Crap epic 2.0 ...

Well.. at least he actually acknowledged the poor quality

 

Disagreeing with design decisions doesn't make it poor quality. In terms of bugs it's been pretty good for having not been publicly tested. They obviously spent a lot of time smoothing it out.

 

There have been a lot of pretty big bugs in the Epic 2.0 line. To name a few: each archetype has had at least one showstopper, some that required direct dev-to-player intervention in-game to fix until they could get the code updated; a quest needed for faction was on a long timer, then when that was changed, the timers on the subquests weren't, requiring more time to fix; an important item needed for fighters was appearing in two zones, but using the wrong one broke the quest, and so on. On the less vital but still important side, many people have caught and reported a plethora of typos and errors in the game text and NPC names and descriptions.

I don't say this to poke at the devs...this is a very complex quest line with a lot of dependencies, and one that couldn't be put in an open beta. But it wasn't just folks disagreeing with design decisions that caused some of the ill will and loss of faith, which is why I appreciate Kander saying what he did and acknowledging the errors and bugs that have occurred.

 

Which is more of my point on why I said what I did.. Most the time, the devs will say "it's working as intended" and in their own way saying "get bent, not our problem, etc"

 

if anything that would be even worse, few people will get the mythical is it so bad that many people can get the fabled if they can get groups for the updates that require grouping?

 

I am currently waiting to hit level 10 and see what the "Mythical" quest is going to be, but looking back at what it took to do the quests and what I got from it, it feels very fair. Yes there were lots of bugs, but new content has never come without its flaws. Through the course of the quests I was given a shield, belt, bow, charm and of course my epic. And now having it, as many guildies have said it is a game changer.

And what did it cost? Some time faction grinding in older zones, running some instances from the past few x-packs for updates, some random kills, and questing (in a game called EverQuest). At no point did I need a raid force, and not even that often did I need a group. Most of the instances outside of KA I was able to solo (that is solo not molo), and most quest items I got on the first try. And yes it took waiting between ascension levels, but that gave you time to take a break, help others doing their epic or run some instances/PQs for their rare items.

Now, what did I get? An epic weapon with more stats on it than any other piece I have seen. A shield that allows you to keep your ethereal one while adding ascension upgrades to it. And 3 items with 17 resolve on them, that is equivalent to T2 raid gear. Not to mention each item increases the strength of all 4 ascensions. And on top of that, the kills along the way dropped 14 resolve gear, giving players an incentive for helping with an epic kill.

All in all I think they did pretty well with the quests, I feel they could have been a little more direct with some quest hints.

 

I'm really glad you had a good experience, Edrickx, and I'm sure you're not alone (and congrats on getting your weapon!). For many of us, though, it wasn't/isn't quite as upbeat. Worth the frustration? Sure. But frustrating nonetheless, so people have been giving their feedback in the hopes that the devs will hear it and get an idea of how the implementation affected the playerbase.

The older content from prior expacs was easily soloable, but that took me away from current content, my friends, and didn't allow me to earn tithe or ascension xp. Requiring all epic chasers to become level 100 crafters broke a long-standing precedent and meant tradeskillers could no longer assist their fighting cohorts in their journey (and was another solo endeavor).

Speaking as a fighter, our epic line requires quite a bit of grouping: three stand-alone names and much grinding of current heroic zones for shinies. If you are 100% lucky, you can get all ten shinies in one round of three zones and one repeat; most people aren't/weren't that lucky (and the "shinies available in three instances" was only made available this past week - before that, it was two zones that only dropped two shinies each, so there was even more grouping for the first folks along the path). [EDIT: Also forgot about running six different heroic zones for drops off the end bosses, so yeah, lots of grouping...no complaints though, at least it's current content with relevant drops.] Figure in the six-hour lockout and it gets trickier to coordinate. The other archetypes also have their own RNG and hard mob struggles, as we see here and on the Daybreak forums.

As I've mentioned in prior posts, while we all expect bugs and small errors (especially in content that can't be tested by the public), this line was unfortunately plagued with large showstoppers, compounded bugs, typos in almost every step, misleading information (I'd call it "teasing" rather than "trolling", but it was still misleading), and a reliance on old content and time-gates that make it difficult to keep alts current. All that, plus the often nebulous hints, made it less enjoyable for some.

The cooperation between players has been awesome. The rewards are pretty darned good. Our devs are still some of the most interactive and passionate I've had the privilege of working with. For people coming after everything is shaken out and walkthroughs are written, the work will be involved but should flow much better. For many though, it was a mixed bag...and by sharing our thoughts, opinions, and experiences, we are all hoping to keep Norrath and EQ2 going, growing, improving, and hopefully happy for a long while to come.

 

I wish that I could share Shmogre and Edrickx positive views but so far all Epic 2.0 has done is made my guild smaller. At the current attrition rate there will be no one left by the end of the KA expansion.

 

I need a sad emoji, Dizzy...liking your post feels wrong, and clicking dislike would be for the message (and the truth in it), not for you. :^(

 

I really don't mean to sound cold-hearted or hateful but the amount of people rage quitting over this is just flat out ridiculous. I really have to wonder who really quit because of a pre-req and who really quit because they bandwagoned (since that is the "cool" thing to do).
All this time I just picture this 6 year old kid spilling milk trying to make cereal and starts crying so then it gives the idea for his younger little 3 year old brother to cry too.

Then it just gets even better...since people on regular forums don't like it, they just tell players to give up before they even start. The emotions are just so crazy this expansion.

 

I'd say the folks that I've seen quitting aren't leaving due to one specific issue, bug, change, or even the new epic line. It's more of a cumulative thing; eventually some people hit their point of "this game isn't fun for me anymore". Some folks quietly slip away, others go out with a grand "Later suckers!!", and some try to pass on what brought them to that point in the hopes of maybe preventing someone else from getting there as well.

(And I have to throw in another thanks to Feldon for these forums...they've stayed remarkably civil, with some good discussions, through what has been a bonkers expansion. You said, Nelie: the emotions and passions are really running high with this one.)