Crap epic 2.0 ...

You seriously think we pay a subscription to redo quest that certainly already done with old characters ?? ( and not on main charcarters , cause we had to reroll after some classe balancing )

I introduced thoose things to a friend, and the first question he asked to me is: "but what is the meaning of bashing low quests and oneshot mobs to gain absolutely nothing ? "

Especially when the quests has absolutely not been tested and that there is mass bug and obviously no dev to solve the problems, what is this work ?

No organization among the staff during a holiday period where there is a strong affluence on the game, WTF ??


I really hope that heads will fall at the beginning of this year among the staff, because you really have made ****.

And I'm not even talking about spells totaly bug and over cheat that allowed some guilds to fully exploit the high-end game content.

 

Haha! Years ago before I even knew people did such a thing someone did it to me.

That must have been disappointing for them. I stuck my head out...hm, fire on doorstep. Closed door. Came back and dropped a casserole dish over top of it to smother it. Went back inside again while the flames died safely confined by the dish.

 

His points are valid. But unfortunately these forums will not give him the answers...only people who will either agree or disagree.

I'm nearly at the end of the road for this game, and I hate that and wished it not to be true.

But the fact remains that DBG make so many mistakes in this game and very very rarely do they learn and not repeat it or remedy those mistakes.

I have empathy for the fact the devs work hard, but hard working does not always ensure good quality.

 

I personally agree with what he is saying, maybe I would not use such harsh words but the feeling is mutual. I feel stressed and as though I am on a TLE server, I was so thrilled that we were getting a new epic weapon, now I am just annoyed, disappointed and not having fun at all. We cant progress on the quest due to needing certain asc levels, then only to find we need a ton of old faction, either we skipped or like he stated above, we had to change mains in the past few years. My toon has only been my main for 3 years now thus I missed all the faction grinding with her back in the day. The clues given are so random and lead u to so many different places of possibility that its just boring and stressful and more annoying than fun. Sadly this new way of questing for epic is not a challenge, its just stressful. I truly wish the devs would see that people play the game to have fun, to escape real life stress, and a very large number of us are not having fun.

 

I think a big part of it is that the epic2 chase is all there is right now, quest-wise. "Back in the day" (shaking my cane), there were other questlines and writs and things to kill and do in between epic steps. Now the current content just has daily missions and PQs (when they are working), which isn't quite enough to break up the tedium of the grind for faction in greyed out contested zones.

I really enjoyed KA when it launched, and I've played more since it launched than I had in a very long time. But I've slowed down a lot these past few weeks; each new epic requirement that's revealed just kind of deflates me a bit more. I truly don't mind challenges and prereqs and chasing lore and even faction grinds when current and/or a logical part of the lore, but something about this chase is more draining than entertaining.

(Obligatory Pollyanna "I don't like to just complain" bit: Even with the huge reliance on old quests and zones, I know the devs worked hard on this and put a lot of time into it. I also know they don't have the resources they used to, and I am having some fun going into some of the heroic zones I hadn't seen in a long time or at all. It's just that there is a big difference between "challenging" and "tedious". )

 

Like lots of others I was excited about the Epic 2.0 when it was announced and the noted pre-requisites I ground out so I was ready or so I thought. Since then a whole raft of additional requirements have been discovered/added and as I grind through each additional one I become less motivated to do the next.

Since I am on the mage Epic quest line the unknown future requirements are making the carrot less interesting and it feels like Epic 2.0 will always just be beyond my reach. I am currently doing Zou'Lidelas faction and that is not helping my interest level and I see that the Otters are next. Consequentially my play time in game is declining as this seems like all stick and no carrot atm.

 

I've voted with my wallet and swapped my sub back to WoW.

 

Going back to the epic 1's I expected to do bunch of pre-reqs, faction, etc.. I guess my only complaint about the 2's would be having to go back into old content and doing a bunch of stuff I didn't even do with my main at the time: i.e. Bastion of the Tranquil Faction.

Now with me personally, I have a lot of pre-reqs done just cuz I like doing quests. But for someone who just came back to game, or someone that needs to swap mains for raid purposes, now they've gotta go back and do ALL these old questlines/faction grinds that have nothing to do with the current expansion except for lore on the epic 2 quests, which is then taking away from running zones/getting gear.

Just my two cents on the matter

 

The thing with Epic 1.0 was everything was current, you did not have to go back and do vanilla EQ2 factions; that can't be done when the "expansion" is really just a zone. There were no city quest to do, at least for me it was all in the current expansion. I have completed 2 signature lines (4 if you include the TS) that includes the Gly Queen trying to help her save the world and yet I am still at -19.5k faction with her people. Really? I stopped my epic, stopped playing, and updated World of Tanks and went back to playing it because I think making us go back and do all this unrelated, boring, already completed (on other toons that were mains years ago), grey quest is nothing but milking the player base and hoping they don't see the bag of poop is what they gave us. The sad thing is I really enjoyed the heroic dungeons, they were awesome to work through. They were actually a challenge; the epic could have been a challenge, but instead they went the route which would take the most time.

 

The thing that would make the Epic 2.0 an epic fail if the Ranger Epic is not a bow. That is what the rumors are at the moment.

 

An Epic 2.0 questline should have been like the epic 1.0. Current hard, solo and group content.

Farming grey mobs for several days to farm reputation you would other wise never do unless you are a completionist is not content, thats an artificial timesink put in place to immitate a full expansion.

If they didnt have the man power to do a 2.0 questline, they shouldnt have done it. Epic 1.0 was iconic for EQ2 and so far epic 2.0 has recieved nothing but hate and frustration. In my eyes its hurting the game more than doing good.

