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SPELL RESEARCH FOR RK 3Follow

#27 Mar 05 2016 at 7:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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What if they just made rank 4 of a spell the group content level version for the start of the next expac?*

So you buy the expac, zone in the first new zone they start the story with (so it is locked behind the paywall of buying the new expac) and get buffed spell-wise to start tackling the newer content which could then be tuned a wee bit harder off the hop. Then you'd go hunting/working for you levels and new spell upgrades.



*You might have to do this 2 expacs back, depends on how they move forward with the level increases and such. Yes this would remove the incentive of doing older content for rank III's, but it would buff up behind the content people to do the raids and get the older expac gear and progression done?

Take it even further... make the mid-tier version rank 5 and the end raid version Rank 6. Only assign 1 valuable ranked spell line per level (so you'd be chasing these on a 10 level cycle over 2 expacs before they get replaced by a new rank 1 spell in the line). 10 core spells for caster classes on the rank system. Goofy utility spells beyond the 10 would not be on the ranked system.
#28 Mar 05 2016 at 9:41 AM Rating: Good
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Quote:
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:


Quoting from my first post on this thread. I also feel like the cat chasing the laser pointer which keeps moving all over the place!

Just cuz DBG can't/won't redesign all the graphics in the game to make it more contemporary-looking doesn't mean that they can't introduce easier-implemented changes which could grow the player base. Here's my argument boiled down to the simplest logical premises:

1. It's a good thing for EQ to increase its active player base, both raiders and non-raiders (casuals, soloers, groupers, boxers).

2. EQ doesn't want to make changes which might increase the non-raiders part of the player base while decreasing raiders.

3. Providing access to raid-quality loot to non-raiders by methods that don't involve raiding (challenging quests, difficult tradeskill combines) would grow the non-raider population.

4. If the challenges for non-raiders' access are difficult enough, raiders won't stop playing due to the changes introduced by step 3.

5. Everybody wins, including EQ, whose active gaming population base increases!

Now, as my old philosophy professor would say, "extraneous discussions not allowed." The argument above can be summarized as

1 +2 + 3 + 4 => 5

The only logical way to refute its conclusion is to argue against one of the 4 postulates. Have at it! Smiley: clap



Edited, Mar 5th 2016 10:43am by Sippin
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#29 Mar 05 2016 at 12:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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And to sweeten the pot for DBG, don't ever sell a rank 3 unlocker in the store. If you want to cast rank 3s, you have to be all-access (just like it is now).

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#30 Mar 07 2016 at 5:41 PM Rating: Decent
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Sippin wrote:
I also feel like the cat chasing the laser pointer which keeps moving all over the place!


Yes. Just the right amount of evil then!


Quote:
4. If the challenges for non-raiders' access are difficult enough, raiders won't stop playing due to the changes introduced by step 3.

...

The only logical way to refute its conclusion is to argue against one of the 4 postulates. Have at it! Smiley: clap


That's the one I'm not sure works. I don't know if you can make the challenges difficult and/or time consuming enough for non-raiders to satisfy raiders who would prefer raid level gear to require raids to obtain, while making them easy/fast enough so that it'll satisfy non-raiders who want a route to that gear that doesn't involve raiding.

There's a certain amount of slippery slope here as well. If you just put a hard rule that says "top level gear can only be obtained via raids", and everyone knows the rule, most will be satisfied with it. Once you start making exceptions, you can actually increase dissatisfaction among the player base. In this case, if you make it something that only really really dedicated trade skill players can possibly get in even semi-reasonable time, folks who don't play the trade skill game, or don't have time to sit noodling around, or playing the barter game, or whatever are going to ask "what about us?". And since you've just established a precedent that top level gear can be obtained via other methods than raiding, making it possible for one set of players, but not another seems just as arbitrary and capricious as it was previously. Except now, you may have an even larger percentage of the player base thinking they are getting ripped off.

Dunno. Obviously, I can't say how this would actually impact people's choices with regard to subscriptions and whatnot. I'm just saying that you probably wont fix the "grass is greener over there, and that's not fair" aspect of this issue with your proposal, and may even make it worse. That's not to say there isn't possibly some balance that could be obtained, but you'd have to get things just right IMO. As I said at the outset, it's not as simple as just building some trade skill recipes and calling it a day.
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#31 Mar 08 2016 at 9:06 AM Rating: Good
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I think it's time I declare victory, send the troops home, pick up my bouncy ball and retire to the deck for a cool drink! Because your response is basically "nobody can predict the future" and I wouldn't argue with that truism but I would say that such changes are worth a try-and-see because they can always be tinkered with. Just like when EQ introduces a new xpac and they increase the drop rates for cool new loot to encourage players to spend their RL$ to buy said xpac, but within 2-4 weeks a patch lowers the drop rates dramatically because they don't want to saturate the player base with overpowered gear. The same way they nerf and un-nerf classes depending on their perception of class balances, and almost always over-compensating, thereby generating a new group of players who bemoan the fact that their class is now being treated unfairly.

