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SPELL RESEARCH FOR RK 3Follow

#1 Feb 23 2016 at 3:57 PM Rating: Good
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I assume there is no way to get Rk3 spells other then raiding/ Would it not be nice if there was some way with extreme difficult tasks or research to get them for non raiders?
#2 Feb 23 2016 at 4:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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As a general rule, rank I spells are purchasable. Rank II spells can be obtained via tradeable drops or research. Rank III spells can only be obtained via no trade raid drops. I see no real reason for this to change. There must be some benefit to raiding, else no one would bother doing it. Tradeskills are kind of a reward to themselves, but the game is intended specifically to be a social game (hence, the "massively multiplayer" portion of MMORPG). They're always going to reserve the best rewards for endeavors that require large numbers of people to achieve.

I know that people always ask for this. They've been asking for tradeskills to grant the best (or equivalent to the best) armor/gear/spells for like 20 expansions. It's not likely to happen though. They've taken great strides to make it quite possible to progress though the levels without having to interact with other players in larger guild settings, while still obtaining sufficient gear to not get "stuck", but you can't expect that form of play to grant the best rewards in the game.

One can also argue that if you aren't raiding, you probably don't need that bit of extra power and ability that raid drops grant. Rank II is more than sufficient for solo/group play in the game. As is tier 1 or 2 gear. If you want better than that, well... you have to raid.
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#3 Feb 23 2016 at 7:01 PM Rating: Good
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I think if it were sufficiently difficult it would be fair as trade skill or task can be done on free time, many can't raid because they work.

At this point in the game much of the content seems aimed at raiders and no one wants my RK buffs anymore so I have become obsolete.
#4 Feb 23 2016 at 8:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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It's a tricky trade-off. I would just make the rank 3's researchable and/or even droppable from group content in a couple of expacs later.

If they designed the raids scalable so 2 years later the group version (for the story and the utility items, not the top special gear) was unlocked to all that would work too. What I mean is they create multiple versions of a "raid" but stagger the release so the longer the content is out the more easy versions of the event exist. Look back at the raids/zones that "no one does" because they have unsoloable or groupable mechanics even if you are 20 levels above the content. That shouldn't happen in my mind.
#5 Feb 23 2016 at 9:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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Don't think it would hurt if they put ina way to obtain these for older rank3 spells that only drop in obsolete raid content.
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#6 Feb 24 2016 at 12:31 AM Rating: Good
you can group some of the older raids like

Spell: Twincast Rk. III
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=79417


Some servers have open raids for older zone like ROF, COTF.
#7 Feb 24 2016 at 10:38 AM Rating: Good
Meesay wrote:
I assume there is no way to get Rk3 spells other then raiding/ Would it not be nice if there was some way with extreme difficult tasks or research to get them for non raiders?


Rank 3 spells are raid spells. If you aren't raiding you don't need them. Rank 2s are more than sufficient.
#8 Feb 24 2016 at 3:18 PM Rating: Good
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amastropolo wrote:
Meesay wrote:
I assume there is no way to get Rk3 spells other then raiding/ Would it not be nice if there was some way with extreme difficult tasks or research to get them for non raiders?


Rank 3 spells are raid spells. If you aren't raiding you don't need them. Rank 2s are more than sufficient.


Well I disagree some of the new content is really tough but more so as I said before i like buffing people and my buffs are no longer appreciated.

IF the Rk3 spells took extraordinary effort to create by tradeskill not many would do it anyway because these are the same people who don't ave the time, but if they did choose to use up their playing time getting RK3's it would be available to them. I am talking spells not equipment.
#9 Feb 24 2016 at 7:25 PM Rating: Decent
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Meesay wrote:
IF the Rk3 spells took extraordinary effort to create by tradeskill not many would do it anyway because these are the same people who don't ave the time, but if they did choose to use up their playing time getting RK3's it would be available to them. I am talking spells not equipment.


Except because of how the trade skill system in EQ works, it wouldn't actually involve extraordinary effort. People who are already into doing trade skills already have all their trade skills maxed, a whole set of storage for mats, alts for holding stuff, housing for more stuff, etc. That's a cost you already pay getting to the top skill levels in that part of the game. Once you've done that, it's not really about time to do anything, but about cost to obtain the materials. And when you look at the costs already out there for rk II spells in the 101-105 range, I'm not sure you could price the mats high enough to make it competitive, especially to someone that much into trade skills in the first place. Of course, they could make the mats only drop from raid mobs, but that would kinda defeat the purpose.