 

Here is my 10 cents worth and how I think the epic could have gone if they put some thought into it.

The end of the signature line is Lanys "killing" Inny, breaking my weapons and the Queen saying I need something better. This could have made the other Deities stand up and take notice. Most everyone has a Deity at this point in time so use them as your quest hub. Because so little was actually added this expansion and the stat explosion has made anything outside OF trivial their options are limited but there are ways around it. I hate time sinks and grinds but not much else is available. Have your Deity prophet offer the same quest(s) you can get from OF but instead of paying you in coins you are paid in "tribute" (or whatever). Make it so you can only do one version or the other and not both (no double dipping for coins and tribute). As you progress in the current content you are also working towards your epic; not like now where you stop doing current content to do your epic. You then use your tribute to "buy" item rewards, you can make them mandatory so people don't horde "tribute" and buy the epic (they could be the rewards they currently get). Maybe the next level is "hidden" until you open the level before it. After you have earned enough "tribute" coins your Deity will bless you with your epic. You can use math and figure out how many coins a person could earn and then backward plan to ensure you stretch it out over the course of however long you want it to take. People play the current content and instead of earning useless coins they can earn something towards their epic; and you can do it by doing nothing but solo or advanced solo (just takes longer) or doing S/AS/H (shorter) or add in raids for the fastest method. You could make the last mob drop some planar power shard or something (for everyone on the quest) that is also turned in; maybe that is the item used to build your epic weapon and the others are to buy the secondary rewards.

 

Personally I wish both sides would look at the epic 2.0 and even this x-pack as a whole from the other side's perspective. I have been playing this game almost since it's release date, and I see amazing things come each release. But I also see others skip over that same content that was worked on so hard, just to turn around and complain there is not enough to do. When they announced back in AoM that they would be releasing "campaigns" not x-packs I was so frustrated with everything I quit for a few months and went to Final Fantasy XIV. You think having to meet pre-reqs here is hard? To even step foot in the x-pack there you had to do EVERYTHING, the main story line and every single patch they did from the beginning of the game to the release of the x-pack. That being said I have played the same class and I do all the quests I find, so for me there was pretty much no old faction grinding. I do however feel for those who switched mains, it would be nice if we were flagged by account on those things not just by character. As for the 2.0s;

The Good
I have never seen the community come together like they have on discord to do a quest line like I have for this one, it has been awesome. It isn't easy, and I feel more and more this game becomes easy mode to appease the "casual" gamer, I remember back in RoK, not everyone could get their epic or mythical right away. It took skill and solid groups to move through content, and the surprise mobs you fought were hard.

The Bad
The quests are unnecessarily long, I feel the first of the 5 quests we are to do was as long as my original epic quest. I have also played many alts and EQOA when it was around and all the epic quests (although some longer than others) were never anywhere near this long. I like that we are given clues and riddles to move through these quests, but most so far make no sense, and again I have been playing EQ games almost 15 years now. Hell even the list of components we are currently looking for as fighters have no direction, it is just a list and good luck finding it. I wish it was more lore based, so a light might go off in someone's head and they know the answer because they know the lore.

 

Have to agree with this about the clues and riddles. The majority (at least in the fighter quests) have had virtually no connection with where the update ended up being. It's down to random chance having someone stumbling across an update.

 

the faction and pre-reqs are punishing players that are ether new or have swapped mains over the years. i can understand a few pre-reqs (like certain quests) but not steep faction grinds to get updates as it irritates new and old players alike.

faction you need for updates should be based on how easy it is to build faction, we shouldn't have to spend hours and hours grinding faction when there is already a time gate in existence (ascention leveling) quest requirements would make sense if there is some link between the required quest and the epic. (like how you need the bloody shank for the scout epic because the 'lord of the dead?' wants it in trade for infomation, then it makes little sense why he then decides to attempt to murder you once he has the shank, unless there something ABOUT the blade that makes the wielder want to murder people)

putting the lord of the dead's actions and the HQ for the shank together seems to point in that direction.

 

It would have been better for the population to have insanely low drop rates of epic 'pieces' in current zones so that people would be more willing to run zones and try and get more people running them. Now current zones are a ghost town while everyone is grinding away solo at grey crap anyone could do if they wanted.

 

Oh, just wait, there is plenty of grinding in current heroic zones...shinies and body drops and RNG galore. But at least it's in the current expansion (though the six-hour lockouts make it rough).

 

Every time I look at the patch notes recently there is yet another fix to make it all harder for Epic 2.0. To be fair they are to fix what the developers see as unintended options with the steps/encounters in the quest line.

Kinda coming to the view that I will never see the Epic for my character as it will all be locked away behind KA heroics which my tinny little guild cannot manage. Oh well maybe time to park my character and wait for the next expansion.

As a aside I have just about given up on the Fens PQ as the RNG is such that it seems I will never see the charm on my character and I have run it a lot. Nearly at least once a day since it started in fact. I note that the numbers for both the JW and Fens PQ's has declined outside US peak time as well. It seems that you cannot do the JW PQ with only 2 players but maybe I am just hopeless who knows.

 

Wanted to share this from Kander on Discord today...he can only speak for himself, of course, but it's worth posting:



(As one who has expressed appreciation and sympathy for all of the work that our devs put into the epics, as well as cringed at the typos and grumbled at the grey quests and faction grinds and hints that didn't quite gel, I wanted to be sure to share a non-trolling, non-snarky, sincere bit of interaction as well.)