon at a mob a minute clip but want 20 MORE minutes and less hp mobs. Hmm.
There is a reason it takes me 20 minutes to select a "kill X mobs" mission. Because they are by far the fastest missions to complete. I wasn't about to give myself a loss by doing any other mission type on hard, even with a fanastic group setup. As lexi said, an assassination mission would take almost twice as long, let alone a rescue mission.
The 'raid' classes have always been a bit slacking in your one-group situations. Warriors, clerics, wizards... they've never been ideal for exp grinds and such. It's not a new problem, it's just the enviroment in LDoN that enhances it from the background where it's been residing as far back as since they fixed 2hers damage tables.
Perhaps warriors and wizards will get the bone the clerics got, perhaps not. Time will tell.
edit: my sig pwns me :D
paladins owns me and it makes me so sad.
oh yeah whats up with the slot restriction on augments? hp only on arms/bp/legs etc and ac/resists only on neck/face/cloak etc.. how can you custom your items if there is only 1 kind of augment you can put on em? So damn retarded... Makes me a very upset lizard
Clerics not ideal for exp groups? Wizards ideal for raids but not rogues? Pass the crack around please
Wizards sucks in XP grind?Quote:
Originally posted by Khael
The 'raid' classes have always been a bit slacking in your one-group situations. Warriors, clerics, wizards... they've never been ideal for exp grinds and such.
Put me in an outdoor zone (horse) with VoQ and Pot9 and I'll keep up for a long long long time.
In normal adventure in LDoN with KEI I can do and keep up an almost constant 40-50% of mob damage in the most sucky group.
I'm always up for an upgrade though :cool:Quote:
Perhaps warriors and wizards will get the bone the clerics got, perhaps not. Time will tell.
edit: my sig pwns me :D
Yes, you suck in exp groups.
The issue that makes some people think otherwise is when your pullers don't do their jobs worth a shit, and your group does not stay in combat for long enough, robbing melee of their dps.
I guarantee you my warrior does more damage than you in my groups.
Clerics got their fix, if I was unclear on that part I'm sorry :p There was a time when no group would take a cleric over a shaman, perhaps you might recall that time if you think hard enough.
Rogues are so exceptional in 1-group situations that I don't consider them a raid class (though I know fully certain their value as such).
You know what I meant Torrid :p
edit: I really need to fix that sig..
[QUOTE]Wizards sucks in XP grind?
Put me in an outdoor zone (horse) with VoQ and Pot9 and I'll keep up for a long long long time.
In normal adventure in LDoN with KEI I can do and keep up an almost constant 40-50% of mob damage in the most sucky group.QUOTE]
Exactly what Torrid said. You are playing with alot of downtime, which you really can not afford in LDoN. If anyone in my group starts to go on sleepy mode, I start pulling myself :D Wizards can not keep up with constant pulls.
I love wizards in ldon groups.
Parse some logs Waright. The only time the best equipped wizard on this server beats my warrior in LDoN groups are when we beat them in about 25 mins or less.
And rogues have always been a fantastic raid class. Even back all the way to kunark when they could disc 1k backstabs on 32k mobs. Even in luclin they matched wizard dps (or exceeded it) when you didn't artificialy inflate wizard damage with mod rods. Rogue is probably the one class you can NEVER go wrong with. And now with LDoN, they totaly rise above the rest signifficantly.
Well, from the bard perspective rogues and wizards are more equal (than without). If I manage to keep my main 3 songs up 100% of the time I help out a rogue by about 20%. I don't know exactly how much I help a wizard but I would guess its about 30 to 40% between the 7.5% and the 21 mana per pulse. my guess is normal regen is about 40 to 50 with good buffs/equip/aa. That 25 minutes you coin is probably about 35 or 40 minutes when I am on my game (the normal time it takes for a normal mission in a hoss group). So unless we start doing hards IMO wizards and rogues seem to do about the same and I have never had a rogue port me out of a dungeon without me procing my hammer on him. Yes I don't parse so I may be 100% wrong.
I have not seen too many agro issues with nukers with hoss groups... and that is with BurnemIOverAgroLikeAMoFo.
EDIT: also I would say that not having to run out and waist 5 minutes+ does equate to DPS since the true calc of DPS should not be done per mob... but per hour... or better yet 3 hours of hard play.
On a 50 minute hard mission, with a bard, nine, SD, and VoQ, my warrior outdamaged burnem with a Blade of War. The rogue slaughtered us both.
Does the opportunity to use some AE nukes helps wizards up their dps vs. rogues etc? We seem to be pulling 4 to 6 at a time anyways. Fen