It would take an extraordinary effort for someone who isn't into the trade skill element of the game to do so, but that's not the same thing. Generally speaking, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone arguing for allowing for higher end raid equivalent stuff via tradeskililng who were not already heavily into tradeskilling. So, you could argue that this would give those who've already spent the time and effort doing that a relatively cheap and easy way to obtain top level stuff. Again, assuming that trade skills are already at some value in terms of play and bang for buck, this could potentially unbalance things a bit. Possibly quite a bit.
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#10 Feb 26 2016 at 2:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'm going to post here knowing the risk I run for an endless back-and-forth on the never-to-be-resolved topic known as SHOULD RAID-LEVEL STUFF ONLY BE AVAILABLE TO RAIDERS. But what the heck:

First, in what EQ Bible is it stated that:

Quote:
Rank 3 spells are raid spells. If you aren't raiding you don't need them. Rank 2s are more than sufficient.


Nobody NEEDS Rank III spells. They're just slightly/somewhat improved versions of the Rank II spells. Like with everything else on the endless treadmill of the game known as Everquest, it's not NEED that's involved here, it's DESIRE. Players WANT Rank III spells because they WANT to improve their characters. No raid ever failed for want of a Rank III spell so they clearly aren't a NEED for raiders. They're a CARROT to encourage players to put in the time and effort required to raid.

Now this same time and investment could be put into tradeskills, quests or other ways to acquire Rank III spells as well as raid-quality gear and weapons. Gbaji sez:

Quote:
I'm not sure you could price the mats high enough to make it competitive, especially to someone that much into trade skills in the first place


Of course you could!! The game coders can make mats as rare and valuable as they want! They already do this with the super-rare zone-wide GROUP-ACCESSIBLE "rares" and why couldn't they do this with a mat required to make a Rank III spell or for tradeskills to construct a raid-quality piece of armor or jewelry?? Personally I have NEVER looted any of those tradeable super-sized bags which are said to drop VERY RARELY from trash mobs in some expansions. And I've killed thousands of such mobs throughout every zone in those expansions. Just my bad luck---the game RNG just doesn't like me, I guess. But they DO drop because I see them on rare occasion offered in the Bazaar for big plats.

What I don't understand is this mindset that raiding is sacrosanct and no non-raider should ever be allowed access to raid-quality lewts. Raiding Is demanding (for the leaders) and time-consuming (for the followers) and certainly EQ has to offer loot of sufficient quality and value to motivate those raiders. In other words, BIG ENOUGH CARROTS. But there is absolutely no reason that the same size carrots can't be offered to non-raiders who invest an analogous amount of time and effort in questing and/or tradeskills. The irony is in the current era the game would greatly benefit from this kind of design because more and more players are non-raiding groupers and boxers and you hear time and time again how oftentimes they get bored with an expansion because there's nothing much more to do, and they log in infrequently. If the game is lucky, these players return "full-time" with the next expansion but there's always the real risk that they won't and their effort (and sub money) is lost to the game forever.

BTW, even NOW it is NOT true that raid-level gear isn't available to non-raiders. I hate to open the eyes of the naïve but on some (maybe most) servers there are raiding guilds and raiding boxing teams who will help a player acquire raid gear for real-life $. Even if it's no-drop there are ways today, especially with the game's recent move to raid currency. For the right price any player can get flagged with raid accomplishments and get access to raid level stuff. Sure, it's cheating but it happens and the game would be better off if such gear could be acquired thru legit means like questing and tradeskills.



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#11 Feb 26 2016 at 10:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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They could implement daily "casual tasks" that gave a small amount of the raid currency. Example with made-up numbers (someone else can tune them):

Do the tier 1 raid you get 50, tier 2 75, tier 3 100, tier 4 (hard mode) 200 and so one to however many tiers they put in the game.
daily you get 5.

Raiders can do the daily too.

So as long as raid vendor pricing made sense... say 40 for the gloves (so a raider does 1 raid and gets an upgrade loot and the non-raider can do tasks over 8 days to earn the same gloves, but most items would skew over the single raid number by a bit to a lot since that keeps incentive to raid repeatedly there with more upgrades to buy. At the same time, if a person wants to spend 300 days farming the daily to buy a complete tier 3 raid set... why not?).

The daily doesn't even need to be hard or current. It could randomly cycle existing tasks from old content. So yes, you could get your raid currency from a level 10 TSS task one day and a CoTF era task the next.
#12 Feb 27 2016 at 4:22 PM Rating: Good
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Once you've done that, it's not really about time to do anything, but about cost to obtain the materials.


I think it is about time, raiding is about having the time.

