A poll about the importance of ability consolodation

A poll.

 

Important, but I was more interested in this part;

 

Likewise, as someone who started life in EQ2 as an Illusionist (then Coercer, then back to Illusionist). Though to be honest, I don't know how they would've accomplished that in an interesting manner without sweeping changes that they definitely weren't going to have time/resources for, but I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. The reality is that they probably would've added yet another new stat for those classes to buff, similar to how combat mitigation was added to mobs and then debuffed by a lot of existing spells -- sure it technically ticks the boxes, but it's so boring.

 

Wait... What?

Someone can explain to me the "consolidation"? or some news for monk.

 

There is no consolidation. But they were talking about combining some abilities in the 101->110 range:



but

 

So... heroic opportunity... in easy sauce?

 

Combing 2 abilities on your hotbars into 1. Giving you less clutter without losing abilities.

 

Yeah I had hoped chanters would be ENCHANTERS again and not just a glorified DPS. Same with changes to bard buffs.

Healers would actually heal and not just go from X to 100 no matter what heal they used and at the same time provide buffs that were worth having.

Also a general AA clean up instead of their current change where you can just pick what you want and not have the same requirements (such as unlocking Steadfast for just 1 AA instead of the current 23.). Its nice, but not what I ultimately wanted.

 

Steadfast will still cost you 23. The end line reqs weren't changed, you just don't have to put 1 point in each aa to go down the list.

It really only affects the prestige tree in any major way. Your other aa's you'll only save 5-10 points max

 

Oh okay. Thanks.

 

It would have been interesting but I don't see how it could possibly be "important" at this stage.

 

I considered it important due to a couple of factors.

Main reason is that I was under the impression it would tie in with class balancing. In that context, reducing the number of abilities, but making the abilities more meaningful, would make it easier for the Devs to balance class types around the changes. If they did a round of ability consolidation, at least they would have to look at class types and have some idea of what they actually do (unlike the current situation where they genuinely have no idea).

The stats and bloat in EQ2 has reached a point that I consider it beyond absurd. I would have loved it if PoP was a giant reset button on the game, on stats, itemization, abilities, combat mechanics, fresh start on AAs, and so on. But I did not make an effort to argue for this, because the EQ2 team is not big enough, nor have enough skill, to succeed at such a monumental task.

I will be pleasantly surprised if there is another expansion after PoP, and very surprised if there is another after that. It is with increasing regularity that I encounter people who only play because of guilds/friends, not because the actual game. When we're in a situation where the player base is clearly on continual decline, that means the main reason these people continue to play is fading away. I regard the current population of AB as a very telling indicator of EQ2's health.

 

I really don't have an opinion on it way or another on it.

But Jeez with the way things are right now please give us another hotbar.

 

I checked "very important" because I'm the kind of person who loathes clutter and inefficiency.

Aside from all the content issues, the game is so bloated and duct taped that I get annoyed just thinking about playing it.

"Broken/irrelevant stuff"?

"Yeah, but not gonna fix it. Just gonna drop another system on top if it..."

 

spaghetti code.

Legacy layers.

frankly, at this point, with all the layers of crud, it's more lasagna than spaghetti.

 

Well, I'll agree consolidation may have made sense in the context of class rebalance, but lets try to be realistic about the state of EQ2. It's not even vaguely in the realm of the real that they're suddenly going to stop whipping the 3-man team to get expansions out and pivot (and acquire) shittons of manpower to rebalance (and consolidate) now.