10 Suggestions for EQ2

EverQuest II - 10 Suggestions: | EverQuest 2 Forums

Caveat: I haven't read the first post, 'cause of the horrendous font. Posting my reply here, 'cause I know what'll happen if I post it on the OF.

My top 10 suggestions for EQ2

1. Fire Kander (or put him in a role that has zero interaction with players/customers)
2. Fire Kander
3. Fire Kander
4. Fire Kander
5. Fire Kander
6. Fire Caith (or put him in a role that has zero interaction with itemization of any sort)
7. Fire Caith
8. Fire Caith
9. Fire Caith
10. Fire Caith

Hell - make them both the new tradeskill dev, and just burn the corpse already.

/rantoff

 

Caith would be fine with some help to his workload, and some leadership that actually cares about the game and challenges his choices (If they are even his).

I'm with you for Points 1-5 though, but it won't ever happen.

 

I have been itching to ask that question here: what would you suggest to improve the game? Assume a magic pasta fairy will wave its magic track/meat/ball and change code so what you suggest would work. Assume, also, that Wulfgyr's first round of suggestions are implemented (I had already guessed those two suggestions would top a list here. )

I agree with that other poster from weeks ago: everyone here (me included!) is bitter and/or angry and/or jaded, with nothing good to say about EQ2 anymore. Are there any steps that can be taken that would help the game? I think so, yes, and here is a fresh chance to lay it out, especially for the new owners. However I am neither as outraged as many here seem to be, nor am I technically trained as others are. Me saying, "Stats are inflated" is me parroting other peoples' concerns. Me, I get tongue-tied furious about pathing, but I know that is not high on anyone's list to save the game.

Come on - give it a chance. There are new ears and eyes and brains over there. Maybe something will get through.

~*~Candy~*~ <--chemically-enhanced optimist, because natural pessimism is deadly

 

I think the genuine problem with fixing the game at this point is that it’s so far off the rails there’s not a feasible way back. I would imagine most people’s ideal fix would be to go back to some point in time before things started going south, and fork from there into a reimagining of the ongoing expansions (or not). And run it alongside the live servers that simply go into maintenance. That seems the only way to fix stat inflation, numerous instances of plat exploits and inflation, stupid stats and mechanics, stupid features (overseer, infusion, ascension, grandmaster/ancient/celestial), etc, etc. The list just goes on and on, and all of that started ages ago. I don’t remember the game being very enjoyable past the DoV era when the Sony hack happened and the game shut down. That one incident hobbled the game and it’s been a mess since.

 

All the suggestions written by Mooooon in that thread is a start. Then we can build on to that by cutting back on the pay to win. The passive leveling of everything. Then we can start looking into why EQ2 used to be a more popular games, my suggestion is that it had good raid content and it had good heroic content, the latter part being accessable to everyone. Next step is to merge servers so the few players left have other players to play with... So by now its fairly obvious that we wont get 99% of these changes, so since we are already in a fairy tail, upgrading the engine and making it run on modern hardware would be great too. Same can be said about their servers in both EQ1 and EQ2.

 

He has actively REFUSED help in the past.

 

So many players have given them very detailed and constructive feedback over the years that I could write a book with it.

All of it was totally lost on them. They don't give a rats patootie. They know it and we know it.

 

I posted this a little over a year ago, but this seems like a good time to resurface it. What would I suggest?

Cataclysmic Cosmic Catastrophe (or C3 )

Hit the "reset" button, and have a world-wide event that isn't to "win" something... but to simply survive. Once the rubble clears, it's revealed that Norrath as we know it is changed, and this time.... this time, we lost.

Start off with a world-wide event with cooperative tasks like building the dragon statues, etc. Completing these (and it should be a very, very tough task, that not every server is guaranteed to complete) creates a "shield" that helps to protect from a cataclysm... like a comet or planet-killed asteroid taking out most of the planet. Servers that completed the event to create the shield get a bonus like a family artifact, recently unearthed during the disaster. Those that didn't get 3-5 levels worth of experience debt.

Results of the catastrophe:
* Access to the Planes and Luclin is lost
* Ascension classes - gone
* Shifts in the magnetic and gravitational fields eliminate flying mounts
* Familiars - extinct
* Mercs - gone (busy taking care of their own families)
* Characters - de-leveled to somewhere around 35-50, with an initial level cap of 80 (Yep - Rise of Kunark), as the descendant of their original character.
* Economy reset through a full currency wipe. 6-month's of Guild Hall & Housing upkeep for free. During this 6 months, rates re-calculated to be in line with the developing economy.
* Simplify and reset stat baselines - get rid of all the extra "bolt-ons" that have made things a mess.
* Upgrade the client, to include a 64-bit version.
* Upgrade the game engine - doesn't need to be DirectX 12 Ultimate compliant, but at least get it up to DX11 capability.
* Current raiders get a mythical weapon based on how far they got in current progression.
* Tradeskillers would be the holders of knowledge, with the ability to re-discover last techniques using tools passed down to them.
* A portal to the "current" world, that allows for sightseeing, visiting houses, etc. - no new content, no exp gained, etc. Basically a frozen "museum" from right before impact, where decorators could show off their work, etc.

Unfortunately, I think we all know it's too much to ask for, even if they used the TLE framework as a starting point.