They could put long tasks with no fail tradeskill like epic stuff. That way if you have time you work on it a little each week for those of us with real jobs and days off.
I like that Everquest is about quests and this would fit right in there level of difficulty = to effort involved (time)

Edited, Feb 27th 2016 5:28pm by Meesay
#13 Feb 27 2016 at 6:46 PM Rating: Good
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Alas, Everquest is really not that much "about quests." Certainly, nothing like the name would imply. I don't consider missions and heroic adventures to be "quests", in the classical fantasy definition of the term. A real quest is an undertaking requiring many days, lots of travel, various kinds of encounters (not just fights) and sometimes the assistance of friends, acquaintances and even strangers. The epics introduced in Kunark were the epitome of what a real quest is. I wish they had a lot more of these types of quests.
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#14 Feb 29 2016 at 4:52 PM Rating: Decent
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Sippin wrote:
I'm going to post here knowing the risk I run for an endless back-and-forth on the never-to-be-resolved topic known as SHOULD RAID-LEVEL STUFF ONLY BE AVAILABLE TO RAIDERS. But what the heck:


Haha! Risk it! Risk it! Smiley: grin

Quote:
First, in what EQ Bible is it stated that:

Quote:
Rank 3 spells are raid spells. If you aren't raiding you don't need them. Rank 2s are more than sufficient.


Nobody NEEDS Rank III spells. They're just slightly/somewhat improved versions of the Rank II spells. Like with everything else on the endless treadmill of the game known as Everquest, it's not NEED that's involved here, it's DESIRE.


Sure. Perhaps a bit poorly worded on my part. Obviously, Rank III spells aren't "needed" to raid, else no one could successfully raid. I guess the point I was making is that as you progress into tougher content, the value of higher rank spells (and tiers of gear for that matter) has more impact. Normal solo/group content is balanced to characters with solo/group obtainable gear and spells. So that content is difficult when first attempting it sans such gear, but gets progressively more manageable as you improve your gear. Would even better gear make that content easier? Absolutely. But the point is about ranks/tiers. Raids are balanced to raid forces with raid level gear (of varying levels even). Thus, it's nearly impossible for a group of folks in purchased/solo obtained gear to raid successfully. They must first outfit themselves (or a sufficient quantity of themselves) in group gear to improve their odds to "difficult". But they can now obtain raid level gear/spells, which over time, will make things easier.

I just see it as a difficulty scale issue. So no so much "need" as "makes life much less difficult". There's a reason why previous expansion raid gear is usually roughly equivalent to the next expansions solo (and sometimes even group) gear. It's to allow that progression to happen from one set of content to the next. Folks who aren't already in raid gear typically have to work their way through solo/group content in the new expansion, but because that's pretty much the end of that content for them, it's no more steep a climb than the raiders have. So it's somewhat balanced.

Quote:
No raid ever failed for want of a Rank III spell so they clearly aren't a NEED for raiders. They're a CARROT to encourage players to put in the time and effort required to raid.


Exactly. If you make it possible for folks to obtain it without raiding, many players will do just that. And I'm not even saying that this might not be "fair". I totally get that a ton of players are like me and are willing to put lots of hours into their characters, but can't necessarily put those hours in at specific time periods and/or for long enough at a single sitting, to be able to raid successfully. The problem is that, rightly or wrongly, a significant portion of dev time is spent on raid level content. And the carrot you speak of is what's dangled in front of the raiding community to basically fund that stuff in the first place. Could they make changes to the game to focus more on dedicated players doing casual group/solo content while using their trade skills to obtain gear and spells? Sure. And they could probably make money doing this. But for whatever reason, they've chosen otherwise.

My comments are based on the reality of the game as it is now. Obviously, they could change this, but it would not be as simple as just making rankIII and raid gear obtainable via trade skills. They'd have to radically change the focus of future expansions to the game to account for this shift. Heck. It might even result in a better game. I'd certainly be happier with more solo/group content, and more paths of advancement that don't revolve around raiding. I don't take my position because I love the raid game. However, I recognize that for many players this *is* why they play. And if they don't feel like they're getting something special that can only be obtained by players like them, they might just leave for greener pastures.

Quote:
Now this same time and investment could be put into tradeskills, quests or other ways to acquire Rank III spells as well as raid-quality gear and weapons.


Yup. I agree. But you'd have to switch your content focus and dev time to do that. I'm not saying this isn't a bad idea, but that it would require more of a change to the core of the game than most people suspect.


Quote:
Quote:
I'm not sure you could price the mats high enough to make it competitive, especially to someone that much into trade skills in the first place


Of course you could!! The game coders can make mats as rare and valuable as they want! They already do this with the super-rare zone-wide GROUP-ACCESSIBLE "rares" and why couldn't they do this with a mat required to make a Rank III spell or for tradeskills to construct a raid-quality piece of armor or jewelry?? Personally I have NEVER looted any of those tradeable super-sized bags which are said to drop VERY RARELY from trash mobs in some expansions. And I've killed thousands of such mobs throughout every zone in those expansions. Just my bad luck---the game RNG just doesn't like me, I guess. But they DO drop because I see them on rare occasion offered in the Bazaar for big plats.


Ok. But if you make it that rare/expensive, then you're still basically back to square one. But now, instead of the route to the best gear being "spend the time/effort raiding", it's "spend the time/effort leaning trade skills, then hope to get really really lucky".