Complaining about aspects of the game is a time-honored tradition in all MMO's; heck I think most players would rage-quit if they did NOT have something to gripe about. So I vote that DBG gives it a shot and inserts quests and tradeskill combines which provide raid-level loot to the non-raider!

Like they listen to me, of course. Smiley: yippee

/walks off with the game ball
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Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
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#32 Mar 08 2016 at 9:44 PM Rating: Good
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Meant to reply to this earlier.

snailish wrote:
What if they just made rank 4 of a spell the group content level version for the start of the next expac?*

So you buy the expac, zone in the first new zone they start the story with (so it is locked behind the paywall of buying the new expac) and get buffed spell-wise to start tackling the newer content which could then be tuned a wee bit harder off the hop. Then you'd go hunting/working for you levels and new spell upgrades.


So you're suggesting (for example) that when TDS came out, there should have been vendors selling rank IV versions of the 96-100 spells, which are roughly equivalent to the rank II spells in the 101-105 range? Or am I totally missing what you're saying? I'd see how that could work at making content easier to dig into initially, but I see a couple problems (again, assuming I'm interpreting this correctly):

1. This wont work for spells that have hard level effect caps. So mezes, pacifies, stuns, etc wouldn't work properly (unless you made the rank IV spell actually have the higher caps of the equivalent rank II spells, just five levels earlier.

2. If the latter case is true (or even if not for the spells not level capped), then what's the incentive for bothering with solo/group content in the new expansion at all? If my rank IV level 97 spell that I can buy from a vendor is just as powerful as the replacement rank II level 102 spell, why would I ever bother to obtain it? You've now made it so that the *only* upgrades are rankIII spells in current content, just making the problem of raid vs non-raid worse.


Unless I'm totally missing something?

Quote:
*You might have to do this 2 expacs back, depends on how they move forward with the level increases and such. Yes this would remove the incentive of doing older content for rank III's, but it would buff up behind the content people to do the raids and get the older expac gear and progression done?


It would remove the incentive for older content at all. Every 5 levels, I'll just buy the new stuff, and I'm fully equipped with group level spells (gear too?) for the next 5 levels. Some people actually do enjoy working their way up through that content. So great solution for power leveled alts, not so great at all for folks actually playing the game. Now, to be fair the heroic character bit sorta breaks that model anyway (does it give you rank II spells and equivalent gear? Didn't really pay attention). But that still leaves 20 levels of play where the player has to spend time and effort working on their gear and spells. This would effectively make all characters HCs, just requiring one to have to level the last 20 levels (but nothing else).

Again, unless I'm missing something.


Sippin wrote:
The same way they nerf and un-nerf classes depending on their perception of class balances, and almost always over-compensating, thereby generating a new group of players who bemoan the fact that their class is now being treated unfairly.


Yeah. People complain bitterly about that stuff though. Doing this intentionally may not be the best idea. I get that you're trying to come up with ideas to make the game better and appeal to more players, but if you do this sort of thing wrong, you can cost yourself players instead.

Quote:
Complaining about aspects of the game is a time-honored tradition in all MMO's; heck I think most players would rage-quit if they did NOT have something to gripe about. So I vote that DBG gives it a shot and inserts quests and tradeskill combines which provide raid-level loot to the non-raider!


Well. I agree with the first (although at least some of those who've threatened to quit must have actually gone through with it over time, given the drop off in players over time). Honestly though, and I kinda meant to mention this earlier, didn't they already do just that at some point? I could have sworn that there was a trade skill revamp somewhere along the way which actually made trade skill made gear better than the raid gear at the time. I want to say like just post POP or somewhere around there (GOD, OOW, DoDH? No clue). I don't do tradeskills, so I don't recall specifics. I do recall a lot of people complaining that they'd made the crafted armors too powerful relative to raid loot though. Something they "fixed" in the next expansion (basically didn't scale up that system to match as levels increased, and let it die on the vine).

I honestly think they did already try this (or something very similar), got a massive negative reaction, and never did it again. Assuming I'm remembering correctly (and it's entirely possible I'm not), then this would tell us exactly what the "harm" is in doing this. Heck. It's entirely possible that this happened right around the same time that the mass exodus of players from the game occurred (not that that whole period of dull drab expansions wasn't a good enough reason anyway, but still).

Quote:
Like they listen to me, of course. Smiley: yippee

/walks off with the game ball


/pokes game ball with a stick and deflates it. Muahahah!

Edited, Mar 8th 2016 7:46pm by gbaji
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#33 Mar 09 2016 at 5:34 AM Rating: Excellent
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I've chimed in about a few different things in this thread:

The rank 4 (etc.) suggestion is based more on the idea that spells shouldn't be tied (at least wholly) to level and difficulty tier of content. I understand the tradition of raid = elite stuff that you only get from this source which is reasonable for gear and somewhat frustrating from a storyline perspective (it's good to have everyone able to access the full storyline).