 

I think there are aspects of the game that probably will never be addressed. That said, give it to people who have a passion for it. From the top down the game needs to be in the hands of reasonably capable people who care about the game and the players and want it to be the best it can be. Not just that they want to maintain a saleable product, but that they want it to be fun and well crafted. I have not been convinced that EQ2 was in the hands of people with a real passion for the game in years. More like people that are grudge ****ing a paint by numbers picture and are messing up the colors whenever they can just to assert their dominance and thumb their nose at everything involved.

 

I admit to being a pessimist, but in my view EQ2 at this point is comparable to an advanced leprosy patient. Even if the disease progression can be halted immediately, the missing bits aren't going to grow back. Unless you go the 6 Million Dollar Man route, and the drawback to that is in the title of the method.

Too many things have been added to the game that have suckered, er, enticed, too much real world cash out of players. These things cannot now be removed without massive backlash.

Other points, like the apparent inability to develop a decent itemization plan, boggles my mind. How hard is it to design a system that says "A Treasured Summoner item has X number of blue stats, from the list of Summoner stats, with values ranging from Y to Z". Do the same for the other 13 sub-archetype classes. X, Y, and Z can be increased for items with a Rarity higher than Treasured, or reduced for a lower Rarity item. Base values of X, Y, and Z are determined by the item Tier.

The company also needs to get some people who take pride in their work. I remember the KA Tradeskill line Grandmaster robe, which had a click-on 7 day Proficiency buff in the tooltip, but the buff immediately disappeared when cast. It stayed that way (useless) until the next expansion came out. What kind of programmer writes code, looks at it, says "yep, that will work", and shoves it into production without bothering to test it!

OK, enough grumpiness for now.

 

That's just arrogance of considering players opinions worthless. You get members of staff in at his level and take work off him, rather than offering him help.

 

Seems like more of a sunset event, followed by the launch of an EQx. Which in my opinion is the only real hope for the franchise.

 

I love your avatar. Good old Vincent Price. I always record and watch his movies when they come on.

 

Essentially. In my opinion it's the raider/housing marketplace whales and constantly recycling of TLE's that's even keeping it above water at this point. Once one or both of those dip, it's over. Without doing something drastic like C3 to wipe the slate clean, trying to attract and retain returning players will largely remain an exercise in futility. Starting current players off with some goodies and a bit of a level advantage isn't nearly as insurmountable as the current gravity well a new player would have to fight out of, to contribute as say a T1 DPS in a raid force.

Would there be angst? Oh hellz yeah - and the sense of entitlement over "But I spent hundreds/thousands on XYZ!!!." Sure dude/dudette, but that's a sunk cost. It's gone, it's not a current asset. You paid for and enjoyed a license for some sort of digital item for a period of time, and that times up. *shrug*

But let's be honest - unless EG7 invests significant $$ (and where would that come from?) to upgrade/improve EQ2, it'll continue to die a slow death. And there's never going to be an EQ3 released by Darkpaw - closest thing to it will probably be either Ashes in Creation or Pantheon, and those are probably years away. My dirty sekret? I'm having fun playing EQ1 again, in between test sessions and Final Fantasy wanderings. It's been refreshing to remember how travel used to MEAN something... having to watch your route carefully, try to find a bind spot close to where you're adventuring, etc. Remembering how it felt to actually experience the world, rather than flying over it while rushing to... yeah.

 

^

A am 100% confident that Caith gives zero craps about the game and its players.

Suspect Kander tells him what he wants, Caith does it, and that's the end of it until he's told otherwise. Zero f*cks given if anything even really works, makes sense, or appeals to customers.

P.S. I did read that OP. Pretty much a list of qol changes for crafters and housing buffs. So, ah, that was time well spent.

 

I'm aware of at least one instance of him refusing help from other devs...

 

That's because he knows if they do better his job security is over. He relies solely on kissing his buddy Kander's ass and being the only one who can do his job.


Why bother with EQ2 forums? Tell the owners Contact | EG7 how you feel about Kander and Caith. I do.

 

Imho the only goal for the EQ2 team right now is to milk milk milk milk as much as they can from the small player base. No real improvements will ever get implemented. No suggestions from the community that take more then a few hours of their time will ever get done. No, EG7 won't change that, they need the milking to keep their stock increasing.

Speaking of EG7, they will have a live presentation of the 1st quarter report on the 25th of may, 9am CET along with a q&a at https://youtu.be/_AhMuE8xPnY , if anyone is interested. Questions can be submitted to ir@enadglobal7.com

 

Is already Christmas Season again ? People already making a wish list for EQ2.

I don't think Kanderneezer Scrooge or Caitheneerzer Scrooge will change the direction of the game just because they got visited by the Ghosts of past - Crafting, current - Raid and Future Heroic Content.

There is a new super P2W Mount Buff from the new season crates and the flawless Raid Buffs are suppose to be Account-Wide (Good idea but that is Gninja). This is where the game is heading more and more player power.

Ever so often i go to Discord Chat and you see how stale and boring this game has become. The cheesecake jokes are getting old.

As some player pointed out before this game needs a turn in game design but we all know this is not gonna happened.

There is another similar thread on the Forum about the chances of EQ3 happening. You should combine both topics.