I'm assuming, btw, that for raid equivalent spells and gear, the rare mats would have to be no-trade, and the resulting gear/spells would be no-trade as well. So this isn't about rare drops providing cash for the tradeskiller as he sells of rank III spells, or raid gear (or the super rare mats for such). He'd be making this stuff only for himself (and anyone else wanting to follow this route would as well). This is the only way to balance this out for raid level stuff, and I suspect that most people arguing for a trade skill route wouldn't be too happy with it either.

And frankly, the biggest problem is time. Raids take time in terms of commitment at a specific time/place. To balance that with a trade skill approach that would acquire the same gear, you'd eliminate the "must be here for X hours to get a shot at a drop" element, but replace it with "must spend many many times more hours on your own schedule to obtain the drops to get this". Which puts us in the situation of expansions out leveling that gear faster than a trade skill route could feasibly obtain it. This is kinda what I was getting at with the cost/rarity thing. If you make it too easy/fast, then the raiders will scream bloody murder. But to make it take longer and be harder (or more super rare), you would have a hard time making it workable.


I'm not sure how you can balance that. Not saying it's not possible, but again, pointing out that it's not as simple a prospect as some might think. I also don't think most folks asking for this realize how many more people will start doing tradeskills specifically to follow that alternate route. Most players don't bother with tradeskills at all. Doing only those necessary for various quests (apparently, for paladins, this means fishing and brewing, but YMMV). Imagine how much more competition for farming spots and how much more expensive many mats will become if literally everyone starts doing trade skilling full time as a means of obtaining gear.

That's yet another thing about the game that would have to be changed to account for this. To do this right, you really have to start fresh going forward, introducing new expansions with far less of the content dedicated to raiding, and far more of it dedicated to casual solo/group content, so that folks can obtain sufficient mats and whatnot to obtain gear beyond the normal solo/group level. Heck. This might even result in greater player interest over time. Then again, it might result in more players actively playing at any given time, but not necessarily more subscriptions involved (which is a bad thing from a game design point of view). If the raid players get bored and play less often, but still maintain their accounts and log on occasionally to fool around, that's ideal from the game owner's perspective. Paying customers who aren't consuming as much of the game resources. Change from that model to one that focuses on tons of players spending many times more total hours in the game (but on their own schedule), and you might find yourself going negative in terms of cost/benefit. From a game resource point of view, you'd much rather have players who play hard for 6 hours a couple times a week, than players who play casually for 20+ hours a week. The compute resources to manage a character in the game are the same pretty much regardless of what that player is doing (although I suppose sitting idle in a zone is less than actively fighting, but let's assume you're spending most of your time farming mobs for mats).

Again, I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea from a player perspective. I'm just saying that the way the current game is structured, it would be difficult to implement in a balanced way. And the changes they'd have to make to make this balanced would be greater than the devs are likely to want to do.

Edited, Feb 29th 2016 2:57pm by gbaji
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#15 Feb 29 2016 at 7:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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They could implement "Previous expacs raid gear via tradeskills" tasks that have a number of stages tuned to the intended difficulty, and put on one-step per day lockout timers. You could have to do the whole set in order (which would create some time waste for people that partly raided I suppose).

So your Raid foot item might be a 7 day task. Being tradeskill it would be neat if it was more lore-trading based... such as visiting tradeskill NPC in various places. It could be semi silly stuff like "Give the smithing vendor in Katta Castrum 5 pieces of banded mail" and such. Done the foot? Now you get to do your 5 day hand quest and make sure you give that Vah Shir tailor the pale velium maul she needs...

You'd be getting the gear later than the in-era raiders.
Raiders could do the tasks too.
With the proposed model you'd be looking at something like 50 different days logged in. That's pretty far into the next expac if you're letting this be a catch-up mechanism.
#16 Mar 01 2016 at 3:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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Assuming by "previous expac", we mean "previous level increasing expac or equivalent" (which is what I meant, in case it wasn't clear), that could work, I suppose. But I'm not sure it solves the problem. I'm assuming that most people aren't screaming for a way to obtain level 96-100 rkIII spells and raid gear, now that the max level range is 101-105, right? Those spells are less powerful than the rkII (or even rkI) of the current level range (and many might be useless due to level caps anyway). And, as I mentioned above, raid gear from the previous level range expansion(s) are typically equivalent to the solo/group obtainable gear in the current one.

So why would anyone spend that kind of time doing this? They'd just box or group for current group gear instead.