I stand behind the suggestion that old raids should be available (since they are all instances now this isn't that hard to set up) in difficulties ranging down to group content. If you want to beat the raid in-era for the top tier reward you do it with a raid in hard mode. Next expac the "family guild" setting for the raid is released. Next expac the "It's a group level zone now too" version is released. Under this model the rank III's would be available in all versions (by the time the group version of the raid is out the spells should be obsolete to nearly every class that has leveled up). With current old raids it really only matters if you can access the raid with a smaller number and if there is goofy mechanics that can't be soloed.... but that is letting the content go super grey. I'd like to see a system where the recent content ages gracefully by staying useful longer.


I think they have gotten into a bad cycle based on the original idea of a "pile of spells every 4 levels" design which evolved into "spells every level, sometimes many" that has not aged well into a game that is 65 levels higher than the original launch. Adding combat tomes doesn't balance this system out.

I was pondering if a 10-level rotation of the core spells (1 per level) for a class should be on the ranked system. Say spell # 1 is the burst heal spell. You don't get the true upgrade to that spell until 11 levels later. Under the current cycle that is at least 3 expacs? This opens up the opportunity to do rank 4 and so on with that spell in the meantime. If just this change was made (and not added in with the raid content versions idea) then I would put the rank 4 upgrade in the 2nd expac after the one the rank 1-3 was found, in a not-raid setting. So if you are able to tackle the new group content you get the slight spell power boost to move forward without doing what should be raids from at least 2 years prior.

Said differently, the rank 4+ idea sets it up so that raiders have the best version of the spell for 2 expacs, but at the start of the third everyone has access to the rank 4. Family guild raiders would have rank 5 and elite raiders would have rank 6 in that same expac is the way of extending that... though I'm not sure that is needed. I think you do the rank 4 as the catch-up baseline and introduce the 10 level higher new version as a rank 1 in the new content.

The 10 spell ranked rotation would not apply to all spells. Each class has some flavor that makes sense to not be ranked. For chanters I see Mez not being ranked for example. The level 106 mez would be tuned for it's intended era and the next upgrade would be at level 118 or however it was needed due to content release.
#34 Mar 09 2016 at 6:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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Ok. I think I see what you're getting at. More granularity with the spell ranks, adding extra ranks within a 10 level spread (I'd actually like that kind of spread, if for no other reason than being easier on the bank account), as expacs are released (even if they don't up the max level), this providing some degree of "upgrade" for spells/gear in place. Yeah, I think that could work. I'm still of the opinion that the highest ranks should still always drop via the hardest content though, but yeah.

I know I've mentioned this in threads in the past, but I'll mention it again. One of the mechanics I absolutely loved about City of Heroes was the scaling difficulty settings for instanced missions. Missions in that game scaled the size of spawns based on the size of the team, and difficulty based on the setting for the player (or team leader if in a team). I'd love for them to implement stuff like that in EQ, and was frankly somewhat disappointed that they didn't with the HA system. Just seems gimped in comparison (to a like 10 year old game even). By doing this, you could tie loot ranks to those difficulty settings, even all the way up to raids. You could still have solo/group vs raid type scenarios, but except for some raids which may have mechanics that require more players, the main difference would be for progression/story/unlocks/etc.

You could actually make a lot more of this stuff no drop, since everyone could do the content, just at different levels (from soloing all the way up to large raids). An interesting additional idea would be to make it possible to make no-drop stuff able to be converted by the player to droppable (but reducing it down to rank II or whatever), so as to maintain a healthy market for those who want to just buy stuff and move on (and eliminate the "Gah! Yet another item we can't use to go to tribute we also don't use" problem).

This kind of system would make it so solo/group players could get "good" gear, and even what we might today consider "low level raid gear" (if they can manage higher difficulty tasks), while still maintaining the capability of those who can field larger number of folks in difficult raids the absolute best stuff. And, of course, since all of this (including drop ranks) are on sliding scales, it's relatively easy to automatically drop those levels as content ages. So in the most recent expansion rank VI stuff drops only in the highest of 6 difficulty settings, rank V in the next highest, etc. In the previous expansion, rank VI stuff drops in the 5th and 5th highest difficulty settings, rank V in the 4th, rank IV in the 3rd, etc. Expansion before that, it slides one more level. Until stuff that's 5 expansions old basically drops raid gear in "easy" soloable content.

Changes like this might take some of the uniqueness out of the game (fewer unique items, but with more ranks of quality), but would make it massively easier to manage all the sorts of stuff we're talking about going forward. And I think it accomplishes most of what we're talking about wanting. You'd still have to shoehorn trade skills in there somehow. Same kind of thought works though. Higher difficulty tasks/raids grant higher level mats, which will produce higher level resulting gear. Not sure about that though, since part of the point of this route is to be an alternative, while this would just provide a different way to make the same/equivalent gear with different drops. Hey. It's just a kernel of a concept though. I think there's a ton of ways to work it out. I do think that providing more granularity to gear, and being much more consistent with applying ranks of gear quality within a single item/spell would make balancing this sort of stuff easier. And that's a good idea to start with.
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#35 Oct 14 2017 at 4:56 PM Rating: Good
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They could make raid currency sellable
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