The only way this solves anything is if you provide a way to obtain current/equivalent raid spells and gear. And I really just don't see the devs doing that. Not without some kind of complete change in the very focus and design of the game going forward. If EQ were a brand new game being designed from scratch? Maybe. This far along? Not sure it could be done. I mean, it *could*, but it would not be as simple as just making current raid equivalent stuff obtainable via trade skills. That would be too easy. You'd have to do something to make it "hard". Which, given that in EQ "hard" usually means "tougher content that requires large numbers of people working together (ie: raiding)", that leaves you with only one balancing tool: "super long time sinks". And no way does 7 days for a piece cut it. That's faster than most people get an upgrade to a piece of gear from raiding. It would have to take like 5-6 times longer than that to make it "fair".

And frankly, I still keep coming back to the core intent of the game. It's a social game. The expectation is for people to work together to achieve the highest goals. They've done a ton in the game to make it very attractive to casual solo/group players. I, for one, have no problem at all with "only" being able to obtain rank II spells and tier II gear whilst pretty casually playing. Used to be, if you didn't raid you were more or less dorked for gear and spells. Now? Much much better for the casual players. Dunno. It just seems strange to me to take all the improvements in the game in this regard and basically say "more!". The whole rank/tier system was developed specifically to provide a consistent method by which they could ensure casual players could obtain level relevant gear and spells, while still ensuring that the "best" stuff (rather than the "only" stuff as it used to be) was still reserved for those who raided. I think it's a great system, and that it works very very well. I just don't know that it really need "fixing".
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#17 Mar 01 2016 at 9:26 PM Rating: Excellent
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Your assumption "it's a social game" is faulty. It WAS a heavily social game. Social play is still part of the game but a huge part of the player base now plays solo, molo or as a multi-boxer. And when you consider that a boxer is supporting multiple accounts, good business demands that DBG pay close attention to the wants of boxers, since they're customers who spend more money than the average player. It's just common sense and good business to introduce paths into the game for non-raiders to acquire raid-level loot. And I vehemently disagree that the game infrastructure makes this impossible. Even if they didn't want to have to design elaborate quests they can easily introduce rare drops of gear and mats (the latter for those who prefer the tradeskill route over the grind route) which "feed the need" of dedicated non-raiders for top-notch stuff.

You're right about one thing: nobody gives a darn about Rank III's once the spells are no longer cutting edge---except maybe for the spell completists, of which there are some out there playing but certainly not a population DBG needs to cater to.
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#18 Mar 02 2016 at 6:06 AM Rating: Excellent
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I'll be specific to necromancers:

There are times as you level that you run a few dots in your rotation that are multiple expacs back. If this remains true post the rank system coming into the game then I could see that class wanting access. (I haven't played up that level enough to know myself).

Ironically this possible need (ignore the point if it is moot) may put an argument against the simple fix of "These rank III spells are now surpassed by newer content and therefore available from vendors. [See if I was a crafty dev I would put the "old rank III" spells made obsolete by the new cutting edge content for sale on a vendor in the new content. Creates incentive for the behind content player to buy the new expac].

The argument against in this sense is that if necros would still be cycling the dot 3 years later, giving them a free upgrade when no one else is getting an upgrade... well I would do it anyway to be honest (and like I said, this may no longer happen with necro spells anyways).
#19 Mar 02 2016 at 7:42 AM Rating: Excellent
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Interesting point Snailish, which I think is correct, but with an interesting twist.

Necros DO use up to ~15-17 different DoTs in their rotations.... on raids! In the grouping game, it's WAY less, so there would only be a couple spells from previous XPACs that they would use. Which is also true of most other classes. I box DRU/MAG/ENC, and for all three, I have a couple spells loaded from previous XPACs in the rotation.

So I would argue that your point is correct.... and that they should still do this. The only people who would be helped a lot are necros who raid. Other classes would only benefit a little (raid or not). And if it helps raiding necros, the benefit would be that they could get rank 3s from previous XPACs without the need for their guild to take them back to old raids, just for this one purpose.

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#20 Mar 02 2016 at 3:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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tatankaseventh wrote:
. I box DRU/MAG/ENC, and for all three, I have a couple spells loaded from previous XPACs in the rotation.

Tat


Really? Like Kyle would say, "Really? Really?" Like what spells? Are your toons 105? I play all 3 classes and outside of ports for my druid, and maybe Call of the Hero for my mage, I never load up a sub-101 spell outside of Twincast (because they've never upgraded it) and, for the druid, there's one damage shield spell which for some reason they didn't upgrade beyond 100, which is Surge of Spineburrs. That's useful enough that I keep this level 95 spell loaded for occasional group play.

Necros are not a good for-instance here since their ability to stack a seeming endless load of DOTS on a mob is unique to them. In theory druids could do this too but it makes no sense to go back and cast lower level DoTs when at the same time higher-level DoTs are expiring and demanding to be recast. Plus root-rotting is for dweebs, quint-kiting is where it's at! Smiley: smile

Actually, quint-kiting is indeed another example of where I use sub-101 spells since druids only get two lines of aoe nukes and due to recast delays it's worth casting the pair from each of the last two spell levels (96, 97, 101 and 102.) Incidentally here's a great example of Rank III's being invaluable for solo/group play since I use the Rank III's of these in solo quint-kiting and it does make a BIG difference as to how many mobs I can kill in one kite.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2016 4:09pm by Sippin
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#21 Mar 02 2016 at 4:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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Sippin wrote:
Your assumption "it's a social game" is faulty. It WAS a heavily social game. Social play is still part of the game but a huge part of the player base now plays solo, molo or as a multi-boxer. And when you consider that a boxer is supporting multiple accounts, good business demands that DBG pay close attention to the wants of boxers, since they're customers who spend more money than the average player.


And they did. In the form of the tier/ranked system in the first place. Prior to the introduction of that system for spells and gear, it was often impossible to get certain (many!) spells unless you raided. Period. And gear? Forget about it. As I mentioned above, the introduction of the tier/rank system has been a massive boon to the solo/molo/boxer. I guess I just see it as a bit rude maybe to get all this handed to you, and then say "Ok. That's great, but why can't I get the absolute top level of this system too?". The whole point of the system was to allow for solo/casual-group players to be able to obtain the same spells and gear that raiders could get, just at slightly less powerful levels. The assumption the whole time was that the "best" stuff would still be reserved for those who raid. I'm just not sure chucking that out is a great idea.

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It's just common sense and good business to introduce paths into the game for non-raiders to acquire raid-level loot.


I disagree. And yeah, I know we've disagreed on this before, and presumably will continue to. But I don't see this as common sense at all. Common sense says that if you build a system designed to allow non-raiders to get lesser forms of raid loot, you defeat the entire purpose if you go that one step further and allow them to get the full raid level loot as well. If that's the objective, then why have ranks at all? Why not just eliminate different ranks and just make the base spell "rank III". And make those spells buyable from vendors and be done with it? That's just one or two steps further in the same thought process of "make it so more casual players can get the best gear/spells". Make it so trade skills can get you the gear, and non-trade skill casual players will complain. So you'll have to make some kind of solo dropable method for getting them. And at that point, what are you even trying to do anymore? Take away the distinction between gear/spells obtainable via raiding and the rest, and there's no rational "common sense" reason to have any distinctions at all.

And I totally disagree that it's good business sense. I doubt there are very many players who will cancel their subs because they can't solo for raid gear. But there are likely a great number of raiders who will leave the game if they don't feel that the reap extra rewards for raiding. People who solo tend to have (as you mentioned) lots of alts. I manage to spend all the time I care to play just tooling around with a few characters, and haven't yet come close to maxing out their obtainable non-raid gear yet. I've yet to come close to doing that in the time frame between level increasing expansions, so I'm just not seeing the problem here. There's plenty to do IMO.

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And I vehemently disagree that the game infrastructure makes this impossible. Even if they didn't want to have to design elaborate quests they can easily introduce rare drops of gear and mats (the latter for those who prefer the tradeskill route over the grind route) which "feed the need" of dedicated non-raiders for top-notch stuff.


I didn't say impossible. I said it would be difficult to do while maintaining the kind of character risk/time/reward balance they have now. I specifically said that it's possible, but they'd have to make some significant changes, not just to drop tables and trade skill recipes, but to actual expansion/content design going forward.

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You're right about one thing: nobody gives a darn about Rank III's once the spells are no longer cutting edge---except maybe for the spell completists, of which there are some out there playing but certainly not a population DBG needs to cater to.


There are a few spell lines that this might be valuable. On my paladin, there are some heal lines that aren't timer locked (so you can load up multiple past versions of the same spell line and rotate them). Um... I honestly find I don't need to do that for most solo activities, and rkIIs fill the need just as well as rkIIIs would (and they all scale mana cost as well, so it's really a matter of "as long as I have enough healing, it doesn't really matter what spell I'm using"). I get a crit heal, I'm back at 100% regardless of which rank spell I'm using, so...?

I believe the only difference between twincast rkII and rkIII is 320 second recast versus 300. Might be useful. Maybe. Honestly, half the time I delay using it because the mob I'm fighting is already half dead, and I want to pop it on the next one where I'll be able to get full use out of it anyway. That, or I've got other abilities available that I'd like to stack with it (and again, not waste on a half dead mob).

I do kinda agree with the "older stuff should be easier to get" bit though.

What I'd really rather they do in terms of older content is remove things like numerical restrictions on raids. If I can solo a raid mob from 5 expansions ago, let me do it. Arbitrarily requiring me to have some number of people with me in a raid (and sometimes even in the zone) is just plain annoying. IMO, that alone would remove most of the problems with raid drops from outdated content. Some of which are still useful, but not enough to easily gather the numbers required. IMO, whatever numbers you can do a raid with, you should be allowed to attempt with that number. Same for tasks IMO. Some of us do like to do older progression stuff, just for the fun of it (and to open up some stuff). Arbitrary group/raid numbers really aren't necessary to constrain current content, and create unnecessary annoyances in old content.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2016 3:58pm by gbaji
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#22 Mar 02 2016 at 6:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:


What I'd really rather they do in terms of older content is remove things like numerical restrictions on raids. If I can solo a raid mob from 5 expansions ago, let me do it. Arbitrarily requiring me to have some number of people with me in a raid (and sometimes even in the zone) is just plain annoying. IMO, that alone would remove most of the problems with raid drops from outdated content. Some of which are still useful, but not enough to easily gather the numbers required. IMO, whatever numbers you can do a raid with, you should be allowed to attempt with that number. Same for tasks IMO. Some of us do like to do older progression stuff, just for the fun of it (and to open up some stuff). Arbitrary group/raid numbers really aren't necessary to constrain current content, and create unnecessary annoyances in old content.



I agree with removing numerical restriction on old content.

I've said before (possibly even in this thread already lol), that it makes sense to design the content to become obsolete gracefully. They've done this a bit in the past with patches that remove the hard raid mechanics in a piecemeal fashion. I think it just makes more sense to design Uber raid, raid, group, easy group, solo versions of stuff and not necessarily release it all at the same time.


Consider Plane of Sky... tons of quests that only get done by a handful of people because the deathtouch mechanics in the zone make it really hard to fool around in even when you are years beyond it. That's kind of silly I think.
#23 Mar 02 2016 at 11:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Sippin wrote:
tatankaseventh wrote:
. I box DRU/MAG/ENC, and for all three, I have a couple spells loaded from previous XPACs in the rotation.

Tat


Really? Like Kyle would say, "Really? Really?" Like what spells? Are your toons 105? I play all 3 classes and outside of ports for my druid, and maybe Call of the Hero for my mage, I never load up a sub-101 spell outside of Twincast (because they've never upgraded it) and, for the druid, there's one damage shield spell which for some reason they didn't upgrade beyond 100, which is Surge of Spineburrs. That's useful enough that I keep this level 95 spell loaded for occasional group play.



Yeah, the Surge spell on the Druid is one, certainly. And for all three, I keep a four spell nuke rotation loaded. For all three, there are two from the current "quintet" of levels, and two from the previous quintet. I use them based on "WDPS" (weave DPS), meaning, avg. expected damage divided by total cast time (cast time + spell refresh time to be able to cast again). Actually, the chanter may only be using one from the previous quintet, can't remember right now.

By the time I got the quint-kiting spells, I was already 3-boxing, so I've never used them :( Back in the day, I quadded a LOT. Fond memories of quadding in ME against the umbrous toilers. This was when you could use a mount, and hide it by using old models, so you could insta-stop and start. Nothing like rounding up 15-20 mobs to quad down :)

All three are level 100.

Tat
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#24 Mar 03 2016 at 6:05 AM Rating: Good
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But there are likely a great number of raiders who will leave the game if they don't feel that the reap extra rewards for raiding.


Gbaji, raiders aren't going to quit because the quality of loot they acquire is also available thru very complex group or solo quests and tradeskill combines. They just won't! As long as the devs make the alternatives quite difficult. Because for many players it's actually easier to raid than to solo/box/group long quests or sit for hours camping a tradeskill drop.

Look, reality check time here. Raiding is difficult and challenging---FOR THE LEADERS. Most non-leader raiders follow along and follow orders and then they get nice loot. I've raided on and off since 2000, including leading raids, and I know for a fact a lot of raiders are very close to excess baggage. With even the ones that do perform well, the leaders basically tell them where to fire their weapons and the raiders point-and-click. It isn't that hard. It IS time-consuming and SOMETIMES requires the ability to follow instructions and somewhat coordinate efforts. But anyone who has raided seriously in ANY xpac knows the major components of raiding consist of (1) waiting for something to happen and (2) long drawn-out dps battles to wear down a named mob.

What I'm saying is for the average raider the trade-off would be do I get that great piece of loot by tagging along on raids or do I do the hard work of solo/molo/grouping my way through alternate challenges, where I really do need to pay attention and work hard, or do I want to spend endless hours camping a drop and then clicking till my fingers hurt to make that very-high-trivial combine?

As it is NOW there are quasi-legal options to acquire top-notch loot without raiding and I don't think raiders are quitting over that! For example, you can buy all the phat lewt you want on FV if you have the plat (and/or the RL$) and FV has a very healthy population base including several high-level raiding guilds. On FV you definitely have the choice to acquire raid gear: RAID OR BUY. That should present an even more discouraging situation to raiders, if you're premise is right, since buying requires NO work (other than the effort to accumulate currency) so under you premise every raider on FV should have quit in a huff because their "special rewards" are available to non-raiders with the bucks. Since this situation has existed as long as FV has existed, one would think, again if your premise is sound, FV server would have NO raiders whatsoever, all of them having left in anger over having to share their e-p33n-ity with non-raiders!

Gbaji, on THIS argument, you're just plain wrong. I'm firmly convinced DBG could grow the game by opening up raid-quality loot to non-raiders. I fear that your conclusion betrays a personal enmity against non-raiders acquiring raid loot. You're projecting your own emotions upon "every raider" and I just don't think that's a valid way to argue your case.

You're right about one thing though: we ain't going to agree on this!


Edited, Mar 3rd 2016 7:10am by Sippin
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#25 Mar 03 2016 at 9:10 AM Rating: Excellent
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PS, one might ask FROM WHERE does this raid loot come from that may be bought for plat on FV? It comes from the vaults of those same raid guilds whose members, you argue, Gbaji, would quit out of frustration over non-raiders having easy access to their precious raid loot! WHY do they sell this loot? Because guilds and their members needs/want plat, too. They're not going to sell such loot to non-raiding non-members if there was a serious risk that their members would start quitting over it.

I don't mean to pick on FV here, since it's my own server. But, of course, such business dealings are easier here because everything is tradeable. But I used to play on Bertox (Saryrn before that) and I have made toons on other servers and I have seen cases where raiding guilds would quietly sell looting rights to raid loot to non-members for the purpose of building up guild coffers. (Cynics would say also for the purpose of building up individual guild leaders' personal bank accounts but I'm not that much of a cynic. Smiley: wink2) I still remember to this day back when this was going on extensively with Gates of Discord: more than one guild would sell access rights to the raiding zones and then loot rights to raid-quality drops. This happened especially once a raid got onto pharm status and most of the guild had acquired all the drops they wanted. Rather than see nice items rot, they figured they could boost up the bank balances by discrete sales of looting rights. Gates of Discord raids and progressions were sometimes miserable experiences and some players would rather pay than play... since GoD play was no fun a lot of the time.

Norrath as a world is the purest and best example of capitalism at work! It some good CAN be sold it WILL be sold... eventually!



Edited, Mar 3rd 2016 10:13am by Sippin
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#26 Mar 04 2016 at 5:43 PM Rating: Decent
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Sippin wrote:
PS, one might ask FROM WHERE does this raid loot come from that may be bought for plat on FV? It comes from the vaults of those same raid guilds whose members, you argue, Gbaji, would quit out of frustration over non-raiders having easy access to their precious raid loot! WHY do they sell this loot? Because guilds and their members needs/want plat, too. They're not going to sell such loot to non-raiding non-members if there was a serious risk that their members would start quitting over it.


I was going to raise this point, but you did yourself. On FV, because of the ability to sell normally no-drop items, this fact doesn't create a disincentive to raiding, but makes raiding a profitable venture because I can sell my old raid loot when I get a new upgrade (and my guild can sell the inevitable 15th version of something that no one needs because it drops on the doorkeeper we stomp on the way to our primary targets every single time). Barring making the same change on all servers, I don't think this counts as support for alternative routes to obtain raid gear.

I get the point you're going for, but I honestly think this creates even more of a negative for current raiders if some sort of alternatives are introduced. You're correct, of course, that raid rights can be and often are sold. But if you introduce said alternatives, doesn't this infringe on that market as well? And yeah, we can only speculate as to the likelihood of any given group of players canceling their subscriptions over a change, but the pattern I've seen is that the devs tend to listen to the loudest voices, and fair or not, the ones that seem to be the loudest are the regular raiders. They're the ones constantly complaining about the slightest changes in spell interactions, gear changes, etc. Whether those folks would actually go through with their constant threats of quitting if <insert demand here> isn't met is unknown, but based on my observations on the official boards, they're far and away the squeakiest wheel.


I guess I just don't see this as a problem that needs to be solved. The issues with the game today have pretty much nothing to do with relative loot power levels and methods of play and everything to do with relatively old graphics and game design that has a hard time competing with newer content. People play EQ today mostly because it is a classic. And part of that classic feel is the mystique of raid level play. Something that games with more modern "earn points towards rewards at your own pace so anyone can earn the same gear over time" reward mechanics just don't have. Now maybe moving in that direction would be a good thing. But IMO, if you can't also update all the other "old" aspects of the game, all you'll get at the end of that process is a game that plays just like other newer games, but not as spiffy looking. I'm not sure that's a good direction to go.


Maybe I'm just too super casual of a player. For me, it's great that I can actually just log on for an hour or so on a weeknight, and actually feel like I've made some progress with my characters when I'm done. That was not always the case in EQ. So I guess I'm just happy that I've got grass to stand on, and am not spending too much time worrying that someone else's grass might be a bit greener.
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